Jasper Kent - Twelve

I kept quiet through all of this, knowing that there was some truth behind these French rumours and noticing a frightening similarity to the stories I had heard from Tula. The Oprichniki were on the Don and there were rumours from the Don – and now the Oprichniki were here and those same rumours stayed with them. Towards the end of the conversation, however, I was beginning to feel more reassured. I knew that we were dealing not with a plague or with wolves, but with extremely skilful, dedicated, violent men; men whose attacks were all the more potent for the fact that they spread fear as well as death. I wasn't sure how the Oprichniki caused the rumours about themselves to be so exaggerated, but hearing the stories repeated from the mouths of these superstitious French soldiers made me realize that stories was all they were. The Oprichniki were great soldiers and they were on our side. That, as Louis himself had just said, was validation enough for us to use them.

Vadim made a move to leave. 'Well, good evening, gentlemen. We must be away and prepare for the battle tomorrow.'

We both rose, and there was a general shaking of hands and saying of goodbyes between us and the four of them. As we turned and walked away, a final shout came to us from Pierre's lips.

'Zhelayoo oospyeha!'

Vadim and I stopped still. The meaning was straightforward enough – 'Good luck!' Yet it was not the meaning of the phrase that surprised us, but its language. Pierre had spoken in Russian.

IT HAS ALWAYS STRUCK ME AS INTERESTING THE WAY THAT MEANING transcends language. Recalling, for instance, the conversation we had exchanged with those French soldiers that night, I know that it took place in French, but if I were to recount it, I could do it just as well in French or Russian or even Italian. I had remembered the meaning of what was said rather than the details of the words.

Once, back in Petersburg, I had had a long conversation with an old soldier. He had received a head wound fighting the Turks during the reign of the Tsarina Yekaterina, under General Suvarov. A huge chunk of his brain was missing. It affected his ability to move and his ability to speak, but within that straitjacket of incapacity, his mind was as sharp as ever. Communication was difficult, though with practice it became easier. When he spoke, I had to listen carefully to the ill-formed sounds he produced. When he found he was at a loss to express himself, I had to guess his meaning and prompt him with suggestions until we found one with which he was happy.

And yet when I later was talking to Marfa about him, I could recall every detail of his fascinating life as if he had told me it in perfect, fluent Russian. Although I remembered the difficulties we had had in communicating, that memory was stored separately in my mind from what had actually been communicated.

Thus, as Pierre hailed us with his wish of 'good luck', one part of my mind reacted to its friendly meaning. Another part screamed at me the warning that the phrase was spoken in Russian – a tongue that I should not comprehend. It was a race between the two thoughts as to which I would act upon first. In the end, the victor did not matter. Vadim spoke before I could react in any way.

'Pardon?' he said, turning back to Pierre and sticking with French.

Pierre repeated the phrase, and then explained in French. 'It's Russian for "good luck".'

'Ah, I see,' smiled Vadim. 'I thought it sounded Russian.'

'You don't speak it?' asked Pierre.

'Not a word,' said Vadim, while I shook my head.

'Pierre here speaks it like a native,' said Stephan. 'He should be a spy.' He paused and considered for a moment. 'Unless, of course, he already is. He could be spying on us for them.' Louis and Guillaume both laughed.

'Go on, Pierre,' said Louis. 'Hit us with some more.'

Pierre rolled out a few sentences in a passable accent. They were clearly intended to catch out any honest Russian who understood them.

'Your wife is a whore, and last night she screwed my dog' was the first, followed by 'Tsar Aleksandr likes to suck General Kutuzov's cock.' Finally, he recounted an often told but utterly false story concerning the death of Tsarina Yekaterina. While I might have fallen for the trickery of his surprise 'good luck', it was easy enough for Vadim and me now to pretend not to understand a word he said. For many senior officers of the generation before ours, little pretence would have been necessary. For a century, French had been the language of the cultivated Russian. Russian was the language of the serf. For most nations, the spies are chosen from amongst men who are fluent in a foreign tongue – men like Pierre. In Russia, spies were men such as Vadim, Dmitry, Maks and myself who, unusually, could communicate with our own populace. Only now, thanks largely to the common enemy that all Russians saw in Bonaparte, were things changing.

'And what was all that about, Pierre?' asked Louis. Pierre translated and we all laughed, particularly about Yekaterina and the horse.

We said goodbye once more and made our way out of the camp, not convinced that they trusted us, but resisting the urge to break into a run. We were almost beyond sight of the group around the fire when we saw ahead of us three French officers about to enter the camp. I readied myself to nonchalantly salute as we passed, but as they came closer, their three faces became recognizable.

It was Iuda, Foma and Matfei.

'Aleksei Ivanovich! Vadim Fyodorovich! What might you be doing here?' asked Iuda. 'Surely you haven't gone over to the other side?' He had a degree of good-humoured sarcasm that I was surprised to hear from any of the Oprichniki.

'Just a little espionage,' explained Vadim. 'And you?'

Iuda smiled. 'We come not to spy, but to kill.' Matfei and Foma shuffled their feet, impatient that this needless conversation was delaying the action. 'It's a good job we didn't come sooner,' continued Iuda. 'You make such convincing Frenchmen.'

I was keen to leave, but I felt we owed Iuda some of the benefit of our research. 'There's over a hundred men back there,' I told him. 'You don't stand a chance.' Even as I spoke, I remembered what we had witnessed Pyetr, Ioann and Varfolomei achieve earlier that night, and I doubted my own words.

Iuda patted my shoulder condescendingly. 'Thanks for your concern, Aleksei. See you soon.'

Then they were gone, vanishing into the darkness of the night to become shadows illuminated only by the campfires, mingling amicably amongst the men that they were soon to turn on. Vadim and I walked briskly away, each of us secretly hoping to be out of earshot before the Oprichniki began their work.

Back in Goryachkino, we changed into our regular clothes. Vadim's horse was still tied up where he had left it. He mounted and set off ahead of me towards our own encampments to the east of Borodino. I continued on foot. The rain poured down on me, driven even harder by the gusting wind, and the road became muddy under my feet. I envied Vadim his quick journey on horseback, but I pressed on.

Dawn broke with no sound of birdsong. The sound of those birds that even dared to speak was smothered by the sound of twelve hundred guns opening fire as the battle began to the south. It was a beautiful sound, at least to a soldier, which was what I still liked to regard myself as. There is a simplicity to a battle that appeals to every soldier, be he the most cerebral officer or the basest ryadovoy. It is a suspension of morality that allows a man to act without conscience, safe in the knowledge that it is his duty to destroy the enemy. The politics, for that short duration, are the business of others. Between battles, some men suppress their doubts with unconditional love for the tsar, some with complex political reasoning, some with plain, brute stupidity.