BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812
6. CHAPTER VI
Next day the troops assembled in their appointed places in the
evening and advanced during the night. It was an autumn night with
dark purple clouds, but no rain. The ground was damp but not muddy,
and the troops advanced noiselessly, only occasionally a jingling of
the artillery could be faintly heard. The men were forbidden to talk
out loud, to smoke their pipes, or to strike a light, and they tried
to prevent their horses neighing. The secrecy of the undertaking
heightened its charm and they marched gaily. Some columns,
supposing. they had reached their destination, halted, piled arms, and
settled down on the cold ground, but the majority marched all night
and arrived at places where they evidently should not have been.
Only Count Orlov-Denisov with his Cossacks (the least important
detachment of all) got to his appointed place at the right time.
This detachment halted at the outskirts of a forest, on the path
leading from the village of Stromilova to Dmitrovsk.
Toward dawn, Count Orlov-Denisov, who had dozed off, was awakened by
a deserter from the French army being brought to him. This was a
Polish sergeant of Poniatowski's corps, who explained in Polish that
he had come over because he had been slighted in the service: that
he ought long ago to have been made an officer, that he was braver
than any of them, and so he had left them and wished to pay them
out. He said that Murat was spending the night less than a mile from
where they were, and that if they would let him have a convoy of a
hundred men he would capture him alive. Count Orlov-Denisov
consulted his fellow officers.
The offer was too tempting to be refused. Everyone volunteered to go
and everybody advised making the attempt. After much disputing and
arguing, Major-General Grekov with two Cossack regiments decided to go
with the Polish sergeant.
"Now, remember," said Count Orlov-Denisov to the sergeant at
parting, "if you have been lying I'll have you hanged like a dog;
but if it's true you shall have a hundred gold pieces!"
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