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sounding more as if he had been telling me that he had been sentenced to prison.
    “Isn’t that what you wanted? To be a real soldier, not just polishing boots and cleaning guns?”
    He stood, putting on his uniform jacket and buckling his belt as if I were nothing more than a fellow soldier or a valet, accustomed to seeing him in a state of undress. “But that’s just the point. I’m not a real soldier. I haven’t had the proper training. They’ve shown me how to read the telegraph tape, the forms I should expect for getting orders, and who reports to whom—me to the company commander, the company commander to the battalion chief, the battalion chief to the regiment colonel, the regiment colonel to the army general. And the higher up you get, the farther from the ground—and the fighting. Yet they are the ones who have experience.”
    I didn’t quite know what to say. “Did you think I wouldn’t come?” I asked, gesturing toward the untidy mess.
    For the first time, Sasha looked directly at me. His eyes were full of sadness and bewilderment. “I suppose I didn’t. It was all well and good when we could meet in your garden. How did you get away?”
    “As you can see, Varenka helped me.” I gave him a little curtsy and swung my egg basket. He smiled, looking for an instant like the impish Sasha I had come to know. “But I have to be back before Mashka wakes, or I’ll get in trouble.”
    Sasha finished putting on his uniform and adjusted his cap smartly on his head. “Do I look like I command a platoon?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. How many soldiers are in a platoon?”
    “Only fifty. And have you seen them?” He jerked his head toward the tent flap.
    “Those are your soldiers?” I began to see why Sasha was so upset. “Most of them look too young or too old, and I’d say the majority I passed had just yesterday been in the fields.”
    “I knew I could count on you to be astute.” His words were like acid on metal.
    “I don’t deserve your anger. I had nothing to do with this!”
    “No, but your imperial father had everything to do with it. How are we to fight the Germans? They have all modern equipment, big guns, and aircraft, and a standing army that’s trained. Our ‘army,’ such as it is, consists of officer dandies and peasants, thanks to our ancient law that calls up the poor and serfs—so many thousand for each landowner, like heads of cattle. Most of the fellows out there have never worn a pair of stout boots before, and God knows if they can fire a gun with any accuracy. To make matters worse, I have only the vaguest idea what the plan is. All I know is that we’re heading west. We don’t go by train except at the very beginning. We march. All the way to Prussia, apparently.
    “Do you know, I have heard that we don’t even use code to communicate because no one can remember what it is. It’s laughable!”
    Was this true? What of the spirit of the Russian people, who were invincible—even by the great Napoleon? “Surely the generals … I mean, it all must be part of a plan. You just don’t see the entire thing, so it seems absurd.” Yet even as I said it, I felt it was untrue.
    “Do you know anything?” Sasha asked.
    I opened my mouth to speak, actually considering lying to Sasha just to make him feel better. But the words would not come out. Finally, I squeaked out a pathetic little “No.”
    Sasha sighed, then drew his shoulders back and put his chin up. “I suppose I should try to be happy that I have been promoted so unexpectedly. And I would be if I did not suspect that platoons like mine will be used as cannon fodder. Isn’t that what a soldier does? Fight, and probably die?”
    “You don’t seem to be fighting very much!” I said, becoming irritated with his self-pity. “I would go to the front and lead a whole battalion, or even a corps, if I had to!”
    “Have you ever seen a man killed by gunfire?”
    “No. But it’s a war. People get