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back of his throat and a wave of nostalgia for the home he had seen only two or three times in the past eight years. I le scrubbed irritably at his face with a grubby handkerchief, wondering what on earth was the matter with him. He kicked Ins horse into motion and rode after the carts, ramming his helmet down hard on his mop of curly hair and scowling Inociously, his black brows turning up at a sharper angle ih an ever.
     
    After two hours, the trees thinned out suddenly, and the Country became open and grassy, rising in a long hill to the skyline a couple of miles ahead. Nothing was stirring in the shimmering heat haze and the sun shone out of a brilliant, c loudless sky. Orlov called a halt.
    'We'll rest in the shade for an hour,' he said. 'Let the horses cool off a bit before we start on that stretch.' He headed the thought of long hours in that baking heat and wished there was a breath of wind to stir the air a little.
    Kusminsky went round the carts, checking his patients. Kolniev had half a dozen of the fitter ones drag out a pile of folded canvas sheets from among the miscellaneous collection of equipment, and set them to work rigging awnings over the carts to keep off the worst of the sun.
    Orlov dismounted stiffly and leant against his horse until 1 lie usual spell of dizziness passed. His arm ached in a bone-gnawing fashion which was both tiring and depressing. He pulled himself together, took off his helmet and hung it on his saddle and went over to the cart which carried the boy with the crushed pelvis. He was clearly in a bad way and Orlov wondered if he should have been left behind in Smolensk.
    'It wouldn't make any difference ,' Kusminsky said quietly, hav ing come up behind him. 'He wanted to come. He's better ca red for here than he would have been with the French, and he's with his friends.' He didn't say so, but Orlov gathered that there was very little hope for the lad. He turned away with a shrug, and wondered how many more times it would take before the resulting pain cured him of the habit.
    A ration of hard bread and a chunk of cheese was issued, with a handful of raisins for each man, and they sat about in groups wherever they could find a patch of shade. The three officers sat together under a tree and Kolniev produced a pipe and tobacco to set up a cloud of smoke to keep off the insects. Kusminsky suddenly said, in his sharp, rather edgy voice, 'I suppose you're related to the famous Orlovs?'
    Orlov turned over the piece of bread he was eating, and looked at it carefully while he considered the implications of the question. 'If you mean the notorious Orlovs,' he replied, 'yes, we're distantly related, but we consider ourselves to be the relatively poor, but respectable branch of the family.'
    He detected in the tone, as well as in the wording of Kusminsky's question, a certain resentment of his presumed social position. He thought Kusminsky probably came from a merchant family and Kolniev from the provincial nobility. In either case, his name, with its implication of high social standing, and his Staff officer status were likely to count heavily against him and the success or failure of the journey ahead of them could well depend on the extent to which he could overcome their prejudices.
    'I thought all the Orlovs were fabulously rich and important,' said Kolniev in his naively outspoken way.
    'Only since cousin Grigor Grigorievitch caught the fancy of the Empress Ekaterina,' replied Orlov, with a deliberate air of careless irreverence. 'Before that, we were just a provincial family from Novgorod, like anyone else. There's nothing very grand about rising t o importance via the bedchamber. I'd rather belong to a family with a more creditable claim to glory.'
    The others made no reply to this, but after a few minutes Kusminsky said in a slightly more friendly tone, 'I'd better take a look at your bandages, I think.' He helped Orlov take off his coat and shirt, then made him bend and stretch the arm