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this speech, and now stopped in sudden embarrassment.
    Kolniev looked thoughtful and said, 'Barclay's not one of Suvorov's old gang. Do you think Suvorov would have gone on retreating?'
    'Yes,' Orlov replied. 'And when, and if, Kutuzov is given command, he'll do the same.'
    Kusminsky and Kolniev both looked at him with alert interest. 'Kutuzov?' said Kusminsky. 'Do you think the Czar...?'
    Orlov remembered not to shrug this time. "Who else?' he said. 'Barclay can't go on when his subordinates are near-mutinous. Kutuzov is the army's choice. I think the Czar will have to accept him sooner or later.'
    'Let's hope it's sooner!' said Kolniev. He suddenly colored . 'I'm sorry. Of course, you're Barclay's adjutant so I suppose it's tactless of me to criticize him. How will you feel if Kutuzov supersedes him?'
    Orlov smiled. 'I was on Kutuzov's staff until a few months ago,' he replied. 'To be honest, I prefer Mikhail H arionovitch to Mikhail Bogdanovitch as a general, but not as a man. Barclay may be cautious , but he's hard-working, clear-t hinking, even-tempered and c ourteous, while Kutuzov's lecher ous, lazy, and inclined to go to sleep at every opportunity, t hough it's very insubordinate of me to say so!'
    'I suppose you'll be a general eventually,' said Kolniev thoughtfully.
    'Not me,' replied Orlov. 'I've had enough of the army. As soon as this invasion is finished with, I shall resign. It's time I married and settled down.'
    'I'd assumed you were married,' said Kusminsky.
    'I guessed he wasn't,' Kolniev grinned. 'He wouldn't charge a French squadron single-handed if he had a wife and children to think of!'
    'No,' said Orlov soberly. ('Did I do that?' he thought. 'I must have been mad!') 'My sister's husband lost both legs and half his face at Austerlitz. Fortunately for both of them, he didn't live long. I wouldn't want to inflict myself on a woman in that sort of state.'
    The other two nodded agreement and all three lapsed into their private thoughts for a time. Orlov fell into a doze—it was frightening to find himself tiring so easily. His tough, powerfully-built body would usually obey him for long hours at a stretch, and he felt curiously betrayed when it became so ragging and weary after only a morning of easy riding.
    He woke to find the cavalcade stirring itself into readiness to move on. He hauled himself back into the saddle with a heavy reluctance, looking bleakly out across the long uphill Stretch of baking grassland, mercilessly bare and shimmering in the heat-haze. It would be like a furnace out there. He kicked his horse into movement and rode out ahead, sitting slack and easy in the saddle in the manner of a man accustomed to days spent on horseback.
    The line of carts rumbled and jolted after him with their canvas awnings hanging limp in the motionless air and the boy with the crushed pelvis moaning in delirium. The men fell silent and lay still in the carts or sat slumped on the driver's boxes, sweltering in the heat as they moved slowly over the open country, inching towards a skyline that seemed always as far away as ever in the blinding, shimmering light.
    After an eternity which lasted two weary hours by Orlov's watch, they reached the top of the rising ground, and saw the interminable cart track running on a gradual downhill slope to a dark line in the far distance—the road to Kaluga.
    The men's spirits rose for a time, but they went plodding onwards for a further eternity during which the dark line seemed to stand still while they moved and moved without making progress. Orlov realized that he was becoming lightheaded again as his surroundings began to assume a nightmare quality and he started to imagine that he was moving in a world which stood still. His horse picked up and put down his feet without moving forwards, the sun seemed to grow imperceptibly larger, nearer and hotter. He was startled when the sound of his horse's hooves suddenly changed and pulled himself together with a jerk which