On the 2nd of September, the caravan of coaches and riders which was General Kutuzov’s suite rolled through sleepy Borodino and on up the mile-long slope to the village of Gorky, where it stopped. This was the ‘ideal battleground’ settled on by General Bennigsen. It was far, Kirov thought, from ideal: hillocky, lightly wooded, dissected by the now mainly dry gullies of numerous streamlets, rising to steep hills above Gorky in the north, and descending to marshy forest around the village of Utitsa in the south.

Borodino itself, a small town – hardly more than an overgrown village, really – with its distinctive twin-towered church and white-painted houses, sat beside the single wooden bridge spanning the Kolotcha River, which ran parallel with the Smolensk-Moscow High Road until swinging north-east under this bridge and winding away to empty itself at last into the Moskva.

Utitsa lay about two and a half miles south of Borodino, on the old post road which ran parallel to the new Highway, joining up with it further towards Moscow at Mozhaisk. This old road constituted another drawback to the situation: there was a serious danger that Napoleon might use it to bypass and surround the Russians, unless it were well defended.

Whatever Prince Kutuzov thought of the site, having listened to the reports of his chiefs of staff, he announced at last that this was where they would make their stand. Perhaps, Kirov thought, he felt he could not reasonably retreat any further towards Moscow, which was now only seventy-five miles away. he knew, was still bitter about their having abandoned that position; to Kirov he made several stinging remarks at Bennigsen’s expense about how easy this wooded and gullied area would be to defend.

As the regiments marched up, they were deployed over the ground to start preparing fortifications. The French were three or four days behind them on the road, with the Russian rearguard under General Miloradovich and the Cossack skirmishers between them and the main Russian force. Sergei’s scouts brought in reports every few hours on their position and condition. Further back along the route there was persistent cold rain, which was turning the roads into a quagmire. The French, with their exhausted, half-starved horses, were finding the going heavy.

As he rode about the chosen battlefield during the first day, relaying orders, reconnoitring, directing the arriving troops to their stations, Kirov glanced up from time to time at the hills above Borodino, and thought how ironic it was that this should have been the chosen place. From the terrace of Koloskavets, one would have a clear, if distant view of the whole battle. There he had known his last peace and pleasure; it was the place he had thought of as the only reality between the two opposing worlds; and at its feet, like a sacrifice, the battle would be laid.

He couldn’t see the house clearly with his naked eye – just a fleck of grey against the dark green of the trees. Plainly, she must leave now, go back to Moscow. As soon as he had a moment, he would send Adonis to her with a message – no time to write a letter – telling her that he would meet her again in Moscow when it was all over.

On the 3rd of September, the first of the militiamen promised by Moscow arrived – a motley band of serfs armed only with pikes, but they were strong and docile, and were set to useful work digging trenches and raising earthworks. It was fortunate that they had several days in hand before the French would arrive, for there was a great deal to be done to prepare the defences.

A mile in front of the Russian line, and roughly in the centre, the hamlet of Shevardino sat upon a small hillock. The peasant inhabitants, already so alarmed by the arrival of the army that they had brought their goats and milch cows into their houses for safety, were moved out and sent on their way to join other refugees on the road to Moscow. The hamlet was then raised to the ground to give a clear field of fire, and the hillock fortified by earthworks into a redoubt. This would be the forward defence, intended to slow the French advance, and break the back of any initial charge.

Behind it, the main battle-front stretched roughly from Borodino to Utitsa, between the two roads. The centre of the line, where the seventh corps under General Rayevsky was stationed, was dominated by a hummock, which Tolly ordered to be fortified into another redoubt. The whole of the left wing was to be defended by the eighth corps under Prince Bagration, and Kirov noted with alarm how thinly spread the men were over this, the largest area of the battlefield. The right wing, which had the natural defences of the Kolotcha River and the hills, had by far the greater density of men; Bagration’s left wing was on largely open ground.

It wasn’t until the next day that Tolly had time to visit the left wing of the battlefield, and he saw at once what had alarmed Kirov. For once Bagration saw eye to eye with his old enemies Tolly and Kirov: the openness of the ground and the proximity of the old post road would make this wing very hard to hold without more reinforcements. Bennigsen, of course, was automatically against anything that Tolly was for; but after heated arguments he agreed to send over militiamen to begin the construction of three flèches on the left wing. As to reinforcements – the old post road, he said, would be perfectly adequately defended by the roving Cossack regiments. Napoleon was bound to approach by the High Road – probably he did not even know the old post road existed.

The work continued all through the day; when darkness fell, the earthworks were still not finished. Kirov was sent out by Prince Kutuzov to make a general round and report on morale, and as he rode along the line, he noted again how unevenly the forces were distributed. On the right wing, Tolly’s own command, on the hill around Gorky, there was heavy artillery and solid earthworks; woods had been cut back, and the village of Novoye Syelo had been completely destroyed to leave the field of fire clear.

To the rear, in the woods, the second and third corps were stationed as reserves. Here he met young Lieutenant Felix Uspensky, Kira’s affianced, to whom he spoke a few words. Uspensky had the sort of very fair skin that showed clearly every movement of his blood; and he blushed deeply at receiving the personal attention of such a great man.

‘Your wedding is planned for November, I understand?’ Kirov added kindly as he was about to leave.

‘Yes, sir – that is, if the war is over by then.’

Kirov nodded. ‘If we don’t finish Napoleon off, the Russian winter will,’ he said lightly, and Uspensky felt emboldened to smile at what was obviously a joke.

‘We will beat them, won’t we, sir?’ he said, and what began as a statement mutated even as he spoke into a question.

Kirov looked at him with amused sympathy.

‘Are you afraid, Lieutenant?’

‘No, sir,’ Uspensky said promptly; and then, responding to the smile in the eyes, more hesitantly, ‘Yes, sir.’

Kirov smiled. ‘Good. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid, and I shouldn’t like my niece to marry a fool.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Of course, you never show fear to your men – they expect you to be more than human. That’s what you’re there for. And hiding it from them helps you hide it from yourself.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Uspensky, and his eyes were shining with hero worship now. ‘I understand, sir.’

Kirov began to find it a little embarrassing, and with a kindly nod, mounted his horse and rode on. It did not seem so very long ago that he was Uspensky’s age, he thought wryly; now he was old enough to be regarded by him as a hero.

On the slope above the main battle area he paused and looked down. The bivouac fires were burning yellow and gold all across the plain, and around them the regular troops were polishing the buttons and boots of their best uniforms in preparation for the great day. Under the admiring eyes of the militiamen, they sang satisfyingly mournful songs, and boasted of the drunken nights they would enjoy in Moscow after the victory. Kirov felt a brief spasm of pity for them. Conscription to the ranks was for life: this war had brought them far from their home villages, which, win or lose, they would never see again. The regiment was now their home, and cold comfort that must be.

He turned his gaze upwards towards the hills, where so lately he had rested in Anne’s arms. She must be safely away by now, he thought, and that was his cold comfort: the selfish part of him wanted her near. He thought briefly about making love with her, and shivered. Those thoughts were best not indulged in now; but afterwards, he thought, afterwards he was going to retire from public service – definitely retire this time – and dedicate the rest of his life to selfish pleasure. When this was over, he never wanted to go further from home than the boundaries of his estate.

Anne had watched the regiments marching up, watching with a mixture of anxiety and ironic amusement as they deployed themselves across the plain below her. So it was to be here, then, the battle for Russia! She felt a painful kind of excitement which made her stomach flutter. Since Vilna, nearly three months ago, everyone in Russia – perhaps everyone in the world – had been waiting for the clash between these two great forces; now it was to be here, in this very place! Borodino – an utterly unimportant little country town on a sleepy and sluggish little river, where nothing had ever happened, probably, in its entire history, more serious than a petty theft or a drunken tavern brawl. Now chance had marked it out for fame. She was going to witness history in the making. The prospect was terrifying, and yet exhilarating. Not for anything would she abandon her post now.