Karl's life

“He was astounded to observe that no orders were really given; Prince Bagration was just trying to pretend that everything they were being forced to do, every accidental development or anything brought about by individual commanders, was happening, if not according to his orders than at least as part of his plan,” – Tolstoy, War and Peace.

I was reading War and Peace on the flight from London to New York. My headache was back, tight around the temples and drilling into the spaces below my eyes. I walked to the back of the airplane to ask for a glass of water. The air hostesses were laughing, in their cheap waistcoats and bright red polyester ties. It looked like fun. I apologized for interrupting, feeling like I had walked in on something I shouldn’t have seen. The blonde woman gave me a tiny plastic glass. I thought of how jealous I was that they were part of a team at work, while I sat solitary at my desk in New York, writing, panicking I had nothing to say. I chugged the water in one mouthful before I got back to my seat.

My headache was still there and I was too embarrassed to go back and ask for more water. “I should have chugged it straight away and asked for more,” I think. “But that looks greedy, shows a lack of self restraint”. I squint at the Amazon Kindle which is back lit amongst the darkness of the plane. It is almost impossible to read. The words don’t link up and I immediately forget every sentence. But I keep going, running my eyes over the page until I fall deeper and deeper into Tolstoy’s Napoleonic world. Some sentences don’t stick in my memory but they create an atmosphere, which other sentences can thrive in. 

A small Russian force is waiting on the ridge for the French army to arrive. The Russians were sent to support the Austrians and defeat Napoleon. But Austria has now fallen and most of the Russian army is in retreat. So general Kutuzov has sent a small force to hold up the French so the rest of the army can get away. The leader of this small force is Prince Bagration. He knows they are doomed but follows the orders anyway.

The Russian troops dig in on the ridge, drinking vodka and watching the French fires burn in the distance. There is an “invisible wall” between the soldiers. But unlike the French, the Russian force is not battle hardened. The Russians discuss the prospect of death and how it will feel when the battle starts. It is all philosophical. 

Suddenly, the first cannonball flies overhead. Horses’ legs are broken, bullets rip through soldiers’ lungs and “blood runs like a drain” through the trenches.

There is a theory of war. But in the face of the reality any strategy for defence crumbles. People study battles for decades, like a game of chess. But war is the ultimate reality where people are driven by their base instincts. Fear, aggression and love. Prince Bagration knows this and that the most important thing for a leader to do is look calm, and pretend that everything is going to plan. Like war, life is also a fucking mess. And the best thing is to pretend that everything is going to plan. You might even start to believe it. And even if you don’t, everyone else around you will. And they will appreciate it. Because all they want is to feel safe. Even when cannonballs are flying over their heads.