that his jest was unacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused.
"Kindly return to your posts," said the staff officer trying to
preserve his gravity.
Prince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer's small figure.
There was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather
comic, but extremely attractive.
The staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode
on.
Having ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and overtaking
soldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their left
some entrenchments being thrown up, the freshly dug clay of which
showed up red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt
sleeves despite the cold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host
of white ants; spadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown
up from behind the bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer
rode up, looked at the entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it
they came upon some dozens of soldiers, continually replaced by
others, who ran from the entrenchment. They had to hold their noses
and put their horses to a trot to escape from the poisoned
atmosphere of these latrines.
"Voila l'agrement des camps, monsieur le Prince,"* said the staff
officer.
*"This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince."
They rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could
already be seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the
position.
"That's our battery," said the staff officer indicating the
highest point. "It's in charge of the queer fellow we saw without
his boots. You can see everything from there; let's go there, Prince."
"Thank you very much, I will go on alone," said Prince Andrew,
wishing to rid himself of this staff officer's company, "please
don't trouble yourself further."
The staff officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone.
The farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly
and cheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had
been in the baggage train he had passed that morning on the Znaim road
seven miles away from the French. At Grunth also some apprehension and
alarm could be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew came to the French
lines the more confident was the appearance of our troops. The
soldiers in their greatcoats were ranged in lines, the sergeants major
and company officers were counting the men, poking the last man in
each section in the ribs and telling him to hold his hand up. Soldiers
scattered over the whole place were dragging logs and brushwood and
were building shelters with merry chatter and laughter; around the
fires sat others, dressed and undressed, drying their shirts and leg
bands or mending boots or overcoats and crowding round the boilers and
porridge cookers. In one company dinner was ready, and the soldiers
were gazing eagerly at the steaming boiler, waiting till the sample,
which a quartermaster sergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl to an
officer who sat on a log before his shelter, had been tasted.
Another company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka,
crowded round a pock-marked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who,
tilting a keg, filled one after another the canteen lids held out to
him. The soldiers lifted the canteen lids to their lips with
reverential faces, emptied them, rolling the vodka in their mouths,
and walked away from the sergeant major with brightened expressions,
licking their lips and wiping them on the sleeves of their greatcoats.
All their faces were as serene as if all this were happening at home
awaiting peaceful encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before
an action in which at least half of them would be left on the field.
After passing a chasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev
grenadiers - fine fellows busy with similar peaceful affairs - near
the shelter of the regimental commander, higher than and different
from the others, Prince Andrew came out in front of a platoon of
grenadiers before whom lay a naked man. Two soldiers held him while
two others were flourishing their switches and striking him
regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally. A stout
major was pacing up and down the line, and regardless of the screams
kept repeating:
"It's a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest,
honorable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honor
in him, he's a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!"
So the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but
unnatural screams, continued.
"Go on, go on!" said the major.
A young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his
face stepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the
adjutant as he rode by.
Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our
front line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and
left flanks, but in the center where the men with a flag of truce
had passed that morning, the lines were so near together that the
men could see one another's faces and speak to one another. Besides
the soldiers who formed the picket line on either side, there were
many curious onlookers who, jesting and laughing, stared at their
strange foreign enemies.
Since early morning - despite an injunction not to approach the
picket line - the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away.
The soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a
curiosity, no longer looked at the French but paid attention to the
sight-seers and grew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew
halted to have a look at the French.
"Look! Look there!" one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a
Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer
and was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. "Hark
to him jabbering! Fine, isn't it? It's all the Frenchy can do to
keep up with him. There now, Sidorov!"
"Wait a bit and listen. It's fine!" answered Sidorov, who was
considered an adept at French.
The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dolokhov. Prince
Andrew recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying.
Dolokhov had come from the left flank where their regiment was
stationed, with his captain.
"Now then, go on, go on!" incited the officer, bending forward and
trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible
to him. "More, please: more! What's he saying?"
Dolokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot
dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about
the campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the
Russians, was trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and
had fled all the way from Ulm, while Dolokhov maintained that the
Russians had not surrendered but had beaten the French.
"We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you
off," said Dolokhov.
"Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!" said
the French grenadier.
The French onlookers and listeners laughed.
"We'll make you dance as we did under Suvorov...,"* said Dolokhov.
*"On vous fera danser."
"Qu' est-ce qu'il chante?"* asked a Frenchman.
*"What's he singing about?"
"It's ancient history," said another, guessing that it referred to a
former war. "The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the
others..."
"Bonaparte..." began Dolokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.
"Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacre nom...!" cried he angrily.
"The devil skin your Emperor."
And Dolokhov swore at him in coarse soldier's Russian and
shouldering his musket walked away.
"Let us go, Ivan Lukich," he said to the captain.
"Ah, that's the way to talk French," said the picket soldiers. "Now,
Sidorov, you have a try!"
Sidorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber
meaningless sounds very fast: "Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter,
Kaska," he said, trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.
"Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!" came peals of such healthy
and good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the
French involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed
to be to unload the muskets, muskets, explode the ammunition, and
all return home as quickly as possible.
But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and
entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon
confronted one another as before.
CHAPTER XVI
Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left,
Prince Andrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff
officer had told him the whole field could be seen. Here he
dismounted, and stopped beside the farthest of the four unlimbered
cannon. Before the guns an artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he
stood at attention when the officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his
measured, monotonous pacing. Behind the guns were their limbers and
still farther back picket ropes and artillerymen's bonfires. To the
left, not far from the farthest cannon, was a small, newly constructed
wattle shed from which came the sound of officers' voices in eager
conversation.
It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and
the greater part of the enemy's opened out from this battery. Just
facing it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schon
Grabern could be seen, and in three places to left and right the
French troops amid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of
whom were evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To
the left from that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a
battery, but it was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye.
Our right flank was posted on a rather steep incline which dominated
the French position. Our infantry were stationed there, and at the
farthest point the dragoons. In the center, where Tushin's battery
stood and from which Prince Andrew was surveying the position, was the
easiest and most direct descent and ascent to the brook separating
us from Schon Grabern. On the left our troops were close to a copse,
in which smoked the bonfires of our infantry who were felling wood.
The French line was wider than ours, and it was plain that they
could easily outflank us on both sides. Behind our position was a
steep and deep dip, making it difficult for artillery and cavalry to
retire. Prince Andrew took out his notebook and, leaning on the
cannon, sketched a plan of the position. He made some notes on two
points, intending to mention them to Bagration. His idea was, first,
to concentrate all the artillery in the center, and secondly, to
withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the dip. Prince Andrew,
being always near the commander in chief, closely following the mass
movements and general orders, and constantly studying historical
accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the course of
events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He imagined only
important possibilities: "If the enemy attacks the right flank," he
said to himself, "the Kiev grenadiers and the Podolsk chasseurs must
hold their position till reserves from the center come up. In that
case the dragoons could successfully make a flank counterattack. If
they attack our center we, having the center battery on this high
ground, shall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and retreat
to the dip by echelons." So he reasoned.... All the time he had been
beside the gun, he had heard the voices of the officers distinctly,
but as often happens had not understood a word of what they were
saying. Suddenly, however, he was struck by a voice coming from the
shed, and its tone was so sincere that he could not but listen.
"No, friend," said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew,
a familiar voice, "what I say is that if it were possible to know what
is beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That's so, friend."
Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: "Afraid or not, you can't
escape it anyhow."
"All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people," said a third
manly voice interrupting them both. "Of course you artillery men are
very wise, because you can take everything along with you - vodka and
snacks."
And the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer,
laughed.
"Yes, one is afraid," continued the first speaker, he of the
familiar voice. "One is afraid of the unknown, that's what it is.
Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky... we know there
is no sky but only an atmosphere."
The manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer.
"Well, stand us some of your herb vodka, Tushin," it said.
"Why," thought Prince Andrew, "that's the captain who stood up in
the sutler's hut without his boots." He recognized the agreeable,
philosophizing voice with pleasure.
"Some herb vodka? Certainly!" said Tushin. "But still, to conceive a
future life..."
He did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air;
nearer and nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon
ball, as if it had not finished saying what was necessary, thudded
into the ground near the shed with super human force, throwing up a
mass of earth. The ground seemed to groan at the terrible impact.
And immediately Tushin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth
and his kind, intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed
followed by the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer
who hurried off to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran.
CHAPTER XVII
Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery,
looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes
ran rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto
motionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was a
battery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two
mounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A
small but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill,
probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had
not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a
report. The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and
galloped back to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard the
cannonade behind him growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our
guns had begun to reply. From the bottom of the slope, where the
parleys had taken place, came the report of musketry.
Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte's stern
letter, and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at
once moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the
Russian wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the
Emperor to crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.
"It has begun. Here it is!" thought Prince Andrew, feeling the blood
rush to his heart. "But where and how will my Toulon present itself?"
Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and
drinking vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same
rapid movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets
ready, and on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness that
filled his heart. "It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but
enjoyable!" was what the face of each soldier and each officer
seemed to say.
Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up,
he saw, in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming
toward him. The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and
riding a white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew stopped,
waiting for him to come up; Prince Bagration reined in his horse and
recognizing Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while
Prince Andrew told him what he had seen.
The feeling, "It has begun! Here it is!" was seen even on Prince
Bagration's hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.
Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face
and wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking
and feeling at that moment. "Is there anything at all behind that
impassive face?" Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince
Bagration bent his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew
told him, and said, "Very good!" in a tone that seemed to imply that
everything that took place and was reported to him was exactly what he
had foreseen. Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride,
spoke quickly. Prince Bagration, uttering his words with an Oriental
accent, spoke particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that
there was no need to hurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in the
direction of Tushin's battery. Prince Andrew followed with the
suite. Behind Prince Bagration rode an officer of the suite, the
prince's personal adjutant, Zherkov, an orderly officer, the staff
officer on duty, riding a fine bobtailed horse, and a civilian - an
accountant who had asked permission to be present at the battle out of
curiosity. The accountant, a stout, full-faced man, looked around
him with a naive smile of satisfaction and presented a strange
appearance among the hussars, Cossacks, and adjutants, in his camlet
coat, as he jolted on his horse with a convoy officer's saddle.
"He wants to see a battle," said Zherkov to Bolkonski, pointing to
the accountant, "but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach
already."
"Oh, leave off!" said the accountant with a beaming but rather
cunning smile, as if flattered at being made the subject of
Zherkov's joke, and purposely trying to appear stupider than he really
was.
"It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince," said the staff officer.
(He remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing
a prince, but could not get it quite right.)
By this time they were all approaching Tushin's battery, and a
ball struck the ground in front of them.
"What's that that has fallen?" asked the accountant with a naive
smile.
"A French pancake," answered Zherkov.
"So that's what they hit with?" asked the accountant. "How awful!"
He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished
speaking when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling which
suddenly ended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and a
Cossack, riding a little to their right and behind the accountant,
crashed to earth with his horse. Zherkov and the staff officer bent
over their saddles and turned their horses away. The accountant
stopped, facing the Cossack, and examined him with attentive
curiosity. The Cossack was dead, but the horse still struggled.
Prince Bagration screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeing
the cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to
say, "Is it worth while noticing trifles?" He reined in his horse with
the case of a skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengaged
his saber which had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber
of a kind no longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story
of Suvorov giving his saber to Bagration in Italy, and the
recollection was particularly pleasant at that moment. They had
reached the battery at which Prince Andrew had been when he examined
the battlefield.
"Whose company?" asked Prince Bagration of an artilleryman
standing by the ammunition wagon.
He asked, "Whose company?" but he really meant, "Are you
frightened here?" and the artilleryman understood him.
"Captain Tushin's, your excellency!" shouted the red-haired,
freckled gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.
"Yes, yes," muttered Bagration as if considering something, and he
rode past the limbers to the farthest cannon.
As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and
his suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they
could see the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly
back to its former position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number
One, holding a mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while
Number Two with a trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon's
mouth. The short, round-shouldered Captain Tushin, stumbling over
the tail of the gun carriage, moved forward and, not noticing the
general, looked out shading his eyes with his small hand.
"Lift it two lines more and it will be just right," cried he in a
feeble voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill suited to
his weak figure. "Number Two!" he squeaked. "Fire, Medvedev!"
Bagration called to him, and Tushin, raising three fingers to his
cap with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military
salute but like a priest's benediction, approached the general. Though
Tushin's guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was firing
incendiary balls at the village of Schon Grabern visible just
opposite, in front of which large masses of French were advancing.
No one had given Tushin orders where and at what to fire, but
after consulting his sergeant major, Zakharchenko, for whom he had
great respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set
fire to the village. "Very good!" said Bagration in reply to the
officer's report, and began deliberately to examine the whole
battlefield extended before him. The French had advanced nearest on
our right. Below the height on which the Kiev regiment was
stationed, in the hollow where the rivulet flowed, the soul-stirring
rolling and crackling of musketry was heard, and much farther to the
right beyond the dragoons, the officer of the suite pointed out to
Bagration a French column that was outflanking us. To the left the
horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagration ordered two
battalions from the center to be sent to reinforce the right flank.
The officer of the suite ventured to remark to the prince that if
these battalions went away, the guns would remain without support.
Prince Bagration turned to the officer and with his dull eyes looked
at him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the officer's
remark was just and that really no answer could be made to it. But
at that moment an adjutant galloped up with a message from the
commander of the regiment in the hollow and news that immense masses
of the French were coming down upon them and that his regiment was
in disorder and was retreating upon the Kiev grenadiers. Prince
Bagration bowed his head in sign of assent and approval. He rode off
at a walk to the right and sent an adjutant to the dragoons with
orders to attack the French. But this adjutant returned half an hour
later with the news that the commander of the dragoons had already
retreated beyond the dip in the ground, as a heavy fire had been
opened on him and he was losing men uselessly, and so had hastened
to throw some sharpshooters into the wood.
"Very good!" said Bagration.
As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also,
and as it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go
there himself, Prince Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in
command (the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov at
Braunau) that he must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow
in the rear, as the right flank would probably not be able to
withstand the enemy's attack very long. About Tushin and the battalion
that had been in support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince
Andrew listened attentively to Bagration's colloquies with the
commanding officers and the orders he gave them and, to his
surprise, found that no orders were really given, but that Prince
Bagration tried to make it appear that everything done by necessity,
by accident, or by the will of subordinate commanders was done, if not
by his direct command, at least in accord with his intentions.
Prince Andrew noticed, however, that though what happened was due to
chance and was independent of the commander's will, owing to the
tact Bagration showed, his presence was very valuable. Officers who
approached him with disturbed countenances became calm; soldiers and
officers greeted him gaily, grew more cheerful in his presence, and
were evidently anxious to display their courage before him.
CHAPTER XVIII
Prince Bagration, having reached the highest point of our right
flank, began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard
but where on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer
they got to the hollow the less they could see but the more they
felt the nearness of the actual battlefield. They began to meet
wounded men. One with a bleeding head and no cap was being dragged
along by two soldiers who supported him under the arms. There was a
gurgle in his throat and he was spitting blood. A bullet had evidently
hit him in the throat or mouth. Another was walking sturdily by
himself but without his musket, groaning aloud and swinging his arm
which had just been hurt, while blood from it was streaming over his
greatcoat as from a bottle. He had that moment been wounded and his
face showed fear rather than suffering. Crossing a road they descended
a steep incline and saw several men lying on the ground; they also met
a crowd of soldiers some of whom were unwounded. The soldiers were
ascending the hill breathing heavily, and despite the general's
presence were talking loudly and gesticulating. In front of them
rows of gray cloaks were already visible through the smoke, and an
officer catching sight of Bagration rushed shouting after the crowd of
retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagration rode up to the
ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there, drowning
the sound of voices and the shouts of command. The whole air reeked
with smoke. The excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with
it. Some were using their ramrods, others putting powder on the
touchpans or taking charges from their pouches, while others were
firing, though who they were firing at could not be seen for the smoke
which there was no wind to carry away. A pleasant humming and
whistling of bullets were often heard. "What is this?" thought
Prince Andrew approaching the crowd of soldiers. "It can't be an
attack, for they are not moving; it can't be a square - for they are
not drawn up for that."
The commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with a
pleasant smile - his eyelids drooping more than half over his old eyes,
giving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagration and welcomed him as
a host welcomes an honored guest. He reported that his regiment had
been attacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had been
repulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack had
been repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had
occurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know
what had happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to
him, and could not say with certainty whether the attack had been
repulsed or his regiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at
the commencement of the action balls and shells began flying all
over his regiment and hitting men and that afterwards someone had
shouted "Cavalry!" and our men had begun firing. They were still
firing, not at the cavalry which had disappeared, but at French
infantry who had come into the hollow and were firing at our men.
Prince Bagration bowed his head as a sign that this was exactly what
he had desired and expected. Turning to his adjutant he ordered him to
bring down the two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs whom they had
just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by the changed expression on
Prince Bagration's face at this moment. It expressed the
concentrated and happy resolution you see on the face of a man who
on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water. The
dull, sleepy expression was no longer there, nor the affectation of
profound thought. The round, steady, hawk's eyes looked before him
eagerly and rather disdainfully, not resting on anything although
his movements were still slow and measured.
The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagration, entreating
him to go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they were.
"Please, your excellency, for God's sake!" he kept saying, glancing
for support at an officer of the suite who turned away from him.
"There, you see!" and he drew attention to the bullets whistling,
singing, and hissing continually around them. He spoke in the tone
of entreaty and reproach that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who
has picked up an ax: "We are used to it, but you, sir, will blister
your hands." He spoke as if those bullets could not kill him, and
his half-closed eyes gave still more persuasiveness to his words.
The staff officer joined in the colonel's appeals, but Bagration did
not reply; he only gave an order to cease firing and re-form, so as to
give room for the two approaching battalions. While he was speaking,
the curtain of smoke that had concealed the hollow, driven by a rising
wind, began to move from right to left as if drawn by an invisible
hand, and the hill opposite, with the French moving about on it,
opened out before them. All eyes fastened involuntarily on this French
column advancing against them and winding down over the uneven ground.
One could already see the soldiers' shaggy caps, distinguish the
officers from the men, and see the standard flapping against its
staff.
"They march splendidly," remarked someone in Bagration's suite.
The head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The
clash would take place on this side of it...
The remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly
formed up and moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the
laggards, came two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order.
Before they had reached Bagration, the weighty tread of the mass of
men marching in step could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to
Bagration, marched a company commander, a fine round-faced man, with a
stupid and happy expression - the same man who had rushed out of the
wattle shed. At that moment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how
dashing a fellow he would appear as he passed the commander.
With the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly
with his muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to
his full height without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with
the heavy tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He
carried close to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and
not like a real weapon) and looked now at the superior officers and
now back at the men without losing step, his whole powerful body
turning flexibly. It was as if all the powers of his soul were
concentrated on passing the commander in the best possible manner, and
feeling that he was doing it well he was happy. "Left... left...
left..." he seemed to repeat to himself at each alternate step; and in
time to this, with stern but varied faces, the wall of soldiers
burdened with knapsacks and muskets marched in step, and each one of
these hundreds of soldiers seemed to be repeating to himself at each
alternate step, "Left... left... left..." A fat major skirted a
bush, puffing and falling out of step; a soldier who had fallen
behind, his face showing alarm at his defection, ran at a trot,
panting to catch up with his company. A cannon ball, cleaving the air,
flew over the heads of Bagration and his suite, and fell into the
column to the measure of "Left... left!" "Close up!" came the
company commander's voice in jaunty tones. The soldiers passed in a
semicircle round something where the ball had fallen, and an old
trooper on the flank, a noncommissioned officer who had stopped beside
the dead men, ran to catch up his line and, falling into step with a
hop, looked back angrily, and through the ominous silence and the
regular tramp of feet beating the ground in unison, one seemed to hear
left... left... left.
"Well done, lads!" said Prince Bagration.
"Glad to do our best, your ex'len-lency!" came a confused shout from
the ranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on
Bagration as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: "We
know that ourselves!" Another, without looking round, as though
fearing to relax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on.
The order was given to halt and down knapsacks.
Bagration rode round the ranks that had marched past him and
dismounted. He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over
his felt coat, stretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The
head of the French column, with its officers leading, appeared from
below the hill.
"Forward, with God!" said Bagration, in a resolute, sonorous
voice, turning for a moment to the front line, and slightly swinging
his arms, he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the
awkward gait of a cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible
power was leading him forward, and experienced great happiness.
The French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside
Bagration, could clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulets,
and even their faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer who,
with gaitered legs and turned-out toes, climbed the hill with
difficulty.) Prince Bagration gave no further orders and silently
continued to walk on in front of the ranks. Suddenly one shot after
another rang out from the French, smoke appeared all along their
uneven ranks, and musket shots sounded. Several of our men fell, among
them the round-faced officer who had marched so gaily and
complacently. But at the moment the first report was heard,
Bagration looked round and shouted, "Hurrah!"
"Hurrah - ah! - ah!" rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and
passing Bagration and racing one another they rushed in an irregular
but joyous and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe.
CHAPTER XIX
The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right
flank. In the center Tushin's forgotten battery, which had managed
to set fire to the Schon Grabern village, delayed the French
advance. The French were putting out the fire which the wind was
spreading, and thus gave us time to retreat. The retirement of the
center to the other side of the dip in the ground at the rear was
hurried and noisy, but the different companies did not get mixed.
But our left - which consisted of the Azov and Podolsk infantry and the
Pavlograd hussars - was simultaneously attacked and outflanked by
superior French forces under Lannes and was thrown into confusion.
Bagration had sent Zherkov to the general commanding that left flank
with orders to retreat immediately.
Zherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse
about and galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration than his
courage failed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it
was dangerous.
Having reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where
the firing was, he began to look for the general and his staff where
they could not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order.
The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander
of the regiment Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which
Dolokhov was serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left
flank had been assigned to the commander of the Pavlograd regiment
in which Rostov was serving, and a misunderstanding arose. The two
commanders were much exasperated with one another and, long after
the action had begun on the right flank and the French were already
advancing, were engaged in discussion with the sole object of
offending one another. But the regiments, both cavalry and infantry,
were by no means ready for the impending action. From privates to
general they were not expecting a battle and were engaged in
peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding the horses and the
infantry collecting wood.
"He higher iss dan I in rank," said the German colonel of the
hussars, flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, "so
let him do what he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars...
Bugler, sount ze retreat!"
But haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry, mingling
together, thundered on the right and in the center, while the
capotes of Lannes' sharpshooters were already seen crossing the
milldam and forming up within twice the range of a musket shot. The
general in command of the infantry went toward his horse with jerky
steps, and having mounted drew himself up very straight and tall and
rode to the Pavlograd commander. The commanders met with polite bows
but with secret malevolence in their hearts.
"Once again, Colonel," said the general, "I can't leave half my
men in the wood. I beg of you, I beg of you," he repeated, "to
occupy the position and prepare for an attack."
"I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!"
suddenly replied the irate colonel. "If you vere in the cavalry..."
"I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if
you are not aware of the fact..."
"Quite avare, your excellency," suddenly shouted the colonel,
touching his horse and turning purple in the face. "Vill you be so
goot to come to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don't
vish to destroy my men for your pleasure!"
"You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own
pleasure and I won't allow it to be said!"
Taking the colonel's outburst as a challenge to his courage, the
general expanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the front
line, as if their differences would be settled there amongst the
bullets. They reached the front, several bullets sped over them, and
they halted in silence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the
line, for from where they had been before it had been evident that
it was impossible for cavalry to act among the bushes and broken
ground, as well as that the French were outflanking our left. The
general and colonel looked sternly and significantly at one another
like two fighting cocks preparing for battle, each vainly trying to
detect signs of cowardice in the other. Both passed the examination
successfully. As there was nothing to said, and neither wished to give
occasion for it to be alleged that he had been the first to leave
the range of fire, they would have remained there for a long time
testing each other's courage had it not been that just then they heard
the rattle of musketry and a muffled shout almost behind them in the
wood. The French had attacked the men collecting wood in the copse. It
was no longer possible for the hussars to retreat with the infantry.
They were cut off from the line of retreat on the left by the
French. However inconvenient the position, it was now necessary to
attack in order to cut away through for themselves.
The squadron in which Rostov was serving had scarcely time to
mount before it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns
bridge, there was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and
again that terrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear-
resembling the line separating the living from the dead - lay between
them. All were conscious of this unseen line, and the question whether
they would cross it or not, and how they would cross it,
agitated them all.
The colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to
questions put to him by the officers, and, like a man desperately