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Chapter XX (#ulink_b88a5706-dd0b-54ce-a700-1855ca58f4aa)
The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the outskirts of the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting mixed, and retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his fear, uttered the senseless cry, “Cut off!” that is so terrible in battle, and that word infected the whole crowd with a feeling of panic.
“Surrounded! Cut off? We’re lost!” shouted the fugitives.
The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the general realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment, and the thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years’ service who had never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters for negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and above all quite forgetting the danger and all regard for self-preservation, he clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse, galloped to the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell around, but fortunately missed him. His one desire was to know what was happening and at any cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he had made one, so that he, an exemplary officer of twenty-two years’ service, who had never been censured, should not be held to blame.
Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind the copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides the fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of soldiers attend to the voice of their commander, or would they, disregarding him, continue their flight? Despite his desperate shouts that used to seem so terrible to the soldiers, despite his furious purple countenance distorted out of all likeness to his former self, and the flourishing of his saber, the soldiers all continued to run, talking, firing into the air, and disobeying orders. The moral hesitation which decided the fate of battles was evidently culminating in a panic.
The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at that moment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any apparent reason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and Russian sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was Timókhin’s company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood and, having lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French unexpectedly. Timókhin, armed only with a sword, had rushed at the enemy with such a desperate cry and such mad, drunken determination that, taken by surprise, the French had thrown down their muskets and run. Dólokhov, running beside Timókhin, killed a Frenchman at close quarters and was the first to seize the surrendering French officer by his collar. Our fugitives returned, the battalions re-formed, and the French who had nearly cut our left flank in half were for the moment repulsed. Our reserve units were able to join up, and the fight was at an end. The regimental commander and Major Ekonómov had stopped beside a bridge, letting the retreating companies pass by them, when a soldier came up and took hold of the commander’s stirrup, almost leaning against him. The man was wearing a bluish coat of broadcloth, he had no knapsack or cap, his head was bandaged, and over his shoulder a French munition pouch was slung. He had an officer’s sword in his hand. The soldier was pale, his blue eyes looked impudently into the commander’s face, and his lips were smiling. Though the commander was occupied in giving instructions to Major Ekonómov, he could not help taking notice of the soldier.
“Your Excellency, here are two trophies,” said Dólokhov, pointing to the French sword and pouch. “I have taken an officer prisoner. I stopped the company.” Dólokhov breathed heavily from weariness and spoke in abrupt sentences. “The whole company can bear witness. I beg you will remember this, Your Excellency!”
“All right, all right,” replied the commander, and turned to Major Ekonómov.
But Dólokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around his head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair.
“A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, Your Excellency!”
Túshin’s battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the action did Prince Bagratión, still hearing the cannonade in the center, send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew also, to order the battery to retire as quickly as possible. When the supports attached to Túshin’s battery had been moved away in the middle of the action by someone’s order, the battery had continued firing and was only not captured by the French because the enemy could not surmise that anyone could have the effrontery to continue firing from four quite undefended guns. On the contrary, the energetic action of that battery led the French to suppose that here—in the center—the main Russian forces were concentrated. Twice they had attempted to attack this point, but on each occasion had been driven back by grapeshot from the four isolated guns on the hillock.
Soon after Prince Bagratión had left him, Túshin had succeeded in setting fire to Schön Grabern.
“Look at them scurrying! It’s burning! Just see the smoke! Fine! Grand! Look at the smoke, the smoke!” exclaimed the artillerymen, brightening up.
All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the soldiers cried at each shot: “Fine! That’s good! Look at it … Grand!” The fire, fanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French columns that had advanced beyond the village went back; but as though in revenge for this failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village and began firing them at Túshin’s battery.
In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed this battery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our guns, one knocking over two horses and another tearing off a munition-wagon driver’s leg. Their spirits once roused were, however, not diminished, but only changed character. The horses were replaced by others from a reserve gun carriage, the wounded were carried away, and the four guns were turned against the ten-gun battery. Túshin’s companion officer had been killed at the beginning of the engagement and within an hour seventeen of the forty men of the guns’ crews had been disabled, but the artillerymen were still as merry and lively as ever. Twice they noticed the French appearing below them, and then they fired grapeshot at them.
Little Túshin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly to “refill my pipe for that one!” and then, scattering sparks from it, ran forward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the French.
“Smack at ’em, lads!” he kept saying, seizing the guns by the wheels and working the screws himself.
Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always made him jump, Túshin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from gun to gun, now aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders about replacing dead or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones, and shouting in his feeble voice, so high pitched and irresolute. His face grew more and more animated. Only when a man was killed or wounded did he frown and turn away from the sight, shouting angrily at the men who, as is always the case, hesitated about lifting the injured or dead. The soldiers, for the most part handsome fellows and, as is always the case in an artillery company, a head and shoulders taller and twice as broad as their officer—all looked at their commander like children in an embarrassing situation, and the expression on his face was invariably reflected on theirs.
Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and activity, Túshin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense of fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded never occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more elated. It seemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a day, since he had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and that the corner of the field he stood on was well-known and familiar ground. Though he thought of everything, considered everything, and did everything the best of officers could do in his position, he was in a state akin to feverish delirium or drunkenness.
From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle and thud of the enemy’s cannonballs, from the flushed and perspiring faces of the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight of the blood of men and horses, from the little puffs of smoke on the enemy’s side (always followed by a ball flying past and striking the earth, a man, a gun, a horse), from the sight of all these things a fantastic world of his own had taken possession of his brain and at that moment afforded him pleasure. The enemy’s guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes from which occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker.
“There … he’s puffing again,” muttered Túshin to himself, as a small cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left by the wind.
“Now look out for the ball … we’ll throw it back.”
“What do you want, your honor?” asked an artilleryman, standing close by, who heard him muttering.
“Nothing … only a shell …” he answered.
“Come along, our Matvévna!” he said to himself. “Matvévna” [38] (#ulink_e6b1d0f8-d604-5f45-9a59-ac37f764407e) was the name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which was large and of an old pattern. The French swarming round their guns seemed to him like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard Number One of the second gun’s crew was “uncle”; Túshin looked at him more often than at anyone else and took delight in his every movement. The sound of musketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now increasing, seemed like someone’s breathing. He listened intently to the ebb and flow of these sounds.
“Ah! Breathing again, breathing!” he muttered to himself.
He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was throwing cannonballs at the French with both hands.
“Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don’t let me down!” he was saying as he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice called above his head: “Captain Túshin! Captain!”
Túshin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had turned him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping voice:
“Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you …”
“Why are they down on me?” thought Túshin, looking in alarm at his superior.
“I … don’t …” he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap. “I …”
But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannonball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse. He paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another ball stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off.
“Retire! All to retire!” he shouted from a distance.
The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the same order.
It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the space where Túshin’s guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse with a broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed horses. Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the limbers lay several dead men. One ball after another passed over as he approached and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the mere thought of being afraid roused him again. “I cannot be afraid,” thought he, and dismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the order and did not leave the battery. He decided to have the guns removed from their positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Túshin, stepping across the bodies and under a terrible fire from the French, he attended to the removal of the guns.
“A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off,” said an artilleryman to Prince Andrew. “Not like your honor!”
Prince Andrew said nothing to Túshin. They were both so busy as to seem not to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two cannon that remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving down the hill (one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind), Prince Andrew rode up to Túshin.
“Well, till we meet again …” he said, holding out his hand to Túshin.
“Goodbye, my dear fellow,” said Túshin. “Dear soul! Goodbye, my dear fellow!” and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his eyes.
38 (#ulink_b23ac39f-7e82-5835-a106-13a0b918c307) Daughter of Matthew.
Chapter XXI (#ulink_fbd6c37a-984e-5a75-a2c7-97164a0e79ff)
The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder smoke, hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing dark and the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous. The cannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and on the right sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Túshin with his guns, continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out of range of fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of the staff, among them the staff officer and Zherkóv, who had been twice sent to Túshin’s battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one another, they all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to proceed, reprimanding and reproaching him. Túshin gave no orders, and, silently—fearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to weep without knowing why—rode behind on his artillery nag. Though the orders were to abandon the wounded, many of them dragged themselves after troops and begged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty infantry officer who just before the battle had rushed out of Túshin’s wattle shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on “Matvévna’s” carriage. At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one hand with the other, came up to Túshin and asked for a seat.
“Captain, for God’s sake! I’ve hurt my arm,” he said timidly. “For God’s sake … I can’t walk. For God’s sake!”
It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift and been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice.
“Tell them to give me a seat, for God’s sake!”
“Give him a seat,” said Túshin. “Lay a cloak for him to sit on, lad,” he said, addressing his favorite soldier. “And where is the wounded officer?”
“He has been set down. He died,” replied someone.
“Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak, Antonov.”
The cadet was Rostóv. With one hand he supported the other; he was pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on “Matvevna,” the gun from which they had removed the dead officer. The cloak they spread under him was wet with blood which stained his breeches and arm.
“What, are you wounded, my lad?” said Túshin, approaching the gun on which Rostóv sat.
“No, it’s a sprain.”
“Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?” inquired Túshin.
“It was the officer, your honor, stained it,” answered the artilleryman, wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if apologizing for the state of his gun.
It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by the infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they halted. It had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, nearby on the right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot gleamed in the darkness. This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers who had sheltered in the village houses. They all rushed out of the village again, but Túshin’s guns could not move, and the artillerymen, Túshin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they awaited their fate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly, streamed out of a side street.
“Not hurt, Pétrov?” asked one.
“We’ve given it ’em hot, mate! They won’t make another push now,” said another.
“You couldn’t see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows! Nothing could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn’t there something to drink?”
The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and again in the complete darkness Túshin’s guns moved forward, surrounded by the humming infantry as by a frame.
In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their groans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night. After a while the moving mass became agitated, someone rode past on a white horse followed by his suite, and said something in passing: “What did he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it? Did he thank us?” came eager questions from all sides. The whole moving mass began pressing closer together and a report spread that they were ordered to halt: evidently those in front had halted. All remained where they were in the middle of the muddy road.
Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Túshin, having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostóv, too, dragged himself to the fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering shook his whole body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but he kept awake by an excruciating pain in his arm, for which he could find no satisfactory position. He kept closing his eyes and then again looking at the fire, which seemed to him dazzlingly red, and at the feeble, round-shouldered figure of Túshin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk beside him. Túshin’s large, kind, intelligent eyes were fixed with sympathy and commiseration on Rostóv, who saw that Túshin with his whole heart wished to help him but could not.
From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry, who were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The sound of voices, the tramping feet, the horses’ hoofs moving in mud, the crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous rumble.
It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through the gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a storm. Rostóv looked at and listened listlessly to what passed before and around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels, held his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.
“You don’t mind your honor?” he asked Túshin. “I’ve lost my company, your honor. I don’t know where … such bad luck!”
With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up to the bonfire, and addressing Túshin asked him to have the guns moved a trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers rushed to the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately, each trying to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding on to.
“You picked it up? … I dare say! You’re very smart!” one of them shouted hoarsely.
Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.
“Must one die like a dog?” said he.
Túshin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier ran up, begging a little fire for the infantry.
“A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, fellow countrymen. Thanks for the fire—we’ll return it with interest,” said he, carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.
Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and passed by the fire. One of them stumbled.
“Who the devil has put the logs on the road?” snarled he.
“He’s dead—why carry him?” said another.
“Shut up!”
And they disappeared into the darkness with their load.
“Still aching?” Túshin asked Rostóv in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“Your Honor, you’re wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,” said a gunner, coming up to Túshin.
“Coming, friend.”
Túshin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight, walked away from the fire.
Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared for him, Prince Bagratión sat at dinner, talking with some commanding officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with the half-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton bone, and the general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed by a glass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with the signet ring, and Zherkóv, uneasily glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew, pale, with compressed lips and feverishly glittering eyes.
In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and the accountant with the naïve face was feeling its texture, shaking his head in perplexity—perhaps because the banner really interested him, perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was, to look on at a dinner where there was no place for him. In the next hut there was a French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our dragoons. Our officers were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagratión was thanking the individual commanders and inquiring into details of the action and our losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was informing the prince that as soon as the action began he had withdrawn from the wood, mustered the men who were woodcutting, and, allowing the French to pass him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and had broken up the French troops.
“When I saw, Your Excellency, that their first battalion was disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: ‘I’ll let them come on and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion’—and that’s what I did.”
The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not managed to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened. Perhaps it might really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid all that confusion what did or did not happen?
“By the way, Your Excellency, I should inform you,” he continued—remembering Dólokhov’s conversation with Kutúzov and his last interview with the gentleman-ranker—“that Private Dólokhov, who was reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence and particularly distinguished himself.”
“I saw the Pávlograd hussars attack there, Your Excellency,” chimed in Zherkóv, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the hussars all that day, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. “They broke up two squares, Your Excellency.”
Several of those present smiled at Zherkóv’s words, expecting one of his usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to the glory of our arms and of the day’s work, they assumed a serious expression, though many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie devoid of any foundation. Prince Bagratión turned to the old colonel:
“Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically: infantry, cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were abandoned in the center?” he inquired, searching with his eyes for someone. (Prince Bagratión did not ask about the guns on the left flank; he knew that all the guns there had been abandoned at the very beginning of the action.) “I think I sent you?” he added, turning to the staff officer on duty.
“One was damaged,” answered the staff officer, “and the other I can’t understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had only just left… . It is true that it was hot there,” he added, modestly.
Someone mentioned that Captain Túshin was bivouacking close to the village and had already been sent for.
“Oh, but you were there?” said Prince Bagratión, addressing Prince Andrew.
“Of course, we only just missed one another,” said the staff officer, with a smile to Bolkónski.
“I had not the pleasure of seeing you,” said Prince Andrew, coldly and abruptly.
All were silent. Túshin appeared at the threshold and made his way timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by the sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.
“How was it a gun was abandoned?” asked Bagratión, frowning, not so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkóv laughed loudest.
Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present themselves to Túshin in all their horror. He had been so excited that he had not thought about it until that moment. The officers’ laughter confused him still more. He stood before Bagratión with his lower jaw trembling and was hardly able to mutter: “I don’t know … Your Excellency … I had no men … Your Excellency.”
“You might have taken some from the covering troops.”
Túshin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that was perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagratión as a schoolboy who has blundered looks at an examiner.
The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagratión, apparently not wishing to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture to intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Túshin from under his brows and his fingers twitched nervously.
“Your Excellency!” Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt voice, “you were pleased to send me to Captain Túshin’s battery. I went there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two guns smashed, and no supports at all.”
