Kutuzov’s expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which were
in no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to pass,
and also that Murat’s mistake would very soon be discovered, proved
correct. As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schönbrunn, sixteen miles
from Hollabrunn) received Murat’s dispatch with the proposal of a
truce and a capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following
letter to Murat:
Schönbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,
at eight o’clock in the morning
To PRINCE MURAT,
I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command only
my advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice without my
order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign. Break
the armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him that the
general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and that no
one but the Emperor of Russia has that right.
If, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will
ratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian
army.... You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery.
The Russian Emperor’s aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are
nothing when they have no powers; this one had none.... The Austrians
let themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are
letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor.
NAPOLEON
Bonaparte’s adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to
Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all
the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim
escape, and Bagration’s four thousand men merrily lighted campfires,
dried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time
for three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store
for him.
CHAPTER XV
Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who
had persisted in his request to Kutuzov, arrived at Grunth and reported
himself to Bagration. Bonaparte’s adjutant had not yet reached
Murat’s detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagration’s
detachment no one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They
talked of peace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked
of a battle but also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement.
Bagration, knowing Bolkonski to be a favorite and trusted adjutant,
received him with distinction and special marks of favor, explaining to
him that there would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and
giving him full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join
the rearguard and have an eye on the order of retreat, "which is also
very important."
"However, there will hardly be an engagement today," said Bagration
as if to reassure Prince Andrew.
"If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a
medal he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he
wishes to stay with me, let him... he’ll be of use here if he’s a
brave officer," thought Bagration. Prince Andrew, without replying,
asked the prince’s permission to ride round the position to see the
disposition of the forces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent
to execute an order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed
man with a diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking
French though he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew.
On all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who
seemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches,
and fencing from the village.
"There now, Prince! We can’t stop those fellows," said the staff
officer pointing to the soldiers. "The officers don’t keep them in
hand. And there," he pointed to a sutler’s tent, "they crowd in
and sit. This morning I turned them all out and now look, it’s full
again. I must go there, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won’t take a
moment."
"Yes, let’s go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese,"
said Prince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything.
"Why didn’t you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you
something."
They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed and
weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.
"Now what does this mean, gentlemen?" said the staff officer, in
the reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more
than once. "You know it won’t do to leave your posts like this.
The prince gave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you,
Captain," and he turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who
without his boots (he had given them to the canteen keeper to dry),
in only his stockings, rose when they entered, smiling not altogether
comfortably.
"Well, aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Captain Tushin?" he
continued. "One would think that as an artillery officer you would set
a good example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be
sounded and you’ll be in a pretty position without your boots!" (The
staff officer smiled.) "Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of
you, all!" he added in a tone of command.
Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery officer
Tushin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged foot to
the other, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent, kindly eyes
from Prince Andrew to the staff officer.
"The soldiers say it feels easier without boots," said Captain
Tushin smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing
to adopt a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt 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.
"Voilà 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 pockmarked, 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, 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 Schön 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 Schön
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 naïve
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 naïve
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 care 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 Schön 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 Schön 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 be 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 a way 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 insisting on having
his own way, gave an order. No one said anything definite, but the rumor
of an attack spread through the squadron. The command to form up rang
out and the sabers whizzed as they were drawn from their scabbards.
Still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, infantry and hussars
alike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do, and this
irresolution communicated itself to the men.
"If only they would be quick!" thought Rostov, feeling that at last
the time had come to experience the joy of an attack of which he had so
often heard from his fellow hussars.
"Fo’ward, with God, lads!" rang out Denisov’s voice. "At a
twot fo’ward!"
The horses’ croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at the
reins and started of his own accord.
Before him, on the right, Rostov saw the front lines of his hussars and
still farther ahead a dark line which he could not see distinctly but
took to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some way off.
"Faster!" came the word of command, and Rostov felt Rook’s flanks
drooping as he broke into a gallop.
Rostov anticipated his horse’s movements and became more and more
elated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had been
in the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible - and now he
had crossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but
everything was becoming more and more happy and animated. "Oh, how I
will slash at him!" thought Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber.
"Hur-a-a-a-ah!" came a roar of voices. "Let anyone come my way
now," thought Rostov driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go
at a full gallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was
already visible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to sweep
over the squadron. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at
that instant the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away
from him, and Rostov felt as in a dream that he continued to be carried
forward with unnatural speed but yet stayed on the same spot. From
behind him Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and looked
angrily at him. Bondarchuk’s horse swerved and galloped past.
"How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!" Rostov
asked and answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle of a
field. Instead of the moving horses and hussars’ backs, he saw nothing
before him but the motionless earth and the stubble around him. There
was warm blood under his arm. "No, I am wounded and the horse is
killed." Rook tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back, pinning his
rider’s leg. Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled but could
not rise. Rostov also tried to rise but fell back, his sabretache
having become entangled in the saddle. Where our men were, and where the
French, he did not know. There was no one near.
Having disentangled his leg, he rose. "Where, on which side, was now
the line that had so sharply divided the two armies?" he asked himself
and could not answer. "Can something bad have happened to me?"
he wondered as he got up: and at that moment he felt that something
superfluous was hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if
it were not his. He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find
blood on it. "Ah, here are people coming," he thought joyfully,
seeing some men running toward him. "They will help me!" In front
came a man wearing a strange shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned,
and with a hooked nose. Then came two more, and many more running
behind. One of them said something strange, not in Russian. In among the
hindmost of these men wearing similar shakos was a Russian hussar. He
was being held by the arms and his horse was being led behind him.
"It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will
take me too? Who are these men?" thought Rostov, scarcely believing
his eyes. "Can they be French?" He looked at the approaching
Frenchmen, and though but a moment before he had been galloping to get
at them and hack them to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful
that he could not believe his eyes. "Who are they? Why are they
running? Can they be coming at me? And why? To kill me? Me whom everyone
is so fond of?" He remembered his mother’s love for him, and his
family’s, and his friends’, and the enemy’s intention to kill him
seemed impossible. "But perhaps they may do it!" For more than ten
seconds he stood not moving from the spot or realizing the situation.
The foremost Frenchman, the one with the hooked nose, was already so
close that the expression of his face could be seen. And the excited,
alien face of that man, his bayonet hanging down, holding his breath,
and running so lightly, frightened Rostov. He seized his pistol and,
instead of firing it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran with all his
might toward the bushes. He did not now run with the feeling of doubt
and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns bridge, but with the
feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One single sentiment, that
of fear for his young and happy life, possessed his whole being. Rapidly
leaping the furrows, he fled across the field with the impetuosity he
used to show at catchplay, now and then turning his good-natured, pale,
young face to look back. A shudder of terror went through him: "No,
better not look," he thought, but having reached the bushes he glanced
round once more. The French had fallen behind, and just as he looked
round the first man changed his run to a walk and, turning, shouted
something loudly to a comrade farther back. Rostov paused. "No,
there’s some mistake," thought he. "They can’t have wanted to
kill me." But at the same time, his left arm felt as heavy as if
a seventy-pound weight were tied to it. He could run no more. The
Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostov closed his eyes and stooped
down. One bullet and then another whistled past him. He mustered his
last remaining strength, took hold of his left hand with his right, and
reached the bushes. Behind these were some Russian sharpshooters.
CHAPTER XX
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
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