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AFTER RIDING up to the highest point of our right flank, Prince Bagration
began to go downhill, where a continuous roll of musketry was heard and nothing
could be seen for the smoke. The nearer they got to the hollow the less they
could see, and the more distinctly could be felt the nearness of the actual
battlefield. They began to meet wounded men. Two soldiers were dragging one
along, supporting him on each side. His head was covered with blood; he had no
cap, and was coughing and spitting. The bullet had apparently entered his mouth
or throat. Another one came towards them, walking pluckily alone without his
gun, groaning aloud and wringing his hands from the pain of a wound from which
the blood was flowing, as though from a bottle, over his greatcoat. His face
looked more frightened than in pain. He had been wounded only a moment before.
Crossing the road, they began going down a deep descent, and on the slope they
saw several men lying on the ground. They were met by a crowd of soldiers, among
them some who were not wounded. The soldiers were hurrying up the hill, gasping
for breath, and in spite of the general's presence, they were talking loudly
together and gesticulating with their arms. In the smoke ahead of them they
could see now rows of grey coats, and the commanding officer, seeing Bagration,
ran after the group of retreating soldiers, calling upon them to come back.
Bagration rode up to the ranks, along which there was here and there a rapid
snapping of shots drowning the talk of the soldiers and the shouts of the
officers. The whole air was reeking with smoke. The soldiers' faces were all
full of excitement and smudged with powder. Some were plugging with their
ramrods, others were putting powder on the touch-pans, and getting charges out
of their pouches, others were firing their guns. But it was impossible to see at
whom they were firing from the smoke, which the wind did not lift. The pleasant
hum and whiz of the bullets was repeated pretty rapidly. “What is it?” wondered
Prince Andrey, as he rode up to the crowd of soldiers. “It can't be the line,
for they are all crowded together; it can't be an attacking party, for they are
not moving; it can't be a square, they are not standing like one.”
A thin, weak-looking colonel, apparently an old man, with an amiable smile,
and eyelids that half-covered his old-looking eyes and gave him a mild air, rode
up to Prince Bagration and received him as though he were welcoming an honoured
guest into his house. He announced to Prince Bagration that his regiment had had
to face a cavalry attack of the French, that though the attack had been
repulsed, the regiment had lost more than half of its men. The colonel said that
the attack had been repulsed, supposing that to be the proper military term for
what had happened; but he did not really know himself what had been taking place
during that half hour in the troops under his command, and could not have said
with any certainty whether the attack had been repelled or his regiment had been
beaten by the attack. All he knew was that at the beginning of the action balls
and grenades had begun flying all about his regiment, and killing men, that then
some one had shouted “cavalry,” and our men had begun firing. And they were
firing still, though not now at the cavalry, who had disappeared, but at the
French infantry, who had made their appearance in the hollow and were firing at
our men. Prince Bagration nodded his head to betoken that all this was exactly
what he had desired and expected. Turning to an adjutant, he commanded him to
bring down from the hill the two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs, by whom they
had just come. Prince Andrey was struck at that instant by the change that had
come over Prince Bagration's face. His face wore the look of concentrated and
happy determination, which may be seen in a man who in a hot day takes the final
run before a header into the water. The lustreless, sleepy look in the eyes, the
affectation of profound thought had gone. The round, hard, eagle eyes looked
ecstatically and rather disdainfully before him, obviously not resting on
anything, though there was still the same deliberation in his measured
movements.
The colonel addressed a protest to Prince Bagration, urging him to go back,
as there it was too dangerous for him. “I beg of you, your excellency, for God's
sake!” he kept on saying, looking for support to the officer of the suite, who
only turned away from him.
“Only look, your excellency!” He called his attention to the bullets which
were continually whizzing, singing, and hissing about them. He spoke in the tone
of protest and entreaty with which a carpenter speaks to a gentleman who has
picked up a hatchet. “We are used to it, but you may blister your fingers.” He
talked as though these bullets could not kill him, and his half-closed eyes gave
a still more persuasive effect to his words. The staff-officer added his
protests to the colonel, but Bagration made them no answer. He merely gave the
order to cease firing, and to form so as to make room for the two battalions of
reinforcements. Just as he was speaking the cloud of smoke covering the hollow
was lifted as by an unseen hand and blown by the rising wind from right to left.
and the opposite hill came into sight with the French moving across it. All eyes
instinctively fastened on that French column moving down upon them and winding
in and out over the ups and downs of the ground. Already they could see the fur
caps of the soldiers, could distinguish officers from privates, could see their
flag flapping against its staff.
“How well they're marching,” said some one in Bagration's suite.
The front part of the column was already dipping down into the hollow. The
engagement would take place then on the nearer side of the slope…
The remnants of the regiment that had already been in action, forming
hurriedly, drew off to the right; the two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs
marched up in good order, driving the last stragglers before them They had not
yet reached Bagration, but the heavy, weighty tread could be heard of the whole
mass keeping step. On the left flank, nearest of all to Bagration, marched the
captain, a round-faced imposing-looking man, with a foolish and happy expression
of face. It was the same infantry officer who had run out of the shanty after
Tushin. He was obviously thinking of nothing at the moment, but that he was
marching before his commander in fine style. With the complacency of a man on
parade, he stepped springing on his muscular legs, drawing himself up without
the slightest effort, as though he were swinging, and this easy elasticity was a
striking contrast to the heavy tread of the soldiers keeping step with him. He
wore hanging by his leg an unsheathed, slender, narrow sword (a small bent
sabre, more like a toy than a weapon), and looking about him, now at the
commander, now behind, he turned his whole powerful frame round without getting
out of step. It looked as though all the force of his soul was directed to
marching by his commander in the best style possible. And conscious that he was
accomplishing this, he was happy. “Left … left … left …” he seemed to be
inwardly repeating at each alternate step. And the wall of soldierly figures,
weighed down by their knapsacks and guns, with their faces all grave in
different ways, moved by in the same rhythm, as though each of the hundreds of
soldiers were repeating mentally at each alternate step, “Left … left … left …”
A stout major skirted a bush on the road, puffing and shifting his step. A
soldier, who had dropped behind, trotted after the company, looking
panic-stricken at his own defection. A cannon ball, whizzing through the air,
flew over the heads of Prince Bagration and his suite, and in time to the same
rhythm, “Left … left …” it fell into the column.
“Close the ranks!” rang out the jaunty voice of the captain. The soldiers
marched in a half circle round something in the place where the ball had fallen,
and an old cavalryman, an under officer, lingered behind near the dead, and
overtaking his line, changed feet with a hop, got into step, and looked angrily
about him. “Left … left … left …” seemed to echo out of the menacing silence and
the monotonous sound of the simultaneous tread of the feet on the ground.
“Well done, lads!” said Prince Bagration.
“For your ex … slen, slen, slency!” rang out along the ranks. A surly-looking
soldier, marching on the left, turned his eyes on Bagration as he shouted, with
an expression that seemed to say, “We know that without telling.” Another,
opening his mouth wide, shouted without glancing round, and marched on, as
though afraid of letting his attention stray. The order was given to halt and
take off their knapsacks.
Bagration rode round the ranks of men who had marched by him, and then
dismounted from his horse. He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off his cloak
and handed it to him, stretched his legs and set his cap straight on his head.
The French column with the officers in front came into sight under the
hill.
“With God's help!” cried Bagration in a resolute, sonorous voice. He turned
for one instant to the front line, and swinging his arms a little, with the
awkward, lumbering gait of a man always on horseback, he walked forward over the
uneven ground. Prince Andrey felt that some unseen force was drawing him
forward, and he had a sensation of great happiness.
The French were near. Already Prince Andrey, walking beside Bagration, could
distinguish clearly the sashes, the red epaulettes, even the faces of the
French. (He saw distinctly one bandy-legged old French officer, wearing Hessian
boots, who was getting up the hill with difficulty, taking hold of the bushes.)
Prince Bagration gave no new command, and still marched in front of the ranks in
the same silence. Suddenly there was the snap of a shot among the French,
another and a third … and smoke rose and firing rang out in all the broken-up
ranks of the enemy. Several of our men fell, among them the round-faced officer,
who had been marching so carefully and complacently. But at the very instant of
the first shot, Bagration looked round and shouted, “Hurrah!” “Hurra … a … a …
ah!” rang out along our lines in a prolonged roar, and out-stripping Prince
Bagration and one another, in no order, but in an eager and joyous crowd, our
men ran downhill after the routed French.
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