War And Peace: Book 10 - CHAPTER XXXI

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THE GENERAL after whom Pierre galloped trotted downhill, turned off sharply

to the left, and Pierre, losing sight of him, galloped into the middle of a

battalion of infantry marching ahead of him. He tried to get away from them,

turning to left and to right; but there were soldiers everywhere, all with the

same anxious faces, preoccupied with some unseen, but evidently serious,

business. They all looked with the same expression of annoyed inquiry at the

stout man in the white hat, who was, for some unknown reason, trampling them

under his horse's feet.

“What does he want to ride into the middle of a battalion for?” one man

shouted at him. Another gave his horse a shove with the butt-end of his gun; and

Pierre, leaning over on the saddle-bow, and scarcely able to hold in his rearing

horse, galloped out to where there was open space in front of the

soldiers.

Ahead of him he saw a bridge, and at the bridge stood the soldiers firing.

Pierre rode towards them. Though he did not know it, he rode up to the bridge

over the Kolotcha, between Gorky and Borodino, which was attacked by the French

in one of the first actions. Pierre saw there was a bridge in front of him, and

that the soldiers were doing something in the smoke on both sides of the bridge,

and in the meadow among the new-mown hay he had noticed the day before. But in

spite of the unceasing fire going on there, he had no notion that this was the

very centre of the battle. He did not notice the bullets whizzing on all sides,

and the shells flying over him; he did not see the enemy on the other side of

the river, and it was a long time before he saw the killed and wounded, though

many fell close to him. He gazed about him with a smile still on his face.

“What's that fellow doing in front of the line?” some one shouted at him

again.

“To the left,” “to the right,” men shouted to him. Pierre turned to the

right, and unwittingly rode up to an adjutant of General Raevsky's, with whom he

was acquainted. The adjutant glanced wrathfully at Pierre; and he, too, was

apparently about to shout at him, but recognising him, he nodded.

“How did you come here?” he said, and galloped on. Pierre, feeling out of

place and of no use, and afraid of getting in some one's way again, galloped

after him.

“What is it, here? Can I go with you?” he asked.

“In a minute, in a minute,” answered the adjutant, and galloping up to a

stout colonel in the meadow, he gave him some message, and then addressed

Pierre. “What has brought you here, count?” he said to him, with a smile. “Are

you still curious?”

“Yes, yes,” said Pierre. But the adjutant, turning his horse's head, rode on

further.

“Here it's all right,” said the adjutant; “but on the left flank, in

Bagration's division, it's fearfully hot.”

“Really?” said Pierre. “Where's that?”

“Why, come along with me to the mound; we can get a view from there. But it's

still bearable at our battery,” said the adjutant. “Are you coming?”

“Yes, yes, I'll go with you,” said Pierre, looking about him, trying to see

his groom. It was only then for the first time that Pierre saw wounded men,

staggering along and some borne on stretchers. In the meadow with the rows of

sweet-scented hay, through which he had ridden the day before, there lay

motionless across the rows one soldier with his shako off, and his head thrown

awkwardly back. “And why haven't they taken that one?” Pierre was beginning, but

seeing the adjutant's set face looking in the same direction, he was

silent.

Pierre did not succeed in finding his groom, and rode along the hollow with

the adjutant towards Raevsky's redoubt. His horse dropped behind the adjutant's,

and jolted him at regular intervals.

“You are not used to riding, count, I fancy?” asked the adjutant.

“Oh no, it's all right; but it does seem to be hopping along somehow,” said

Pierre, with a puzzled look.

“Ay! … but he's wounded,” said the adjutant, “the right fore-leg above the

knee. A bullet, it must have been. I congratulate you, count,” he said, “you

have had your baptism of fire now.”

After passing in the smoke through the sixth corps behind the artillery,

which had been moved forward and was keeping up a deafening cannonade, they rode

into a small copse. There it was cool and still and full of the scents of

autumn. Pierre and the adjutant got off their horses and walked on foot up the

hill.

“Is the general here?” asked the adjutant on reaching the redoubt.

“He was here just now; he went this way,” some one answered, pointing to the

right.

The adjutant looked round at Pierre, as though he did not know what to do

with him.

“Don't trouble about me,” said Pierre. “I'll go up on to the mound; may

I?”

“Yes, do; you can see everything from there, and it's not so dangerous, and I

will come to fetch you.”

Pierre went up to the battery, and the adjutant rode away. They did not see

each other again, and only much later Pierre learned that that adjutant had lost

an arm on that day.

The mound—afterwards known among the Russians as the battery mound, or

Raevsky's battery, and among the French as “the great redoubt,” “fatal redoubt,”

and “central redoubt”—was the celebrated spot at which tens of thousands of men

were killed, and upon which the French looked as the key of the position.

The redoubt consisted of a mound, with trenches dug out on three sides of it.

In the entrenchments stood ten cannons, firing through the gaps left in the

earthworks.

In a line with the redoubt on both sides stood cannons, and these too kept up

an incessant fire. A little behind the line of cannons were troops of infantry.

When Pierre ascended this mound, he had no notion that this place, encircled by

small trenches and protected by a few cannons, was the most important spot in

the field.

He fancied, indeed (simply because he happened to be there), that it was a

place of no importance whatever.

Pierre sat down on the end of the earthwork surrounding the battery and gazed

at what was passing around him with an unconscious smile of pleasure. At

intervals Pierre got up, and with the same smile on his face walked about the

battery, trying not to get in the way of the soldiers, who were loading and

discharging the cannons and were continually running by him with bags and

ammunition. The cannons were firing continually, one after another, with

deafening uproar, enveloping all the country round in clouds of smoke.

In contrast to the painful look of dread in the infantry soldiers who were

guarding the battery, here in the battery itself, where a limited number of men

were busily engaged in their work, and shut off from the rest of the trench,

there was a general feeling of eager excitement, a sort of family feeling shared

by all alike.

The appearance of Pierre's unmartial figure and his white hat at first

impressed this little group unfavourably. The soldiers cast sidelong glances of

surprise and even alarm at him, as they ran by. The senior artillery officer, a

tall, long-legged, pock-marked man, approached Pierre, as though he wanted to

examine the action of the cannon at the end, and stared inquisitively at

him.

A boyish, round-faced, little officer, quite a child, evidently only just out

of the cadets' school, and very conscientious in looking after the two cannons

put in his charge, addressed Pierre severely.

“Permit me to ask you to move out of the way, sir,” he said. “You can't stay

here.”

The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at Pierre. But

as the conviction gained ground among them that the man in the white hat was

doing no harm, and either sat quietly on the slope of the earthwork, or, making

way with a shy and courteous smile for the soldiers to pass, walked about the

battery under fire as calmly as though he were strolling on a boulevard, their

feeling of suspicious ill-will began to give way to a playful and kindly

cordiality akin to the feeling soldiers always have for the dogs, cocks, goats,

and other animals who share the fortunes of the regiment. The soldiers soon

accepted Pierre in their own minds as one of their little circle, made him one

of themselves, and gave him a name: “our gentleman” they called him, and laughed

good-humouredly about him among themselves.

A cannon ball tore up the earth a couple of paces from Pierre. Brushing the

earth off his clothes, he looked about him with a smile.

“And how is it you're not afraid, sir, upon my word?” said a broad, red-faced

soldier, showing his strong, white teeth in a grin.

“Why, are you afraid then?” asked Pierre.

“Why, to be sure!” answered the soldier. “Why, she has no mercy on you. She

smashes into you, and your guts are sent flying. Nobody could help being

afraid,” he said laughing.

Several soldiers stood still near Pierre with amused and kindly faces. They

seemed not to expect him to talk like any one else, and his doing so delighted

them.

“It's our business—we're soldiers. But for a gentleman—it's surprising. It's

queer in a gentleman!”

“To your places!” cried the little officer-boy to the soldiers, who had

gathered round Pierre. It was evidently the first, or at most, the second time,

this lad had been on duty as an officer, and so he behaved with the utmost

punctiliousness and formality both to the soldiers and his superior

officer.

The roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry were growing louder all over

the field, especially on the left, where Bagration's earthworks were, but from

where Pierre was, hardly anything could be seen for the smoke. Moreover,

watching the little fraternal group of men, shut off from all the world on the

battery, engrossed all Pierre's attention. His first unconscious delight in the

sights and sounds of the battlefield had given way to another feeling, ever

since he had seen the solitary dead soldier lying on the hayfield. Sitting now

on the slope of the earthwork, he watched the figures moving about him.

By ten o'clock some twenty men had been carried away from the battery; two

cannons had been disabled, and more and more frequently shells fell on the

battery, and cannon balls came with a hiss and whir, flying out of the distance.

But the men on the battery did not seem to notice this: merry chatter and jokes

were to be heard on all sides.

“Not this way, my pretty,” shouted a soldier to a grenade that came whistling

towards them.

“Give the infantry a turn!” another added with a chuckle, as the grenade flew

across and fell among the ranks of the infantry.

“What, see a friend coming, do you?” another soldier jeered at a peasant, who

had ducked low at the sight of a flying cannon ball.

Several soldiers gathered together at the earthwork, looking at what was

being done in front.

“And they've taken the outposts, see, they're retreating,” they said,

pointing over the earthwork.

“Mind your own business,” the old sergeant shouted to them. “If they have

come back, it's because they have something to do further back.” And the

sergeant, taking one of the soldiers by the shoulder, gave him a shove with his

knee. There was the sound of laughter

“Fifth cannon, roll away!” they were shouting on one side.

“Now then, a good pull, all together!” shouted the merry voices of the men

charging the cannon.

“Ay, she almost snatched ‘our gentleman's' hat off,” the red-faced, jocose

soldier laughed, showing his teeth. “Hey, awkward hussy!” he added reproachfully

to a cannon ball that hit a wheel and a man's leg. “Now, you foxes there!”

laughed another, addressing the peasant militiamen, who were creeping in and out

among the guns after the wounded. “Don't you care for our porridge, hey? Ah, the

crows! that pulls them up!” they shouted at the militiamen, who hesitated at the

sight of the soldier whose leg had been torn off. “Oo … oo … lad,” they cried,

mimicking the peasants, “we don't like it at all, we don't!”

Pierre noticed that after every ball that fell in their midst, after every

loss, the general elation became more and more marked.

The closer the storm cloud swooped down upon them, the more bright and

frequent were the gleams of latent fire that glowed like lightning flashes on

those men's faces, called up, as it were, to meet and resist their danger.

Pierre did not look in front at the field of battle; he took no more interest

in what was going on there. He was entirely engrossed in the contemplation of

that growing fire, which he felt was burning in his own soul too.

At ten o'clock the infantry, who had been in advance of the battery in the

bushes and about the stream Kamenka, retreated. From the battery they could see

them running back past them, bearing their wounded on their guns. A general with

a suite came on to the redoubt, and after talking to the colonel and looking

angrily at Pierre, went away again, ordering the infantry standing behind the

battery guarding it to lie down, so as to be less exposed to fire. After that a

drum was heard in the ranks of the infantry, more to the right of the battery,

and shouts gave the word of command, and from the battery they could see the

ranks of infantry moving forward.

Pierre looked over the earthwork. One figure particularly caught his eye. It

was the officer, walking backwards with a pale, boyish face. He held his sword

downwards and kept looking uneasily round.

The rows of infantry soldiers vanished into the smoke, but they could hear a

prolonged shout from them and a rapid musketry fire. A few minutes later crowds

of wounded men and a number of stretchers came back from that direction. Shells

fell more and more often in the battery. Several men lay on the ground, not

picked up. The soldiers bustled more busily and briskly than ever about the

cannons. No one took any notice of Pierre now. Twice he was shouted at angrily

for being in the way. The senior officers strode rapidly from one cannon to

another with a frowning face. The officer-boy, his cheeks even more crimson,

gave the soldiers their orders more scrupulously than ever. The soldiers served

out the charges, turned round, loaded, and did all their work with exaggerated

smartness. They moved as though worked by springs.

The storm cloud was swooping closer; and more brightly than ever glowed in

every face that fire which Pierre was watching. He was standing near the senior

officer. The little officer-boy ran up, his hand to his shako, saluting his

superior officer.

“I have the honour to inform you, colonel, only eight charges are left; do

you command to continue firing?” he asked.

“Grapeshot!” the senior officer shouted, looking away over the

earthwork.

Suddenly something happened; the boy-officer groaned, and whirling round sat

down on the ground, like a bird shot on the wing. All seemed strange,

indistinct, and darkened before Pierre's eyes.

One after another the cannon balls came whistling, striking the breastwork,

the soldiers, the cannons. Pierre, who had scarcely heard those sounds before,

now could hear nothing else. On the right side of the battery, soldiers, with

shouts of “hurrah,” were running, not forward, it seemed to Pierre, but

back.

A cannon ball struck the very edge of the earthwork, before which Pierre was

sitting, and sent the earth flying; a dark, round mass flashed just before his

eyes, and at the same instant flew with a thud into something. The militiamen,

who had been coming into the battery, ran back.

“All with grapeshot!” shouted the officer.

The sergeant ran up to the officer, and in a frightened whisper (just as at a

dinner the butler will sometimes tell the host that there is no more of some

wine asked for) said that there were no more charges.

“The scoundrels, what are they about?” shouted the officer, turning to

Pierre. The senior officer's face was red and perspiring, his piercing eyes

glittered. “Run to the reserves, bring the ammunition-boxes!” he shouted

angrily, avoiding Pierre with his eyes, and addressing the soldier.

“I'll go,” said Pierre. The officer, making no reply, strode across to the

other side.

“Cease firing … Wait!” he shouted.

The soldier who had been commanded to go for the ammunition ran against

Pierre.

“Ah, sir, it's no place for you here,” he said, as he ran away.

Pierre ran after the soldier, avoiding the spot where the boy-officer was

sitting.

One cannon ball, a second and a third flew over him, hitting the ground in

front, on each side, behind Pierre as he ran down. “Where am I going?” he

suddenly wondered, just as he ran up to the green ammunition-boxes. He stopped

short in uncertainty whether to go back or forward. Suddenly a fearful shock

sent him flying backwards on to the ground. At the same instant a flash of flame

dazed his eyes, and a roar, a hiss, and a crash set his ears ringing.

When he recovered his senses, Pierre found himself sitting on the ground

leaning on his hands. The ammunition-box, near which he had been, had gone;

there were a few charred green boards and rags lying scattered about on the

scorched grass. A horse was galloping away with broken fragments of the shafts

clattering after it; while another horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground,

uttering a prolonged, piercing scream.

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