War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XVIII

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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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