《War And Peace》Book10 CHAPTER XXXI

《War And Peace》　Book10 　CHAPTER XXXI
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

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.