War and Peace (150 page)

“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.

Pierre, beside himself with terror, jumped up and ran back to the battery as the one refuge from the horrors encompassing him.

Just as Pierre ran up to the redoubt, he noticed that there was no sound of firing from the battery, but that there were men there doing something or other. He had not time to make out what men they were. He caught sight of the senior officer lying with his back towards him on the earth wall, as though gazing intently at something below; and he noticed one soldier, who, tearing himself away from the men who were holding him, shouted “Mates!” and he saw something else that was strange.