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Two of the enemy's shots had already flown across the bridge,
where there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvitski,
who had alighted from his horse and whose big body was body was
jammed against the railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack
who stood a few steps behind him holding two horses by their bridles.
Each time Prince Nesvitski tried to move on, soldiers and carts
pushed him back again and pressed him against the railings, and
all he could do was to smile.
"What a fine fellow you are, friend!" said the Cossack
to a convoy soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen
who were crowded together close to his wheels and his horses.
"What a fellow! You can't wait a moment! Don't you see the
general wants to pass?"
But the convoyman took no notice of the word "general"
and shouted at the soldiers who were blocking his way. "Hi
there, boys! Keep to the left! Wait a bit." But the soldiers,
crowded together shoulder to shoulder, their bayonets interlocking,
moved over the bridge in a dense mass. Looking down over the rails
Prince Nesvitski saw the rapid, noisy little waves of the Enns,
which rippling and eddying round the piles of the bridge chased
each other along. Looking on the bridge he saw equally uniform
living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered shakos, knapsacks,
bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with broad
cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and
feet that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks
of the bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of men,
like a fleck of white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer,
in a cloak and with a type of face different from that of the
men, squeezed his way along; sometimes like a chip of wood whirling
in the river, an hussar on foot, an orderly, or a townsman was
carried through the waves of infantry; and sometimes like a log
floating down the river, an officers' or company's baggage wagon,
piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on all sides, moved
across the bridge.
"It's as if a dam had burst," said the Cossack hopelessly.
"Are there many more of you to come?"
"A million all but one!" replied a waggish soldier
in a torn coat, with a wink, and passed on followed by another,
an old man.
"If he" (he meant the enemy) "begins popping
at the bridge now," said the old soldier dismally to a comrade,
"you'll forget to scratch yourself."
That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting
on a cart.
"Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?"
said an orderly, running behind the cart and fumbling in the back
of it.
And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry
soldiers who had evidently been drinking.
"And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth
with the butt end of his gun..." a soldier whose greatcoat
was well tucked up said gaily, with a wide swing of his arm.
"Yes, the ham was just delicious..." answered another
with a loud laugh. And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvitski
did not learn who had been struck on the teeth, or what the ham
had to do with it.
"Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they
think they'll all be killed," a sergeant was saying angrily
and reproachfully.
"As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean," said
a young soldier with an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from
laughing, "I felt like dying of fright. I did, 'pon my word,
I got that frightened!" said he, as if bragging of having
been frightened.
That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that
had gone before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led
by a German, and seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects.
A fine brindled cow with a large udder was attached to the cart
behind. A woman with an unweaned baby, an old woman, and a healthy
German girl with bright red cheeks were sitting on some feather
beds. Evidently these fugitives were allowed to pass by special
permission. The eyes of all the soldiers turned toward the women,
and while the vehicle was passing at foot pace all the soldiers'
remarks related to the two young ones. Every face bore almost
the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the women.
"Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!"
"Sell me the missis," said another soldier, addressing
the German, who, angry and frightened, strode energetically along
with downcast eyes.
"See how smart she's made herself! Oh, the devils!"
"There, Fedotov, you should be quartered on them!"
"I have seen as much before now, mate!"
"Where are you going?" asked an infantry officer
who was eating an apple, also half smiling as he looked at the
handsome girl.
The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.
"Take it if you like," said the officer, giving
the girl an apple.
The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitski like the rest of the
men on the bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they
had passed. When they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers
followed, with the same kind of talk, and at last all stopped.
As often happens, the horses of a convoy wagon became restive
at the end of the bridge, and the whole crowd had to wait.
"And why are they stopping? There's no proper order!"
said the soldiers. "Where are you shoving to? Devil take
you! Can't you wait? It'll be worse if he fires the bridge. See,
here's an officer jammed in too"- different voices were saying
in the crowd, as the men looked at one another, and all pressed
toward the exit from the bridge.
Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitski
suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching...
something big, that splashed into the water.
"Just see where it carries to!" a soldier near by
said sternly, looking round at the sound.
"Encouraging us to get along quicker," said another
uneasily.
The crowd moved on again. Nesvitski realized that it was a
cannon ball.
"Hey, Cossack, my horse!" he said. "Now, then,
you there! get out of the way! Make way!"
With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and
shouting continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves
to make way for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed
his leg, and those nearest him were not to blame for they were
themselves pressed still harder from behind.
"Nesvitski, Nesvitski! you numskull!" came a hoarse
voice from behind him.
Nesvitski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but
separated by the living mass of moving infantry, Vaska Denisov,
red and shaggy, with his cap on the back of his black head and
a cloak hanging jauntily over his shoulder.
"Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!"
shouted Denisov evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes
with their bloodshot whites glittering and rolling as he waved
his sheathed saber in a small bare hand as red as his face.
"Ah, Vaska!" joyfully replied Nesvitski. "What's
up with you?"
"The squadwon can't pass," shouted Vaska Denisov,
showing his white teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred
Arab, which twitched its ears as the bayonets touched it, and
snorted, spurting white foam from his bit, tramping the planks
of the bridge with his hoofs, and apparently ready to jump over
the railings had his rider let him. "What is this? They're
like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the way!... Let us pass!...
Stop there, you devil with the cart! I'll hack you with my saber!"
he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its scabbard and flourishing
it
The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces,
and Denisov joined Nesvitski.
"How's it you're not drunk today?" said Nesvitski
when the other had ridden up to him.
"They don't even give one time to dwink!" answered
Vaska Denisov. "They keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo
all day. If they mean to fight, let's fight. But the devil knows
what this is."
"What a dandy you are today!" said Nesvitski, looking
at Denisov's new cloak and saddlecloth.
Denisov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief
that diffused a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvitski's nose.
"Of course. I'm going into action! I've shaved, bwushed
my teeth, and scented myself."
The imposing figure of Nesvitski followed by his Cossack,
and the determination of Denisov who flourished his sword and
shouted frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze
through to the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry.
Beside the bridge Nesvitski found the colonel to whom he had to
deliver the order, and having done this he rode back.
Having cleared the way Denisov stopped at the end of the bridge.
Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing
the ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron
draw nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,
resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers
in front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began
to emerge on his side of it.
The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge
in the trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of
ill-will, estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different
arms usually encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars
who moved past them in regular order.
"Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!" said one.
"What good are they? They're led about just for show!"
remarked another.
"Don't kick up the dust, you infantry!" jested an
hussar whose prancing horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.
"I'd like to put you on a two days' march with a knapsack!
Your fine cords would soon get a bit rubbed," said an infantryman,
wiping the mud off his face with his sleeve. "Perched up
there, you're more like a bird than a man."
"There now, Zikin, they ought to put you on a horse.
You'd look fine," said a corporal, chaffing a thin little
soldier who bent under the weight of his knapsack.
"Take a stick between your legs, that'll suit you for
a horse!" the hussar shouted back.
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