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The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the
outskirts of the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting
mixed, and retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his
fear, uttered the senseless cry, "Cut off!" that is
so terrible in battle, and that word infected the whole crowd
with a feeling of panic.
"Surrounded! Cut off? We're lost!" shouted the fugitives.
The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the
general realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment,
and the thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years' service
who had never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters
for negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting
the recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general,
and above all quite forgetting the danger and all regard for self-preservation,
he clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse,
galloped to the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell around,
but fortunately missed him. His one desire was to know what was
happening and at any cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he
had made one, so that he, an exemplary officer of twenty-two years'
service, who had never been censured, should not be held to blame.
Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field
behind the copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were
running and descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation
which decides the fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly
crowd of soldiers attend to the voice of their commander, or would
they, disregarding him, continue their flight? Despite his desperate
shouts that used to seem so terrible to the soldiers, despite
his furious purple countenance distorted out of all likeness to
his former self, and the flourishing of his saber, the soldiers
all continued to run, talking, firing into the air, and disobeying
orders. The moral hesitation which decided the fate of battles
was evidently culminating in a panic.
The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting
and of the powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed
lost. But at that moment the French who were attacking, suddenly
and without any apparent reason, ran back and disappeared from
the outskirts, and Russian sharpshooters showed themselves in
the copse. It was Timokhin's company, which alone had maintained
its order in the wood and, having lain in ambush in a ditch, now
attacked the French unexpectedly. Timokhin, armed only with a
sword, had rushed at the enemy with such a desperate cry and such
mad, drunken determination that, taken by surprise, the French
had thrown down their muskets and run. Dolokhov, running beside
Timokhin, killed a Frenchman at close quarters and was the first
to seize the surrendering French officer by his collar. Our fugitives
returned, the battalions re-formed, and the French who had nearly
cut our left flank in half were for the moment repulsed. Our reserve
units were able to join up, and the fight was at an end. The regimental
commander and Major Ekonomov had stopped beside a bridge, letting
the retreating companies pass by them, when a soldier came up
and took hold of the commander's stirrup, almost leaning against
him. The man was wearing a bluish coat of broadcloth, he had no
knapsack or cap, his head was bandaged, and over his shoulder
a French munition pouch was slung. He had an officer's sword in
his hand. The soldier was pale, his blue eyes looked impudently
into the commander's face, and his lips were smiling. Though the
commander was occupied in giving instructions to Major Ekonomov,
he could not help taking notice of the soldier.
"Your excellency, here are two trophies," said Dolokhov,
pointing to the French sword and pouch. "I have taken an
officer prisoner. I stopped the company." Dolokhov breathed
heavily from weariness and spoke in abrupt sentences. "The
whole company can bear witness. I beg you will remember this,
your excellency!"
"All right, all right," replied the commander, and
turned to Major Ekonomov.
But Dolokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around
his head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his
hair.
"A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember,
your excellency!"
Tushin's battery had been forgotten and only at the very end
of the action did Prince Bagration, still hearing the cannonade
in the center, send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince
Andrew also, to order the battery to retire as quickly as possible.
When the supports attached to Tushin's battery had been moved
away in the middle of the action by someone's order, the battery
had continued firing and was only not captured by the French because
the enemy could not surmise that anyone could have the effrontery
to continue firing from four quite undefended guns. On the contrary,
the energetic action of that battery led the French to suppose
that here- in the center- the main Russian forces were concentrated.
Twice they had attempted to attack this point, but on each occasion
had been driven back by grapeshot from the four isolated guns
on the hillock.
Soon after Prince Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded
in setting fire to Schon Grabern.
"Look at them scurrying! It's burning! Just see the smoke!
Fine! Grand! Look at the smoke, the smoke!" exclaimed the
artillerymen, brightening up.
All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired
in the direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other
on, the soldiers cried at each shot: "Fine! That's good!
Look at it... Grand!" The fire, fanned by the breeze, was
rapidly spreading. The French columns that had advanced beyond
the village went back; but as though in revenge for this failure,
the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village and began
firing them at Tushin's battery.
In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck
in successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only
noticed this battery when two balls, and then four more, fell
among our guns, one knocking over two horses and another tearing
off a munition-wagon driver's leg. Their spirits once roused were,
however, not diminished, but only changed character. The horses
were replaced by others from a reserve gun carriage, the wounded
were carried away, and the four guns were turned against the ten-gun
battery. Tushin's companion officer had been killed at the beginning
of the engagement and within an hour seventeen of the forty men
of the guns' crews had been disabled, but the artillerymen were
still as merry and lively as ever. Twice they noticed the French
appearing below them, and then they fired grapeshot at them.
Little Tushin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his
orderly to "refill my pipe for that one!" and then,
scattering sparks from it, ran forward shading his eyes with his
small hand to look at the French.
"Smack at 'em, lads!" he kept saying, seizing the
guns by the wheels and working the screws himself.
Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always
made him jump, Tushin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from
gun to gun, now aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders
about replacing dead or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones,
and shouting in his feeble voice, so high pitched and irresolute.
His face grew more and more animated. Only when a man was killed
or wounded did he frown and turn away from the sight, shouting
angrily at the men who, as is always the case, hesitated about
lifting the injured or dead. The soldiers, for the most part handsome
fellows and, as is always the case in an artillery company, a
head and shoulders taller and twice as broad as their officer-
all looked at their commander like children in an embarrassing
situation, and the expression on his face was invariably reflected
on theirs.
Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration
and activity, Tushin did not experience the slightest unpleasant
sense of fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly
wounded never occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more
and more elated. It seemed to him that it was a very long time
ago, almost a day, since he had first seen the enemy and fired
the first shot, and that the corner of the field he stood on was
well-known and familiar ground. Though he thought of everything,
considered everything, and did everything the best of officers
could do in his position, he was in a state akin to feverish delirium
or drunkenness.
From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the
whistle and thud of the enemy's cannon balls, from the flushed
and perspiring faces of the crew bustling round the guns, from
the sight of the blood of men and horses, from the little puffs
of smoke on the enemy's side (always followed by a ball flying
past and striking the earth, a man, a gun, a horse), from the
sight of all these things a fantastic world of his own had taken
possession of his brain and at that moment afforded him pleasure.
The enemy's guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes from which
occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker.
"There... he's puffing again," muttered Tushin to
himself, as a small cloud rose from the hill and was borne in
a streak to the left by the wind.
"Now look out for the ball... we'll throw it back."
"What do you want, your honor?" asked an artilleryman,
standing close by, who heard him muttering.
"Nothing... only a shell..." he answered.
"Come along, our Matvevna!" he said to himself.
"Matvevna"* was the name his fancy gave to the farthest
gun of the battery, which was large and of an old pattern. The
French swarming round their guns seemed to him like ants. In that
world, the handsome drunkard Number One of the second gun's crew
was "uncle"; Tushin looked at him more often than at
anyone else and took delight in his every movement. The sound
of musketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now increasing,
seemed like someone's breathing. He listened intently to the ebb
and flow of these sounds.
*Daughter of Matthew.
"Ah! Breathing again, breathing!" he muttered to
himself.
He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who
was throwing cannon balls at the French with both hands.
"Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don't let me down!"
he was saying as he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar
voice called above his head: "Captain Tushin! Captain!"
Tushin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who
had turned him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in
a gasping voice:
"Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat,
and you..."
"Why are they down on me?" thought Tushin, looking
in alarm at his superior.
"I... don't..." he muttered, holding up two fingers
to his cap. "I..."
But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say.
A cannon ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend
over his horse. He paused, and just as he was about to say something
more, another ball stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped
off.
"Retire! All to retire!" he shouted from a distance.
The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived
with the same order.
It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up
to the space where Tushin's guns were stationed was an unharnessed
horse with a broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the
harnessed horses. Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring.
Among the limbers lay several dead men. One ball after another
passed over as he approached and he felt a nervous shudder run
down his spine. But the mere thought of being afraid roused him
again. "I cannot be afraid," thought he, and dismounted
slowly among the guns. He delivered the order and did not leave
the battery. He decided to have the guns removed from their positions
and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Tushin, stepping
across the bodies and under a terrible fire from the French, he
attended to the removal of the guns.
"A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off,"
said an artilleryman to Prince Andrew. "Not like your honor!"
Prince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. They were both so busy
as to seem not to notice one another. When having limbered up
the only two cannon that remained uninjured out of the four, they
began moving down the hill (one shattered gun and one unicorn
were left behind), Prince Andrew rode up to Tushin.
"Well, till we meet again..." he said, holding out
his hand to Tushin.
"Good-by, my dear fellow," said Tushin. "Dear
soul! Good-by, my dear fellow!" and for some unknown reason
tears suddenly filled his eyes.
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