War and Peace

he 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 Timókhin’s
company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood and, having
lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French unexpectedly.
Timókhin, 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. Dólokhov,
running beside Timókhin, 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 Ekonómov 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 Ekonómov, he could not help taking notice of the
soldier.

“Your excellency, here are two trophies,” said Dólokhov, pointing
to the French sword and pouch. “I have taken an officer prisoner. I
stopped the company.” Dólokhov 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
Ekonómov.

But Dólokhov 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!”

Túshin’s battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the
action did Prince Bagratión, 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 Túshin’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 Bagratión had left him, Túshin had succeeded in
setting fire to Schön 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 Túshin’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. Túshin’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 Túshin, 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, Túshin 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, Túshin 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 Túshin 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 Matvévna!” he said to himself. “Matvévna” *
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”; Túshin 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, Matvévna, 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 Túshin! Captain!”

Túshin 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 Túshin, 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 Túshin’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 Túshin, 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 Túshin. 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 Túshin.

“Well, till we meet again...” he said, holding out his hand to
Túshin.

“Good-by, my dear fellow,” said Túshin. “Dear soul! Good-by, my
dear fellow!” and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his
eyes.