Book Fourteen: 1812 - Chapter XI

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness,tightened their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denisov stoodby the watchman's hut giving final orders. The infantry of thedetachment passed along the road and quickly disappeared amid thetrees in the mist of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing throughthe mud. The esaul gave some orders to his men. Petya held his horseby the bridle, impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face,having been bathed in cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes wereparticularly brilliant. Cold shivers ran down his spine and hiswhole body pulsed rhythmically.

　　"Well, is ev'wything weady?" asked Denisov. "Bwing the horses."

　　The horses were brought. Denisov was angry with the Cossackbecause the saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted.Petya put his foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if tonip his leg, but Petya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious ofhis own weight and, turning to look at the hussars starting in thedarkness behind him, rode up to Denisov.

　　"Vasili Dmitrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... forGod's sake...!" said he.

　　Denisov seemed to have forgotten Petya's very existence. He turnedto glance at him.

　　"I ask one thing of you," he said sternly, "to obey me and not shoveyourself forward anywhere."

　　He did not say another word to Petya but rode in silence all theway. When they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeablygrowing light over the field. Denisov talked in whispers with theesaul and the Cossacks rode past Petya and Denisov. When they hadall ridden by, Denisov touched his horse and rode down the hill.Slipping onto their haunches and sliding, the horses descended withtheir riders into the ravine. Petya rode beside Denisov, the pulsationof his body constantly increasing. It was getting lighter and lighter,but the mist still hid distant objects. Having reached the valley,Denisov looked back and nodded to a Cossack beside him.

　　"The signal!" said he.

　　The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant thetramp of horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came fromvarious sides, and then more shots.

　　At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Petya lashed hishorse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denisov whoshouted at him. It seemed to Petya that at the moment the shot wasfired it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge.Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On thebridge he collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but hegalloped on. In front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, wererunning from right to left across the road. One of them fell in themud under his horse's feet.

　　Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From themidst of that crowd terrible screams arose. Petya galloped up, and thefirst thing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman,clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.

　　"Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!" shouted Petya, and giving rein to hisexcited horse he galloped forward along the village street.

　　He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and raggedRussian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road,were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-lookingFrenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning redface, had been defending himself against the hussars. When Petyagalloped up the Frenchman had already fallen. "Too late again!"flashed through Petya's mind and he galloped on to the place fromwhich the rapid firing could be heard. The shots came from the yard ofthe landowner's house he had visited the night before with Dolokhov.The French were making a stand there behind a wattle fence in a gardenthickly overgrown with bushes and were firing at the Cossacks whocrowded at the gateway. Through the smoke, as he approached thegate, Petya saw Dolokhov, whose face was of a pale-greenish tint,shouting to his men. "Go round! Wait for the infantry!" he exclaimedas Petya rode up to him.

　　"Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!" shouted Petya, and without pausing a momentgalloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where thesmoke was thickest.

　　A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while othersplashed against something. The Cossacks and Dolokhov galloped afterPetya into the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smokesome of the French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushesto meet the Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward thepond. Petya was galloping along the courtyard, but instead ofholding the reins he waved both his arms about rapidly andstrangely, slipping farther and farther to one side in his saddle. Hishorse, having galloped up to a campfire that was smoldering in themorning light, stopped suddenly, and Petya fell heavily on to thewet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and legs jerked rapidlythough his head was quite motionless. A bullet had pierced his skull.

　　After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of thehouse with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced thatthey surrendered, Dolokhov dismounted and went up to Petya, who laymotionless with outstretched arms.

　　"Done for!" he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meetDenisov who was riding toward him.

　　"Killed?" cried Denisov, recognizing from a distance theunmistakably lifeless attitude- very familiar to him- in which Petya'sbody was lying.

　　"Done for!" repeated Dolokhov as if the utterance of these wordsafforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, whowere surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. "We won't takethem!" he called out to Denisov.

　　Denisov did not reply; he rode up to Petya, dismounted, and withtrembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained,mud-bespattered face which had already gone white.

　　"I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!"he recalled Petya's words. And the Cossacks looked round in surpriseat the sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denisov turnedaway, walked to the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.

　　Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denisov and Dolokhov wasPierre Bezukhov.