Book Thirteen: 1812 - Chapter VI

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Next day the troops assembled in their appointed places in theevening and advanced during the night. It was an autumn night withdark purple clouds, but no rain. The ground was damp but not muddy,and the troops advanced noiselessly, only occasionally a jingling ofthe artillery could be faintly heard. The men were forbidden to talkout loud, to smoke their pipes, or to strike a light, and they triedto prevent their horses neighing. The secrecy of the undertakingheightened its charm and they marched gaily. Some columns,supposing. they had reached their destination, halted, piled arms, andsettled down on the cold ground, but the majority marched all nightand arrived at places where they evidently should not have been.

　　Only Count Orlov-Denisov with his Cossacks (the least importantdetachment of all) got to his appointed place at the right time.This detachment halted at the outskirts of a forest, on the pathleading from the village of Stromilova to Dmitrovsk.

　　Toward dawn, Count Orlov-Denisov, who had dozed off, was awakened bya deserter from the French army being brought to him. This was aPolish sergeant of Poniatowski's corps, who explained in Polish thathe had come over because he had been slighted in the service: thathe ought long ago to have been made an officer, that he was braverthan any of them, and so he had left them and wished to pay themout. He said that Murat was spending the night less than a mile fromwhere they were, and that if they would let him have a convoy of ahundred men he would capture him alive. Count Orlov-Denisovconsulted his fellow officers.

　　The offer was too tempting to be refused. Everyone volunteered to goand everybody advised making the attempt. After much disputing andarguing, Major-General Grekov with two Cossack regiments decided to gowith the Polish sergeant.

　　"Now, remember," said Count Orlov-Denisov to the sergeant atparting, "if you have been lying I'll have you hanged like a dog;but if it's true you shall have a hundred gold pieces!"

　　Without replying, the sergeant, with a resolute air, mounted androde away with Grekov whose men had quickly assembled. Theydisappeared into the forest, and Count Orlov-Denisov, having seenGrekov off, returned, shivering from the freshness of the early dawnand excited by what he had undertaken on his own responsibility, andbegan looking at the enemy camp, now just visible in the deceptivelight of dawn and the dying campfires. Our columns ought to have begunto appear on an open declivity to his right. He looked in thatdirection, but though the columns would have been visible quite faroff, they were not to be seen. It seemed to the count that things werebeginning to stir in the French camp, and his keen-sighted adjutantconfirmed this.

　　"Oh, it is really too late," said Count Orlov, looking at the camp.

　　As often happens when someone we have trusted is no longer beforeour eyes, it suddenly seemed quite clear and obvious to him that thesergeant was an impostor, that he had lied, and that the whole Russianattack would be ruined by the absence of those two regiments, which hewould lead away heaven only knew where. How could one capture acommander in chief from among such a mass of troops!

　　"I am sure that rascal was lying," said the count.

　　"They can still be called back," said one of his suite, who likeCount Orlov felt distrustful of the adventure when he looked at theenemy's camp.

　　"Eh? Really... what do you think? Should we let them go on or not?"

　　"Will you have them fetched back?"

　　"Fetch them back, fetch them back!" said Count Orlov with suddendetermination, looking at his watch. "It will be too late. It is quitelight."

　　And the adjutant galloped through the forest after Grekov. WhenGrekov returned, Count Orlov-Denisov, excited both by the abandonedattempt and by vainly awaiting the infantry columns that still did notappear, as well as by the proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance.All his men felt the same excitement.

　　"Mount!" he commanded in a whisper. The men took their places andcrossed themselves.... "Forward, with God's aid!"

　　"Hurrah-ah-ah!" reverberated in the forest, and the Cossackcompanies, trailing their lances and advancing one after another as ifpoured out of a sack, dashed gaily across the brook toward the camp.

　　One desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who sawthe Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only justwaking up, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, andhorses.

　　Had the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was behindand around them, they would have captured Murat and everythingthere. That was what the officers desired. But it was impossible tomake the Cossacks budge when once they had got booty and prisoners.None of them listened to orders. Fifteen hundred prisoners andthirty-eight guns were taken on the spot, besides standards and(what seemed most important to the Cossacks) horses, saddles,horsecloths, and the like. All this had to be dealt with, theprisoners and guns secured, the booty divided- not without someshouting and even a little themselves- and it was on this that theCossacks all busied themselves.

　　The French, not being farther pursued, began to recoverthemselves: they formed into detachments and began firing.Orlov-Denisov, still waiting for the other columns to arrive, advancedno further.

　　Meantime, according to the dispositions which said that "the FirstColumn will march" and so on, the infantry of the belated columns,commanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in dueorder and, as always happens, had got somewhere, but not to theirappointed places. As always happens the men, starting cheerfully,began to halt; murmurs were heard, there was a sense of confusion, andfinally a backward movement. Adjutants and generals galloped about,shouted, grew angry, quarreled, said they had come quite wrong andwere late, gave vent to a little abuse, and at last gave it all up andwent forward, simply to get somewhere. "We shall get somewhere orother!" And they did indeed get somewhere, though not to their rightplaces; a few eventually even got to their right place, but too lateto be of any use and only in time to be fired at. Toll, who in thisbattle played the part of Weyrother at Austerlitz, gallopedassiduously from place to place, finding everything upside downeverywhere. Thus he stumbled on Bagovut's corps in a wood when itwas already broad daylight, though the corps should long before havejoined Orlov-Denisov. Excited and vexed by the failure and supposingthat someone must be responsible for it, Toll galloped up to thecommander of the corps and began upbraiding him severely, sayingthat he ought to be shot. General Bagovut, a fighting old soldier ofplacid temperament, being also upset by all the delay, confusion,and cross-purposes, fell into a rage to everybody's surprise and quitecontrary to his usual character and said disagreeable things to Toll.

　　"I prefer not to take lessons from anyone, but I can die with my menas well as anybody," he said, and advanced with a single division.

　　Coming out onto a field under the enemy's fire, this brave generalwent straight ahead, leading his men under fire, without consideringin his agitation whether going into action now, with a singledivision, would be of any use or no. Danger, cannon balls, and bulletswere just what he needed in his angry mood. One of the first bulletskilled him, and other bullets killed many of his men. And his divisionremained under fire for some time quite uselessly.