Book Two: 1805 - Chapter XVII

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery,looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyesran rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hithertomotionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was abattery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Twomounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. Asmall but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill,probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot hadnot yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by areport. The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse andgalloped back to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard thecannonade behind him growing louder and more frequent. Evidently ourguns had begun to reply. From the bottom of the slope, where theparleys had taken place, came the report of musketry.

　　Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte's sternletter, and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had atonce moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both theRussian wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of theEmperor to crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.

　　"It has begun. Here it is!" thought Prince Andrew, feeling the bloodrush to his heart. "But where and how will my Toulon present itself?"

　　Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge anddrinking vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the samerapid movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their musketsready, and on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness thatfilled his heart. "It has begun! Here it is, dreadful butenjoyable!" was what the face of each soldier and each officerseemed to say.

　　Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up,he saw, in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men comingtoward him. The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap andriding a white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew stopped,waiting for him to come up; Prince Bagration reined in his horse andrecognizing Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead whilePrince Andrew told him what he had seen.

　　The feeling, "It has begun! Here it is!" was seen even on PrinceBagration's hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive faceand wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinkingand feeling at that moment. "Is there anything at all behind thatimpassive face?" Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. PrinceBagration bent his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrewtold him, and said, "Very good!" in a tone that seemed to imply thateverything that took place and was reported to him was exactly what hehad foreseen. Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride,spoke quickly. Prince Bagration, uttering his words with an Orientalaccent, spoke particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact thatthere was no need to hurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in thedirection of Tushin's battery. Prince Andrew followed with thesuite. Behind Prince Bagration rode an officer of the suite, theprince's personal adjutant, Zherkov, an orderly officer, the staffofficer on duty, riding a fine bobtailed horse, and a civilian- anaccountant who had asked permission to be present at the battle out ofcuriosity. The accountant, a stout, full-faced man, looked aroundhim with a naive smile of satisfaction and presented a strangeappearance among the hussars, Cossacks, and adjutants, in his camletcoat, as he jolted on his horse with a convoy officer's saddle.

　　"He wants to see a battle," said Zherkov to Bolkonski, pointing tothe accountant, "but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomachalready."

　　"Oh, leave off!" said the accountant with a beaming but rathercunning smile, as if flattered at being made the subject ofZherkov's joke, and purposely trying to appear stupider than he reallywas.

　　"It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince," said the staff officer.(He remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressinga prince, but could not get it quite right.)

　　By this time they were all approaching Tushin's battery, and aball struck the ground in front of them.

　　"What's that that has fallen?" asked the accountant with a naivesmile.

　　"A French pancake," answered Zherkov.

　　"So that's what they hit with?" asked the accountant. "How awful!"

　　He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finishedspeaking when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling whichsuddenly ended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and aCossack, riding a little to their right and behind the accountant,crashed to earth with his horse. Zherkov and the staff officer bentover their saddles and turned their horses away. The accountantstopped, facing the Cossack, and examined him with attentivecuriosity. The Cossack was dead, but the horse still struggled.

　　Prince Bagration screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeingthe cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if tosay, "Is it worth while noticing trifles?" He reined in his horse withthe case of a skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengagedhis saber which had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saberof a kind no longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the storyof Suvorov giving his saber to Bagration in Italy, and therecollection was particularly pleasant at that moment. They hadreached the battery at which Prince Andrew had been when he examinedthe battlefield.

　　"Whose company?" asked Prince Bagration of an artillerymanstanding by the ammunition wagon.

　　He asked, "Whose company?" but he really meant, "Are youfrightened here?" and the artilleryman understood him.

　　"Captain Tushin's, your excellency!" shouted the red-haired,freckled gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.

　　"Yes, yes," muttered Bagration as if considering something, and herode past the limbers to the farthest cannon.

　　As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him andhis suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun theycould see the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quicklyback to its former position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, NumberOne, holding a mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; whileNumber Two with a trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon'smouth. The short, round-shouldered Captain Tushin, stumbling overthe tail of the gun carriage, moved forward and, not noticing thegeneral, looked out shading his eyes with his small hand.

　　"Lift it two lines more and it will be just right," cried he in afeeble voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill suited tohis weak figure. "Number Two!" he squeaked. "Fire, Medvedev!"

　　Bagration called to him, and Tushin, raising three fingers to hiscap with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a militarysalute but like a priest's benediction, approached the general. ThoughTushin's guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was firingincendiary balls at the village of Schon Grabern visible justopposite, in front of which large masses of French were advancing.

　　No one had given Tushin orders where and at what to fire, butafter consulting his sergeant major, Zakharchenko, for whom he hadgreat respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to setfire to the village. "Very good!" said Bagration in reply to theofficer's report, and began deliberately to examine the wholebattlefield extended before him. The French had advanced nearest onour right. Below the height on which the Kiev regiment wasstationed, in the hollow where the rivulet flowed, the soul-stirringrolling and crackling of musketry was heard, and much farther to theright beyond the dragoons, the officer of the suite pointed out toBagration a French column that was outflanking us. To the left thehorizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagration ordered twobattalions from the center to be sent to reinforce the right flank.The officer of the suite ventured to remark to the prince that ifthese battalions went away, the guns would remain without support.Prince Bagration turned to the officer and with his dull eyes lookedat him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the officer'sremark was just and that really no answer could be made to it. Butat that moment an adjutant galloped up with a message from thecommander of the regiment in the hollow and news that immense massesof the French were coming down upon them and that his regiment wasin disorder and was retreating upon the Kiev grenadiers. PrinceBagration bowed his head in sign of assent and approval. He rode offat a walk to the right and sent an adjutant to the dragoons withorders to attack the French. But this adjutant returned half an hourlater with the news that the commander of the dragoons had alreadyretreated beyond the dip in the ground, as a heavy fire had beenopened on him and he was losing men uselessly, and so had hastenedto throw some sharpshooters into the wood.

　　"Very good!" said Bagration.

　　As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also,and as it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to gothere himself, Prince Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general incommand (the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov atBraunau) that he must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollowin the rear, as the right flank would probably not be able towithstand the enemy's attack very long. About Tushin and the battalionthat had been in support of his battery all was forgotten. PrinceAndrew listened attentively to Bagration's colloquies with thecommanding officers and the orders he gave them and, to hissurprise, found that no orders were really given, but that PrinceBagration tried to make it appear that everything done by necessity,by accident, or by the will of subordinate commanders was done, if notby his direct command, at least in accord with his intentions.Prince Andrew noticed, however, that though what happened was due tochance and was independent of the commander's will, owing to thetact Bagration showed, his presence was very valuable. Officers whoapproached him with disturbed countenances became calm; soldiers andofficers greeted him gaily, grew more cheerful in his presence, andwere evidently anxious to display their courage before him.