The fog was beginning to thin, and not much more than a mile away enemy troops could be seen, albeit not too clearly, high on the opposite hillside. Down below on the left the gunfire was getting louder. Kutuzov stood talking to an Austrian general. Watching them all the time from a few feet away, Prince Andrey turned to an adjutant, anxious to borrow his telescope.
'Look! Look!' this adjutant said, looking not at the troops a long way away, but just down the hill. 'It's the French!'
The two generals and the adjutant began fighting over the telescope, grabbing it one after the other. Their faces had fallen, all of them horror-stricken. The French ought to have been more than a mile away, but suddenly here they were right in front of us.
'Is that the enemy? . . . Can't be . . . It is, you know . . . Dead certain . . . What's happened?' voices could be heard saying.
Prince Andrey needed no telescope to see just below them down to the right a dense column of French soldiers climbing the slope towards the Apsheron regiment, no more than five hundred yards from where Kutuzov was standing.
'This is it. It's here, my big moment! This is my chance,' thought Prince Andrey, spurring his horse, and he rode over to Kutuzov.
'Your Excellency,' he shouted, 'we must stop the Apsheron regiment.'
But at that instant everything disappeared in a cloud of smoke, guns went off close by and not two paces from Prince Andrey a voice cried out in pure terror, 'Hey, mates, we've had it!' And this voice was as good as a command - one call, and everyone panicked and ran.
Hordes of men from all over the place, swelling into great crowds, fled back towards the area where five minutes earlier they had been marching past the two Emperors. Not only was it going to be difficult to stop this rush, it was impossible not to be swept back along with the mob. Bolkonsky's main concern was not to lose contact with Kutuzov, and all he could do was stare around in bewilderment, unable to take in what was happening before his eyes. Nesvitsky's blood was up; unrecognizable in all his fury, he kept yelling at Kutuzov that if he didn't get away at once he was sure to be taken prisoner. Rooted to the spot, Kutuzov was busy taking out his handkerchief and he didn't answer. Blood ran down his cheek. Prince Andrey forced his way through to him.
'Are you wounded?' he asked, his jaw quivering uncontrollably.
'Not here - there!' said Kutuzov, pressing the handkerchief to his bleeding cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers.
'Somebody stop them!' he roared, and then, probably realizing that nobody could do that, he spurred his horse and rode off to the right. Another wave of panicking humanity engulfed him and swept him back.
The troops were running away in such huge numbers that once you were caught in the middle of the crowd it was no easy matter to get out of it. Someone yelled, 'Go on! Get out of my way!' Another man was lurching around to fire in the air; somebody else was even lashing out at Kutuzov's horse. With one huge thrust Kutuzov managed to extricate himself from the torrent of men, and rode off towards the cannon-fire with his suite cut down by half. Prince Andrey also struggled free, still fighting to keep in touch with Kutuzov, but then he saw something through the smoke on the hillside - a Russian battery still firing and the French running towards it. Just uphill from them there were some Russian infantrymen going nowhere, neither hurrying forward to support the battery nor running back in the same direction as the runaways. A general on horseback had detached himself from the infantry and ridden over to Kutuzov. Of Kutuzov's suite only four men were left. Pale-faced and staring, they said not a word.
'Cowardly swine! Stop them!' said a breathless Kutuzov to the regimental commander, pointing to the fleeing soldiers. But at that moment, as if to punish him for saying what he did, a shower of bullets whistled over the regiment and Kutuzov's suite like a flock of birds. The French were after the battery, but once they caught sight of Kutuzov they had turned their fire on him. With this volley the general clutched at his leg, several soldiers went down and a second lieutenant holding the flag let it slide from his hands. The flag wobbled and got caught on the guns of the nearest soldiers as it fell. The soldiers had begun firing without orders.
'Oh no!' Kutuzov groaned in despair as he looked around everywhere. 'Bolkonsky,' he whispered in a quavering voice which betrayed his awareness of being too old and too feeble. 'Bolkonsky,' he whispered, pointing towards the shattered battalion and the enemy, 'what's all this?'
But before he could get the words out, Prince Andrey, choking on tears of humiliation and fury, was off his horse and racing for the flag.
'Come on, boys! This way!' he shrieked, piping like a boy. 'This is it!' Prince Andrey thought, seizing the flagstaff, exhilarated by the scream of bullets clearly meant for him. Several soldiers went down.
'Hurrah!' roared Prince Andrey, finding the heavy flag hard to hold but rushing forward quite sure that the whole battalion would run after him. And he wasn't alone for more than a few steps. One soldier lunged, then another, and then the whole battalion was there, echoing his 'hurrah!', running on and racing past him. A battalion sergeant ran up and took the flag, which was too heavy for Prince Andrey and wobbled in his grip, but he was killed on the spot. Prince Andrey snatched the flag up again and dragged it by the staff as he ran on with the battalion. In front of him he could see our gunners, some still fighting, some running towards him with the cannons abandoned. He could see French infantrymen, too, taking hold of our artillery horses and heaving the cannons the other way round. Prince Andrey and the battalion were less than twenty yards from the big guns. He heard bullets whining incessantly overhead. Soldiers moaned and dropped right and left, but he didn't stop to look; his eyes were fixed on what was happening over there at the battery. He could make out one figure clearly, a red-haired gunner, with his shako skewed to one side, heaving on a cleaning-rod while a French soldier heaved against him the other way. Now he had a clear view of the two men's faces, distorted with anguish and fury even though they had no real idea of what they were doing.
'What are they doing?' wondered Prince Andrey as he watched. 'The red-haired man's got no gun - why doesn't he just run away? Why doesn't the Frenchman bayonet him? He won't get far before the Frenchman remembers his gun and runs him through.' And then, in fact, another Frenchman ran up to the two fighting men with his gun levelled at them, thus probably sealing the fate of the red-haired gunner, who had no inkling of what was in store for him as he wrenched the cleaning-rod away in triumph. But Prince Andrey never saw how it all ended. All he felt was a terrible blow on the head which he was hazily aware of having come from one of the nearby soldiers, who must have set about him with a huge piece of wood. It didn't hurt much - what really annoyed him was that such pain as there was distracted him and stopped him seeing what he was looking at.
'What's happening? . . . I think I'm falling . . . My legs are going,' he thought, collapsing on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the fight between the French soldiers and our gunner ended. Was the gunner killed or not? Did they get the cannons or were they saved? But he saw none of that. Above him was nothing, nothing but the sky - the lofty sky, not a clear sky, but still infinitely lofty, with grey clouds creeping gently across. 'It's so quiet, peaceful and solemn, not like me rushing about,' thought Prince Andrey, 'not like us, all that yelling and scrapping, not like that Frenchman and our gunner pulling on that cleaning-rod, with their scared and bitter faces, those clouds are different, creeping across that lofty, infinite sky. How can it be that I've never seen that lofty sky before? Oh, how happy I am to have found it at last. Yes! It's all vanity, it's all an illusion, everything except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing - that's all there is. But there isn't even that. There's nothing but stillness and peace. Thank God for that!'
CHAPTER 17
Over on the right flank, where Bagration was in command, it was nine o'clock and the battle had still not begun. Looking for an excuse not to accede to Dolgorukov's request for them to get things started, and anxious in fact to offload
all responsibility, Prince Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov that they should send a messenger to ask for instructions from the commander-in-chief. Given that the two flanks were well over five miles apart, Bagration knew full well that, even if the courier didn't get himself killed (and he probably would), and if he eventually managed to find the commander-in-chief (a very difficult task), he would hardly be back before evening.
Bagration scanned the members of his entourage, his wide eyes devoid of all expression and still full of sleep, and the first thing that caught his eye was the boyish face of Nikolay Rostov, transfixed with excitement and hope. So he sent him.
'Sir, what if I meet his Majesty before the commander-in-chief?' said Rostov with a long salute.
'You can give the same message to his Majesty,' said Dolgorukov, quick to interrupt Bagration.
Once off duty Rostov had snatched a few hours' sleep before morning and now he felt cheerful, bold and resolute. He moved with a spring in his step and he felt lucky, a frame of mind which made everything seem bright and easily achievable.
All his dreams had come true that morning: there was going to be a full battle and he was due to take part in it. More importantly, he was serving one of the bravest of generals, and, more importantly still, he was now responsible for taking a message to Kutuzov, perhaps even to the Tsar himself. It was a fine morning and he had a good horse under him. His spirits overflowed with joy and happiness. Fully briefed, he gave the horse his head and galloped off down the line. First he rode past Bagration's stationary troops, as yet held back from the action, then he was soon into the territory of Uvarov's cavalry, where at last he could see signs of movement and preparations for battle. Beyond them he began to hear the distinct sound of gunfire and the booming of cannons ahead. The firing got louder and louder.
The sounds were different now in the fresh morning air. Gone were the desultory shots loosed off two or three at a time and accompanied by the occasional bang from a cannon. Now, all down the sloping hillsides before Pratzen he could hear long volleys of gunfire, with intermittent booming from the big guns so sustained that sometimes it sounded not like individual shots but one great roaring cannonade.
He could see puffs of musket smoke chasing each other down the hillsides, while cannon smoke wreathed up in clouds that floated away and melted together. The glint of bayonets through the smoke told him that masses of infantry were on the move down there, and one or two narrow strips indicated artillery with green caissons.
Rostov stopped his horse on a little rise to watch for a moment and see what was happening. But however much he concentrated he couldn't begin to sort out or understand what was going on. Some sort of men seemed to be moving about down there in the smoke, lines of troops were moving up from front and rear - but what for? Who were they? Where were they going? He just couldn't tell. But he found this spectacle and all these sounds far from depressing or discouraging; they only added to his energy and determination.
'Come on, come on, let's have some more!' was his mental response to the sounds he heard. He galloped off again down the line, farther and farther into territory where the troops had gone into action.
'I don't know what it's like down there, but I'm sure it'll be all right!' thought Rostov.
After riding past some Austrian troops, Rostov noticed that the next section (the guards) had gone off to fight.
'Good, that's better! I'll get a close look,' he thought.
He was now riding almost along the front line itself. Several horsemen came galloping towards him - a troop of our Uhlans returning in disorder from an attack. As he passed, Rostov noticed one of them covered in blood, but he galloped on.
'Nothing to do with me!' he thought.
Only a few hundred yards further on he suddenly saw, coming from the left and spread out over the whole battlefield, an immense mass of cavalrymen on black horses, in dazzling white uniforms, cutting across and bearing down on him. Rostov rode flat out to avoid them all, and he would have managed it if they had moved at the same pace, but they kept coming faster and faster until several horses were galloping. Louder and louder came the hoofbeats and the rattling of their weapons; clearer and clearer were the horses, the figures, even the faces. They were our men, horse guards, charging against the advancing French cavalry.
They were now all at the gallop, though the horses were still being restrained. Rostov could see their faces as the commander shouted, 'Charge!' and let his thoroughbred go at full speed. Rostov was now in danger of being run down or swept into the attack against the French, so he galloped his horse flat out across their lines, but to no avail - he still couldn't avoid them.
The last rider, a giant of a man with a pock-marked face, scowled viciously when Rostov suddenly appeared in front of him and a collision seemed inevitable. This man would certainly have brought Rostov and Bedouin down (Rostov felt so tiny and feeble alongside these gigantic men and horses), but he just managed to lash out with his riding-crop across the horse's face. The massive black charger, sixteen hands if he was an inch, flattened his ears and reared back, but the pock-marked rider brought him down with a vicious thrust of his big spurs, and the horse responded by lashing its tail and stretching its neck before hurtling on faster than ever. The horse guards had barely gone past him when Rostov heard them roar their 'Hurrah!' and when he looked closer he saw their leading ranks getting tangled up with some other cavalrymen with red epaulettes, probably French. That was all he saw because at that moment cannons thundered somewhere near by and everything was blotted out in smoke.
As the horse guards rushed past him and vanished in the smoke, Rostov wondered whether to gallop after them or go on with his mission. This was one of those brilliant cavalry charges by our horse guards which even the French were said to admire. Rostov was appalled to learn later that the vast mass of these big, fine men, all those brilliant, rich young officers and cadets who had galloped past him on horses worth thousands, after the charge had been reduced to eighteen survivors.
'I don't need to envy them. My turn will come, and anyway I might see the Emperor!' thought Rostov as he galloped off.
When he reached the foot guards he could tell that cannonballs were whizzing about everywhere not so much from the sound of them as from the soldiers' worried faces and an unusually grave and aggressive look about the officers.
He was riding behind a line of foot guards when he heard someone call his name: 'Rostov!'
'Who's that?' he called back without seeing that it was Boris.
'I say, we've just been in the front line! Our regiment's been attacking!' said Boris, grinning cheerfully like any young man who has just been under fire for the first time.
Rostov stopped.
'You haven't!' he said. 'What was it like?'
'We beat them back!' said Boris, excited and eager to talk. 'Can you imagine? . . .' And Boris began describing how the guards had got into position, seen some troops in front of them and assumed they were Austrians, only to discover from the cannonballs coming at them that they were in the very front line and had to go straight into battle. Rostov couldn't stay for the end of the story - he urged his horse on.
'Where are you off to?' asked Boris.
'Taking a message to his Majesty.'
'But he's here!' said Boris, who had mistaken Rostov's 'his Majesty' for 'his Highness'. Thinking he wanted the grand duke, he pointed him out a hundred yards away, wearing a helmet and a horse guard's jacket, distinctive with his high shoulders and dark scowl and busy shouting at a pale-faced Austrian officer in a white uniform.
'No, that's the grand duke. I need the commander-in-chief or the Emperor,' said Rostov, on the point of galloping away.
'Count! Count!' shouted Berg, running up from the other side, just as excited as Boris. 'I've been wounded in my right hand,' (and he pointed to his bloodstained hand bandaged in a handkerchief) 'but I stayed there at the front, Count, holding my sword in my left hand. All of us, Count, the Von Bergs, we've all been valiant
knights.' Berg rambled on, but Rostov rode away without listening to any more.
Leaving the guards behind and crossing some open land, Rostov rode along past the reserves to make sure he didn't end up (like last time with the charging cavalrymen) back in the front line, and he made a big detour to avoid the area where the gunfire and cannonade were at their loudest. Then suddenly, right in front of him and behind our troops, in a place where it would be unthinkable to find the enemy, he heard several muskets going off quite close.
'What can it be?' thought Rostov. 'The enemy at the rear of our troops? It can't be,' he thought as a sense of dread gripped him, fear for himself and for the outcome of the whole battle. 'Oh well, whatever happens,' he said to himself, 'I can't keep on making detours. I must find out whether the commander-in-chief is here, and if it's all over my job is to die with the others.'
The dark forebodings that had descended on Rostov seemed to be more and more justified the farther he advanced into the region beyond the village of Pratzen, which was teeming with troops of every kind.
'What does it mean? What's it all about? Who are they firing at? Who's firing?' Rostov started asking the Austrian and Russian soldiers cutting across him in a confused, scurrying shambles.
'God knows!' 'All of them killed!' 'We've had it!' Answers emerged from the running hordes in Russian, German and Czech, but these people knew no more than he did.
'Kill them Germans!' shouted one voice.
'To hell with 'em - can't trust 'em!'
'To hell with these Russians,' growled someone in German.
There were wounded men walking along the road. Shouts, moans and curses came together in a noisy chorus. The firing had begun to subside, and Rostov was to discover later that the Russian and Austrian soldiers had been firing at each other.
'My God! What's it all about?' thought Rostov. 'To think that any minute now the Emperor could arrive and see them! No, no, there can't be many of these cowardly swine. This will soon be over, it's not the real thing, it can't be,' he thought. 'I just wish they'd get a move on!'