commander in chief the buzz of talk ceased and all eyes
were fixed on Kutuzov who, wearing a white cap with a red
band and a padded overcoat that bulged on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his white horse. One
of the generals was reporting to him where the guns and
prisoners had been captured.
2053
Kutuzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what
the general was saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied look as he gazed attentively and fixedly at these
prisoners, who presented a specially wretched appearance.
Most of them were disfigured by frost-bitten noses and
cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen and festering eyes.
One group of the French stood close to the road, and
two of them, one of whom had his face covered with sores,
were tearing a piece of raw flesh with their hands. There was
something horrible and bestial in the fleeting glance they
threw at the riders and in the malevolent expression with
which, after a glance at Kutuzov, the soldier with the sores
immediately turned away and went on with what he was
doing.
Kutuzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers.
He puckered his face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively
swayed his head. At another spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a Frenchman on the shoulder, saying
something to him in a friendly manner, and Kutuzov with
the same expression on his face again swayed his head.
‘What were you saying?’ he asked the general, who
continuing his report directed the commander in chief’s attention to some standards captured from the French and
standing in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment.
‘Ah, the standards!’ said Kutuzov, evidently detaching
himself with difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied
him.
He looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were
looking at him from all sides awaiting a word from him.
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He stopped in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment,
sighed deeply, and closed his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the soldiers carrying the standards to advance and
surround the commander in chief with them. Kutuzov was
silent for a few seconds and then, submitting with evident
reluctance to the duty imposed by his position, raised his
head and began to speak. A throng of officers surrounded
him. He looked attentively around at the circle of officers,
recognizing several of them.
‘I thank you all!’ he said, addressing the soldiers and then
again the officers. In the stillness around him his slowly uttered words were distinctly heard. ‘I thank you all for your
hard and faithful service. The victory is complete and Russia will not forget you! Honor to you forever.’
He paused and looked around.
‘Lower its head, lower it!’ he said to a soldier who had
accidentally lowered the French eagle he was holding before the Preobrazhensk standards. ‘Lower, lower, that’s it.
Hurrah lads!’ he added, addressing the men with a rapid
movement of his chin.
‘Hur-r-rah!’ roared thousands of voices.
While the soldiers were shouting Kutuzov leaned forward in his saddle and bowed his head, and his eye lit up
with a mild and apparently ironic gleam.
‘You see, brothers…’ said he when the shouts had ceased…
and all at once his voice and the expression of his face
changed. It was no longer the commander in chief speaking
but an ordinary old man who wanted to tell his comrades
something very important.
2055
There was a stir among the throng of officers and in the
ranks of the soldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he was going to say.
‘You see, brothers, I know it’s hard for you, but it can’t
be helped! Bear up; it won’t be for long now! We’ll see our
visitors off and then we’ll rest. The Tsar won’t forget your
service. It is hard for you, but still you are at home while
theyyou see what they have come to,’ said he, pointing to the
prisoners. ‘Worse off than our poorest beggars. While they
were strong we didn’t spare ourselves, but now we may even
pity them. They are human beings too. Isn’t it so, lads?’
He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering gaze fixed upon him he read sympathy with what he had
said. His face grew brighter and brighter with an old man’s
mild smile, which drew the corners of his lips and eyes into
a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased speaking and bowed his
head as if in perplexity.
‘But after all who asked them here? Serves them right,
the bloody bastards!’ he cried, suddenly lifting his head.
And flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the
first time during the whole campaign, and left the broken
ranks of the soldiers laughing joyfully and shouting ‘Hurrah!’
Kutuzov’s words were hardly understood by the troops.
No one could have repeated the field marshal’s address,
begun solemnly and then changing into an old man’s simplehearted talk; but the hearty sincerity of that speech, the
feeling of majestic triumph combined with pity for the foe
and consciousness of the justice of our cause, exactly ex2056
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pressed by that old man’s good-natured expletives, was not
merely understood but lay in the soul of every soldier and
found expression in their joyous and long-sustained shouts.
Afterwards when one of the generals addressed Kutuzov
asking whether he wished his caleche to be sent for, Kutuzov in answering unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently
greatly moved.
2057
Chapter VII
When the troops reached their night’s halting place on
the eighth of November, the last day of the Krasnoe battles, it was already growing dusk. All day it had been calm
and frosty with occasional lightly falling snow and toward
evening it began to clear. Through the falling snow a purple-black and starry sky showed itself and the frost grew
keener.
An infantry regiment which had left Tarutino three
thousand strong but now numbered only nine hundred
was one of the first to arrive that night at its halting placea
village on the highroad. The quartermasters who met the
regiment announced that all the huts were full of sick and
dead Frenchmen, cavalrymen, and members of the staff.
There was only one hut available for the regimental commander.
The commander rode up to his hut. The regiment passed
through the village and stacked its arms in front of the last
huts.
Like some huge many-limbed animal, the regiment began to prepare its lair and its food. One part of it dispersed
and waded knee-deep through the snow into a birch forest to the right of the village, and immediately the sound
of axes and swords, the crashing of branches, and merry
voices could be heard from there. Another section amid
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the regimental wagons and horses which were standing in
a group was busy getting out caldrons and rye biscuit, and
feeding the horses. A third section scattered through the
village arranging quarters for the staff officers, carrying out
the French corpses that were in the huts, and dragging away
boards, dry wood, and thatch from the roofs, for the campfires, or wattle fences to serve for shelter.
Some fifteen men with merry shouts were shaking down
the high wattle wall of a shed, the roof of which had already
been removed.
‘Now then, all togethershove!’ cried the voices, and the
huge surface of the wall, sprinkled with snow and creaking
with frost, was seen swaying in the gloom of the night. The
lower stakes cracked more and more and at last the wall fell,
and with it the men who had been pushing it. Loud, coarse
laughter and joyous shouts ensued.
‘Now then, catch hold in twos! Hand up the lever! That’s
it… Where are you shoving to?’
‘Now, all together! But wait a moment, boys… With a
song!’
All stood silent, and a soft, pleasant velvety voice began to sing. At the end of the third verse as the last note
died away, twenty voices roared out at once: ‘Oo-oo-oo-oo!
That’s it. All together! Heave away, boys!…’ but despite their
united efforts the wattle hardly moved, and in the silence
that followed the heavy breathing of the men was audible.
‘Here, you of the Sixth Company! Devils that you are!
Lend a hand… will you? You may want us one of these
days.’
2059
Some twenty men of the Sixth Company who were on
their way into the village joined the haulers, and the wattle
wall, which was about thirty-five feet long an seven feet high,
moved forward along the village street, swaying, pressing
upon and cutting the shoulders of the gasping men.
‘Get along… Falling? What are you stopping for? There
now..’
Merry senseless words of abuse flowed freely.
‘What are you up to?’ suddenly came the authoritative
voice of a sergeant major who came upon the men who were
hauling their burden. ‘There are gentry here; the general
himself is in that hut, and you foul-mouthed devils, you
brutes, I’ll give it to you!’ shouted he, hitting the first man
who came in his way a swinging blow on the back. ‘Can’t
you make less noise?’
The men became silent. The soldier who had been struck
groaned and wiped his face, which had been scratched till it
bled by his falling against the wattle.
‘There, how that devil hits out! He’s made my face all
bloody,’ said he in a frightened whisper when the sergeant
major had passed on.
‘Don’t you like it?’ said a laughing voice, and moderating
their tones the men moved forward.
When they were out of the village they began talking
again as loud as before, interlarding their talk with the same
aimless expletives.
In the hut which the men had passed, the chief officers
had gathered and were in animated talk over their tea about
the events of the day and the maneuvers suggested for to2060
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morrow. It was proposed to make a flank march to the left,
cut off the Vice-King (Murat) and capture him.
By the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to
its place the campfires were blazing on all sides ready for
cooking, the wood crackled, the snow was melting, and
black shadows of soldiers flitted to and fro all over the occupied space where the snow had been trodden down.
Axes and choppers were plied all around. Everything
was done without any orders being given. Stores of wood
were brought for the night, shelters were rigged up for the
officers, caldrons were being boiled, and muskets and accouterments put in order.
The
