crowded together shoulder to shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense mass. Looking
down over the rails Prince Nesvitski saw the rapid, noisy
little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round
the piles of the bridge chased each other along. Looking on
the bridge he saw equally uniform living waves of soldiers,
shoulder straps, covered shakos, knapsacks, bayonets, long
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muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and feet
that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks
of the bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of
men, like a fleck of white foam on the waves of the Enns, an
officer, in a cloak and with a type of face different from that
of the men, squeezed his way along; sometimes like a chip of
wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot, an orderly, or
a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry; and
sometimes like a log floating down the river, an officers’ or
company’s baggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and
hemmed in on all sides, moved across the bridge.
‘It’s as if a dam had burst,’ said the Cossack hopelessly.
‘Are there many more of you to come?’
‘A million all but one!’ replied a waggish soldier in a torn
coat, with a wink, and passed on followed by another, an
old man.
‘If he’ (he meant the enemy) ‘begins popping at the bridge
now,’ said the old soldier dismally to a comrade, ‘you’ll forget to scratch yourself.’
That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.
‘Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?’ said
an orderly, running behind the cart and fumbling in the
back of it.
And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some
merry soldiers who had evidently been drinking.
‘And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with
the butt end of his gun…’ a soldier whose greatcoat was well
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tucked up said gaily, with a wide swing of his arm.
‘Yes, the ham was just delicious…’ answered another with
a loud laugh. And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvitski did
not learn who had been struck on the teeth, or what the ham
had to do with it.
‘Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they
think they’ll all be killed,’ a sergeant was saying angrily and
reproachfully.
‘As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean,’ said a young
soldier with an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from
laughing, ‘I felt like dying of fright. I did, ‘pon my word, I
got that frightened!’ said he, as if bragging of having been
frightened.
That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that
had gone before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses
led by a German, and seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine brindled cow with a large udder was
attached to the cart behind. A woman with an unweaned
baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright
red cheeks were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently
these fugitives were allowed to pass by special permission.
The eyes of all the soldiers turned toward the women, and
while the vehicle was passing at foot pace all the soldiers’
remarks related to the two young ones. Every face bore almost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about
the women.
‘Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!’
‘Sell me the missis,’ said another soldier, addressing the
German, who, angry and frightened, strode energetically
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along with downcast eyes.
‘See how smart she’s made herself! Oh, the devils!’
‘There, Fedotov, you should be quartered on them!’
‘I have seen as much before now, mate!’
‘Where are you going?’ asked an infantry officer who was
eating an apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.
The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not
understand.
‘Take it if you like,’ said the officer, giving the girl an apple.
The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitski like the rest of the
men on the bridge did not take his eyes off the women till
they had passed. When they had gone by, the same stream
of soldiers followed, with the same kind of talk, and at last
all stopped. As often happens, the horses of a convoy wagon
became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole crowd
had to wait.
‘And why are they stopping? There’s no proper order!’
said the soldiers. ‘Where are you shoving to? Devil take you!
Can’t you wait? It’ll be worse if he fires the bridge. See, here’s
an officer jammed in too’different voices were saying in the
crowd, as the men looked at one another, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge.
Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge,
Nesvitski suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something
swiftly approaching… something big, that splashed into the
water.
‘Just see where it carries to!’ a soldier near by said sternly,
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looking round at the sound.
‘Encouraging us to get along quicker,’ said another uneasily.
The crowd moved on again. Nesvitski realized that it was
a cannon ball.
‘Hey, Cossack, my horse!’ he said. ‘Now, then, you there!
get out of the way! Make way!’
With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and
shouting continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed
themselves to make way for him, but again pressed on him
so that they jammed his leg, and those nearest him were not
to blame for they were themselves pressed still harder from
behind.
‘Nesvitski, Nesvitski! you numskull!’ came a hoarse
voice from behind him.
Nesvitski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away
but separated by the living mass of moving infantry, Vaska
Denisov, red and shaggy, with his cap on the back of his
black head and a cloak hanging jauntily over his shoulder.
‘Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!’ shouted
Denisov evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with
their bloodshot whites glittering and rolling as he waved his
sheathed saber in a small bare hand as red as his face.
‘Ah, Vaska!’ joyfully replied Nesvitski. ‘What’s up with
you?’
‘The squadwon can’t pass,’ shouted Vaska Denisov,
showing his white teeth fiercely and spurring his black
thoroughbred Arab, which twitched its ears as the bayonets
touched it, and snorted, spurting white foam from his bit,
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tramping the planks of the bridge with his hoofs, and apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let
him. ‘What is this? They’re like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of
the way!… Let us pass!… Stop there, you devil with the cart!
I’ll hack you with my saber!’ he shouted, actually drawing
his saber from its scabbard and flourishing it
The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified
faces, and Denisov joined Nesvitski.
‘How’s it you’re not drunk today?’ said Nesvitski when
the other had ridden up to him.
‘They don’t even give one time to dwink!’ answered Vaska Denisov. ‘They keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo
all day. If they mean to fight, let’s fight. But the devil knows
what this is.’
‘What a dandy you are today!’ said Nesvitski, looking at
Denisov’s new cloak and saddlecloth.
Denisov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief
that diffused a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvitski’s
nose.
‘Of course. I’m going into action! I’ve shaved, bwushed
my teeth, and scented myself.’
The imposing figure of Nesvitski followed by his Cossack, and the determination of Denisov who flourished
his sword and shouted frantically, had such an effect that
they managed to squeeze through to the farther side of the
bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the bridge Nesvitski
found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order, and
having done this he rode back.
Having cleared the way Denisov stopped at the end of
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the bridge. Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he
watched his squadron draw nearer. Then the clang of hoofs,
as of several horses galloping, resounded on the planks of
the bridge, and the squadron, officers in front and men four
abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge on
his side of it.
The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the
bridge in the trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will, estrangement, and ridicule with which
troops of different arms usually encounter one another at
the clean, smart hussars who moved past them in regular
order.
‘Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!’ said one.
‘What good are they? They’re led about just for show!’
remarked another.
‘Don’t kick up the dust, you infantry!’ jested an hussar
whose prancing horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.
‘I’d like to put you on a two days’ march with a knapsack! Your fine cords would soon get a bit rubbed,’ said an
infantryman, wiping the mud off his face with his sleeve.
‘Perched up there, you’re more like a bird than a man.’
‘There now, Zikin, they ought to put you on a horse.
You’d look fine,’ said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier
who bent under the weight of his knapsack.
‘Take a stick between your legs, that’ll suit you for a
horse!’ the hussar shouted back.
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Chapter VIII
The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge,
squeezing together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last the baggage wagons had all
crossed, the crush was less, and the last battalion came onto
the bridge. Only Denisov’s squadron of hussars remained
on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who
could be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was
not yet visible from the bridge, for the horizon as seen from
the valley through which the river flowed was formed by
the rising ground only half a mile away. At the foot of the
hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our Cossack
scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the
high ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen.
These were the French. A group of Cossack scouts retired
down the hill at a trot. All the officers and men of Denisov’s
squadron, though they tried to talk of other things
