the wheels and working the screws himself.
Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports
which always made him jump, Tushin not taking his pipe
from his mouth ran from gun to gun, now aiming, now
counting the charges, now giving orders about replacing
dead or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones, and
shouting in his feeble voice, so high pitched and irresolute.
His face grew more and more animated. Only when a man
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was killed or wounded did he frown and turn away from the
sight, shouting angrily at the men who, as is always the case,
hesitated about lifting the injured or dead. The soldiers, for
the most part handsome fellows and, as is always the case in
an artillery company, a head and shoulders taller and twice
as broad as their officerall looked at their commander like
children in an embarrassing situation, and the expression
on his face was invariably reflected on theirs.
Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and activity, Tushin did not experience the slightest
unpleasant sense of fear, and the thought that he might be
killed or badly wounded never occurred to him. On the
contrary, he became more and more elated. It seemed to
him that it was a very long time ago, almost a day, since he
had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and that the
corner of the field he stood on was well-known and familiar ground. Though he thought of everything, considered
everything, and did everything the best of officers could do
in his position, he was in a state akin to feverish delirium or
drunkenness.
From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him,
the whistle and thud of the enemy’s cannon balls, from the
flushed and perspiring faces of the crew bustling round the
guns, from the sight of the blood of men and horses, from
the little puffs of smoke on the enemy’s side (always followed
by a ball flying past and striking the earth, a man, a gun, a
horse), from the sight of all these things a fantastic world of
his own had taken possession of his brain and at that moment afforded him pleasure. The enemy’s guns were in his
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fancy not guns but pipes from which occasional puffs were
blown by an invisible smoker.
‘There… he’s puffing again,’ muttered Tushin to himself,
as a small cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak
to the left by the wind.
‘Now look out for the ball… we’ll throw it back.’
‘What do you want, your honor?’ asked an artilleryman,
standing close by, who heard him muttering.
‘Nothing… only a shell…’ he answered.
‘Come along, our Matvevna!’ he said to himself. ‘Matvevna”* was the name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the
battery, which was large and of an old pattern. The French
swarming round their guns seemed to him like ants. In that
world, the handsome drunkard Number One of the second
gun’s crew was ‘uncle”; Tushin looked at him more often
than at anyone else and took delight in his every movement.
The sound of musketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now increasing, seemed like someone’s breathing. He
listened intently to the ebb and flow of these sounds.
*Daughter of Matthew.
‘Ah! Breathing again, breathing!’ he muttered to himself.
He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful
man who was throwing cannon balls at the French with
both hands.
‘Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don’t let me down!’
he was saying as he moved from the gun, when a strange,
unfamiliar voice called above his head: ‘Captain Tushin!
Captain!’
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Tushin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer
who had turned him out of the booth at Grunth. He was
shouting in a gasping voice:
‘Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat,
and you..’
‘Why are they down on me?’ thought Tushin, looking in
alarm at his superior.
‘I… don’t…’ he muttered, holding up two fingers to his
cap. ‘I..’
But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say.
A cannon ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and
bend over his horse. He paused, and just as he was about to
say something more, another ball stopped him. He turned
his horse and galloped off.
‘Retire! All to retire!’ he shouted from a distance.
The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the same order.
It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding
up to the space where Tushin’s guns were stationed was an
unharnessed horse with a broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed horses. Blood was gushing from
its leg as from a spring. Among the limbers lay several dead
men. One ball after another passed over as he approached
and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the
mere thought of being afraid roused him again. ‘I cannot
be afraid,’ thought he, and dismounted slowly among the
guns. He delivered the order and did not leave the battery.
He decided to have the guns removed from their positions
and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Tushin, step
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ping across the bodies and under a terrible fire from the
French, he attended to the removal of the guns.
‘A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off,’
said an artilleryman to Prince Andrew. ‘Not like your honor!’
Prince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. They were both
so busy as to seem not to notice one another. When having
limbered up the only two cannon that remained uninjured
out of the four, they began moving down the hill (one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind), Prince Andrew
rode up to Tushin.
‘Well, till we meet again…’ he said, holding out his hand
to Tushin.
‘Good-by, my dear fellow,’ said Tushin. ‘Dear soul!
Good-by, my dear fellow!’ and for some unknown reason
tears suddenly filled his eyes.
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Chapter XXI
The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the
powder smoke, hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing dark and the glow of two conflagrations
was the more conspicuous. The cannonade was dying down,
but the rattle of musketry behind and on the right sounded
oftener and nearer. As soon as Tushin with his guns, continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was
out of range of fire and had descended into the dip, he was
met by some of the staff, among them the staff officer and
Zherkov, who had been twice sent to Tushin’s battery but
had never reached it. Interrupting one another, they all
gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to proceed, reprimanding and reproaching him. Tushin gave no orders, and,
silentlyfearing to speak because at every word he felt ready
to weep without knowing whyrode behind on his artillery nag. Though the orders were to abandon the wounded,
many of them dragged themselves after troops and begged
for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty infantry officer
who just before the battle had rushed out of Tushin’s wattle
shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on ‘Matvevna’s’
carriage. At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one hand with the other, came up to Tushin and asked
for a seat.
‘Captain, for God’s sake! I’ve hurt my arm,’ he said tim
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idly. ‘For God’s sake… I can’t walk. For God’s sake!’
It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked
for a lift and been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous
voice.
‘Tell them to give me a seat, for God’s sake!’
‘Give him a seat,’ said Tushin. ‘Lay a cloak for him to sit
on, lad,’ he said, addressing his favorite soldier. ‘And where
is the wounded officer?’
‘He has been set down. He died,’ replied someone.
‘Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out
the cloak, Antonov.’
The cadet was Rostov. With one hand he supported the
other; he was pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly.
He was placed on ‘Matvevna,’ the gun from which they had
removed the dead officer. The cloak they spread under him
was wet with blood which stained his breeches and arm.
‘What, are you wounded, my lad?’ said Tushin, approaching the gun on which Rostov sat.
‘No, it’s a sprain.’
‘Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?’ inquired
Tushin.
‘It was the officer, your honor, stained it,’ answered the
artilleryman, wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as
if apologizing for the state of his gun.
It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise
aided by the infantry, and having reached the village of
Gruntersdorf they halted. It had grown so dark that one
could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces off, and the
firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, near by on the
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right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot
gleamed in the darkness. This was the last French attack and
was met by soldiers who had sheltered in the village houses.
They all rushed out of the village again, but Tushin’s guns
could not move, and the artillerymen, Tushin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they awaited their fate. The
firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly, streamed out
of a side street.
‘Not hurt, Petrov?’ asked one.
‘We’ve given it ‘em hot, mate! They won’t make another
push now,’ said another.
‘You couldn’t see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows! Nothing could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn’t there
something to drink?’
The French had been repulsed for the last time. And
again and again in the complete darkness Tushin’s guns
moved forward, surrounded by the humming infantry as
by a frame.
In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen
river was flowing always in one direction, humming with
whispers and talk and the sound of hoofs and wheels. Amid
the general rumble, the groans and voices of the wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the
darkness of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army
was filled with their groans, which seemed to melt into
one with the darkness of the night. After a while the moving mass became agitated, someone rode past on a white
horse followed by his suite, and said something in passing:
‘What did he say? Where to, now?
