War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy
CHAPTER VII
1760 words | Chapter 53
Two of the enemy’s shots had already flown across the bridge, where
there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvítski, who had
alighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the
railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few
steps behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince
Nesvítski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again
and pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile.
“What a fine fellow you are, friend!” said the Cossack to a convoy
soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were
crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. “What a fellow!
You can’t wait a moment! Don’t you see the general wants to pass?”
But the convoyman took no notice of the word “general” and shouted
at the soldiers who were blocking his way. “Hi there, boys! Keep to
the left! Wait a bit.” But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to
shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense
mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvítski 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 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 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 Nesvítski 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 along with downcast
eyes.
“See how smart she’s made herself! Oh, the devils!”
“There, Fedótov, 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. Nesvítski 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, Nesvítski
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,
looking round at the sound.
“Encouraging us to get along quicker,” said another uneasily.
The crowd moved on again. Nesvítski 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.
“Nesvítski, Nesvítski! you numskull!” came a hoarse voice from
behind him.
Nesvítski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but separated
by the living mass of moving infantry, Váska Denísov, 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 Denísov
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, Váska!” joyfully replied Nesvítski. “What’s up with
you?”
“The squadwon can’t pass,” shouted Váska Denísov, 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, 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
Denísov joined Nesvítski.
“How’s it you’re not drunk today?” said Nesvítski when the
other had ridden up to him.
“They don’t even give one time to dwink!” answered Váska
Denísov. “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 Nesvítski, looking at
Denísov’s new cloak and saddlecloth.
Denísov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused
a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvítski’s nose.
“Of course. I’m going into action! I’ve shaved, bwushed my teeth,
and scented myself.”
The imposing figure of Nesvítski followed by his Cossack, and
the determination of Denísov 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 Nesvítski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order,
and having done this he rode back.
Having cleared the way Denísov stopped at the end of 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, Zíkin, 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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