The soldiers laughed at him. Then, a minute later an adjutant arrived with the same order. It was Prince Andrey. The first thing he saw when he got to where Tushin’s cannons were stationed was an unharnessed horse with a broken leg, neighing piteously beside the harnessed horses. Blood gushed from its leg like water down a brook. Among the gun carriers lay several dead men. One cannonball after another flew past him as he rode up, and he felt a nervous shudder run down his back. But the very idea that he was afraid was enough to rouse him again. ‘I cannot be frightened,’ he thought, and he took his time dismounting between the guns. When he had transmitted the order he did not leave the battery. He decided to stay on and watch the guns dismounted and taken away. Stepping over corpses and under terrible fire from the French, he helped Tushin move his big guns.
‘One of them staff officers came up just now. Didn’t stay long,’ said one of the gunners to Prince Andrey. ‘Not like you, sir.’
Prince Andrey and Tushin didn’t talk. They were both so busy that they hardly seemed to be aware of each other. When they had got the two surviving guns on to their carriages and were moving off downhill (a smashed cannon and a howitzer were left behind), Prince Andrey went up to Tushin.
‘Well, goodbye for now,’ said Prince Andrey, holding out his hand to Tushin.
‘Goodbye, my dear fellow,’ said Tushin, ‘You’re a good soul! Goodbye, my dear fellow,’ he said through tears which had filled his eyes for no apparent reason.
CHAPTER 21
The wind had dropped and black clouds loured above the battlefield, melting on the horizon into the pother of gunsmoke. Two fires blazed more and more brightly in the gathering darkness. The cannonade was dying down, but there was a build-up of musket-fire from behind and to the right. As soon as Tushin had manoeuvred his big guns out of firing range, trundling around some wounded men and running over others, he began to descend into the ravine and was met by some senior officers, including the staff officer and Zherkov, who had been sent to Tushin’s battery twice and never went there. They were all trying to outshout each other in the issuing of orders, telling people how to proceed and where to go, and showering Captain Tushin with blame and criticism. Tushin came on behind riding his gunner’s nag; he had lost all control of his emotions and said nothing to them, afraid to open his mouth because every word brought him inexplicably to the brink of tears. Orders had been given to abandon the wounded, but many of them dragged themselves after the troops and begged for a lift on the gun-carriages. The dashing infantry officer who had rushed out of Tushin’s little wattle hut just before the battle had been hoisted, shot through the stomach, up on to the carriage of ‘Matthew’s girl’. At the bottom of the hill a pale hussar cadet came up to Tushin, holding one arm in his other hand, begging for a lift.
‘Captain, for God’s sake. I’ve hurt my arm,’ he said timidly. ‘For God’s sake . . . I can’t walk. For God’s sake!’ This was clearly not the first time the cadet had asked for a lift, and everyone else had refused. He asked in a pitifully diffident voice, ‘Please tell them to let me get on, for God’s sake!’
‘Let him get on, let him on,’ said Tushin. ‘You, Uncle, spread that coat out.’ He turned to his favourite soldier. ‘Hey, where’s that wounded officer gone?’
‘We had to chuck him off. He was dead,’ someone answered.
‘Well, give him a hand up. Sit yourself down, my dear fellow. There you are. Get that coat under him, Antonov.’
The cadet was Rostov. He was still holding one arm with the other hand. He was pale, his jaw was trembling and he was shivering feverishly. They hoisted him up on to ‘Matthew’s girl’, from where they had just removed the dead officer. There was blood on the coat that was laid under him, and Rostov’s breeches and arm were smeared with it.
‘So, you’re wounded, old fellow?’ asked Tushin, going across to the gun-carriage on which Rostov was sitting.
‘No, it’s only a sprain.’
‘What’s all this blood on the side plate?’ asked Tushin.
‘It was that officer, sir. He stained it,’ answered a gunner, wiping the blood off with his coat sleeve as if to apologize for the dirty state of the cannon.
