‘You from these parts?’ he said. ‘Are they dropping us here or taking us on to Moscow?’
Pierre was so preoccupied that he didn’t hear. He was engrossed in watching the cavalry regiment that had come up against the casualty convoy, and the cart right in front of him with its three wounded men, two sitting up, one lying down. One of the pair sitting up seemed to have been wounded in the cheek. His whole head was swathed in rags, and one cheek had swollen up as big as a baby’s head. His mouth and nose had been skewed to one side. He was looking over at the cathedral and he crossed himself. Another soldier, a conscript, only a boy, with blond hair and a thin white face that seemed to have been drained of all blood, was watching Pierre with a friendly smile. The third man was lying on his belly so you could not see his face. The cavalry singers were now level with the cart. They were belting out a good soldier’s song that had the men dancing along.
My hair’s all gone, I’ve got a spiky head,
And here I am a-wanderin’ far from home . . .
A kind of echo, joyous in a very different way, came ringing down from the metallic clanging of the bells. And joyous in a different way again was the hot sunshine that bathed the top of the opposite slope. But under the hillside where Pierre stood next to the cart with the wounded soldiers and the gasping little nag, it was miserably damp and dismal.
The soldier with the swollen cheek looked savagely at the singing cavalrymen.
‘All right for that lot, showing off!’ he growled resentfully.
‘It’s not just soldiers now, you know, there’s peasants, too, I’ve seen’em! Oh yes, the peasants, they’re gettin’ dragged in as well,’ said the soldier standing by the cart and talking to Pierre with a lugubrious smile on his lips. ‘No pickin’ and choosin’ now . . . Chuck everybody at ’em. It’s all about Moscow, you know. Get it all over an’ done with.’ Although the soldier didn’t express himself clearly, Pierre got his meaning and nodded in agreement.
Now at last the road was clear, so Pierre walked to the bottom of the hill and drove off again.
On he went, searching for familiar faces on either side of the road, but all he saw were unfamiliar ones, fighting faces from all over the military, every one of them staring in amazement at his white hat and green swallowtail coat.
He had gone two or three miles before he came across someone he knew, and he hailed him with great delight. It was a doctor, a senior member of the army medical staff. He was coming towards Pierre in a covered gig, with a young doctor at his side, and the moment he spotted Pierre, he called out to the Cossack who had taken over as his driver, and told him to stop.
‘Count! Your Excellency, what are you doing down here?’ asked the doctor.
‘Oh, I just felt like having a look . . .’
‘Well, there’s going to be plenty to look at . . .’ Pierre got out of his carriage, and stopped to exchange a few words with the doctor, telling him he had every intention of taking part in the battle.
The doctor advised Bezukhov to go straight to Kutuzov.
‘What do you think you’re doing, wandering off out of sight, God knows where on the battlefield?’ he said, exchanging a quick glance with his young colleague, ‘and his Serene Highness does know you, so you’ll get a warm welcome. That’s what you must do, my friend,’ said the doctor.
The doctor had an exhausted and harassed look about him.
‘So you think . . . Anyway, there’s just one more thing I wanted to ask – where exactly is our position?’ said Pierre.
‘Our position?’ said the doctor. ‘Not really my cup of tea. Get yourself down past Tatarinova. There’s a fair amount of digging going on there. Some high ground. You can see a lot from there,’ said the doctor.
‘Can you really? . . . If you could just . . .’
But the doctor had cut him short and was walking back to his gig.
‘I would have taken you there, but I’m up to here, for heaven’s sake . . .’ (The doctor pointed to his throat.) ‘Must rush. I’m off to see the corps commander. Do you know how bad things are? . . . Listen, Count, there’s going to be a battle tomorrow with a hundred thousand troops. We can count on twenty thousand casualties at the very least, and we haven’t enough stretchers, beds, dressers or doctors for six thousand. We have got ten thousand carts, but we need lots of other things. Just have to do what we can.’
Pierre was greatly affected by the curious idea that of all those thousands of men, alive and kicking, young and old, who had been staring at his hat with such easy amusement, twenty thousand were inexorably destined to be wounded or killed, maybe men he had seen with his own eyes.
‘They may be going to die tomorrow. How can they think of anything but death?’ And suddenly, by some mysterious association of ideas, he had a vivid recollection of walking down the hill outside Mozhaysk, with the carts and the wounded men, the clamour of the bells, the slanting rays of sunshine, and the cavalrymen singing.
