‘Go on, my dear fellow, off you go, and God go with you!’ Kutuzov was saying to a general at his side, though his eyes never left the battlefield. The general in question heard the order and walked past Pierre towards the downward steps.
‘Down to the crossing,’ said the general with icy severity when one of the staff-officers asked where he was going.
‘Oh yes, me too,’ thought Pierre, and he set off in the same direction.
The general was mounting a horse brought up by his Cossack. Pierre went over to his own groom, who was standing there holding his horses. Asking for the easiest mount, Pierre got on, grabbed the horse by its mane, turned out his toes, dug his heels into the animal’s belly, and trotted off after the general with a desperate feeling that his spectacles were slipping down and he daren’t let go of the mane or the reins, much to the amusement of the staff-officers watching him from the mound.
CHAPTER 31
The general who was leading the way galloped downhill and turned sharp left at the bottom. Pierre lost sight of him and careered straight into the ranks of some infantrymen marching just ahead. He turned left and right in an attempt to extricate himself, but there were soldiers everywhere, and they all had worried faces as they went forward on some unseen business that was obviously no laughing matter. They all looked puzzled and annoyed to see this fat man in a white hat who was trampling them under his horse’s hooves for no apparent reason.
‘What’s ’e think ’e’s doin’ in the middle of a battalion?’ one man shouted for his benefit. Another gave his horse a good shove with his gun-butt, and Pierre, leaning forward in the saddle with his plunging steed almost out of control, managed to gallop through a space and out in front of the soldiers.
Ahead lay a bridge, and by the bridge there were some more soldiers, firing away. Pierre rode towards them. Without knowing it, he had hit upon the one bridge over the Kolocha, on the road from Gorki to Borodino, which had come under French attack in one of the first advances after they had taken the village itself. Pierre could see there was a bridge in front of him, and the soldiers were doing something in the smoke on both sides of the bridge, and also out in the meadow among the rows of new-mown hay he had noticed the day before. But despite the incessant hail of fire it never occurred to him that this was it, the actual battlefield. He didn’t hear the bullets whizzing past on all sides, or the shells flying overhead; he didn’t see the enemy on the other side of the river, and it was quite some time before he saw any men killed or wounded, though they were dropping all round him. He was taking a careful look around, and the smile never left his face.
‘What’s ’e doin’ out in front?’ came another call intended for his benefit.
‘Turn left!’, ‘Go right!’ came the various voices. Pierre did turn right, and happened upon one of General Rayevsky’s adjutants, a man he knew. The adjutant fixed him with a furious glare, and by all appearances he was about to yell at him too, but then he recognized him, and nodded in acknowledgement.
‘What are you doing down here?’ he said, and galloped on. Pierre, feeling out of his depth, quite useless, and worried about getting in the way again, galloped after him.
‘What’s happening here? Can I go with you?’ he asked.
‘Hang on a minute,’ answered the adjutant. He galloped over to a portly colonel waiting in the meadow, handed something to him, and only then spoke to Pierre. ‘What brings you here, Count?’ he asked with a smile. ‘Still curious about things?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Pierre. But the adjutant had turned his horse and was riding on.
‘Things are not too bad over here, thank God,’ said the adjutant, ‘but it’s pretty hot out there on the left flank with Bagration.’
‘Is it?’ said Pierre. ‘Where’s that, then?’
‘Come up on the mound with me. We can see a lot from up there. And our battery’s not doing too badly,’ said the adjutant. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Oh yes, I’ll come with you,’ said Pierre, looking round on all sides in search of his groom. Now for the first time Pierre began to see wounded men, some staggering about, others being carried away on stretchers. And out there in the meadow with the rows of sweet-smelling hay that he had ridden through the day before there was one soldier who was lying crosswise, perfectly still, with his shako off and his head awkwardly thrown back. ‘Why haven’t they taken him?’ Pierre was on the point of asking, until he saw the adjutant looking grimly in the same direction, and this made him swallow his words.
Without finding his groom Pierre rode with the adjutant up a hollow towards the Rayevsky redoubt. His horse lagged behind, and kept bumping into the adjutant’s horse at every step.
‘I can see you don’t do much riding, Count,’ said the adjutant.
‘No, but I’m all right. Her action is a bit awkward, though,’ said Pierre, rather bemused.
