The ranks of infantrymen vanished into the smoke, but they could still be heard calling across to each other and firing continuously with their muskets. It took only a few minutes for hordes of wounded men and stretcher-bearers to start coming back. Shells rained down on the battery even more furiously. There were men lying around who were not being picked up. Round the cannons the toiling soldiers had redoubled their efforts. Pierre was now being ignored. Two or three times people yelled at him furiously for getting in the way. The senior officer strode rapidly from cannon to cannon with a dark scowl on his face. The boy officer, with even more red in his cheeks, issued his orders more conscientiously than ever. The straining soldiers did everything – passing on the charges, turning round, loading and all the rest – more urgently, with a new swagger and a new spring in their step.
The stormcloud was now on them, and the flickering fire that Pierre had been watching lit up their faces more brightly than ever. He was standing beside the senior officer. The little boy officer ran up and saluted.
‘Colonel, sir, I have the honour to inform you we have only eight rounds left. What shall we do, continue firing?’ he asked.
‘Grapeshot!’ yelled the senior officer, still peering out over the trench top.
Suddenly something happened. The boy officer cried out, doubled up and sat down on the ground, like a bird shot on the wing. Pierre’s vision blurred; everything looked weird and dark.
The cannonballs came whistling down one after another, smashing into eveything – breastwork, soldiers, cannons. These sounds had barely registered on Pierre before; now he could hear nothing else. To one side of the battery, the right-hand side, some soldiers were shouting ‘Hurrah!’, but they seemed to be running back rather than going forwards.
A cannonball thudded into the very edge of the trench where Pierre was sitting and sent the earth flying; a little black ball flashed past him and smacked into something soft. The militiamen who were just about to come into the battery ran back.
‘Grapeshot! Everybody!’ shouted the officer.
The sergeant ran up to the officer and said in a timorous whisper (like a butler informing the dinner host that the wine he wanted has run out) there was nothing left to fire.
‘Swine! What do they think they’re doing?’ shouted the officer, turning to Pierre. Sweat ran down the senior officer’s red face. He scowled. There was a glint in his eye. ‘Get down to the reserves. Fetch some ammunition-boxes!’ he shouted, looking furiously past Pierre at the soldier.
‘I’ll go,’ said Pierre. There was no response from the officer, who was off, striding down to the other end.
‘Hold your fire! . . . Wait!’ he called.
The soldier who had been told to go for ammunition bumped into Pierre.
‘Listen, sir, this is no place for you,’ he said as he ran away.
Pierre ran after him, making a detour round the spot where the boy officer was sitting.
A cannonball flew past him, then another, and another; they were raining down on all sides as he charged downhill. ‘Where am I going?’ he was beginning to wonder, when suddenly he was there beside the green ammunition-boxes. He hesitated – should he run back or go on? Suddenly a terrific bang sent him reeling backwards down to the ground. At the same instant he was dazzled by a great searing flash, and deafened by a terrible hissing sound and a thunderous roar that banged in his ears.
When he came to, Pierre found himself sitting on his bottom resting back on his hands. The ammunition-box that had been at his side had disappeared; all that was left were a few charred green bits of board and some rags littering the scorched grass. A horse was galloping away still attached to some shattered bits of shaft. Another horse lay like Pierre on the ground, letting out prolonged and piercing whinnies.
CHAPTER 32
Out of his mind with terror, Pierre leapt to his feet and ran back up to the battery, the one place where he might be safe from the horrors around him.
As he walked into the redoubt he realized there wasn’t any firing from the battery, but there were some men in there busy doing something or other. He could not make out who they were. He caught a quick glimpse of the senior officer slumped over the earth wall with his back towards him, as if he was staring down at something, and he saw another soldier, someone he knew from before, struggling to free himself from some men who were holding him, and yelling ‘Brothers! Help me!’ And he saw something else that struck him as odd.
