From Prince Shcherbatov’s house the prisoners were taken straight down to the Virgin’s Field, past the convent on the left and into a kitchen garden where a post had been dug into the ground. A big pit had been excavated behind the post, and there was a pile of newly dug earth to one side. A large crowd of people stood round the pit and the post in a semi-circle. The crowd consisted of a small number of Russians and a large number of Napoleon’s off-duty soldiers, Germans, Italians and Frenchmen in a variety of uniforms. To the right and left of the post stood rows of French soldiers wearing blue uniforms with red epaulettes, high boots and shakos. The prisoners were lined up in order as listed by name (Pierre was sixth) and led out towards the post. There was a sudden drum-roll on both sides; the sound of it made Pierre feel as if part of his soul had been torn from him. He lost all power of thought and imagination. All he could do was look and listen. And he had only one thought in mind: some dreadful deed had to be accomplished and he wanted it over and done with as soon as possible. Pierre looked round at his companions and studied them.
The two men at the end were convicts with shaven heads, one tall and thin, the other a dark, hairy muscular man with a flat nose. The third was a house serf, a man in his mid-forties with greying hair and a plump, well-fed figure. The fourth man was a big handsome peasant with a full, light-brown beard and black eyes. The fifth was a factory worker, a thin, sallow boy of eighteen or so in a loose coat.
Pierre heard the Frenchmen discussing whether to shoot them one by one or two at a time. ‘Two at a time,’ answered the senior officer, calm and cool. There was a stirring in the ranks, and everybody seemed to be hurrying things on, not like people making a quick job of something familiar to all, but like men hurrying through some nasty and incomprehensible duty that had to be done.
A French official wearing a scarf came up to the right-hand end of the line of prisoners, and read out the sentence in Russian and in French.
Then two pairs of French soldiers came up to the criminals, and acting on orders from an officer took hold of the two convicts standing at one end. The convicts walked over to the post, stopped in front of it, and, while they were waiting for bags to be brought, they looked round dumbly like wild animals at bay. One of them kept crossing himself, the other scratched his back and worked his lips into something like a smile. The soldiers made a quick job of blindfolding them, putting bags over their heads and tying them to the post.
A dozen marksmen with muskets marched steadily out of the ranks and came to a halt eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away to avoid seeing what was going to happen. There was an ear-splitting bang that seemed louder than any thunderclap, and Pierre looked round. There was a cloud of smoke, and some French soldiers with trembling hands and pallid faces were busy doing something at the side of the pit. The next two were brought forward. It was the same again: these two men looked at everybody in the same way, without a hope, saying nothing, but with eyes begging for protection. Clearly they could neither understand nor believe what was coming to them. It was beyond belief: they were the only ones who knew what life meant to them, so they couldn’t understand, or believe, that it could be taken away.
Trying not to look, Pierre turned away again, but again his hearing was shattered by a fearsome bang, and with the sound he saw smoke, blood and the pallid, scared faces of the Frenchmen, busy doing something again at the post, getting in each other’s way with their trembling hands. Pierre’s breathing was laboured; he looked round as if to ask, ‘What’s it all about?’ The same question was written in all the eyes that met Pierre’s. On all the faces, Russian and French, the faces of officers and men, all of them without exception, he could read the same sense of shock, horror and conflict that he felt in his own heart. ‘But who
