The general went down among the ranks to supervise personally the change back into greatcoats. Captains rushed through their companies, sergeant-majors worried about greatcoats that weren’t quite right, and it took only a few moments for the solid and silent rectangles to stir, straggle and buzz with talk. Soldiers ran about everywhere – jerking their shoulders to lift up their rucksacks, pulling the straps over their heads, fishing out their greatcoats and reaching up with their arms to pull down the sleeves.
Half an hour later everything was back to normal, but the rectangles were grey rather than black. The general set off with his quivering walk to parade himself before the regiment, scanning it from some way off.
‘What the . . . ? What’s all this?’ he roared, coming to a halt. ‘Captain of the third company!’
‘Captain of the third company, report to the general! Company captain to the general! . . . Third company to the captain! . . .’ Voices rang out down the ranks, and an aide ran off to find the laggardly officer. When this urgent clamour reached its destination, having mixed up all the orders until eventually they were shouting ‘General to report to the third company!’, the officer in question emerged from the rear of his company, and, although he was an elderly man and no great runner, he managed a fair trot towards the general, tripping over his own toes as he came. The captain looked like a shifty schoolboy who had been told to run through some homework that he hadn’t done. His face, already bright red in colour – he was clearly no abstainer – now turned blotchy and his mouth twitched. The general looked him up and down as he ran forward, gasping and slowing down with every step.
‘Do you want your men in women’s dresses! What’s the meaning of this?’ roared the general, setting his jaw and pointing in the ranks of the third division to a soldier wearing a different-coloured greatcoat from everyone else’s, the colour of factory cloth. ‘And where have you been? The commander-in-chief is expected, and you’re not where you should be! Eh? . . . I’ll teach you to put your men in fancy dress for an inspection! . . . Eh?’
The captain, never taking his eyes off his superior officer, pressed his two fingers harder and harder against the peak of his cap, as if his only hope of safety lay in saluting as hard as he could.
‘Well, why don’t you
‘Your Excellency.’
‘What do you mean, “your Excellency?” I’ll give you “your Excellency”! You say it, but nobody knows what you mean!’
‘Your Excellency, that man is Private Dolokhov. He’s been reduced to the ranks,’ the captain said softly.
‘Are you sure he wasn’t reduced to field marshal? If he’s a private, he should be dressed like the others, regulation kit.’
‘Your Excellency, you gave him permission, on the march.’
‘Permission? What permission? There you go, you’re all the same, you youngsters,’ said the general, cooling down a little. ‘Permission? A simple remark, and you take it . . .’ He paused. ‘Yes, you, er, take it . . . Well, what about it?’ he said, newly infuriated. ‘Kindly make sure your men are properly turned out . . .’
And the general, looking round at his aide, walked his quivering way back to the regiment, patently delighted with his own show of displeasure and now, as he walked through the ranks, looking for other excuses to blow his top. He tore a strip off one officer for having a dirty badge, and another because his column was out of line; then he came to the third company.
‘Call that standing to attention? What’s that leg doing? That leg, what’s it doing?’ the general roared with his long-suffering tone, and he was still five men short of Dolokhov, the man in the blue greatcoat. Dolokhov slowly straightened his leg, and looked brazenly with his clear eyes at the general’s face.
‘Why are you wearing a blue coat? Get it off! . . . Sergeant-major! Change this man’s coat . . . the filthy sw . . .’ But he wasn’t allowed to complete the word.
‘General, I am bound to obey orders, but not to put up with . . .’ Dolokhov spoke rapidly.
‘No talking in the ranks! . . . No talking there! No talking!’
‘. . . not to put up with insults,’ Dolokhov persisted in a clear and confident voice. The eyes of general and private met. The general demurred, angrily pulling down on his tight scarf.
‘Be so kind as to change your coat,’ he said, and walked on.
CHAPTER 2
‘He’s coming!’ came the call from a signalman. The general, red in the face, ran to his horse, grasped the stirrup with trembling hands, swung himself up and across, settled down in the saddle, drew his sword, and with a look of pleasure and determination opened one side of his mouth, ready to shout. The regiment stirred itself like a bird settling its feathers, then all was still and silent.
