High on the enemy slope a puff of smoke indicated a shot, and a cannonball whistled over the heads of the hussar squadron. The officers, who had been standing together, scattered to their various posts. The hussars began to ease their horses back into line. The whole squadron was silent. All the men were watching the enemy ahead and waiting for an order from the squadron commander. Another cannonball flew over, then a third. They were definitely firing at the hussars, but the cannonballs soared with their steady whine right over their heads and landed somewhere behind them. The hussars didn’t look back, but at the sound of each flying ball, as if responding to an order, the entire squadron, a sea of faces so alike yet so different, rose in the stirrups, each man holding his breath as the ball whizzed by, then sank down again. The soldiers didn’t turn their heads, but they angled glances at each other, curious to note the effect on their comrades. Every face from Denisov’s down to the bugler’s showed about the lips and chin the same suggestion of a struggle between anxiety and excitement. The sergeant surveyed the men with a scowl, as though threatening punishment. Officer-cadet Mironov ducked every time a cannonball flew over. Out on the left flank, Rostov on his Little Rook – a handsome mount despite the weakness in his legs – looked rather like a cheerful schoolboy appearing at a public examination which he knows he is going to pass with flying colours. He looked at them all coolly and closely, as though inviting them to notice how calm he was under fire. But despite his best efforts even his face showed about the mouth that same suggestion of living through something new and dangerous.
‘Who’s that bobbing up and down? Officer-cadet Miwonov! That’s not wight! Watch me!’ roared Denisov, unable to settle in one place and galloping up and down in front of the squadron.
Vaska Denisov, with his snub-nosed face, black hair, his small stocky figure and the sinewy hand with its hairy little fingers clasping the hilt of his naked sword, looked exactly his normal self, as he did in the evening with a couple of bottles inside him, only a bit redder still in the face. Tossing back his mane of hair like a bird drinking, he ruthlessly drove the spurs on his little feet into his good horse Bedouin, reared right back in the saddle and galloped across to the far flank of the squadron, where he roared at the men in a hoarse voice, telling them to look to their pistols. Then he rode over to Kirsten. The staff captain on his rather plump, staid old mare jogged towards him at a gentle walking pace. The staff captain’s face with its long whiskers was as stern as ever, but his eyes gleamed brighter than usual.
‘Well,’ he said to Denisov, ‘there won’t be any fighting. You watch, we shall pull back.’
‘It’s widiculous! What the hell are we doing?’ growled Denisov. ‘Ah, Wostov!’ he called to the ensign, noticing his beaming face. ‘This is it!’ And he smiled approval, visibly pleased at the sight of the ensign. Rostov had now achieved perfect happiness. Just then the commanding officer appeared on the bridge. Denisov galloped over to him.
‘Sir, let’s wide into the attack! I’ll wun ’em back!’
‘What do you mean, attack?’ said the colonel languidly, scowling as if annoyed by a passing fly. ‘Why are you hanging about here? You can see the flanks are retreating. Lead the squadron back.’
The squadron crossed the bridge and passed unscathed out of the enemy’s range. Number two squadron followed on behind, and the Cossacks brought up the rear, leaving the far bank deserted.
Once over the bridge, the two squadrons of the Pavlograd regiment retired uphill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Schubert (known to all by his patronymic, Bogdanych), had come over to join Denisov’s squadron, and was now riding at walking pace not far from Rostov, ignoring him even though this was the first time they had met since the Telyanin affair. Rostov, conscious of being at the front in the hands of a man that he had wronged, couldn’t take his eyes off the colonel’s athletic back, fair hair and red neck. One moment, Rostov imagined that Bogdanych was only pretending to ignore him, and that his main purpose was now to test the ensign’s courage, so he kept drawing himself up and looking around cheerfully. The next, he fancied that Bogdanych was riding close to him because he wanted to show off his own valour. Then the thought struck him that his adversary was about to launch the squadron into a hopeless attack simply in order to punish him, Rostov. This led to another idea – when the attack was over the colonel would come to him as he lay there wounded and magnanimously extend the hand of reconciliation.
