Riding out beyond the village, continually meeting or overtaking soldiers and officers of various divisions, they saw that on their left trenches were being dug, piling up mounds of fresh red clay. Several battalions of soldiers, in shirtsleeves despite the cold wind, were swarming like white ants all over the trench works; spadefuls of red clay came soaring out on to the mounds thrown up by hands unseen. They went over to inspect the work and then rode on further. Just beyond the entrenchment they came across dozens of soldiers continually running over to the latrine, changing places and running off again, and they had to hold their noses and get their horses to trot away from the noxious atmosphere.
‘Here we have it – the nice side of camp life,’ said the staff officer.
They rode up the hill opposite, from where they could get a good view of the French. Prince Andrey stopped and looked.
‘That’s our battery up yonder,’ said the staff-officer, showing him the highest point, ‘commanded by that funny fellow sitting there with no boots on. From there you can see everything. Shall we go up, Prince?’
‘I’m most grateful to you, but I can manage now,’ said Prince Andrey, anxious to be rid of the staff officer. ‘Please don’t worry about me.’
The staff officer rode off, and Prince Andrey went on alone.
The further forward and the closer to the enemy he went, the more orderly and cheerful he found the troops. The worst of the disorder and despondency had been seen in the transport column just outside Znaim which Prince Andrey had passed that morning, six or seven miles away from the French. He had also felt some degree of alarm and a vague sense of apprehension at Grunth. But the nearer Prince Andrey got to the actual French lines, the more confident our troops appeared to be. The soldiers stood in orderly ranks wearing their greatcoats while their sergeant-major and the captain were numbering off, poking the last soldier in each section in the chest and telling him to raise his hand. Soldiers were scattered about everywhere, bringing logs and brushwood, knocking up little shacks, chatting together and laughing in high spirits. They sat round the campfires, some dressed and some stripped, drying off their shirts and leg-bands or seeing to their boots and coats. Many of them thronged around the cauldrons and porridge pots. In one company the meal was ready and the soldiers gazed at the steaming pots with ravenous faces, waiting for the quartermaster sergeant to take a bowlful over to an officer sitting on a log outside his shack so that he could sample it.
In another company, luckier than most – they didn’t all get vodka – the soldiers crowded around their thick-set, pockmarked sergeant while he tilted a keg of vodka and poured it into the canteen lids offered up in turn. With a heavenly look on their faces the soldiers lifted the lids to their mouths, tossed them back, licked their lips and then, wiping their mouths on their coat sleeves, strolled off looking nice and merry. Every face was calm; it was as if all this were happening not in sight of the enemy and just before a battle in which at least half of them would be left behind on the field, but somewhere back home in Russia, with the prospect of a nice quiet halt for the night. Prince Andrey rode past a chasseur regiment and on to the ranks of the Kiev Grenadiers, splendid men, all engaged in the same peaceful activities. Not far from the colonel’s rather superior little hut he came upon a platoon of grenadiers, with a man stripped naked lying on the ground in front of them. Two soldiers held him down while two others were swinging supple birches, lashing them down rhythmically across the man’s bare back. The man screamed like nothing on earth. A stout major was walking up and down in front of the platoon, ignoring the screams and saying to the men, ‘It’s a disgrace for a soldier to steal. A soldier must be honest, honourable and brave. Anyone who steals from a brother must be without honour. He’s a swine! Keep it going!’
The measured lashing continued; so did the desperate screaming, though some of it may have been for effect.
‘Keep it going!’ said the major over and again.
A young officer walked away from the flogging, his face a picture of bewilderment and sorrow, looking quizzically at the adjutant.
Prince Andrey rode out to the front and then along the line. On both flanks the two lines, ours and the enemy’s, were quite a long way away from each other, but in the centre, where the emissaries had come over that morning, the lines came so close together that the soldiers of the two armies could see each other’s faces and talk to each other. Besides the picket line itself, many onlookers had gathered on both sides, enjoying a good laugh as they scrutinized the enemy, who looked to them like weird and alien beings.
