The sun began to rise, turning the white fog to gold; down below bugles began to sound reveille, like cocks crowing defiantly in the dawn, challenging and answering from one invisible camp to the other. The mist began to thin and disperse and streaks of dark green appeared through it, as it caught and tore like gauze on the branches of the trees. The sun rose, golden and lovely, lifting effortlessly into the pale morning sky. The last of the mist was sucked up, revealing the amphitheatre below; a little steam rose from the ground as the night’s dew evaporated in the growing warmth. It was going to be a fine day, she thought.
Below on the plain, breakfast was over. In each of the opposing armies, the company commanders formed up their men to read to them the Orders for the Day, the last words of good cheer from their Caesars to those who were going to die.
Pauline came out and stood beside Anne, her fingers tucked under her armpits, her arms clasping her body. The sun had not yet come round: it was still cold on the terrace in the shadow of the trees. Anne wondered it the significance of the scene below would be apparent to her; but after a moment Pauline said, ‘Les pauvres! Voila la bêtise des hommes, madame.’
Pauline had no vested interest in the outcome of the conflict: whichever side lost, she did not win.
‘C’est plutôt leur faiblesse,’ Anne said with sympathy.
The first shots were fired at six o’clock. Two divisions of French infantry attacked Borodino itself, which was held by an elite Russian Jaeger regiment of light infantry. Taken by surprise, the Jaegers were driven back, and soon were retreating up the hill towards Gorky. The French, cheered by the easy victory, unwisely went in pursuit, streaming after them with yells of excitement. General Tolly was watching the events on horseback from the higher ground and saw the chance. He turned the Jaegers who, with the advantage of the slope now in their favour, mounted a bayonet charge whose momentum cut the French down helplessly.
But battle had now been joined in the centre, on the plain between the two roads. The most tremendous crash signalled the beginning of the battle between the opposing artillery forces. Cannon spoke, and cannon answered; roar followed flash, palls of bitter black smoke roiled upwards, as though the earth had erupted in volcanic violence. The crashes became almost continuous, so that it was impossible to distinguish one gun’s boom from another; and the noise was intolerable, blotting out thought itself.
This was a new kind of warfare, never seen before: a static battle between brazen monsters, bellowing their defiance, vomiting flame and iron, dealing death on an unprecedented scale; terrible in its inhumanity. Kirov and the other staff commanders watched from the high ground in grim silence. The smoke which covered the scene seemed almost genial, in masking this ultimate madness of mankind from human eyes.
Bagration’s left flank was under attack now from French infantry. Only the right flank, protected by the hills, was still standing by. A further threat was developing along the lines Bennigsen had dismissed as nonsense: Napoleon’s Polish regiments were coming up the old post road, and working their way round through the woods to the south to capture Utitsa, and outflank Bagration’s front.
Lieutenant Felix Uspensky had been sitting on his horse in front of his men for two hours now, trying to keep his mind off the things that might happen to him. He had never been fired at before, having only lately come from cadet school. He had joined the regiment from the reserves only at Tsarevo, and his uniform was still fresh and new and clean, unlike those of the officers who had come all the way from Vilna. When he had first tried it on, it had seemed splendid in its newness, and he had longed to show it to Kira in its pristine state. Now it seemed shameful to be so spotless; he felt his inexperience keenly. But whatever happened, he thought, he would not let his fear show to his men; he would not let his father or Colonel Kirov down.
His father had given him his horse, Svetka, for his last birthday. Uspensky reached forward and stroked the gleaming chestnut neck. Svetka was a pure-bred Arabian, the most beautiful creature Felix had ever seen, and he loved her more than anyone in the world – more, he thought guiltily, even than Kira. The sun cleared the hill behind him, warming his back, and Svetka, who was being remarkably patient, shifted her weight from one foot to the other and sighed a deep groaning horse sigh that made him smile.
He suddenly thought how lucky he was to be here, with his beautiful mare, on such an important day. It would be a thing to tell his children one day, (and his transparent skin blushed involuntarily at the thought of having children with Kira), that he had fought against Napoleon at the famous battle of Borodino. Perhaps he would do something tremendously brave, and the Emperor would give him a medal. That would be a nice thing to show his son one day.
He reached up and touched his untried blonde moustache, which Lolya had admired, and of which he was proud and doubtful in almost equal proportions. He wondered if the hair tonic that his father used on his scalp would make it grow faster.
Suddenly the woods in front of him were seething with movement. He jerked out of his daydream. Svetka waltzed sideways and back, and then Poniatowski’s famous and battle-hardened Poles on their fierce little horses came roaring out of the trees directly towards him. Everything in his body seemed to drop two feet downwards like a stone, leaving him cold and empty and weak; but it was an officer’s business never to show fear before his men. He knew that.
‘Come on!’ he shrieked, kicking Svetka forward. She squealed in surprise – he had kicked harder than he meant – and sprang, almost unseating him as he fumbled for his sabre. His men roared approval and surged forward in his wake. Not Frenchmen, he found himself thinking, but Poles! Still, they were the enemy too. Poles, not Frenchmen. There was horse artillery, he noticed, and he felt a thrill of fear, but distantly, almost as if it belonged to someone else.
He was still yards before the enemy line when their field pieces spoke; he saw their round black mouths spurt flame, and was aware of his men going down on all sides like ninepins. Then he felt Svetka slew sideways under him, her legs going out cleanly from under her as she was shot dead through the heart by enemy musket fire. He tried to kick his foot out of the stirrup, had time for one panicking thought as she felclass="underline" ‘–mustn’t get trapped underneath–!’
Then there was an explosion so close it seemed to be right inside his head, an explosion that was also pain.
‘–loud!’ he thought in hurt surprise; and died. He didn’t feel the ground come up to meet him, or the rest of the charge, carried by its momentum, trample over him.
Bagration’s left wing was hard pressed, and the Prince sent again and again asking for reinforcements. His fortifications, the filches, were taken by the French, but since they were open at the rear, the captors immediately found themselves under fire from the Russian ranks who had fallen back, and it was easy then to retake them. It was a pattern repeated throughout the day, capture and recapture, again and again; the heaps of bodies mounting before and inside the flèches, the battle line swaying back and then forward like some monstrous country dance.
Rayevsky’s redoubt, the main defence in the centre, was taken by the French at around half past ten, and Rayevsky was wounded. Yermolov, Tolly’s chief of staff, who was passing by just then with three companies of horse artillery, intended for reinforcements further down the line, saw what was happening and rallied the retreating Russians. Amid a terrible hail of lead, he mounted a counter-attack, and retook the redoubt; the French fell back for a moment, and then counter-attacked with fresh reinforcements.