“Colonel,” he said with his gloomy earnestness, addressing Rostov’s enemy and looking around at his comrades, “there is an order to stop and set fire to the bridge.”
“An order of who?” the colonel asked sullenly.
“I don’t know of who, Colonel,” the cornet replied earnestly, “only the prince told me: ‘Go and tell the colonel that the hussars must turn back quickly and set fire to the bridge.’”
After Zherkov, an officer of the suite rode up to the hussar colonel with the same order. After the officer of the suite, on a Cossack horse that was barely able to gallop under him, fat Nesvitsky rode up.
“What is this, Colonel?” he cried while still riding. “I told you to set fire to the bridge, and somebody got it wrong; everybody’s going crazy there, they can’t figure it out.”
The colonel unhurriedly halted his regiment and turned to Nesvitsky.
“You spoke to me about flammable material,” he said, “but you said nothing to me about setting feuer to it.”
“What do you mean, my dear man?” Nesvitsky said, stopping, taking off his cap, and smoothing his sweat-dampened hair with a plump hand. “What do you mean I didn’t tell you to set fire to the bridge, since you put flammable material there?”
“I am not ‘dear man’ to you, Mister Staff Officer, and you did not tell me to set feuer to the bridge! I know the serfiss, and I am habituated to strictly fulfilling orders. You said the bridge vas to be set on feuer, but who vould set it on feuer I cannot know by the Holy Spirit…”
“It’s always like that,” Nesvitsky said, waving his hand. “What are you doing here?” he turned to Zherkov.
“The same as you. You’re soaking wet, though, let me wring you out.”
“You said, Mister Staff Officer…” the colonel went on in an offended tone.
“Colonel,” the officer of the suite interrupted, “you must hurry, otherwise the enemy will move up his canister guns.”
The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the fat staff officer, at Zherkov, and frowned.
“I vill set feuer to the bridge,” he said in a solemn tone, as if to show that, despite all the unpleasantness done to him, he would still do what he had to do.
Striking his horse with his long, muscular legs, as if it was all the horse’s fault, the colonel moved forward and commanded the second squadron, the one in which Rostov served under Denisov, to go back to the bridge.
“Well, that’s it,” thought Rostov, “he wants to test me!” His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his face. “Let him see whether I’m a coward,” he thought.
Again there appeared on all the cheerful faces of the men of the squadron that serious trait that had been there when they were under fire. Rostov, never taking his eyes away, kept looking at his enemy, the regimental commander, wishing to find on his face a confirmation of his surmises; but the colonel never once glanced at Rostov, but, as always at the front, looked stern and solemn. The command was heard.
“Step lively! Step lively!” several voices said near him.
Their sabers catching in their bridles, their spurs jingling, the hussars hurriedly dismounted, not knowing themselves what they were going to do. The hussars crossed themselves. Rostov no longer looked at the regimental commander—he had no time. He was afraid, with a sinking heart he was afraid to lag behind the hussars. His hand shook as he turned his horse over to the handler, and he felt the blood throbbing as it rose to his heart. Denisov, lurching backwards and shouting something, rode past him. Rostov saw nothing but the hussars running around him, their spurs catching and their sabers clanking.
“Stretcher!” someone’s voice shouted behind.
Rostov did not think of what the call for a stretcher meant; he ran on, trying only to be ahead of everyone else; but just by the bridge, not looking under his feet, he got into the slimy, trampled mud, stumbled, and fell on his hands. Others ran past him.
“On bote sides, Captain,” he heard the voice of the regimental commander, who, having ridden ahead, stood mounted near the bridge with a triumphant and merry face.
Rostov, wiping his muddy hands on his breeches, looked at his enemy and wanted to run further, supposing that the further ahead he got, the better it would be. But Bogdanych, though he neither looked at nor recognized Rostov, shouted at him.
“Who’s that running in the middle of the bridge? Keep to the right! Back, junker!” he cried out angrily and turned to Denisov, who, flaunting his courage, rode out onto the planks of the bridge.
“Vy riskiert, Captain! Better dismount,” said the colonel.
“Eh! it’ll find the one it’s meant for,” replied Denisov, turning on his saddle.
Meanwhile, Nesvitsky, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite stood together out of the range of fire and looking at this small bunch of men in yellow shakos, dark green jackets embroidered with cord, and blue breeches, pottering about by the bridge and, on the other side, at blue coats and groups with horses, which could easily be identified as artillery, approaching in the distance.
“Will they set fire to it or won’t they? Who’ll be first? Will they run and set fire to the bridge, or will the French come within canister-shot range and kill them all?” These questions were involuntarily asked with sinking heart by each man of that large mass of troops which stood above the bridge and in the bright evening light looked at the bridge and the hussars and, on the other side, at the advancing blue coats with bayonets and guns.
“Ah! the hussars are going to get it!” said Nesvitsky. “It’s close enough for canister shot now.”
“He shouldn’t have taken so many men,” said the officer of the suite.
“Indeed not,” said Nesvitsky. “If he’d sent two brave lads, it would be the same.”
“Ah, Your Excellency,” Zherkov mixed in, not taking his eyes from the hussars, but still with his naïve manner, which made it impossible to tell whether he was speaking seriously or not. “Ah, Your Excellency! What a way to reason! Send two men, and who’s going to give us a Vladimir with a bow?5 This way they may get beaten, but the squadron will be distinguished, and he’ll get a bow. Our Bogdanych knows the system.”
“Well,” said the officer of the suite, “there’s the canisters!”
He pointed to the French guns, which were being taken from their limbers and hurriedly deployed.
On the French side, among those groups where the guns were, a puff of smoke appeared, a second, a third almost simultaneously, and just as the sound of the first shot reached them, a fourth appeared. Two sounds one after another, and a third.
“Oh, oh!” gasped Nesvitsky, as if from burning pain, seizing the officer of the suite by the arm. “Look, he’s fallen, one of them has fallen, fallen!”
“Two of them, I believe?”
“If I were the tsar, I’d never go to war,” Nesvitsky said, turning away.
The French guns were being hurriedly reloaded. The infantry in blue coats moved towards the bridge at a run. Again puffs of smoke appeared at various intervals, and canister shot went crackling and rattling over the bridge. But this time Nesvitsky could not see what was happening on the bridge. Thick smoke rose from it. The hussars had managed to set fire to the bridge, and the French batteries were now shooting not in order to hinder them, but because the guns had been aimed and there were people to shoot at.
The French managed to fire three rounds of canister shot before the hussars got back to the horse-tenders. Two of the rounds were poorly aimed and all the shot went overhead, but the last round landed in the middle of a bunch of hussars and brought down three of them.