I go to them, your excellency?” asked Nesvitsky.
“Yes, do please go,” said the general, repeating an order that had already been spelled out in detail, “and tell the hussars that they are to cross last and torch the bridge, as I ordered, and to inspect the combustible materials on the bridge.”
“Very good,” replied Nesvitsky.
He called the Cossack with his horse, ordered him to clear away the bag and flask, and swung his heavy body lightly into the saddle.
“I really will call in to see the little nuns,” he said to the officers, who were looking at him with cunning smiles, and set off downhill along a winding little track.
“Right then, as far as it will reach, captain, give it a try,” said the general, turning to the gunner. “Amuse yourself a bit, keep the boredom at bay.”
“Man the guns!” the officer commanded, and a moment later the artillerymen came running from their campfires and loaded up.
“Fire number one!” came the command.
Gun number one recoiled sharply. The artillery piece gave a deafening metallic clang, a grenade flew, whistling, over the heads of our men below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a puff of smoke showing the spot where it burst.
The faces of the officers and soldiers brightened at this sound: they all stood up and began observing the movements of our forces, spread out clearly below them, and, straight ahead, the movements of the approaching enemy. At that very moment the sun emerged completely from behind the clouds, and the beautiful sound of this solitary shot and the brilliance of the bright sunshine fused into a single cheerful, uplifting impression.
VII
Two enemy shots had already flown over the bridge, and on the bridge itself there was a crush. In the middle of the bridge, dismounted from his horse, his fat body pressed against the railings, stood Prince Nesvitsky. He glanced back, laughing, at his Cossack, who was standing a few paces behind him, holding the two horses’ bridles. No sooner did Prince Nesvitsky try to move forward than the soldiers and wagons bore down on him and squeezed him against the railings again, and there was nothing left for him to do but smile.
“Hey, you, little brother!” the Cossack said to a transport soldier with a wagon, who was trying to force his way through the infantry crowding close around his wheels and horse. “Look at you! Can’t be bothered to wait to let the general through.” But the soldier, paying no heed to the title of general, shouted at the soldiers who were blocking his way. “Hey there, brothers! Keep to the left, wait!” But his fellow countrymen, crowding shoulder to shoulder and interlocking bayonets in an unbroken line, moved along the bridge in a single compact mass. Glancing down over the railings, Nesvitsky saw the swift, turbid, low waves of the Enns pursuing and overtaking each other, fusing together, rippling and curving around the piles of the bridge. Glancing at the bridge, he saw the equally uniform, living waves of soldiers, the tasselled cords, shakos with hoods, knapsacks, bayonets and long guns, and under the shakos, faces with broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks and resignedly weary expressions, and feet moving through the sticky mud that had been dragged onto the wooden boards of the bridge. Sometimes among the uniform waves of soldiers, like a splash of white foam in the waves of the Enns, an officer in a cloak squeezed his way through the soldiers, with features that were different from theirs, sometimes, like a chip of wood swirling along the river, a hussar on foot, an orderly or a local resident was carried along the bridge by the waves of infantry, sometimes, like a log floating along the river, a company cart or officer’s cart, loaded up to the top and covered with sheets of leather, floated along the bridge.
“Look at them, like a dam’s burst,” said the Cossack, coming dejectedly to a halt. “Are there many more of you over there?”
“A mellion, nigh on!” said a jolly soldier, winking, as he walked past in a torn greatcoat and was lost to view; behind him came another, old, soldier.
“Just watch how he” (he was the enemy) “starts peppering the bridge now,” the old soldier said gloomily to his comrade, “that’ll stop you scratching yourself.” And the soldier passed on. Behind him came another soldier riding on a cart.
“Where the hell did you stick those puttees?” said an orderly, running after the cart and rummaging in the back of it. And he too passed by with the cart. He was followed by some jolly soldiers who were clearly tipsy.
“The way he let him have it, the darling man, smashed his musket-butt right in his teeth …” one soldier with his greatcoat tucked up high said gleefully, flinging his arms out.
“That’s right enough, sweet, tasty ham,” another chortled. And they passed on by, so that Nesvitsky never did find out who was hit in the teeth and what the ham had to do with anything.
“The rush they’re in, because he fired one shot from a distance. You’d think they were going to kill everyone,” a non-commissioned officer said in angry reproach.
“The moment that thing flew past me, uncle, that shot,” a young soldier with a huge mouth said cheerfully, barely able to stop himself laughing, “I just froze. Really, honest to God, I was that frightened, it was terrible!” this soldier said, as though boasting that he had been frightened.
That soldier also passed by: following behind him came a cart unlike all those that had passed by so far. It was a German Vorspan with a pair of horses pulling a load that seemed to be an entire household: tethered behind the Vorspan, which was driven by a German, was a beautiful brindled cow with an immense udder. Sitting on feather mattresses were a woman with a babe-in-arms, an old woman and a young, healthy German girl with a crimson flush on her cheeks. Evidently these local evacuees had been allowed through by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers turned to the women and while the cart was passing by, moving along step by step, all of the soldiers’ remarks concerned only the women. All of their faces bore an almost identical smile of obscene thoughts about the one woman.
“What, a kraut clearing out as well.”
“Sell me the missus,” said another soldier, emphasising the last word, to the German who was walking with long strides, angry and frightened, with his eyes cast down.
“Just look how dolled up she is! Devils they are!”
“You ought to get billeted with them, Fedotov!”
“We’ve seen their kind, brother!”
“Where are you going?” asked an infantry officer who was eating an apple, also half-smiling as he looked at the beautiful girl. The German showed by closing his eyes that he did not understand.
RUSSIAN ARMY MARCHING ACROSS THE RIVER ENNS Drawing by M.S. Bashilov, 1867
“Take it if you like,” said the officer, handing the apple to the girl. The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitsky, like everyone on the bridge, kept his eyes fixed on the women until they had driven past. When they had driven past, the same kind of soldiers walked by, with the same kind of talk until finally, everyone came to a halt. As often happens, the horses in a company wagon had baulked at the end of the bridge and the entire crowd had to wait.
“What are they stopping for? There’s no order at all!” said the soldiers. “Where are you pushing? Damn you! Can’t be bothered to wait. It’ll be worse again when he sets fire to the bridge. Look, they’ve got an officer jammed in here too,” the halted crowds said on all sides, looking each other over, and they all pressed forward towards the way out. Glancing at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitsky suddenly heard another sound new to him, something drawing closer, something big that plopped into the water.
“Look how far he’s