War And Peace

‘Two of them. An officer and a Cossack. But we can’t conjuncture it’s the colonel himself,’ said the hetman, a great user of unfamiliar words.

The two figures rode downhill, disappeared from sight and came back up into view a few minutes later. The first one was an officer, looking all dishevelled and dripping wet, with his trousers working their way up above his knees, and he was lashing his horse into a weary gallop. Behind him came a Cossack, standing up in the stirrups and riding at a trot. The officer, only a youngster, with a broad, rosy face and sharp, cheery eyes, galloped up to Denisov and handed him a sopping-wet packet.

‘From the general,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry it’s got a bit wet . . .’

Denisov took the envelope with a frown and broke the seal.

‘They kept on saying how dangerous it was,’ said the officer, turning to the hetman while Denisov was reading the letter. ‘But we were ready, me and Komarov.’ He nodded to the Cossack. ‘We have both two pist . . . Hey, what’s all this?’ he asked, seeing the French drummer-boy. ‘Have you got a prisoner? Have you been into battle? May I talk to him?’

‘Wostov! Petya!’ Denisov suddenly called out, after a quick skim through the letter. ‘Why didn’t you say who you are?’ And Denisov turned towards him with a smile, holding his hand out. The officer was Petya Rostov.

All the way there Petya had been rehearsing how to behave with Denisov, as one adult officer to another, with no reference to their previous acquaintance. But the moment Denisov smiled at him Petya beamed, blushed with delight, forgot all his carefully rehearsed formalities and launched into an account of how he had ridden past the French, how pleased he was to have been given this job to do, and how he had seen action at Vyazma, where a certain hussar had covered himself with glory.

‘Well, it’s a weal pleasure to see you,’ said Denisov, cutting across him, his face once more a picture of anxiety.

‘Mikhail,’ he said to the hetman, ‘it’s another note from the German. Wostov here is on his staff.’ And Denisov told the hetman that the latest letter renewed the German general’s request for them to join him in attacking the convoy. ‘If we don’t get them by tomowwow they’ll gwab the lot fwom under our noses,’ he concluded.

While Denisov was talking to the hetman Petya felt embarrassed by Denisov’s sudden coldness, and since the only explanation seemed to be the state of his trousers, he started working them down furtively underneath his greatcoat, trying to manage it without being seen and look as warlike as he could.

‘Will your Honour have any instructions for me?’ he asked Denisov, raising one hand to the peak of his cap, and reverting to the game of adjutants and generals that he had worked up in advance, ‘or shall I stay here with your Honour?’

‘Instwuctions?’ said Denisov distractedly. ‘No. Can you stay till tomowwow?’

‘Oh, yes . . . Please let me stay!’ cried Petya.

‘Well, what instwuctions did you get from your general – go stwaight back?’ asked Denisov. Petya blushed.

‘No, he didn’t say. I think it would be all right for me to stay,’ he said, though it sounded like a question.

‘All wight, then,’ said Denisov. And turning to his followers he directed a party of them to proceed to the hut in the wood where they had agreed to rest up and sent the officer on the Kirghiz pony (who was acting as his adjutant) to go and look for Dolokhov, find out where he was and whether he was coming that evening.

Denisov himself intended to take the hetman and Petya out to the edge of the wood near Shamshevo to assess the position of the French and work out where to attack in the morning.

‘Wight, you old gweybeard,’ he said to their peasant guide, ‘take us to Shamshevo.’ Denisov, Petya and the hetman, accompanied by one or two Cossacks and the hussar with the prisoner, turned to the left, crossed a ravine and rode out towards the edge of the wood.

CHAPTER 5

It had stopped raining, but there was still a rolling mist and drops of water dripped from the branches of the trees. Denisov, the hetman and Petya made no noise as they followed the peasant in the woollen cap, who nipped along lightly and silently in his bark-fibre shoes, with his toes turned out, stepping over roots and wet leaves as he led them to the edge of the wood.

Coming out at the top of a slope, the peasant paused, took stock and turned towards a thining screen of trees. He stopped by a big oak-tree that had not yet shed its leaves, and beckoned mysteriously.