War And Peace

Tikhon began by doing the rough work, making fires, fetching water, skinning dead horses and so on, but he soon showed great ability and enthusiasm as a guerrilla. He would go out at night to see what he could find, and he never came back without some French clothes or weapons, and when told to do so he would bring back prisoners too. Denisov relieved Tikhon of all menial work, took him out on expeditions and began to treat him like one of the Cossacks.

Tikhon, no horseman, went everywhere on foot, yet he was never far behind the cavalry. His weapons were a musketoon, which he carried rather as a joke, a pike and an axe, which he wielded as skilfully as a wolf uses its teeth to nip fleas in its coat and crunch big bones, all with the same dexterity. Tikhon was equally adept at swinging his axe to split logs, and holding it by the head to chip off thin skewers or carve spoons. Tikhon occupied a very special position in Denisov’s band. When anything really nasty or difficult had to be done, like putting a shoulder to a wagon stuck in the mud, hauling a horse out of a bog by its tail, skinning a horse, infiltrating the French or walking thirty miles in a day, everybody chuckled and looked straight at Tikhon.

‘He’s good for anything, that devil. Tough as old boots,’ they used to say about him.

One day when he was trying to capture a Frenchman he was shot in the buttock. This wound, which Tikhon treated only by applications of vodka, internally and externally, was the subject of the funniest jokes in the whole unit, and Tikhon took them in good part.

‘That’s you finished, is it, old boy? Caught you bending!’ laughed the Cossacks, and Tikhon would react by pulling a face, pretending to be furious, and cursing Frenchmen with swearwords that made them all laugh. The only noticeable effect this incident had on Tikhon was that afterwards he didn’t bring in many prisoners.

Tikhon was the bravest and handiest man in the unit. Nobody found more ways of attacking; nobody captured or killed as many Frenchmen as he did. This made him the camp joker, acknowledged as such by Cossacks and hussars alike, and it was a role he was only too willing to take on.

On this occasion Tikhon had been sent overnight by Denisov to Shamshevo to catch an informer. But, either because he was not satisfied with catching a single French prisoner or because he had overslept, he had waited until daylight to creep through the bushes in among the French, and, as Denisov had just seen from the hill-top, he had been discovered.

CHAPTER 6

Denisov stayed on for a few minutes chatting to the hetman about tomorrow’s attack, which he now seemed to have settled on once and for all, seeing how near the French were, but then he turned his horse’s head and rode back.

‘Wight, my boy, let’s go and get ourselves dwied out,’ he said to Petya.

As he was getting close to the forester’s hut Denisov stopped and peered into the wood. A man in a short jacket, bark-fibre shoes and a Kazan hat, with a gun slung across his shoulder and an axe in his belt, was striding easily through the forest on his long legs with his long arms swinging at his sides. The moment he caught sight of Denisov he made a quick movement and threw something into the bushes before taking off his sopping-wet hat with its droopy brim and walking across to his commanding officer.

It was Tikhon. His wrinkled, pock-marked face with its narrow eyes was a picture of beaming self-satisfaction and cheeriness. He held his head high and fixed Denisov with a close stare, looking as if he could hardly stop himself laughing.

‘Well, where did you get to?’ asked Denisov.

‘Where did I get to? I been after the French.’ The answer was quick and assertive, delivered in a rich and throaty bass.

‘Why did you cweep up in bwoad daylight? You stupid ass! And why didn’t you get me one of them?’

‘Oh, I did,’ said Tikhon.

‘Well, where is he?’

‘Got one at first light, I did,’ Tikhon went on, spreading his flat feet and turned-out toes in their bark-fibre shoes. ‘Yes, took him in the wood, I did. Could see ’e was no good, though. So I says to meself – better go back an’ get another one, bit nearer the mark.’

‘I knew it. Wotten devil,’ said Denisov to the hetman. ‘Why didn’t you bwing him to me?’

‘No point in bringing ’im in!’ Tikhon was angry and he cut in quickly. ‘Useless ’e was. I knows what you be after.’

‘Stupid swine! . . . Well, what happened?’