War And Peace

‘What’s all this?’ came an authoritative voice. A sergeant came running over to them as they struggled along. ‘There’s gentry here. The gineral’s in that there ’ut. Rowdy devils! Foul-mouthed scum! I’ll soon sort you lot out!’ roared the sergeant, and he went straight up to the first soldier and smashed him hard in the back. ‘Can’t you make less noise?’

The soldiers were quiet. The man he had hit grunted and rubbed his face; it was bleeding from being bashed against the wattle.

‘Packs a punch, that bastard does! Blood all over me face,’ he said in a quiet whisper as the sergeant walked away. ‘You know you like it!’ said a bantering voice. The soldiers moved on, keeping their voices down, though once they had got through the village they went back to talking just as loud as before, with many a meaningless swearword thrown in.

All the top brass were there inside the hut that the soldiers had just gone past, enjoying a drink of tea and a lively conversation about that day’s doings and the manœuvres planned for tomorrow. They had in mind a flanking movement round to the left designed to isolate Murat, the viceroy, and take him prisoner.

By the time the soldiers had struggled back with the big piece of wattle, camp-fires were blazing on all sides and they were cooking supper. The firewood crackled, the snow was melting, and the black shadows of soldiers nipped about all over the ground they had occupied and trampled down.

Axes and big knives were at work on all sides. Nobody gave any orders, but the work got done. Enough wood was brought in to last through the night, rough shanties were thrown up for the officers, pots were boiling, guns and ammunition were being checked.

The wattle wall brought in by the men of the Eighth was bent round in a north-facing semicircle and secured against musket-stands; then they built a camp-fire in front of it. There was a drum-roll, names were checked, then they had supper and settled down for the night around the fires, some repairing their foot-gear, some smoking their pipes, while others stripped naked and steamed their clothes to get rid of the lice.

CHAPTER 8

One̶̶̶̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ might have expected that under the unimaginably awful conditions endured by the Russian soldiers at that time – no warm boots, no thick coats, no roof over their heads, deep snow and eighteen degrees of frost, no regular rations because supplies often lagged behind – they must have presented a thoroughly miserable and depressing spectacle.

Quite the reverse. Never, not even when their material circumstances were at their best, had the army presented a more buoyant and lively spectacle. This was due to the fact that with every day that passed anything that smacked of dejection or feebleness was being flushed out of the army. Anything physically and morally under strength had been left behind long ago, leaving only the flower of the army, strong in body and spirit.

The camp-fire of the Eighth Company, screened by their wattle fence, became most people’s preferred place. Two sergeants had moved in on them, and their fire blazed brighter than any. They had had to contribute some logs for the privilege of sitting there.

‘Hey, Makeyev, did you get fucking lost, or have the wolves been at you? Get some wood,’ yelled a red-faced, red-haired soldier, screwing up his eyes and blinking because of the smoke, but not moving an inch away from the fire.

‘You. Don’t just stand there gaping. Go and get some wood,’ he shouted to another soldier. The red-haired man was no sergeant, not even a corporal, but he was a tough customer, and he gave orders to anybody weaker than himself. The thin little soldier with a sharp nose who had been accused of gaping got to his feet obediently, and was about to do what he’d been told, but at that moment into the firelight stepped the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier carrying a load of wood.

‘Chuck it down here. Hey, that’s not a bad lot!’

They broke the wood up and piled it on the fire, blew on it and fanned it with the flaps of their greatcoats while the flames hissed and crackled. The soldiers came up closer and lit their pipes. The handsome young soldier who had brought the wood put his hands on his hips and stamped up and down on his frozen feet.

‘Oh, Mother dear, the dew’s cold here, but I’m all right, I’m a musketeer! . . .’ he warbled, chopping off each syllable with a kind of hiccup.

‘Them soles’ll come off!’ cried the red-haired man, noticing that the dancing man’s soles were dangling loose. ‘He likes his bloody dancing!’

The dancer stopped, ripped the loose piece of leather off and threw it into the fire.

‘You’re right there, me old pal,’ said he. He sat down, took a strip of French blue cloth out of his knapsack, and started wrapping it round his foot. ‘It’s the steam what does it,’ he added, stretching his feet out towards the fire.

‘We’re due for some new ones. They say when we’ve gone through them, we’re all gettin’ a double issue of everythin’.’