War and Peace Part 108

"What a beast!" said Denisov with his former look of vexation. "What has he been doing all this time?"

"Who is he?" asked Petya.

"He's our plastun. I sent him to capture a 'tongue.'"

"Oh, yes," said Petya, nodding at the first words Denisov uttered as if he understood it all, though he really did not understand anything of it.

Tikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most indispensable men in their band. He was a peasant from Pokrovsk, near the river Gzhat. When Denisov had come to Pokrovsk at the beginning of his operations and had as usual summoned the village elder and asked him what he knew about the French, the elder, as though shielding himself, had replied, as all village elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of them. But when Denisov explained that his purpose was to kill the French, and asked if no French had strayed that way, the elder replied that some "more-orderers" had really been at their village, but that Tikhon Shcherbaty was the only man who dealt with such matters. Denisov had Tikhon called and, having praised him for his activity, said a few words in the elder's presence about loyalty to the Tsar and the country and the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should cherish.

"We don't do the French any harm," said Tikhon, evidently frightened by Denisov's words. "We only fooled about with the lads for fun, you know! We killed a score or so of 'more-orderers,' but we did no harm else..."

Next day when Denisov had left Pokrovsk, having quite forgotten about this peasant, it was reported to him that Tikhon had attached himself to their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it. Denisov gave orders to let him do so.

Tikhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching water, flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and apt.i.tude for partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and always brought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to would bring in French captives also. Denisov then relieved him from drudgery and began taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him enrolled among the Cossacks.

Tikhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried rather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses its teeth, with equal case picking fleas out of its fur or crunching thick bones. Tikhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at arm's length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs or carve spoons. In Denisov's party he held a peculiar and exceptional position. When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be done--to push a cart out of the mud with one's shoulders, pull a horse out of a swamp by its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk more than thirty miles in a day--everybody pointed laughingly at Tikhon.

"It won't hurt that devil--he's as strong as a horse!" they said of him.

Once a Frenchman Tikhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him and shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tikhon treated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the subject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment- jokes in which Tikhon readily joined.

"Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?" the Cossacks would banter him. And Tikhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretended to be angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The only effect of this incident on Tikhon was that after being wounded he seldom brought in prisoners.

He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found more opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen, and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars and willingly accepted that role. Now he had been sent by Denisov overnight to Shamshevo to capture a "tongue." But whether because he had not been content to take only one Frenchman or because he had slept through the night, he had crept by day into some bushes right among the French and, as Denisov had witnessed from above, had been detected by them.

CHAPTER VI.

After talking for some time with the esaul about next day's attack, which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to have definitely decided on, Denisov turned his horse and rode back.

"Now, my lad, we'll go and get dwy," he said to Petya.

As they approached the watchhouse Denisov stopped, peering into the forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging arms, wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazan hat, was approaching with long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his shoulder and an ax stuck in his girdle. When he espied Denisov he hastily threw something into the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its floppy brim, and approached his commander. It was Tikhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He lifted his head high and gazed at Denisov as if repressing a laugh.

"Well, where did you disappear to?" inquired Denisov.

"Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen," answered Tikhon boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious ba.s.s voice.

"Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You a.s.s! Well, why haven't you taken one?"

"Oh, I took one all right," said Tikhon.

"Where is he?"

"You see, I took him first thing at dawn," Tikhon continued, spreading out his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. "I took him into the forest. Then I see he's no good and think I'll go and fetch a likelier one."

"You see?... What a wogue--it's just as I thought," said Denisov to the esaul. "Why didn't you bwing that one?"

"What was the good of bringing him?" Tikhon interrupted hastily and angrily--"that one wouldn't have done for you. As if I don't know what sort you want!"

"What a bwute you are!... Well?"

"I went for another one," Tikhon continued, "and I crept like this through the wood and lay down." (He suddenly lay down on his stomach with a supple movement to show how he had done it.) "One turned up and I grabbed him, like this." (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) "'Come along to the colonel,' I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there were four of them. They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went for them with my ax, this way: 'What are you up to?' says I. 'Christ be with you!'" shouted Tikhon, waving his arms with an angry scowl and throwing out his chest.

"Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the puddles!" said the esaul, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his glittering eyes.

Petya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tikhon's face to the esaul's and Denisov's, unable to make out what it all meant.

"Don't play the fool!" said Denisov, coughing angrily. "Why didn't you bwing the first one?"

Tikhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other, then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin, disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called Shcherbaty--the gap-toothed). Denisov smiled, and Petya burst into a peal of merry laughter in which Tikhon himself joined.

"Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing," said Tikhon. "The clothes on him--poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why, he says: 'I'm a general's son myself, I won't go!' he says."

"You are a bwute!" said Denisov. "I wanted to question..."

"But I questioned him," said Tikhon. "He said he didn't know much. 'There are a lot of us,' he says, 'but all poor stuff--only soldiers in name,' he says. 'Shout loud at them,' he says, 'and you'll take them all,'" Tikhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into Denisov's eyes.

"I'll give you a hundwed sharp lashes--that'll teach you to play the fool!" said Denisov severely.

"But why are you angry?" remonstrated Tikhon, "just as if I'd never seen your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I'll fetch you any of them you want--three if you like."

"Well, let's go," said Denisov, and rode all the way to the watchhouse in silence and frowning angrily.

Tikhon followed behind and Petya heard the Cossacks laughing with him and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes.

When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tikhon's words and smile had pa.s.sed and Petya realized for a moment that this Tikhon had killed a man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer boy and felt a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a moment. He felt it necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself, and to question the esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow's undertaking, that he might not be unworthy of the company in which he found himself.

The officer who had been sent to inquire met Denisov on the way with the news that Dolokhov was soon coming and that all was well with him.

Denisov at once cheered up and, calling Petya to him, said: "Well, tell me about yourself."

CHAPTER VII.

Petya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow, joined his regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general commanding a large guerrilla detachment. From the time he received his commission, and especially since he had joined the active army and taken part in the battle of Vyazma, Petya had been in a constant state of blissful excitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry not to miss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly delighted with what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the same time it always seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were being performed just where he did not happen to be. And he was always in a hurry to get where he was not.

When on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to send somebody to Denisov's detachment, Petya begged so piteously to be sent that the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he recalled Petya's mad action at the battle of Vyazma, where instead of riding by the road to the place to which he had been sent, he had galloped to the advanced line under the fire of the French and had there twice fired his pistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking part in any action whatever of Denisov's. That was why Petya had blushed and grown confused when Denisov asked him whether he could stay. Before they had ridden to the outskirts of the forest Petya had considered he must carry out his instructions strictly and return at once. But when he saw the French and saw Tikhon and learned that there would certainly be an attack that night, he decided, with the rapidity with which young people change their views, that the general, whom he had greatly respected till then, was a rubbishy German, that Denisov was a hero, the esaul a hero, and Tikhon a hero too, and that it would be shameful for him to leave them at a moment of difficulty.

It was already growing dusk when Denisov, Petya, and the esaul rode up to the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French could not see the smoke. In the pa.s.sage of the small watchhouse a Cossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the room three officers of Denisov's band were converting a door into a tabletop. Petya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once began helping the officers to fix up the dinner table.

In ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the table were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.

Sitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton with his hands, down which the grease trickled, Petya was in an ecstatic childish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that others loved him in the same way.

"So then what do you think, Vasili Dmitrich?" said he to Denisov. "It's all right my staying a day with you?" And not waiting for a reply he answered his own question: "You see I was told to find out- well, I am finding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I don't want a reward... But I want..."

Petya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head and flourishing his arms.

"Into the vewy chief..." Denisov repeated with a smile.

"Only, please let me command something, so that I may really command..." Petya went on. "What would it be to you?... Oh, you want a knife?" he said, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a piece of mutton.

And he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it.

"Please keep it. I have several like it," said Petya, blushing. "Heavens! I was quite forgetting!" he suddenly cried. "I have some raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and he has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something sweet. Would you like some?..." and Petya ran out into the pa.s.sage to his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds of raisins. "Have some, gentlemen, have some!"

"You want a coffeepot, don't you?" he asked the esaul. "I bought a capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he's very honest, that's the chief thing. I'll be sure to send it to you. Or perhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out--that happens sometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are"- and he showed a bag--"a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take as many as you want, or all if you like...."

Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Petya stopped and blushed.

He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French drummer boy. "It's capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they put him? Have they fed him? Haven't they hurt his feelings?" he thought. But having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now afraid to speak out.

"I might ask," he thought, "but they'll say: 'He's a boy himself and so he pities the boy.' I'll show them tomorrow whether I'm a boy. Will it seem odd if I ask?" Petya thought. "Well, never mind!" and immediately, blushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if they appeared ironical, he said: "May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him something to eat?... Perhaps..."

"Yes, he's a poor little fellow," said Denisov, who evidently saw nothing shameful in this reminder. "Call him in. His name is Vincent Bosse. Have him fetched."

"I'll call him," said Petya.

"Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow," Denisov repeated.

Petya was standing at the door when Denisov said this. He slipped in between the officers, came close to Denisov, and said: "Let me kiss you, dear old fellow! Oh, how fine, how splendid!"

And having kissed Denisov he ran out of the hut.

"Bosse! Vincent!" Petya cried, stopping outside the door.

"Who do you want, sir?" asked a voice in the darkness.

Petya replied that he wanted the French lad who had been captured that day.

"Ah, Vesenny?" said a Cossack.

Vincent, the boy's name, had already been changed by the Cossacks into Vesenny (vernal) and into Vesenya by the peasants and soldiers. In both these adaptations the reference to spring (vesna) matched the impression made by the young lad.

"He is warming himself there by the bonfire. Ho, Vesenya! Vesenya!--Vesenny!" laughing voices were heard calling to one another in the darkness.

"He's a smart lad," said an hussar standing near Petya. "We gave him something to eat a while ago. He was awfully hungry!"

The sound of bare feet splashing through the mud was heard in the darkness, and the drummer boy came to the door.

"Ah, c'est vous!" said Petya. "Voulez-vous manger? N'ayez pas peur, on ne vous fera pas de mal,"* he added shyly and affectionately, touching the boy's hand. "Entrez, entrez."*[2]

*"Ah, it's you! Do you want something to eat? Don't be afraid, they won't hurt you."

*[2] "Come in, come in."

"Merci, monsieur,"* said the drummer boy in a trembling almost childish voice, and he began sc.r.a.ping his dirty feet on the threshold.

*"Thank you, sir."

There were many things Petya wanted to say to the drummer boy, but did not dare to. He stood irresolutely beside him in the pa.s.sage. Then in the darkness he took the boy's hand and pressed it.

"Come in, come in!" he repeated in a gentle whisper. "Oh, what can I do for him?" he thought, and opening the door he let the boy pa.s.s in first.

When the boy had entered the hut, Petya sat down at a distance from him, considering it beneath his dignity to pay attention to him. But he fingered the money in his pocket and wondered whether it would seem ridiculous to give some to the drummer boy.

CHAPTER VIII.

The arrival of Dolokhov diverted Petya's attention from the drummer boy, to whom Denisov had had some mutton and vodka given, and whom he had had dressed in a Russian coat so that he might be kept with their band and not sent away with the other prisoners. Petya had heard in the army many stories of Dolokhov's extraordinary bravery and of his cruelty to the French, so from the moment he entered the hut Petya did not take his eyes from him, but braced himself up more and more and held his head high, that he might not be unworthy even of such company.

Dolokhov's appearance amazed Petya by its simplicity.

Denisov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, had an icon of Nicholas the Wonder-Worker on his breast, and his way of speaking and everything he did indicated his unusual position. But Dolokhov, who in Moscow had worn a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman's padded coat with an Order of St. George at his b.u.t.tonhole and a plain forage cap set straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of the room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denisov and began questioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov told him of the designs the large detachments had on the transport, of the message Petya had brought, and his own replies to both generals. Then he told him all he knew of the French detachment.

"That's so. But we must know what troops they are and their numbers," said Dolokhov. "It will be necessary to go there. We can't start the affair without knowing for certain how many there are. I like to work accurately. Here now--wouldn't one of these gentlemen like to ride over to the French camp with me? I have brought a spare uniform."

"I, I... I'll go with you!" cried Petya.

"There's no need for you to go at all," said Denisov, addressing Dolokhov, "and as for him, I won't let him go on any account."

"I like that!" exclaimed Petya. "Why shouldn't I go?"

"Because it's useless."

"Well, you must excuse me, because... because... I shall go, and that's all. You'll take me, won't you?" he said, turning to Dolokhov.

"Why not?" Dolokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the French drummer boy. "Have you had that youngster with you long?" he asked Denisov.

"He was taken today but he knows nothing. I'm keeping him with me."

"Yes, and where do you put the others?" inquired Dolokhov.