Book Fourteen: 1812 - Chapter V

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The rain had stopped, and only the mist was falling and drops fromthe trees. Denisov, the esaul, and Petya rode silently, followingthe peasant in the knitted cap who, stepping lightly with outturnedtoes and moving noiselessly in his bast shoes over the roots and wetleaves, silently led them to the edge of the forest.

　　He ascended an incline, stopped, looked about him, and advanced towhere the screen of trees was less dense. On reaching a large oak treethat had not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and beckoned mysteriouslyto them with his hand.

　　Denisov and Petya rode up to him. From the spot where the peasantwas standing they could see the French. Immediately beyond the forest,on a downward slope, lay a field of spring rye. To the right, beyond asteep ravine, was a small village and a landowner's house with abroken roof. In the village, in the house, in the garden, by the well,by the pond, over all the rising ground, and all along the road uphillfrom the bridge leading to the village, not more than five hundredyards away, crowds of men could be seen through the shimmering mist.Their un-Russian shouting at their horses which were straininguphill with the carts, and their calls to one another, could beclearly heard.

　　"Bwing the prisoner here," said Denisov in a low voice, not takinghis eyes off the French.

　　A Cossack dismounted, lifted the boy down, and took him toDenisov. Pointing to the French troops, Denisov asked him what theseand those of them were. The boy, thrusting his cold hands into hispockets and lifting his eyebrows, looked at Denisov in affright, butin spite of an evident desire to say all he knew gave confusedanswers, merely assenting to everything Denisov asked him. Denisovturned away from him frowning and addressed the esaul, conveying hisown conjectures to him.

　　Petya, rapidly turning his head, looked now at the drummer boy,now at Denisov, now at the esaul, and now at the French in the villageand along the road, trying not to miss anything of importance.

　　"Whether Dolokhov comes or not, we must seize it, eh?" saidDenisov with a merry sparkle in his eyes.

　　"It is a very suitable spot," said the esaul.

　　"We'll send the infantwy down by the swamps," Denisov continued."They'll cweep up to the garden; you'll wide up fwom there with theCossacks"- he pointed to a spot in the forest beyond the village- "andI with my hussars fwom here. And at the signal shot..."

　　"The hollow is impassable- there's a swamp there," said the esaul."The horses would sink. We must ride round more to the left...."

　　While they were talking in undertones the crack of a shot soundedfrom the low ground by the pond, a puff of white smoke appeared,then another, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly merry Frenchvoices shouting together came up from the slope. For a momentDenisov and the esaul drew back. They were so near that they thoughtthey were the cause of the firing and shouting. But the firing andshouting did not relate to them. Down below, a man wearing somethingred was running through the marsh. The French were evidently firingand shouting at him.

　　"Why, that's our Tikhon," said the esaul.

　　"So it is! It is!"

　　"The wascal!" said Denisov.

　　"He'll get away!" said the esaul, screwing up his eyes.

　　The man whom they called Tikhon, having run to the stream, plungedin so that the water splashed in the air, and, having disappearedfor an instant, scrambled out on all fours, all black with the wet,and ran on. The French who had been pursuing him stopped.

　　"Smart, that!" said the esaul.

　　"What a beast!" said Denisov with his former look of vexation. "Whathas 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 asif he understood it all, though he really did not understandanything of it.

　　Tikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most indispensable men in theirband. He was a peasant from Pokrovsk, near the river Gzhat. WhenDenisov had come to Pokrovsk at the beginning of his operations andhad as usual summoned the village elder and asked him what he knewabout the French, the elder, as though shielding himself, had replied,as all village elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anythingof them. But when Denisov explained that his purpose was to kill theFrench, and asked if no French had strayed that way, the elder repliedthat some "more-orderers" had really been at their village, but thatTikhon 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 andthe country and the hatred of the French that all sons of thefatherland should cherish.

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

　　Next day when Denisov had left Pokrovsk, having quite forgottenabout this peasant, it was reported to him that Tikhon had attachedhimself 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, fetchingwater, flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great likingand aptitude for partisan warfare. At night he would go out forbooty and always brought back French clothing and weapons, and whentold to would bring in French captives also. Denisov then relieved himfrom drudgery and began taking him with him when he went out onexpeditions and had him enrolled among the Cossacks.

　　Tikhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never laggingbehind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carriedrather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolfuses its teeth, with equal case picking fleas out of its fur orcrunching thick bones. Tikhon with equal accuracy would split logswith blows at arm's length, or holding the head of the ax would cutthin little pegs or carve spoons. In Denisov's party he held apeculiar and exceptional position. When anything particularlydifficult or nasty had to be done- to push a cart out of the mudwith one's shoulders, pull a horse out of a swamp by its tail, skinit, slink in among the French, or walk more than thirty miles in aday- everybody pointed laughingly at Tikhon.

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

　　Once a Frenchman Tikhon was trying to capture fired a pistol athim and shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (whichTikhon treated only with internal and external applications ofvodka) 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 wouldbanter him. And Tikhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretendedto be angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The onlyeffect of this incident on Tikhon was that after being wounded heseldom brought in prisoners.

　　He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one foundmore opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed moreFrenchmen, and consequently he was made the buffoon of all theCossacks and hussars and willingly accepted that role. Now he had beensent by Denisov overnight to Shamshevo to capture a "tongue." Butwhether because he had not been content to take only one Frenchmanor because he had slept through the night, he had crept by day intosome bushes right among the French and, as Denisov had witnessedfrom above, had been detected by them.