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By Root 4093 0

drive them back to the Bohemian Mountains, according to the disposition, had already begun to stir and get up from their night camp. The smoke of the bonfires, onto which everything superfluous was thrown, stung the eyes. It was cold and dark. Officers hastily drank tea and ate breakfast, soldiers chewed on biscuits, beat their feet to warm them up, and streamed towards the bonfires, throwing onto them the remains of their lean-tos, chairs, tables, wheels, barrels, everything superfluous which it was impossible to take with them. Austrian column leaders shuttled among the Russian troops and served as heralds of the departure. As soon as an Austrian officer appeared at a regimental commander’s camp, the regiment began to stir: soldiers ran from the bonfires, stuffed pipes into boot tops, bags into wagons, took their muskets and fell in. Officers buttoned their coats, buckled on their swords and pouches, and strode along the ranks, calling out; carters and orderlies harnessed, packed, and tied down the wagons. Adjutants, battalion and regimental commanders mounted up, crossed themselves, gave final orders, instructions, and commissions to those who were staying with the train, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet began. Columns started to move, not knowing where and, owing to the surrounding people, the smoke, and the thickening fog, seeing neither the place they were leaving nor the place they were going to.

A soldier in movement is as hemmed in, limited, and borne along by his regiment as a sailor by his ship. However far he may go, whatever strange, unknown, and dangerous latitudes he gets into, around him—as for the sailor always and everywhere there are the same decks, masts, and rigging of his ship—always and everywhere there are the same comrades, the same ranks, the same sergeant major Ivan Mitrich, the same company dog Zhuchka, the same superiors. A soldier rarely wishes to know what latitudes his whole ship has gotten to; but on the day of battle, God knows how and from where, a stern note is heard in the moral world of the troops, the same for everyone, which sounds the approach of something decisive and solemn and arouses in them an unaccustomed curiosity. On days of battle, soldiers excitedly try to get beyond the interests of their regiment, listen intently, look about, and greedily inquire into what is going on around them.

The fog was so thick that, though day was breaking, one could not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like enormous trees, level places like cliffs and slopes. Everywhere, on all sides, one might run into an enemy invisible ten paces away. But the columns marched for a long time through the same fog, going down and up hills, past gardens and fences, over new, incomprehensible terrain, without coming across the enemy anywhere. On the contrary, the soldiers realized that ahead, behind, on all sides, our Russian columns were moving in the same direction. Every soldier felt pleased at heart, knowing that many, many more Russian soldiers were going where he was going, that is, no one knew where.

“See there, the Kursky lads just marched by,” came from one of the ranks.

“It’s scary, brother, the troops we’ve gathered! Last night I looked, when they lit the fires, there was no end of them. Moscow—in short!”

Though none of the column leaders rode up to the ranks and spoke to the soldiers (the column leaders, as we saw at the council of war, were ill-humored and displeased with the action undertaken and therefore were only following orders and did not bother cheering up the soldiers), despite that, the soldiers marched on cheerily, as always when going into action, especially on the offensive. But, having gone for about an hour in the thick fog, the major part of the troops were forced to halt, and an unpleasant awareness of disorder and muddleheadedness passed through the ranks. How such awareness is conveyed is quite difficult to define; but it is unquestionable that it is conveyed with extraordinary sureness, and flows swiftly, imperceptibly and irresistibly, like water through a glen.