The deafening sound of his own guns on all sides, the hiss and thud of the enemy’s shells, the sight of the perspiring, flushed gunners hurrying about the cannons, the sight of the blood of men and horses, and of the puffs of smoke from the enemy on the opposite side (always followed by a cannon-ball that flew across and hit the earth, a man, a horse, or a cannon)—all these images made up for him a fantastic world of his own, in which he found enjoyment at the moment. The enemy’s cannons in his fancy were not cannons, but pipes from which an invisible smoker blew puffs of smoke at intervals.

“There he’s puffing away again,” Tushin murmured to himself as a cloud of smoke rolled downhill, and was borne off by the wind in a wreath to the left. “Now, your ball—throw it back.”

“What is it, your honour?” asked a gunner who stood near him, and heard him muttering something.

“Nothing, a grenade…” he answered. “Now for it, our Matvyevna,” he said to himself. Matvyevna was the name his fancy gave to the big cannon, cast in an old-fashioned mould, that stood at the end. The French seemed to be ants swarming about their cannons. The handsome, drunken soldier, number one gunner of the second cannon, was in his dreamworld “uncle”; Tushin looked at him more often than at any of the rest, and took delight in every gesture of the man. The sound— dying away, then quickening again—of the musketry fire below the hill seemed to him like the heaving of some creature’s breathing. He listened to the ebb and flow of these sounds.

“Ah, she’s taking another breath again,” he was saying to himself. He himself figured in his imagination as a mighty man of immense stature, who was flinging cannon balls at the French with both hands.

“Come, Matvyevna, old lady, stick by us!” he was saying, moving back from the cannon, when a strange, unfamiliar voice called over his head. “Captain Tushin! Captain!”

Tushin looked round in dismay. It was the same staff-officer who had turned him out of the booth at Grunte. He was shouting to him in a breathless voice:

“I say, are you mad? You’ve been commanded twice to retreat, and you…”

“Now, what are they pitching into me for?” … Tushin wondered, looking in alarm at the superior officer.

“I…don’t…” he began, putting two fingers to the peak of his cap. “I…”

But the staff-officer did not say all he had meant to. A cannon ball flying near him made him duck down on his horse. He paused, and was just going to say something more, when another ball stopped him. He turned his horse’s head and galloped away.

“Retreat! All to retreat!” he shouted from a distance.

The soldiers laughed. A minute later an adjutant arrived with the same message. This was Prince Andrey. The first thing he saw, on reaching the place where Tushin’s cannons were stationed, was an unharnessed horse with a broken leg, which was neighing beside the harnessed horses. The blood was flowing in a perfect stream from its leg. Among the platforms lay several dead men. One cannon ball after another flew over him as he rode up, and he felt a nervous shudder running down his spine. But the very idea that he was afraid was enough to rouse him again. “I can’t be frightened,” he thought, and he deliberately dismounted from his horse between the cannons. He gave his message, but he did not leave the battery. He decided to stay and assist in removing the cannons from the position and getting them away. Stepping over the corpses, under the fearful fire from the French, he helped Tushin in getting the cannons ready.

“The officer that came just now ran off quicker than he came,” said a gunner to Prince Andrey, “not like your honour.”

Prince Andrey had no conversation with Tushin. They were both so busy that they hardly seemed to see each other. When they had got the two out of the four cannons that were uninjured on to the platforms