Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew lashing the air and thumped down, or a grenade burst in the midst of that dense crowd, slaying men and splashing blood on those who stood near. Dolohov, wounded in the hand, with some dozen soldiers of his company on foot (he was already an officer) and his general on horseback, were the sole representatives of a whole regiment. Carried along by the crowd, they were squeezed in the approach to the dam and stood still, jammed in on all sides because a horse with a cannon had fallen, and the crowd were dragging it away. A cannon ball killed some one behind them, another fell in front of them and spurted the blood upon Dolohov. The crowd moved forward desperately, was jammed, moved a few steps and was stopped again. “Only to get over these hundred steps and certain safety: stay here two minutes and death to a certainty,” each man was thinking.

Dolohov standing in the centre of the crowd, forced his way to the edge of the dam, knocking down two soldiers, and ran on to the slippery ice that covered the millpond.

“Turn this way!” he shouted, bounding over the ice, which cracked under him. “Turn this way!” he kept shouting to the cannon. “It bears!…” The ice bore him, but swayed and cracked, and it was evident that, not to speak of a cannon or a crowd of people, it would give way in a moment under him alone. Men gazed at him and pressed to the bank, unable to bring themselves to step on to the ice. The general of his regiment on horseback at the end of the dam lifted his hand and opened his mouth to speak to Dolohov. Suddenly one of the cannon balls flew so low over the heads of the crowd that all ducked. There was a wet splash, as the general fell from his horse into a pool of blood. No one glanced at the general, no one thought of picking him up.

“On to the ice! Get on the ice! Get on! turn! don’t you hear! Get on!” innumerable voices fell to shouting immediately after the ball had struck the general, not knowing themselves what and why they were shouting.

One of the hindmost cannons that had been got on to the dam was turned off upon the ice. Crowds of soldiers began running from the dam on to the frozen pond. The ice cracked under one of the foremost soldiers, and one leg slipped into the water. He tried to right himself and floundered up to his waist. The soldiers nearest tried to draw back, the driver of the cannon pulled up his horse, but still the shouts were heard from behind: “Get on to the ice, why are you stopping? go on! go on!” And screams of terror were heard in the crowd. The soldiers near the cannon waved at the horses, and lashed them to make them turn and go on. The horses moved from the dam’s edge. The ice that had held under the foot-soldiers broke in a huge piece, and some forty men who were on it dashed, some forwards, some backwards, drowning one another.

Still the cannon balls whizzed as regularly and thumped on to the ice, into the water, and most often into the crowd that covered the dam, the pond and the bank.


  By PanEris using Melati.

Previous chapter/page Back Home Email this Search Discuss Bookmark Next chapter
Copyright: All texts on Bibliomania are © Bibliomania.com Ltd, and may not be reproduced in any form without our written permission. See our FAQ for more details.