The Price of Glory — War and Peace

The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened girths, and formed companies. Denisov stood by the watchman's hut giving final orders. Infantry passed along the road and disappeared amid the trees in the mist of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. Petya held his horse by the bridle, impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, bathed in cold water, was all aglow, his eyes particularly brilliant. Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed. Denisov, angry because the girths were too slack, mounted. Petya's horse by habit made as if to nip his leg; he leaped into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and rode up. Vasili Dmitrich, entrust me with some commission, please, for God's sake. Denisov seemed to have forgotten his existence. He turned. I ask one thing of you: obey me and not shove yourself forward anywhere. He said not another word, and they rode in silence. At the edge of the forest it was growing light. Cossacks rode past. They slipped down into the ravine, horses on their haunches. In the valley Denisov nodded to a Cossack. The signal. A shot rang out. In an instant came the tramp of galloping horses, shouts, more shots.

At the first sound Petya lashed his horse and loosened the rein, not heeding Denisov who shouted at him. It seemed that at the shot it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge, collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, and rode on. French soldiers ran from right to left; one fell in the mud under his horse's feet. Cossacks crowded about a hut; terrible screams arose. Petya saw the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman clutching the handle of a lance aimed at him. Hurrah, lads, ours, he shouted, and galloped along the village street. A gallant-looking Frenchman in a blue overcoat, capless, frowning, had been defending himself against the hussars; when Petya arrived he had already fallen. Too late again, flashed through Petya's mind. He rode to the yard of the landowner's house he had visited the night before. The French stood behind a wattle fence in a garden thick with bushes, firing at Cossacks crowded at the gateway. Through the smoke he saw Dolokhov, face a pale-greenish tint, shouting to go round and wait for the infantry. Wait? Hurrah, shouted Petya, and without pausing galloped to where the smoke was thickest.

A volley; some bullets whistled, others plashed. Cossacks and Dolokhov followed him into the courtyard. In dense wavering smoke some French threw down their arms; others ran toward the pond. Petya galloped along the yard, but instead of holding the reins he waved both arms rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther to one side. His horse stopped suddenly at a campfire smoldering in the morning light, and Petya fell heavily onto the wet ground. His arms and legs jerked; his head was motionless. A bullet had pierced his skull. After a senior French officer came out with a white handkerchief on his sword and announced surrender, Dolokhov dismounted, went up to the outstretched body, said Done for with a frown, and turned to the prisoners. We won't take them, he called to Denisov. Denisov did not reply. He rode up, dismounted, and with trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered face which had already gone white. I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones, take them all, he recalled. The Cossacks looked round in surprise at the sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which he walked to the wattle fence and seized hold of it. Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denisov and Dolokhov was Pierre Bezukhov.