It was not now as before an unseen river flowing in the darkness, but a gloomy sea subsiding and still agitated after a storm. Rostov gazed vacantly and listened to what was passing before him and around him. An infantry soldier came up to the fire, squatted on his heels, held his hands to the fire, and turned his face.
“You don’t mind, your honour?” he said, looking inquiringly at Tushin. “Here I’ve got lost from my company, your honour; I don’t know myself where I am. It’s dreadful!”
With the soldier an infantry officer approached the fire with a bandaged face. He asked Tushin to have the cannon moved a very little, so as to let a store wagon pass by. After the officer two soldiers ran up to the fire. They were swearing desperately and fighting, trying to pull a boot from one another.
“No fear! you picked it up! that’s smart!” one shouted in a husky voice. Then a thin, pale soldier approached, his neck bandaged with a blood-stained rag. With a voice of exasperation he asked the artillerymen for water.
“Why, is one to die like a dog?” he said.
Tushin told them to give him water. Next a good-humoured soldier ran up, to beg for some red-hot embers for the infantry.
“Some of your fire for the infantry! Glad to halt, lads. Thanks for the loan of the firing; we’ll pay it back with interest,” he said, carrying some glowing firebrands away into the darkness.
Next four soldiers passed by, carrying something heavy in an overcoat. One of them stumbled.
“Ay, the devils, they’ve left firewood in the road,” grumbled one.
“He’s dead; why carry him?” said one of them.
“Come on, you!” And they vanished into the darkness with their burden.
“Does it ache, eh?” Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.
“Yes, it does ache.”
“Your honour’s sent for to the general. Here in a cottage he is,” said a gunner, coming up to Tushin.
“In a minute, my dear.” Tushin got up and walked away from the fire, buttoning up his coat and setting himself straight.
In a cottage that had been prepared for him not far from the artillery-men’s fire, Prince Bagration was sitting at dinner, talking with several commanding officers, who had gathered about him. The little old colonel with the half-shut eyes was there, greedily gnawing at a mutton-bone, and the general of twenty-two years’ irreproachable service, flushed with a glass of vodka and his dinner, and the staff-officer with the signet ring, and Zherkov, stealing uneasy glances at every one, and Prince Andrey, pale with set lips and feverishly glittering eyes.
In the corner of the cottage room stood a French flag, that had been captured, and the auditor with the naïve countenance was feeling the stuff of which the flag was made, and shaking his head with a puzzled air, possibly because looking at the flag really interested him, or possibly because he did not enjoy the sight of the dinner, as he was hungry and no place had been laid for him. In the next cottage there was the French colonel, who had been taken prisoner by the dragoons. Our officers were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagration thanked the several commanding officers, and inquired into details of the battle and of the losses. The general, whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau, submitted to the prince that as soon as the engagement began, he had fallen back from the copse, mustered the men who were cutting wood, and letting them pass by him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and repulsed the French.
“As soon as I saw, your excellency, that the first battalion was thrown into confusion, I stood in the road and thought, ‘I’ll let them get through and then open fire on them’; and that’s what I did.”
The general had so longed to do this, he had so regretted not having succeeded in doing it, that it seemed to him now that this was just what had happened. Indeed might it not actually have been so? Who could make out in such confusion what did and what did not happen?
“And by the way I ought to note, your excellency,” he continued, recalling Dolohov’s conversation with Kutuzov and his own late interview with the degraded officer, “that the private Dolohov, degraded to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner before my eyes and particularly distinguished himself.”
“I saw here, your excellency, the attack of the Pavlograd hussars,” Zherkov put in, looking uneasily about him. He had not seen the hussars at all that day, but had only heard about them from an infantry officer. “They broke up two squares, your excellency.”
When Zherkov began to speak, several officers smiled, as they always did, expecting a joke from him. But as they perceived that what he was saying all redounded to the glory of our arms and of the day, they assumed a serious expression, although many were very well aware that what Zherkov was saying was a lie utterly without foundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel.
“I thank you all, gentlemen; all branches of the service behaved heroically—infantry, cavalry, and artillery. How did two cannons come to be abandoned in the centre?” he inquired, looking about for some one. (Prince Bagration did not ask about the cannons of the left flank; he knew that all of them had been abandoned at the very beginning of the action.) “I think it was you I sent,” he added, addressing the staff-officer.
“One had been disabled,” answered the staff-officer, “but the other, I can’t explain; I was there all the while myself, giving instructions, and I had scarcely left there. . . . It was pretty hot, it’s true,” he added modestly.
Some one said that Captain Tushin was close by here in the village, and that he had already been sent for.
“Oh, but you went there,” said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince Andrey.
“To be sure, we rode there almost together,” said the staff-officer, smiling affably to Bolkonsky.
“I had not the pleasure of seeing you,” said Prince Andrey, coldly and abruptly. Every one was silent.
Tushin appeared in the doorway, timidly edging in behind the generals’ backs. Making his way round the generals in the crowded hut, embarrassed as he always was before his superior officers, Tushin did not see the flag-staff and tumbled over it. Several of the officers laughed.
“How was it a cannon was abandoned?” asked Bagration, frowning, not so much at the captain as at the laughing officers, among whom Zherkov’s laugh was the loudest. Only now in the presence of the angry-looking commander, Tushin conceived in all its awfulness the crime and disgrace of his being still alive when he had lost two cannons. He had been so excited that till that instant he had not had time to think of that. The officers’ laughter had bewildered him still more. He stood before Bagration, his lower jaw quivering, and could scarcely articulate:
“I don’t know . . . your excellency . . . I hadn’t the men, your excellency.”
“You could have got them from the battalions that were covering your position!” That there were no battalions there was what Tushin did not say, though it was the fact. He was afraid of getting another officer into trouble by saying that, and without uttering a word he gazed straight into Bagration’s face, as a confused schoolboy gazes at the face of an examiner.
The silence was rather a lengthy one. Prince Bagration, though he had no wish to be severe, apparently found nothing to say; the others did not venture to intervene. Prince Andrey was looking from under his brows at Tushin and his fingers moved nervously.
“Your excellency,” Prince Andrey broke the silence with his abrupt voice, “you sent me to Captain Tushin’s battery. I went there and found two-thirds of the men and horses killed, two cannons disabled and no forces near to defend them.”
Prince Bagration and Tushin looked now with equal intensity at Bolkonsky, as he went on speaking with suppressed emotion.
“And if your excellency will permit me to express my opinion,” he went on, “we owe the success of the day more to the action of that battery and the heroic steadiness of Captain Tushin and his men than to anything else,” said Prin
ce Andrey, and he got up at once and walked away from the table, without waiting for a reply.
Prince Bagration looked at Tushin and, apparently loath to express his disbelief in Bolkonsky’s off-handed judgment, yet unable to put complete faith in it, he bent his head and said to Tushin that he could go. Prince Andrey walked out after him.
“Thanks, my dear fellow, you got me out of a scrape,” Tushin said to him.
Prince Andrey looked at Tushin, and walked away without uttering a word. Prince Andrey felt bitter and melancholy. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had been hoping for.
* * *
‡This was the attack of which Thiers says: “The Russians behaved valiantly and, which is rare in warfare, two bodies of infantry marched resolutely upon each other, neither giving way before the other came up.” And Napoleon on St. Helena said: “Some Russian battalions showed intrepidity.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
A Buffalo Bill Episode
By William F. Cody
A character as flamboyant and colorful as William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody cannot be fully described in the space we have here. Cody (1846–1917) was an American frontier icon in newspapers, magazines, books and film. He was a rider for the Pony Express at age 14, served for the Union in the Civil War, was a scout for the US Army during the Indian Wars, and was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery in 1872. Cody was tagged with the name “Buffalo Bill” because of his legendary prowess as a buffalo hunter. Here, we see him in his own words as he describes setting out from Fort Laramie in Wyoming, headed into hostile Indian country.
—Lamar Underwood
The scouts at Fort Larned [Laramie] when I arrived there, were commanded by Dick Curtis—an old guide, frontiersman and Indian interpreter. There were some three hundred lodges of Kiowa and Comanche Indians camped near the fort. These Indians had not as yet gone upon the warpath, but were restless and discontented, and their leading chiefs, Satanta, Lone Wolf, Kicking Bird, Satank, Sittamore, and other noted warriors, were rather saucy. The post at the time was garrisoned by only two companies of infantry and one of cavalry.
General Hazen, who was at the post, was endeavoring to pacify the Indians and keep them from going on the warpath. I was appointed as his special scout, and one morning he notified me that he was going to Fort Harker, and wished me to accompany him as far as Fort Zarah, thirty miles distant. The General usually traveled in an ambulance, but this trip he was to make in a six-mule wagon, under the escort of a squad of twenty infantrymen. So, early one morning in August, we started; arriving safely at Fort Zarah at twelve o’clock. General Hazen thought it unnecessary that we should go farther, and he proceeded on his way to Fort Harker without an escort, leaving instructions that we should return to Fort Larned the next day.
After the General had gone I went to the sergeant in command of the squad, and told him that I was going back that very afternoon, instead of waiting till the next morning; and I accordingly saddled up my mule and set out for Fort Larned. I proceeded uninterruptedly until I got about half-way between the two posts, when at Pawnee Rock I was suddenly “jumped” by about forty Indians, who came dashing up to me, extending their hands and saying, “How! How!” They were some of the same Indians who had been hanging around Fort Larned in the morning. I saw that they had on their war-paint, and were evidently now out on the war-path.
My first impulse was to shake hands with them, as they seemed so desirous of it. I accordingly reached out my hand to one of them, who grasped it with a tight grip, and jerked me violently forward; another pulled my mule by the bridle, and in a moment I was completely surrounded. Before I could do anything at all, they had seized my revolvers from the holsters, and I received a blow on the head from a tomahawk which nearly rendered me senseless. My gun, which was lying across the saddle, was snatched from its place, and finally the Indian, who had hold of the bridle, started off towards the Arkansas River, leading the mule, which was being lashed by the other Indians who were following.
The savages were all singing, yelling, and whooping, as only Indians can do, when they are having their little game all their own way. While looking towards the river I saw, on the opposite side, an immense village moving down along the bank, and then I became convinced that the Indians had left the post and were now starting out on the war-path. My captors crossed the stream with me, and as we waded through the shallow water they continued to lash the mule and myself. Finally they brought me before an important looking body of Indians, who proved to be the chiefs and principal warriors. I soon recognized old Satanta among them, as well as others whom I knew, and I supposed it was all over with me.
The Indians were jabbering away so rapidly among themselves that I could not understand what they were saying. Satanta at last asked me where I had been; and, as good luck would have it, a happy thought struck me. I told him I had been after a herd of cattle or “whoa-haws,” as they called them. It so happened that the Indians had been out of meat for several weeks, as the large herd of cattle which had been promised them had not yet arrived, although expected by them.
The moment that I mentioned that I had been searching for the “whoa-haws,” old Satanta began questioning me in a very eager manner. He asked me where the cattle were, and I replied that they were back only a few miles, and that I had been sent by General Hazen to inform him that the cattle were coming, and that they were intended for his people. This seemed to please the old rascal, who also wanted to know if there were any soldiers with the herd, and my reply was that there were. Thereupon the chiefs held a consultation, and presently Satanta asked me if General Hazen had really said that they should have the cattle. I replied in the affirmative, and added that I had been directed to bring the cattle to them. I followed this up with a very dignified inquiry, asking why his young men had treated me so. The old wretch intimated that it was only “a freak of the boys”; that the young men had wanted to see if I was brave; in fact, they had only meant to test my bravery, and that the whole thing was a joke.
The veteran liar was now beating me at my own game of lying; but I was very glad of it, as it was in my favor. I did not let him suspect that I doubted his veracity, but I remarked that is a rough way to treat friends. He immediately ordered his young men to give me back my arms, and scolded them for what they had done. Of course, the sly old dog was now playing it very fine, as he was anxious to get possession of the cattle, with which he believed “there was a heap of soldiers coming.” He had concluded it was not best to fight the soldiers if he could get the cattle peaceably.
Another council was held by the chiefs, and in a few minutes old Satanta came and asked me if I would go over and bring the cattle down to the opposite side of the river, so that they could get them. I replied, “Of course; that’s my instruction from General Hazen.”
Satanta said I must not feel angry at his young men, for they had only been acting in fun. He then inquired if I wished any of his men to accompany me to the cattle herd. I replied that it would be better for me to go alone, and then the soldiers could keep right on to Fort Larned, while I could drive the herd down on the bottom. So, wheeling my mule around, I was soon re-crossing the river, leaving old Satanta in the firm belief that I had told him a straight story, and was going for the cattle, which only existed in my imagination.
I hardly knew what to do, but thought that if I could get the river between the Indians and myself I would have a good three-quarters of a mile the start of them, and could then make a run for Fort Larned, as my mule was a good one.
Thus far my cattle story had panned out all right; but just as I reached the opposite bank of the river, I looked behind and saw that ten or fifteen Indians who had begun to suspect something crooked, were following me. The moment that my mule secured a good foothold on the bank, I urged him into a gentle lope towards the place where, according to my statement, the cattle were to be brought. Upon reaching a little ridge
, and riding down the other side out of view, I turned my mule and headed him westward for Fort Larned. I let him out for all that he was worth, and when I came out on a little rise of ground, I looked back, and saw the Indian village in plain sight. My pursuers were now on the ridge which I had passed over, and were looking for me in every direction.
Presently they spied me, and seeing that I was running away, they struck out in swift pursuit, and in a few minutes it became painfully evident that they were gaining on me. They kept up the chase as far as Ash Creek, six miles from Fort Larned. I still led them half a mile, as their horses had not gained much during the last half of the race. My mule seemed to have gotten his second wind, and as I was on the old road I had played the whip and spurs on him without much cessation. The Indians likewise had urged their steeds to the utmost.
Finally, upon reaching the dividing ridge between Ash Creek and Pawnee Fork, I saw Fort Larned only four miles away. It was now sundown, and I heard the evening gun at the fort. The troops of the garrison little dreamed that there was a man flying for his life from the Indians and trying to reach the post. The Indians were once more gaining on me, and when I crossed the Pawnee Fork, two miles from the post, two or three of them were only a quarter of a mile behind me. Just as I had gained the opposite bank of the stream I was overjoyed to see some soldiers in a government wagon, only a short distance off. I yelled at the top of my voice, and riding up to them, told them that the Indians were after me.
Denver Jim, a well-known scout, asked how many there were, and upon my informing him that there were about a dozen, he said: “Let’s drive the wagon into the trees, and we’ll lay for ’em.” The team was hurriedly driven in among the trees and low box-elder bushes, and there secreted.
War Stories Page 40
