LITMIR.BIZ

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and the artillery batteries that had travelled with them throughout the campaign.

      The evening before, during the final day’s march, an order had come through that the commander-in-chief would inspect the regiment in marching formation. However, the wording of the order had seemed unclear to the regimental commander and the question had arisen as to whether it meant in marching dress or not – but a council of battalion commanders had finally decided, on the grounds that it was always better to bow too low than not to bow low enough, to present the regiment in parade dress, which meant that the soldiers, after a day’s march of thirty versts, had not been allowed a wink of sleep, but had spent the whole night mending and cleaning, while the adjutants and company commanders had been numbering off and transferring men to the reserve, so that by morning, instead of the straggling, dirty crowd it had been the day before on the final leg of the march, the regiment presented a well-ordered body of three thousand men, every one of whom knew his place and his job and every one of whom had every button and strap in place, all brilliantly clean. Not only was the exterior in good order, but if the commander-in-chief had chosen to peep under the uniforms, then on every man he would have seen an equally clean shirt and in every knapsack he would have found the complete regulation number of items, “lock, stock and barrel”, as the soldiers say. There was only one circumstance concerning which no one could feel assured. That was the footgear. More than half of the soldiers had boots that were badly battered and split, and no matter how much they tried to patch up these defects, they were an insult to military eyes accustomed to good order. However, this shortcoming was not due to any fault of the regimental commander since, despite repeated requests, he had not been allocated any supplies from the relevant Austrian department, and the regiment had covered three thousand versts on foot.

      The regimental commander was an ageing, ruddy-faced general with greying eyebrows and whiskers, stout, thickset, and deeper from front to back than across his shoulders. He was wearing a brand-new uniform that still bore the creases from being folded, with thick gold epaulettes which, rather than hanging down, seemed to raise his corpulent shoulders higher. The regimental commander had the air of a man who is happily performing one of life’s most solemn duties. He strode to and fro in front of the line and as he strode, he swaggered with every step, arching his back slightly. It was clear that the regimental commander was admiring his regiment, that he was happy with it and that all his mental powers were occupied with nothing other than the regiment. And yet despite this, his swaggering gait seemed to suggest that, in addition to military interests, no small place was occupied in his heart by the interests of social life and the fair sex.

      “Well, Mikolai Mitrich, dear fellow,” he said with feigned carelessness, addressing a battalion commander (the battalion commander leaned forward, smiling; it was clear that they were happy). “Well, Mikolai Mitrich, dear fellow, we had a pretty tough time of it all right last night” (he winked). “But things seem all right” (he looked over the regiment). “I don’t think the regiment looks too bad. Eh?” He was evidently speaking ironically.

      The battalion commander understood his jolly irony and laughed.

      “It wouldn’t be dismissed from a parade ground, even the Empress Meadow, what?” said the regimental commander, laughing.

      At this point, two horsemen hove into sight on the road from the town, which had been posted with signalmen. These were an adjutant and, riding behind him, a Cossack. The regimental commander looked hard at the adjutant and turned away, concealing beneath his demeanour of indifference the alarm that this sight had provoked. He only glanced round again when the adjutant was just three steps away, and with that subtle air of simultaneous civility and familiarity which field commanders use to address younger and more junior officers attached to their commanders-in-chief, he prepared to listen to what the adjutant had to say.

      The adjutant had been sent from the general staff to confirm to the regimental commander what had not been clearly expressed in the previous day’s order, that is to say, that the commander-in-chief wished to see the regiment in precisely the same condition in which it had marched, in greatcoats, guns covered and without any preparations.

      The previous day a member of the Hofkriegsrat in Vienna had arrived to see Kutuzov with proposals and demands to proceed as soon as possible to unification with the army of the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, who did not consider this unification advantageous, was intending to present to the Austrian general, among other arguments in support of his opinion, the lamentable condition in which troops were arriving from Russia. This was the commander-in-chief’s purpose in wishing to meet the regiment: the worse the condition of the regiment, the more pleased its commander-in-chief would be. Although the adjutant did not actually know all these details, he conveyed to the regimental commander the commander-in-chief’s absolute insistence that the men should be in greatcoats with guns covered, otherwise the commander-in-chief would be displeased. After listening to these words, the regimental commander lowered his head, twitched his shoulders and, without speaking, spread his arms wide in a sanguine gesture.

      “A fine mess we’ve made of it now,” he said, without raising his head. “I told you so, Mikolai Mitrich, in marching order means in greatcoats,” he told the battalion commander reproachfully. “Oh, my God!” he added, but there was not a trace of irritation in his words and his gesture, only zeal to serve his commander and the fear of failing to please him. He stepped forward resolutely. “Company commanders!” he shouted in a voice accustomed to command. “Sergeant-majors! How soon will his excellency be here?” he asked the adjutant with an expression of polite respect that was evidently intended for the individual of whom he was speaking.

      “In an hour, I think.”

      “Will we have time to change them?”

      “I don’t know, general …”

      The regimental commander, approaching the ranks himself, gave instructions to change back into greatcoats. The company commanders went dashing to their companies, the sergeant-majors began bustling about (the greatcoats were not in perfect order), and all at once the previously orderly and silent squares of men heaved and sprawled and began buzzing with talk. On all sides soldiers began running off or running back, hoisting up knapsacks with a jerk of the shoulder and tugging the straps over their heads, unrolling greatcoats and raising their arms high to thrust them into the sleeves.

      Half an hour later they were all back in their previous formation, except now the squares had changed from black to grey. The regimental commander walked out in front of the regiment, again with his swaggering gait, and looked it over from a distance.

      “What’s this now? What’s this?” he shouted, halting and grabbing at his sword-knot with his hand twisted inwards. “Number three company commander to the general!” “Commander to the general! Number three company to the general,” murmured voices in the ranks and an adjutant ran off to look for the tardy officer. When the sounds of the zealous voices, now crying “the general to number three company” reached their intended destination, the officer required appeared from behind the company, and although he was an elderly man and no longer accustomed to running, he set off at a trot towards the general, tripping clumsily over the toes of his boots. The captain’s face expressed the anxiety of a schoolboy who has been told to recite a lesson that he has not properly learned. Blotches appeared on a nose already red, evidently from over-indulgence, and the shape of his mouth kept shifting. The regimental commander looked the captain over from head to toe as he approached, wheezing and checking his stride as he drew closer.

      “You’ll be dressing the men in sarafans soon! What’s that?” shouted the regimental commander, thrusting out his lower jaw and pointing at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat the colour of high-quality factory cloth that was different from the other greatcoats. “Where were you? When the commander-in-chief is expected, you leave your post? Eh? I’ll teach you to dress men up for an inspection in fancy kaftans! Eh?”

      Keeping his eyes fixed on his superior, the company commander pressed his two fingers harder and harder against the peak of his cap, as though he now saw his only salvation in this pressing. The battalion commanders and adjutants stood somewhat further back, not knowing which way to look.

      “Well,

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