PIERRE got out of his carriage, and passing by the toiling peasants, clambered up the knoll from which the doctor had told him he could get a view of the field of battle.
It was eleven o’clock in the morning. The sun was a little on the left, and behind Pierre, and in the pure, clear air, the huge panorama that stretched in an amphitheatre before him from the rising ground lay bathed in brilliant sunshine.
The Smolensk high-road ran winding through that amphitheatre, intersecting it towards the left at the top, and passing through a village with a white church, which lay some five hundred paces before and below the knoll. This was Borodino. The road passed below the village, crossed a bridge, and ran winding uphill and downhill, mounting up and up to the hamlet of Valuev, visible six versts away, where Napoleon now was. Behind Valuev the road disappeared into a copse turning yellow on the horizon. In this copse of birch- and pine-trees, on the right of the road, could be seen far away the shining cross and belfry of the Kolotsky monastery. Here and there in the blue distance, to right and to left of the copse and the road, could be seen smoking camp-fires and indistinct masses of our troops and the enemy’s. On the right, along the course of the rivers Kolotcha and Moskva, the country was broken and hilly. Through the gaps between the hills could be seen the villages of Bezzubovo and Zaharino. On the left the ground was more level; there were fields of corn and a smoking village that had been set on fire—Semyonovskoye.
Everything Pierre saw was so indefinite, that in no part of the scene before him could he find anything fully corresponding to his preconceptions. There was nowhere a field of battle such as he had expected to see, nothing but fields, dells, troops, woods, camp-fires, villages, mounds, and streams. With all Pierre’s efforts, he could not discover in the living landscape a military position. He could not even distinguish between our troops and the enemy’s.
“I must ask some one who understands it,” he thought, and he addressed the officer, who was looking with curiosity at his huge, unmilitary figure.
“Allow me to ask,” Pierre said, “what village is that before us？”
“Burdino, isn’t it called？” said the officer, turning inquiringly to his comrade.
“Borodino,” the other corrected.
The officer, obviously pleased at an opportunity for conversation, went nearer to Pierre.
“Are these our men there？” asked Pierre.
“Yes, and away further, those are the French,” said the officer. “There they are, there you can see them.”
“Where？ where？” asked Pierre.
“One can see them with the naked eye. Look！” The officer pointed to smoke rising on the left beyond the river, and the same stern and grave expression came into his face that Pierre had noticed in many of the faces he had met.
“Ah, that’s the French！ And there？ …” Pierre pointed to a knoll on the left about which troops could be seen.
“Those are our men.”
“Oh, indeed！ And there？ …” Pierre pointed to another mound in the distance, with a big tree on it, near a village that could be seen in a gap between the hills, where there was a dark patch and the smoke of campfires.
“Ah！ that’s he again！” said the officer. （It was the redoubt of Shevardino.） “Yesterday that was ours, but now it’s his.”
“So what is our position, then？”
“Our position？” said the officer, with a smile of satisfaction. “I can describe it very clearly, because I have had to do with the ****** of almost all our fortifications. There, our centre, do you see, is here at Borodino.” He pointed to the village with the white church, in front of them. “There’s the ford across the Kolotcha. Here, do you see, where the rows of mown hay are still lying in the low ground, there’s the bridge. That’s our centre. Our right flank is away yonder” （he pointed to the right, far away to the hollows among the hills）, “there is the river Moskva, and there we have thrown up three very strong redoubts. The left flank …” there the officer paused. “It’s hard to explain, you see. … Yesterday our left flank was over there, at Shevardino, do you see, where the oak is. But now we have drawn back our left wing, now it’s over there,—you see the village and the smoke—that’s Semyonovskoye, and here—look,” he pointed to Raevsky’s redoubt. “Only the battle won’t be there, most likely. He has moved his troops here, but that’s a blind; he will probably try to get round on the right. Well, but however it may be, there’ll be a lot of men missing at roll-call to-morrow！” said the officer.
The old sergeant, who came up during the officer’s speech, had waited in silence for his superior officer to finish speaking. But at this point he interrupted him in undisguised annoyance at his last words.
“We have to send for gabions,” he said severely.
The officer seemed abashed, as though he were fully aware that though he might think how many men would be missing next day, he ought not to talk about it.