RAPIDLY in the twilight the men picked out their horses, tightened saddlegirths, and formed into parties. Denisov stood by the hut, giving the last orders. The infantry of the detachment moved on along the road, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. They quickly vanished among the trees in the mist before the dawn. The esaul gave some order to the Cossacks. Petya held his horse by the bridle, eagerly awaiting the word of command to mount. His face glowed from a dip in cold water, and his eyes gleamed. He felt a chill running down his back, and a kind of rapid, rhythmic throbbing all over.

“Well, have you everything ready?” said Denisov. “Give us our horses.”

They brought the horses up. Denisov was vexed with the Cossack because the saddlegirths were slack, and swore at him as he mounted his horse. Petya put his foot in the stirrup. The horse, as its habit was, made as though to nip at his leg; but Petya leaped into the saddle, unconscious of his own weight, and looking round at the hussars moving up from behind in the darkness, he rode up to Denisov.

“Vassily Fyodorovitch, you will trust me with some commission? Please…for God's sake…” he said. Denisov seemed to have forgotten Petya's existence. He looked round at him.

“One thing I beg of you,” he said sternly, “to obey me and not to put yourself forward.”

All the way Denisov did not say another word to Petya; he rode on in silence. By the time that they reached the edge of the wood, it was perceptibly getting light in the open country. Denisov whispered something to the esaul, and the Cossacks began riding by Petya and Denisov. When they had all passed on Denisov put his spurs to his horse, and rode downhill. Slipping and sinking back on their haunches, the horses slid down into the hollow with their riders. Petya kept beside Denisov. The tremor all over him was growing more intense. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist hid objects at a distance. When he had reached the bottom, Denisov looked back and nodded to the Cossack beside him.

“The signal,” he said. The Cossack raised his arm, and a shot rang out. At the same moment they heard the tramp of horses galloping in front, shouts from different directions, and more shots.

The instant that he heard the first tramp of hoofs and shouts, Petya gave the rein to his horse, and lashing him on, galloped forward, heedless of Denisov, who shouted to him. It seemed to Petya that it suddenly became broad daylight, as though it were midday, at the moment when he heard the shot. He galloped to the bridge. The Cossacks were galloping along the road in front. At the bridge he jostled against a Cossack who had lagged behind, and he galloped on. In front Petya saw men of some sort—the French he supposed—running across the road from right to left. One slipped in the mud under his horse's legs.

Cossacks were crowding about a hut, doing something. A fearful scream rose out of the middle of the crowd. Petya galloped to this crowd, and the first thing he saw was the white face and trembling lower-jaw of a Frenchman, who had clutched hold of a lance aimed at his breast.

“Hurrah!…Mates…ours…” shouted Petya, and giving the rein to his excited horse, he galloped on down the village street.

He heard firing in front. Cossacks, hussars, and tattered Russian prisoners, running up from both sides of the road, were all shouting something loud and unintelligible. A gallant-looking Frenchman, in a blue coat, with a red, frowning face, and no cap, was keeping back the hussars with a bayonet. By the time that Petya galloped up, the Frenchman had fallen. “Too late again,” flashed through Petya's brain, and he galloped to the spot where he heard the hottest fire. The shots came from the yard of the manor-house where he had been the night before with Dolohov. The French were ambushing there behind the fence in among the bushes of the overgrown garden, and firing at the Cossacks who were crowding round the gates. As he rode up to the gates, Petya caught a glimpse in the smoke of Dolohov's white, greenish face, as he shouted something to the men. “Go round. Wait for the infantry!” he was shouting, just as Petya rode up to him.

“Wait? … Hurrah!…” shouted Petya, and without pausing a moment, he galloped towards the spot where he heard the shots, and where the smoke was the thickest. There came a volley of shots with the sound of bullets whizzing by and thudding into something. The Cossacks and Dolohov galloped in at the gates after Petya. In the thick, hovering smoke the French flung down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the Cossacks, or fled downhill towards the pond. Petya was galloping on round the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins, he was flinging up both arms in a strange way, and slanting more and more to one side in the saddle. The horse stepped on to the ashes of the fire smouldering in the morning light, and stopped short. Petya fell heavily on the wet earth. The Cossacks saw his arms and legs twitching rapidly, though his head did not move. A bullet had passed through his brain.

After parleying with the French senior officer, who came out of the house with a handkerchief on a sword to announce that they surrendered, Dolohov got off his horse and went up to Petya, who lay motionless with outstretched arms.

“Done for,” he said frowning, and walked to the gate to Denisov, who was riding towards him.

“Killed?” cried Denisov, even from a distance recognising the familiar, unmistakably lifeless posture in which Petya's body was lying.

“Done for,” Dolohov repeated, as though the utterance of those words afforded him satisfaction; and he walked rapidly towards the prisoners, whom the Cossacks were hurriedly surrounding. “No quarter!” he shouted to Denisov. Denisov made no reply. He went up to Petya, got off his horse, and with trembling hands turned over the blood-stained, mud-spattered face that was already turning white.

“I'm fond of sweet things. They are capital raisins, take them all,” came into his mind. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the sound like the howl of a dog, that Denisov uttered as he turned away, walked to the fence and clutched at it.

Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denisov and Dolohov was Pierre Bezuhov.

昏暗中找出自己的马，勒紧马肚带，排列成队。杰尼索夫站在小屋旁，发出最后一道命令。游击队的步兵几百只脚踏着泥泞道路，沿大路前进，迅速消失在晨雾笼罩的树林之中。哥萨克一等上尉向哥萨克们发布命令。彼佳提着马缰，急切等候上马的命令。他那用冷水洗过的脸，特别是他那双眼睛火辣辣的，一阵寒气透过脊背，迅急透过全身，不由得索索发抖。

“都准备好了吗？”杰尼索夫说。“带马来。”

马牵过来了。肚带没勒紧，杰尼索夫不快，训斥了那个哥萨克，翻身跨上马背。彼佳踏上马镫，那马习惯地咬他的脚，彼佳似乎觉不出自己的重量，迅速翻身上马，掉头看了看身后在昏暗中出发的骠骑兵，向杰尼索夫驰去。

“瓦西里·费奥多罗维奇，给我任务吧，求求您……看在上帝的份上……”他说。杰尼索夫好像把彼佳这个人的存在全给忘了，他转身看了他一眼。

“对你只有一点要求，”他严历地说，“听我的命令，不要乱窜。”

杰尼索夫再没有和彼佳说一句话，默默地走着。来到林边，田路上已经大亮了。杰尼索夫和一等上尉咬了咬耳朵，哥萨克骑兵队从彼佳和杰尼索夫身旁驰过。随后杰尼索夫策马向山坡下走去。马踢蹲着后腿，出溜着下到洼地。彼佳和杰尼索夫并辔前行。他全身抖得更厉害。天越来越亮，只有浓雾还遮掩着远方的物体。杰尼索夫下到洼地后，往后面看了看，向站在他身旁的一等上尉点了点头。

“发信号！”他说。

那个哥萨克抬起手放了一枪。就在这一瞬间，马蹄声、呐喊声、枪声，从四面八方响了起来。

就在刚一响起马蹄声和呐喊声的瞬间，彼佳顾不得杰尼索夫的警告，扬鞭跃马，直奔向前。彼佳觉得，枪一响，天突然像正中午一样明亮。他向桥头冲去，哥萨克沿着大路向前猛冲。在桥上他碰见一个落在后面的哥萨克后，继续往前冲。前面有一些人，一定是法国人，他们从大路右边向左边跑去。有一个人跌倒在彼佳马蹄下的泥地里。

在一所农舍旁边，一些哥萨克正忙着做什么。人群中响起一声可怕的喊叫，彼佳向那群人跑去，他第一眼看到一张苍白的法国人的脸，他的下巴直打哆嗦，手里握着一杆长矛，对准着他。

“乌拉！……弟兄们……咱们的……”彼佳喊道，他提起缰绳纵马沿着村里的街道驰奔向前。

前面响起了枪声，从路两边跑出来的哥萨克、骠骑兵和衣衫褴褛的俄国俘虏，大声喊叫着。一个身板强壮，光着头，涨红着脸、身穿青灰色大衣的法国人用刺刀和骠骑兵肉搏，当彼佳驰到跟前时，那法国人已经倒下去了。“又没赶上。”彼佳脑子里闪了一下，于是他向枪声最密急的地方飞奔过去。枪声来自昨晚他和多洛霍夫去过的那所地主庄园。法国人躲藏在花园里面茂密的树丛中，从篱笆后面向拥在大门口的哥萨克射击，彼佳向大门口飞跑过去，在硝烟中他看见多洛霍夫，他脸色铁青，正对人们吆喝。“绕过去，等一等步兵！”他喊道，就在这时彼佳来到他跟前。

“等一等？……乌拉！……”彼佳喊道。他飞快向枪声紧密和硝烟弥漫的地方伸了过去。一排密急的枪声，凌空飞来的子弹呼啸而过，有的啪嚓一声打在什么东西上。哥萨克们和多洛霍夫随彼佳之后冲进了大门。在滚滚硝烟中，有些法国人扔掉武器从树丛中跑了出来，另外一些向山下池塘逃跑。彼佳穿过院子，但是他松开了缰绳，奇怪地，快速挥动双臂。身子愈来愈向马鞍一侧滑下去，那马跑到在晨曦中将要燃尽的火堆旁，停了下来，彼佳摔倒在潮湿的泥地上。哥萨克们看见他的胳膊和腿抽搐着，头却一动也不动，子弹射穿他的头。

一个法国高级军官，用刀挑着一块白手巾，从屋里走出来，宣布投降，多洛霍夫对他说了几句话，然后下马，走到伸开双臂一动也不动的彼佳身旁。

“完了。”他皱紧眉头说，然后朝大门走去，杰尼索夫骑在马上，还面而来。

“打死了吗？！”杰尼索夫喊道，他老远就看见彼佳躺在地上，那是他所熟悉的，完全失去生命的姿势。

“完了。”多洛霍夫又说，好像他说出这句话心中要舒坦些。他疾步向俘虏走去，这些俘虏已被急忙赶来的哥萨克团团围住。“不要收容他们！”他对杰尼索夫大声喊道。

杰尼索夫没有作答，他来到彼佳身旁，下了马，用颤抖的双手捧起被血和泥弄脏了的，已经惨白的彼佳的脸。

“我喜欢吃甜的。有葡萄干，都拿去吧，”他想起彼佳的话。杰尼索夫像大吠似的号淘大哭，哥萨克们惊愕地回头看，杰尼索夫急转身走到篱笆跟前，紧紧抓住篱笆。

杰尼索夫和多洛霍夫救出的俘虏中，有皮埃尔·别祖霍夫。