there... you can see them."

"Where? Where?" asked Pierre.

"One can see them with the naked eye... Why, there!"

The officer pointed with his hand to the smoke visible on the left
beyond the river, and the same stern and serious expression that Pierre
had noticed on many of the faces he had met came into his face.

"Ah, those are the French! And over there?..." Pierre pointed to a knoll
on the left, near which some troops could be seen.

"Those are ours."

"Ah, ours! And there?..." Pierre pointed to another knoll in the
distance with a big tree on it, near a village that lay in a hollow
where also some campfires were smoking and something black was visible.

"That's his again," said the officer. (It was the Shevardino Redoubt.)
"It was ours yesterday, but now it is his."

"Then how about our position?"

"Our position?" replied the officer with a smile of satisfaction. "I
can tell you quite clearly, because I constructed nearly all our
entrenchments. There, you see? There's our center, at Borodino, just
there," and he pointed to the village in front of them with the white
church. "That's where one crosses the Kolocha. You see down there where
the rows of hay are lying in the hollow, there's the bridge. That's our
center. Our right flank is over there"--he pointed sharply to the right,
far away in the broken ground--"That's where the Moskva River is, and
we have thrown up three redoubts there, very strong ones. The left
flank..." here the officer paused. "Well, you see, that's difficult to
explain.... Yesterday our left flank was there at Shevardino, you see,
where the oak is, but now we have withdrawn our left wing--now it is
over there, do you see that village and the smoke? That's Semenovsk,
yes, there," he pointed to Raevski's knoll. "But the battle will hardly
be there. His having moved his troops there is only a ruse; he will
probably pass round to the right of the Moskva. But wherever it may be,
many a man will be missing tomorrow!" he remarked.

An elderly sergeant who had approached the officer while he was giving
these explanations had waited in silence for him to finish speaking, but
at this point, evidently not liking the officer's remark, interrupted
him.

"Gabions must be sent for," said he sternly.

The officer appeared abashed, as though he understood that one might
think of how many men would be missing tomorrow but ought not to speak
of it.

"Well, send number three company again," the