tion, deafening them with the
noise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and quiet,
with a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up
the hill on foot.

"Is the general here?" asked the adjutant on reaching the knoll.

"He was here a minute ago but has just gone that way," someone told him,
pointing to the right.

The adjutant looked at Pierre as if puzzled what to do with him now.

"Don't trouble about me," said Pierre. "I'll go up onto the knoll if I
may?"

"Yes, do. You'll see everything from there and it's less dangerous, and
I'll come for you."

Pierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode on. They did not meet
again, and only much later did Pierre learn that he lost an arm that
day.

The knoll to which Pierre ascended was that famous one afterwards known
to the Russians as the Knoll Battery or Raevski's Redoubt, and to the
French as la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du centre,
around which tens of thousands fell, and which the French regarded as
the key to the whole position.

This redoubt consisted of a knoll, on three sides of which trenches had
been dug. Within the entrenchment stood ten guns that were being fired
through openings in the earthwork.

In line with the knoll on both sides stood other guns which also fired
incessantly. A little behind the guns stood infantry. When ascending
that knoll Pierre had no notion that this spot, on which small trenches
had been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was the most
important point of the battle.

On the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought it one
of the least significant parts of the field.

Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench
surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with
an unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked about the
battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the soldiers
who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running past
him with bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being fired
continually one after another with a deafening roar, enveloping the
whole neighborhood in powder smoke.

In contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in support,
here in the battery where a small number of men busy at their work were
separated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced a common and
as it were family feeling of animation.

The int