Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 1 Page 9

  At this unexpected sally the recruit suddenly collapsed, slapped his knees, and burst out laughing and coughing so that he hardly managed to utter in a stifled voice, ‘Them Wagabones is the right sort!’

  ‘ “Then”, says I, “there’s also the Mopingers,” ’ continued Chíkin, making his cap slip onto his forehead with a movement of his head: ‘ “These others are little twins, so big … all in pairs,” says I, “they run about hand in hand at such a rate,” says I, “that you couldn’t catch ’em on a horse!” – “Then how’s it, lad,” they say, “how’s them Mopingers, be they born hand in hand?” ’ He said this in a hoarse bass, pretending to imitate a peasant. ‘ “Yes,” says I, “he’s naturally like that. Tear their hands apart and they’ll bleed just like a Chinaman: take a Chinaman’s cap off and it’ll bleed.” – “And tell us, lad, how do they fight?” – “That’s how,” says I, “they catch you and rip your belly up and wind your bowels round your arm, and wind and wind. They go on winding and you go on laughing till your breath all goes.” ’

  ‘Well, and did they believe you, Chíkin?’ said Maksímov with a slight smile, while all the rest were dying with laughter.

  ‘Such queer people, Theodor Maksímych, they believe everything. On my word they do. But when I told them about Mount Kazbék and said that the snow didn’t melt on it all the summer, they mocked at me! “What are you bragging for, lad,” they says; “a big mountain and the snow on it don’t melt? Why, lad, when the thaw sets in here every tiny bit of a hillock thaws first while the snow still lies in the hollows.” There now!’ Chíkin concluded with a wink.

  Chapter V

  THE bright disk of the sun shining through the milky-white mist had already risen to a considerable height. The purple-grey horizon gradually widened, but though it had receded considerably it was still as sharply outlined by a deceptive white wall of mist.

  Beyond the felled wood a good-sized plain now opened in front of us. The black or milky-white or purple smoke of the fires expanded and fantastic shapes of white mist-clouds floated above the plain. An occasional group of mounted Tartars appeared far in the distance before us and at rare intervals the reports of our rifles5 and of their vintóvkas and cannon were to be heard.

  This, as Captain Khlópov said, was ‘not yet business, but only play’.

  The commander of the 9th Company of Chasseurs, that formed our support, came up to our guns, pointed to three Tartars6 on horseback skirting the forest some 1,400 yards from us, and with the fondness for artillery fire common among infantry officers in general, asked me to let off a ball or bomb at them.

  ‘Do you see?’ he said with a kind and persuasive smile as he stretched his hand from behind my shoulder, ‘in front of those big trees there … one on a white horse and in a black Circassian cloak and two others behind. Do you see? Could you not, please?’

  ‘And there are three more riding at the outskirt of the forest,’ said Antónov, who had astonishingly sharp eyesight, coming up to us, and hiding behind his back the pipe he had been smoking. ‘There, the one in front has taken his gun out of its case. They can be seen distinctly, y’r honour!’

  ‘Look there! he’s fired, lads. D’ye see the white smoke?’ said Velenchúk, who was one of a group of soldiers standing a little behind us.

  ‘At our line surely, the blackguard!’ remarked another.

  ‘See what a lot of ’em come streaming out of the forest. Must be looking round … want to place a gun,’ said a third.

  ‘Supposing now a bomb was sent right into that lot, wouldn’t they spit!’

  ‘And what d’ye think, old fellow – that it would just reach ’em?’ said Chíkin.

  ‘Twelve hundred or twelve hundred and fifty yards: not more than that,’ said Maksímov calmly and as if speaking to himself, though it was evident he was just as anxious to fire as the rest: ‘if we were to give an elevation of forty-five lines to our “unicorn”7 we could hit the very point, that is to say, perfectly.’

  ‘D’ye know, if you were now to aim at that group you would be sure to hit somebody. There now, they are all together – please be quick and give the order to fire,’ the company commander continued to entreat me.

  ‘Are we to point the gun?’ suddenly asked Antónov in an abrupt bass with a look as if of gloomy anger.

  I must admit that I also felt a strong wish to fire, so I ordered the second gun to be trained.

  I had hardly given the order before the shell was charged and rammed in and Antónov, leaning against the cheek of the gun-carriage and holding two of his thick fingers to the base-ring, was directing the movement of the tail of the gun. ‘Right, left – a bit to the left, a wee bit – more – more – right!’ he said, stepping from the gun with a look of pride.

  The infantry officer, I, and Maksímov, one after the other, approached, put our heads to the sights, and expressed our various opinions.

  ‘By Heavens, it will shoot over,’ remarked Velenchúk, clicking his tongue, though he was only looking over Antónov’s shoulder and therefore had no grounds for this supposition. ‘By Hea – vens it will shoot over; it will hit that there tree, my lads!’

  I gave the order: ‘Two.’

  The men stepped away from the gun. Antónov ran aside to watch the flight of the shot. The touch-hole flashed and the brass rang. At the same moment we were enveloped in a cloud of powder-smoke and, emerging from the overpowering boom of the discharge, the humming, metallic sound of the flying shot receded with the swiftness of lightning and died away in the distance amid general silence.

  A little beyond the group of horsemen a white cloudlet appeared; the Tartars galloped away in all directions and the report of the explosion reached us. ‘That was very fine!’ ‘Ah, how they galloped!’ ‘The devils don’t like that!’ came the words of approval and ridicule from the ranks of the artillery and infantry.

  ‘If we had had the gun pointed only a touch lower we should just have caught him. I said it would hit the tree and sure enough it did go to the right,’ remarked Velenchúk.

  Chapter VI

  LEAVING the soldiers to discuss how the Tartars galloped off when they saw the shell, why they had been riding there, and whether there were many of them in the forest, I went and sat down with the company commander under a tree a few steps off to wait while the cutlets he had invited me to share were being warmed up. The company commander, Bólkhov, was one of the officers nicknamed ‘bonjourists’ in the regiment. He was a man of some means, had formerly served in the Guards, and spoke French. But in spite of all this his comrades liked him. He was clever enough, and had tact enough, to wear a coat of Petersburg make, to eat a good dinner, and to speak French, without too much offending his fellow officers. After talking about the weather, the military operations, our mutual acquaintances among the officers, and having assured ourselves of the satisfactory state of each other’s ideas by questions and answers and the views expressed, we involuntarily passed to more intimate conversation. And when people belonging to the same circle meet in the Caucasus a very evident, even if unspoken, question arises: ‘Why are you here?’ and it was to this silent question of mine that, as it seemed to me, my companion wished to reply.

  ‘When will this expedition end?’ he said lazily. ‘It is so dull.’

  ‘I don’t think it dull,’ said I. ‘It’s much worse on the staff.’

  ‘Oh, it’s ten thousand times worse on the staff,’ he said irascibly. ‘No, I mean when will the whole thing end?’

  ‘What is it you want to end?’ I asked.

  ‘Everything, – the whole affair! … Are the cutlets ready, Nikoláyev?’

  ‘Then why did you come to serve here if you so dislike the Caucasus?’ I said.

  ‘Do you know why?’ he answered with resolute frankness. ‘In obedience to tradition! You know there exists in Russia a most curious tradition about the Caucasus, making it out to be a “promised land” for all unfortunates.’

  ‘Yes, that is almost true,’ said I. ‘Mo
st of us —’

  ‘But the best of it is,’ he said, interrupting me, ‘that all of us who came to the Caucasus in obedience to the tradition made a terrible mistake in our calculations and I can’t for the life of me see why one should, in consequence of an unfortunate love affair or of financial troubles, choose to go and serve in the Caucasus rather than in Kazán or Kalúga. Why in Russia they imagine the Caucasus to be something majestic: eternal virgin ice, rushing torrents, daggers, mantles, fair Circassians, and an atmosphere of terror and romance; but in reality there is nothing amusing in it. If they only realized that we never get to the virgin ice, that it would not be at all amusing if we did, and that the Caucasus is divided into governments – Stavrópol, Tiflís, and so on.’

  ‘Yes,’ said I, laughing, ‘we look very differently at the Caucasus when we are in Russia and when we are here. It is like what you may have experienced when reading verses in a language you are not familiar with; you imagine them to be much better than they are.’

  ‘I really don’t know; but I dislike this Caucasus awfully,’ he said interrupting me.

  ‘Well, no; I still like the Caucasus only in a different way.’

  ‘Perhaps it is all right,’ he continued irritably; ‘all I know is that I’m not all right in the Caucasus.’

  ‘Why is that?’ I asked, to say something.

  ‘Well, first because it has deceived me. All that I, in obedience to tradition, came to the Caucasus to be cured of has followed me here, only with the difference that there it was all on a big scale and now it is on a little dirty one where at each step I find millions of petty anxieties, shabbinesses, and insults; and next because I feel that I am sinking, morally, lower and lower every day; but chiefly, because I do not feel fit for the service here. I can’t stand running risks. The fact of the matter is simply that I am not brave.’

  He stopped and looked at me, not joking.

  Though this unasked-for confession surprised me very much, I did not contradict him as he evidently wished me to do, but waited for his own refutation of his words, which always follows in such cases.

  ‘Do you know, in coming on this expedition I am taking part in an action for the first time,’ he continued, ‘and you can’t think what was going on in me yesterday. When the sergeant-major brought the order that my company was to join the column, I turned as white as a sheet and could not speak for excitement. And if you only knew what a night I had! If it were true that one’s hair turns white from fear, mine ought to be perfectly white to-day, because I don’t think anyone condemned to death ever suffered more in a night than I did; and even now, though I feel a bit easier than in the night, this is what goes on inside!’ he added, turning his fist about before his chest. ‘And what is funny is that while a most fearful tragedy is being enacted, here one sits eating cutlets and onions and making believe that it is great fun. – Have we any wine, Nikoláyev?’ he added, yawning.

  ‘That’s him, my lads!’ came the excited voice of one of the soldiers, and all eyes turned towards the border of the distant forest.

  In the distance a puff of bluish smoke expanded and rose, blown about by the wind. When I had understood that this was a shot fired at us by the enemy, all before my eyes at the moment assumed a sort of new and majestic character. The piles of arms, the smoke of the fires, the blue sky, the green gun-carriages, Nikoláyev’s sunburnt, moustached face – all seemed telling me that the ball that had already emerged from the smoke and was at that moment flying through space might be directed straight at my breast.

  ‘Where did you get the wine?’ I asked Bólkhov lazily, while deep in my soul two voices spoke with equal clearness. One said, ‘Lord receive my soul in peace,’ the other, ‘I hope I shall not stoop, but smile, while the ball is passing,’ and at that moment something terribly unpleasant whistled past our heads and a cannon ball crashed down a couple of paces from us.

  ‘There now, had I been a Napoleon or a Frederick I should certainly have paid you a compliment,’ Bólkhov remarked, turning towards me quite calmly.

  ‘You have done so as it is,’ I answered, with difficulty hiding the excitement produced in me by the danger just passed.

  ‘Well, what if I have? – no one will write it down.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Well, if you do put it down, it will only be “for critikism”, as Míschenkov says,’ he added with a smile.

  ‘Ugh! the damned thing!’ just then remarked Antónov behind us, as he spat over his shoulder with vexation, just missed my legs!’

  All my attempts to seem calm, and all our cunning phrases, suddenly seemed to me insufferably silly after that simple exclamation.

  Chapter VII

  THE enemy had really placed two guns where we had seen the Tartars riding, and they fired a shot every twenty or thirty minutes at our men who were felling the wood. My platoon was ordered forward to the plain to answer the enemy’s fire. A puff of smoke appeared on the outskirts of the forest, then followed a report and a whistle, and a ball fell in front or behind us. The enemy’s shots fell fortunately for us and we sustained no losses.

  The artillerymen behaved splendidly as they always do; loaded quickly, pointed carefully at the spots where the puffs of smoke were, and quietly joked with one another.

  The infantry supports lay near in silent inaction awaiting their turn. The wood-fellers went on with their work, the axes rang faster and more unintermittently through the forest; but when the whistle of a shot became audible all were suddenly silent and, in the midst of the deathly stillness, voices not quite calm exclaimed, ‘Scatter, lads!’ and all eyes followed the ball ricocheting over wood piles and strewn branches.

  The mist had now risen quite high and, turning into clouds, gradually disappeared into the dark-blue depths of the sky; the unveiled sun shone brightly, throwing sparkling reflections from the steel bayonets, the brass of the guns, the thawing earth, and the glittering hoar-frost. In the air one felt the freshness of the morning frost together with the warmth of the spring sunshine; thousands of different hues and tints mingled in the dry leaves of the forest, and the shining, beaten track plainly showed the traces left by wheels and the marks of rough-shod horses’ feet.

  The movement became greater and more noticeable between the two forces. On all sides the blue smoke of the guns appeared more and more frequently. Dragoons rode forward, the streamers of their lances flying; from the infantry companies one heard songs, and the carts laden with firewood formed into a train in our rear. The general rode up to our platoon and ordered us to prepare to retire. The enemy settled in the bushes on our left flank and their snipers began to molest us seriously. A bullet came humming from the woods to the left and struck a gun-carriage, then came another, and a third.… The infantry supports that had been lying near us rose noisily, took up their muskets and formed into line.

  The small-arm firing increased and bullets flew more and more frequently. The retreat commenced and consequently the serious part of the action, as is usual in the Caucasus.

  Everything showed that the artillerymen liked the bullets as little as the infantry had liked the cannon-balls. Antónov frowned, Chíkin imitated the bullets and joked about them, but it was easy to see he did not like them. ‘It’s in a mighty hurry,’ he said of one of them; another he called ‘little bee’; a third, which seemed to fly slowly past overhead with a kind of piteous wail, he called an ‘orphan’, which caused general laughter.

  The recruit who, unaccustomed to such scenes, bent his head to one side and stretched his neck every time a bullet passed, also made the soldiers laugh. ‘What, is that a friend of yours you’re bowing to?’ they said to him. Velenchúk also, usually quite indifferent to danger, was now excited: he was evidently vexed that we did not fire case-shot in the direction whence the bullets came. He repeated several times in a discontented tone, ‘Why is he allowed to go for us and gets nothing in return? If we turned a gun that way and gave them a taste of case-shot they’d hold their noise, no fe
ar!’

  It was true that it was time to do this, so I ordered them to fire a last bomb and then to load with case-shot.

  ‘Case-shot!’ Antónov called out briskly as he went through the thick of the smoke to sponge out the gun as soon as it was discharged.

  At that moment I heard just behind me the rapid whiz of a bullet suddenly stopped by something, with a dull thud. My heart ceased beating. ‘Someone of the men has been hit,’ I thought, while a sad presentiment made me afraid to turn round. And really that sound was followed by the heavy fall of a body, and the heart-rending ‘Oh-o-oh’ of someone who had been wounded. ‘I’m hit, lads!’ a voice I knew exclaimed with an effort. It was Velenchúk. He was lying on his back between the limbers and a cannon. The cartridge-bag he had been carrying was thrown to one side. His forehead was covered with blood, and a thick red stream was running down over his right eye and nose. He was wounded in the stomach but hardly bled at all there; his forehead he had hurt against a log in falling.

  All this I made out much later; the first moment I could only see an indistinct mass and, as it seemed to me, a tremendous quantity of blood.

  Not one of the soldiers who were loading said a word, only the young recruit muttered something that sounded like ‘Dear me! he’s bleeding’, and Antónov, frowning, gave an angry grunt; but it was clear that the thought of death passed through the soul of each. All set to work very actively and the gun was loaded in a moment, but the ammunition-bearer bringing the case-shot went two or three steps round the spot where Velenchúk still lay groaning.