Our ordnance was brought out, and after some grape-shot had been fired the enemy seemed to grow weaker, but a moment later and at every step taken by our troops, the enemy’s fire again grew hotter and the shouting louder.
We had hardly gone seven hundred yards from the village before enemy cannon-balls began whistling over our heads. I saw a soldier killed by one.. . . But why should I describe the details of that terrible picture which I would myself give much to be able to forget!
Lieutenant Rosenkranz kept firing, and incessantly shouted in a hoarse voice at the soldiers and galloped from one end of the cordon to the other. He was rather pale and this suited his martial countenance very well.
The good-looking young ensign was in raptures: his beautiful dark eyes shone with daring, his lips were slightly smiling, and he kept riding up to the captain and begging permission to charge.
1 He is a. collective noun by which the soldiers indicate the enemy. ‘We will repel them,’ he said persuasively, ‘we certainly will.’
‘It’s not necessary,’ replied the captain abruptly. ‘We must retreat.’
The captain’s company held the skirts of the wood, the men lying down and replying to the’ enemy’s fire. The captain in his shabby coat and shabby cap sat silent on his white horse, with loose reins, bent knees, his feet in the stirrups, and did not stir from his place. (The soldiers knew and did their work so well that there was no need to give them any orders.) Only at rare intervals he raised his voice to shout at those who exposed their heads. There was nothing at all martial about the captain’s appearance, but there was something so sincere and simple in it that I was unusually struck by it. ‘It is he who is really brave,’ I involuntarily said to myself.
He was just the same as I had always seen him: the same calm movements, the same guileless expression on his plain but frank face, only his eyes, which were brighter than usual, showed the concentration of one quietly engaged on his duties. ‘As I had always seen him’ is easily said, but how many different shades have I noticed in the behaviour of others; one wishing to appear quieter, another sterner, a third merrier, than usual, but the captain’s face showed that he did not even see why he should appear anything but what he was.
The Frenchman at Waterloo who said, ‘La garde meurt, mats ne se rend pas,’1 and other, Particularly French, heroes who uttered memorable sayings were brave, and really uttered remarkable words, but between their courage and the captain’s there was this difference, that even if a great saying had in any circumstance stirred in the soul of my hero, I am convinced that he would not have uttered it: first because by uttering a great saying he would have feared to spoil a great deed, and secondly because
l ‘The Guard dies, but does not surrender.’ when a man feels within himself the capacity to perform a great deed no talk of any kind is needed. That, I think, is a peculiar and a lofty characteristic of Russian courage, and that being so, how can a Russian heart help aching when our young Russian warriors utter trivial French phrases intended to imitate antiquated French chivalry?
Suddenly from the side where our young ensign stood with his platoon we heard a not very hearty or loud ‘Hurrah!’ Looking round to where the shout came from, I saw some thirty soldiers with sacks on their shoulders and muskets in their hands managing with very great difficulty to run across a ploughed field. They kept stumbling, but nevertheless ran on and shouted. In front of them, sword in hand, galloped the young ensign.
They all disappeared into the wood. . . .
After a few minutes of whooping and clatter a frightened horse ran out of the wood, and soldiers appeared bringing back the dead and wounded. Among the latter was the young ensign. Two soldiers supported him under his arms.
He was as pale as a sheet, and his pretty head, on which only a shadow remained of the warlike enthusiasm that had animated him a few minutes before, was dreadfully sunk between his shoulders and drooped on his chest. There was a small spot of blood on the white shirt beneath his unbuttoned coat.
‘Ah, what a pity!’ I said, involuntarily turning away from this sad spectacle.
‘Of course it’s a pity,’ said an old soldier, who stood leaning on his musket beside me with a gloomy expression on his face. ‘He’s not afraid of anything. How can one do such things?’ he added, looking intently at the wounded lad. ‘He was still foolish and now he has paid for it!’
‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Are you afraid?’
‘What do you expect?’
Chapter XI
FOUR SOLDIERS WERE carrying the ensign on a stretcher and behind them an ambulance soldier was leading a thin, broken-winded horse with two green boxes on its back containing surgical appliances. They waited for the doctor. Some officers rode up to the stretcher and tried to cheer and comfort the wounded lad.
‘Well, friend Alanin, it will be some time before you will dance again with castanets,’ said Lieutenant Rosenkranz, riding up to the stretcher with a smile.
He probably supposed that these words would raise the young ensign’s spirits, but as far as one could judge by the latter’s coldly sad look the words had not the desired effect.
The captain rode up too. He looked intently at the wounded man and his usually calm and cold face expressed sincere sympathy. ‘Well, my dear Anatol Ivanich,’ he said, in a voice of tender sympathy such as I never expected from him, ‘evidently it was God’s will.’
The wounded lad looked round and his pale face lit up with a sad smile. ‘Yes, I disobeyed you.’
‘Say rather, it was God’s will,’ repeated the captain.
The doctor when he arrived, [as far as could be judged by the shakiness of his legs and the redness of his eyes, was in no fit condition to bandage the patient: however, he] took from his assistant bandages, a probe, and another instrument, rolled up his sleeves and stepped up to the ensign with an encouraging smile.
‘So it seems they have made a hole in a sound spot for you too,’ he said in a carelessly playful tone. ‘Let me see.’
The ensign obeyed, but the look he gave the merry doctor expressed astonishment and reproof which the inebriated practitioner did not notice. He touched the wound so awkwardly, quite unnecessarily pressing on it with his unsteady fingers, that the wounded ensign, driven beyond the limits of endurance, pushed away his hand with a deep groan.
‘Let me alone!’ he said in a scarcely audible voice. ‘I shall die anyway.’
[Then, addressing the captain, he said with difficulty: ‘Please, Captain .. . yesterday I lost.. . twenty rubles to Dronov. . .. When my things are sold … let him be paid.’]
With those words he fell back, and five minutes later when I passed the group that had formed around him, and asked a soldier, ‘How is the ensign?’ the answer was, ‘Passing away.’
Chapter XII
IT WAS LATE in the day when the detachment, formed into a broad column and singing, approached the Fort.
[The general rode in front and by his merry countenance one could see that the raid had been successful. In fact, with little loss, we had that day been in Mukay aoul — where from immemorial times no Russian foot had trod.
The Saxon, Kaspar Lavrentich, narrated to another officer that he had himself seen how three Chechens had aimed straight at his breast. In the mind of Ensign Rosenkranz a complete story of the day’s action had formulated itself. Captain Khlopov walked with thoughtful face in front of his company, leading his little white horse by its bridle.]
The sun had hidden behind the snowy mountain range and threw its last rosy beams on a long thin cloud stretching motionless across the clear horizon. The snow peaks began to disappear in purple mist and only their top outline was visible, wonderfully distinct in the crimson sunset glow.
The delicate moon, which had risen long since, began to grow pale against the deep azure. The green of the grass and trees was turning black and becoming covered with dew. The dark masses of troops moved with measured sounds over the luxuriant meadows. Tambourines, drums, and merry songs were heard from various sides. The voice of the second tenor of the Sixth Company rang out with full force and the sounds of his clear chest-notes, full of feeling and power, floated through the clear evening air.
1852
The End
