‘No,’ said Volodya, ‘I don’t know what I’m to do. I was telling the captain … I have no horse nor any money until I get my forage-money and travelling expenses paid. I thought meanwhile of asking the commander of the battery to let me have a horse, but I’m afraid he’ll refuse.’
‘Apollon Sergeich . . .?’ and Kraut made a sound with his lips expressive of strong doubt, and looking at the captain added, ‘Hardly!’
‘Well, if he does refuse there’ll be no harm done,’ said the captain. ‘To tell you the truth, a horse is not much wanted here. Still, it’s worth trying. I will ask him to-day.’
‘How little you know him,’ Dyidenko put in: ‘he might refuse anything else, but not that. . . . Will you bet?’
‘Oh, we know you can’t help contradicting!’
‘I contradict because I know. He’s close in other matters, but he’ll give a horse because he gains nothing by refusing.’
‘Gains nothing when oats are eight rubles?’ said Kraut. ‘The gain is not having to keep an extra horse.’
‘You ask for Skvorets, Vladimir Semenich,’ said Vlang, returning with Kraut’s pipe. ‘He’s a capital horse.’
‘Off which you fell into a ditch in Soroki, eh, Vlanga?’ remarked the lieutenant-captain.
‘What does it matter if oats are eight rubles, when in his estimates they figure at ten and a half?1 That’s
1 Referring to the custom of charging the government more than the actual price of supplies, and thereby where the gain comes in,’ said Dyadenko, continuing to argue.
‘Well naturally you can’t expect him to keep nothing. When you’re commander of a battery I daresay you won’t let a man have a horse to ride into town.’
‘When I’m commander of a battery my horses will get four measures each and I shan’t make an income, no fear!’
.’We shall see if we live . . said the lieutenant-captain. ‘You’ll act in just the same way — and so will he,’ pointing to Volodya.
‘Why do you think that he too would wish to make a profit?’ said Tcheraovitski to Kraut. ‘He may have private means, then why should he want to make a profit?’
‘Oh no, I . . . excuse me, Captain,’ said Volodya, blushing up to his ears, ‘but I should think such a thing dishonourable.’
‘Dear me! What a severe fellow he is!’ said Kraut.
‘No, I only mean that I think that if the money is not mine I ought not to take it.’
‘But I’ll tell you something, young man,’ began the lieutenant-captain in a more serious tone. ‘Do you know that if you are commanding a battery you have to conduct things properly, and that’s enough. The commander of a battery doesn’t interfere with the soldiers’ supplies: that’s always been the custom in the artillery. If you are a bad manager you will have no surplus. But you have to spend over and above what’s in the estimates: for shoeing-that’s one’ (he bent down one finger), ‘and for medicine — that’s two’ (and he bent down another finger), ‘for office expenses — that’s three: then for off-horses one has to pay up to five hundred rubles my dear fellow — that’s four: you have to supply the soldiers with new
making an income which was supposed to go for the benefit of the regiment, but Part of which frequently remained unaccounted for. collars, spend a good bit on charcoal for the samovars, and keep open table for the officers. If you are in command of a battery you must live decently: you must have a carriage and a fur coat, and one thing and another. … It’s quite plain!’
‘And above all,’ interrupted the captain, who had been silent all the time, ‘look here, Vladimir Semenich — imagine a man like myself say, serving for twenty years with a pay of first two hundred, then three hundred rubles a year. Can one refuse him a crust of bread in his old age, after all his service?’
‘Ah, what’s the good of talking,’ began the lieutenant-captain again. ‘Don’t be in a hurry to judge, but live and serve.’
Volodya felt horribly confused and ashamed of what he had so thoughtlessly said. He muttered something, and then listened in silence while Dyadenko began very irritably to dispute and to argue the contrary of what had been said. The dispute was interrupted by the colonel’s orderly who came to call them to dinner.
‘Ask Apollon Sergeich to give us some wine to-day,’ said Tchernovitski to the captain, buttoning his uniform. ‘Why is he so stingy? If we get killed, it will all be wasted.’
‘Ask him yourself.’
‘Oh no, you’re the senior officer. We must observe order in everything.’
XX
In the room where Volodya had presented himself to the colonel the evening before, the table had been moved away from the wall and covered with a dirty table-cloth. To-day the commander of the battery shook hands with him and asked him for the Petersburg news, and about his journey.
‘Well, gentlemen, who takes vodka? Please help
yourselves —— Ensigns don’t take any,’ he added with
a smile. Altogether he did not seem at all as stern as the night before; on the contrary he seemed a kind and hospitable host and an elder comrade among fellow officers. But in spite of it all, the officers from the old captain down to Ensign Dyadenko showed him great respect, if only by the way they addressed him, politely looking him straight in the eyes, and by the timid way they came up one by one to the side-table to drink their glass of vodka.
The dinner consisted of Polish cutlets with mustard, dumplings with butter that was not very fresh, and a large tureen of cabbage-soup in which floated pieces of fat beef with an enormous quantity of pepper and bay-leaves. There were no napkins, the spoons were of tin or wood, there were only two tumblers, and there was only water on the table, in a bottle with a broken neck; but the meal was not dull and the conversation never flagged. At first they talked about the battle of Inkerman, in which the battery had taken Part, and each gave his own impressions of it and reasons for our reverse, but all were silent as soon as the commander spoke.
Then the conversation naturally passed to the insufficient calibre of our field-guns, and to the subject of the new lighter guns, which gave Volodya an opportunity to show his knowledge of artillery. But the conversation never touched on the present terrible condition of Sevastopol: it was as if each man had thought so much on this subject that he did not wish to speak of it. Nor to Volodya’s great surprise and regret was there any mention at all of the duties of the service he would have to perform. It was as if he had come to Sevastopol solely to discuss lighter guns and to dine with the commander of the battery. During dinner a bomb fell near the house they were in. The floor and walls shook as if from an earthquake, and the windows were darkened by the powder smoke.
‘You didn’t see that sort of thing in Petersburg, I fancy, but here we get many such surprises,’ said the commander of the battery. ‘Vlang, go and see where it burst.’
Vlang went out to see, and reported that it had fallen in the square, and no more was said about the bomb.
Just before dinner ended, a little old man, the battery clerk, came into the room with three sealed envelopes and handed them to the commander: ‘This one is very important: a Cossack has just brought it from the Chief of the Artillery.’
The officers all watched with eager impatience as the commander with practised fingers broke the seal and drew out the very important paper. ‘What can it be?’ each one asked himself. It might be an order to retire from Sevastopol to recuperate, or the whole battery might be ordered to the bastions.
‘Again!’ said the commander, angrily throwing the paper on the table.
‘What is it, Apollon Sergeich?’ asked the senior officer.
‘They order an officer and men to some mortar-battery or other. … As it is I have only four officers, and not enough men for the gun detachments,’ grumbled the commander of the battery, ‘and here they are taking more away. . . . However, gentlemen, some one will have to go,’ he said after a short silence, ‘the order is, to be at the outposts at seven. Send the sergeant-major to me. Well, who will go? Decide, gentlemen.’
There’s your man — he’s not been anywhere yet,’ said Tchernovitski, pointing to Volodya.
The commander of the battery did not answer.
‘Yes, I should like to go,’ said Volodya, feeling a cold sweat break out on his back and neck.
‘No, why should he?’ interrupted the captain. ‘Of course no one would refuse, but one need not offer oneself either: if Apollon Sergeich leaves it to us, let us cast lots as we did last time.’ All agreed. Kraut cut up some paper, rolled up the pieces, and threw them into a cap. The captain joked and on this occasion even ventured to ask the colonel for some wine — to keep up their courage, as he said. Dyadenko sat looking grim, something made Volodya smile. Tchernovitski declared he was sure to draw it. Kraut was perfectly calm. Volodya was allowed to draw first. He took a roll of paper a bit longer than the others but then decided to change it, and taking a thinner and shorter one unrolled it and
