Above the rim of the sea, along which spread a streak of black smoke from a steamer, drifted long white clouds that portended rain. Along the whole line of entrenchments, especially on the hills to the left, compressed puffs of thick white smoke continually appeared several at a time, accompanied by flashes that sometimes gleamed like lightning even in the noontide light; and these puffs grew larger and assumed various shapes, rising and seeming darker against the sky. They started now here now there from the hills, from the enemy’s batteries, from the town, and high up in the sky. The noise of the reports never ceased, and mingling with one another they shook the air.
Towards noon the cloudlets of smoke showed less and less often and the air was less shaken by the booming.
“There now, the Second Bastion doesn’t reply at all!’ said the mounted hussar officer. ‘It’s absolutely knocked to bits. It’s terrible!’
‘Yes, and the Malakhov hardly fires one shot for three of theirs,’ replied the man who was looking through the telescope. ‘It makes me mad that ours are silent. They are firing straight into the Kornilov Battery and it doesn’t reply at all.’
‘But look here, I told you they always stop bombarding at noon. And it’s the same to-day. We’d better go to lunch … they’ll be waiting for us as it is. . . . There’s nothing to look at now.’
‘Wait a bit! Don’t bother me!’ said the man in possession of the telescope, looking eagerly at Sevastopol.
‘What is it? What?’
‘A movement in the trenches — dense columns advancing.’
‘Yes, one can see it with the naked eye,’ said the sailor. ‘They are advancing in columns. We must give the alarm.’
‘Look! Look! They have left the trenches.’
And one could really see with the naked eye what seemed like dark spots coming down the hill, across the ravine from the French batteries towards our bastions. In front of these spots, dark streaks could already be seen near our lines. From our bastions white cloudlets of firing burst out at different points as if crossing one another. The wind brought a sound of small-arm firing, like rain pelting against window-panes. The dark streaks were moving nearer and nearer right amid the smoke. The sounds of firing grew louder and louder and merged into a prolonged rumbling peal. The smoke, rising more and more often, spread rapidly along the lines and at last merged into one light-purple cloud curling and uncurling, amid which here and there flashes just flickered and dark dots appeared: all the separate sounds blended into one thundering crash.
‘An assault!’ said the officer, growing pale and letting the sailor have the telescope.
Cossacks galloped down the road, officers on horseback passed by, and the commander-in-chief in a carriage accompanied by his suite. On every face there was an expression of painful agitation and expectancy.
‘They can’t have taken it!’ cried the mounted officer.
‘By God, a standard! Look! Look!’ said the officer, panting and moving away from the telescope— ‘A French standard on the Malakhov!’
‘Impossible!’
XXV
The elder Kozeltsov, who had found time that night to win back his money and to lose it all again, including the gold pieces sewn in his cuff, was lying towards morning in a heavy, unhealthy, and deep sleep in the Defence Barracks of the Fifth Bastion, when a desperate cry arose, repeated by many voices —
‘The alarm!’
‘Why are you sleeping, Michael Semenich? We are attacked!’ shouted someone.
‘It must be a hoax,’ he said, opening his eyes incredulously.
Then he saw an officer running from one corner of the barracks to the other without any apparent reason and with such a pale face that he realized it all. The thought that they might take him for a coward who did not wish to be with his company at a critical moment upset him terribly, and he rushed full speed to join it. The artillery firing had ceased, but the clatter of musketry was at its height. The bullets did not whistle as single ones do but came in swarms like a flock of autumn birds flying overhead.
The whole place where his battalion had been stationed the day before was hidden in smoke, and enemy shouts and exclamations could be heard. As he went he met crowds of wounded and unwounded soldiers. Having run another thirty paces he saw his own company pressed to the wall.
“The Schwartz Redoubt is taken!’ said a young officer, whose teeth were chattering. ‘All is lost!’
‘Nonsense!’ said Kozeltsov angrily, and [wishing to rouse himself by a gesture] he drew his blunt little iron sword and cried:
‘Forward, lads! Hurrah!’
His voice sounded loud and clear and roused Kozeltsov himself. He ran forward along the traverse, and about fifty soldiers ran shouting after him. From the traverse he ran out into the open ground. The bullets fell just like hailstones. Two hit him, but where, and what they had done — bruised him or wounded him — he had no time to determine. Before him through the smoke he could already see blue coats and red trousers, and hear shouts that were not Russian.
One Frenchman stood on the breastwork waving his cap and shouting something. Kozeltsov felt sure he would be killed, and this increased his courage. He ran on and on. Several soldiers outran him, others appeared from somewhere else and also ran. The blue uniforms were always at the same distance from him, running back to their trenches, but there were dead and wounded on the ground under his feet. When he had run to the outer ditch, everything became blurred in Kozeltsov’s eyes and he felt a pain in his chest.
Half an hour later he was lying on a stretcher near the Nicholas Barracks and knew that he was wounded, but felt hardly any pain. He only wished for something cool to drink, and to lie more comfortably.
A plump little doctor with large black whiskers came up to him and unbuttoned his cloak. Kozeltsov looked over his chin to see the doctor’s face and what he was doing to his wound, but he still felt no pain. The doctor covered the wound with the shirt, wiped his fingers on the skirt of his cloak and silently, without looking at the wounded man, passed on to another patient. Kozeltsov unconsciously watched what was going on around him and, remembering what had happened at the Fifth Bastion with exceedingly joyful self-satisfaction, felt that he had performed his duty well — that for the first time in the whole of his service he had acted as well as it was possible to act, and that he had nothing to reproach himself with. The doctor, bandaging another man, pointed to Kozeltsov and said something to a priest with a large red beard, who stood near by with a cross.
‘Am I dying?’ asked Kozeltsov when the priest approached him.
The priest did not reply, but said a prayer and held a cross to the wounded man’s lips.
Death did not frighten Kozeltsov. He took the cross with his weak hands, pressed it to his lips, and began to weep.
‘Were the French driven back?’ he asked the priest firmly.
‘The victory is ours at all points,’ answered the latter to console the wounded man, concealing from him the fact that a French standard was already waving from the Malakhov Redoubt.
‘Thank God!’ exclaimed the dying man, not feeling the tears that ran down his cheeks, [and experiencing inexpressible delight at the consciousness of having performed an heroic deed.]
The thought of his brother flashed through his brain. ‘God grant him as good a fate!’ thought he.
XXVI
But a different fate awaited Volodya. He was listening to a tale Vasin was telling when he heard the cry ‘The French are coming!’ The blood suddenly rushed to his heart and he felt his cheeks grow cold and pale. He remained immovable for a moment, but glancing round saw the soldiers fastening their uniforms and crawling out one after the other fairly coolly. One of them — Melnikov probably — even joked, saying, ‘Take them some bread and salt.’1
Volodya, and Vlang who followed him like a shadow, climbed out of the bomb-proof and ran to the battery. There was no artillery firing at all from either side. The coolness of the soldiers did less to rouse Volodya than the pitiful cowardice of the cadet. ‘Can I possibly be like him?’ he thought, and ran gaily to the breastwork where his mortars stood. He could plainly see the French running straight towards him across the open ground, and crowds of them moving in the nearer trenches, their bayonets glittering in the sunshine. One short, broad-shouldered fellow in a Zouave uniform was running in front, sword in hand, jumping across the pits.
‘Fire case-shot!’ cried Volodya, running back from the banquette, but-the soldiers had already arranged matters without him and the metallic ring of the discharged case-shot whistled over his head first from one mortar and then from the other. ‘One — Two!’ ordered Volodya, running the distance between the two mortars and quite forgetting the danger. From one side and near at hand was heard the clatter of the musketry of our supports, and excited cries.
Suddenly a wild cry of despair arose on
