‘Ah, that’s bad!’ thought Kalugin with an unpleasant sensation, and he too had a presentiment — a very usual thought, the thought of death. But Kalugin was ambitious and blessed with nerves of oak — in a word, he was what is called brave. He did not yield to the first feeling but began to nerve himself. He recalled how an adjutant, Napoleon’s he thought, having delivered an order, galloped with bleeding head full speed to Napoleon. ‘Vous etes blesse?’1 said Napoleon. ‘Je vous demande pardon, sire, je suis mort,’2 and the adjutant fell from his horse, dead.
That seemed to him very fine, and he pictured himself for a moment in the role of that adjutant. Then he whipped his horse, assuming a still more dashing Cossack seat, looked back at the Cossack who, standing up in his stirrups, was trotting behind, and rode quite gallantly up to the spot where he had to dismount. Here he found four soldiers sitting on some stones smoking their pipes.
‘What are you doing there?’ he shouted at them.
‘Been carrying off a wounded man and sat down to rest a bit, your Honour,’ said one of them, hiding his pipe behind his back and taking off his cap.
1 ‘You are wounded?’
2 ‘Excuse me, sire, I am dead.’ ‘Resting, indeed! … To your places, march!’
And he went up the hill with them through the trench, meeting wounded men at every step.
After ascending the hill he turned to the left, and a few steps farther on found himself quite alone. A splinter of a bomb whizzed near him and fell into the trench. Another bomb rose in front of him and seemed flying straight at him. He suddenly felt frightened, ran a few steps at full speed, and lay down flat. When the bomb burst a considerable distance off he felt exceedingly vexed with himself and rose, looking round to see if anyone had noticed his downfall, but no one was near.
But when fear has once entered the soul it does not easily yield to any other feeling. He, who always boasted that he never even stooped, now hurried along the trench almost on all fours. He stumbled, and thought, ‘Oh, it’s awful! They’ll kill me for certain!’ His breath came with difficulty, and perspiration broke out over his whole body. He was surprised at himself but no longer strove to master his feelings.
Suddenly he heard footsteps in front. Quickly straightening himself he raised his head, and boldly clanking his sabre went on more deliberately. He felt himself quite a different man. When he met an officer of the Engineers and a sailor, and the officer shouted to him to lie down, pointing to a bright spot which growing brighter and brighter approached more and more swiftly and came crashing down close to the trench, he only bent a little, involuntarily influenced by the frightened cry, and went on.
‘That’s a brave one,’ said the sailor, looking quite calmly at the bomb and with experienced eye deciding at once that the splinters could not fly into the trench, ‘he won’t even lie down.’
It was only a few steps across open ground to the bomb-proof shelter of the Commander of the bastion, when Kalugin’s mind again became clouded and the same stupid terror seized him: his heart beat more violently, the blood rushed to his head, and he had to make an effort to force himself to run to the bombproof.
‘Why are you so out of breath?’ said the General, when Kalugin had reported his instructions.
‘I walked very fast, your Excellency!’
‘Won’t you have a glass of wine?’
Kalugin drank a glass of wine and lit a cigarette. The action was over, only a fierce cannonade still continued from both sides. In the bomb-proof sat General N — , the Commander of the bastion, and some six other officers among whom was Praskukhin. They were discussing various details of the action. Sitting in this comfortable room with blue wall-paper, a sofa, a bed, a table with papers on it, a wall-clock with a lamp burning before it, and an icon1 — looking at these signs of habitation, at the beams more than two feet thick that formed the ceiling, and listening to the shots that sounded faint here in the shelter, Kalugin could not understand how he had twice allowed himself to be overcome by such unpardonable weakness. He was angry with himself and wished for danger in order to test his nerve once more.
‘Ah! I’m glad you are here, Captain,’ said he to a naval officer with big moustaches who wore a staff-officer’s coat with a St. George’s Cross and had just entered the shelter and asked the General to give him some men to repair two embrasures of his battery which had become blocked. When the General had finished speaking to the captain, Kalugin said: ‘The Commander-in-Chief told me to ask if your guns can fire case-shot into the trenches.’
1 The Russian icons are paintings in Byzantine style of God, the Holy Virgin, Christ, or some saint, martyr, or angel. They are usually on wood and often covered over, except the face and hands, with an embossed gilt cover. ‘Only one of them can,’ said the captain sullenly,
‘All the same, let us go and see.’
The captain frowned and gave an angry grunt.
T have been standing there all night and have come in to get a bit of rest — couldn’t you go alone?’ he added. ‘My assistant, Lieutenant Kartz, is there and can show you everything.’
The captain had already been more than six months in command of this, one of the most dangerous batteries. From the time the siege began, even before the bomb-proof shelters were constructed, he had lived continuously on the bastion and had a great reputation for courage among the sailors. That is why his refusal struck and surprised Kalugin. ‘So much for reputation,’ thought he.
‘Well then, I will go alone if I may,’ he said in a slightly sarcastic tone to the captain, who however paid no attention to his words.
Kalugin did not realize that whereas he had spent some fifty hours all in all at different times on the bastions, the captain had lived there for six months. Kalugin was still actuated by vanity, the wish to shine, the hope of rewards, of gaining a reputation, and the charm of running risks. But the captain had already lived through all that: at first he had felt vain, had shown off his courage, had been foolhardy, had hoped for rewards and reputation and had even gained them, but now all these incentives had lost their power over him and he saw things differently. He fulfilled his duty exactly, but quite understanding how much the chances of life were against him after six months at the bastion, he no longer ran risks without serious need, and so the young lieutenant who had joined the battery a week ago and was now showing it to Kalugin, with whom he vied in uselessly leaning out of the embrasures and climbing out on the banquette, seemed ten times braver than the captain. Returning to the shelter after examining the battery, Kalugin in the dark came upon the General, who accompanied by his staff officers was going to the watch-tower.
‘Captain Praskukhin,’ he heard the General say, ‘please go to the right lodgement and tell the second battalion of the M — Regiment which is at work there to cease their work, leave the place, and noiselessly rejoin their regiment which is stationed in reserve at the foot of the hill. Do you understand? Lead them yourself to the regiment.’
‘Yes, sir.’
And Praskukhin started at full speed towards the lodgements.
The firing was now becoming less frequent.
X
‘Is this the second battalion of the M — Regiment?’ asked Praskukhin, having run to his destination and coming across some soldiers carrying earth in sacks.
‘It is, your Honour.’
‘Where is the Commander?’
Mikhaylov, thinking that the commander of the company was being asked for, got out of his pit and taking Praskukhin for a commanding officer saluted and approached him.
‘The General’s orders are … that you… should go . . . quickly . . . and above all quietly . . . back — no not back, but to the reserves,’ said Praskukhin, looking askance in the direction of the enemy’s fire.
Having recognized Praskukhin and made out what was wanted, Mikhaylov dropped his hand and passed on the order. The battalion became alert, the men took up their muskets, put on their cloaks, and set out.
No one without experiencing it can imagine the delight a man feels when, after three hours’ bombardment, he leaves so dangerous a spot as the lodgements. During those three hours Mikhaylov, who more than once and not without reason had thought his end at hand, had had time to accustom himself to the conviction that he would certainly be killed and that he no longer belonged to this world. But in spite of that he had great difficulty in keeping his legs from running away with him when, leading the company with Praskukhin at his side, he left the lodgement.
‘Au revoir’ said a major with whom Mikhaylov had eaten bread and cheese sitting in the pit under the breastwork and who was remaining at the bastion in command of another battalion. ‘I wish you a lucky journey.’
‘And I wish you a lucky defence. It seems to be getting quieter now.’
But scarcely had he uttered these words before the enemy, probably observing the movement in the lodgement, began to fire more and more frequently. Our guns replied and a heavy firing recommenced.
The
