‘Well, here we are,’ said the elder brother when they reached the Michael Battery and dismounted from their trap. ‘If they let us cross the bridge we will go at once to the Nicholas Barracks. You can stay there till the morning, and I’ll go to the regiment and find out where your battery is and come for you to-morrow.’
‘Oh,why? Let’s go together,’ said Volodya. ‘I’ll go to the bastion with you. It doesn’t matter. One must get used to it sooner or later. If you go, so can I.’
‘Better not.’
‘Yes, please! I shall at least find out how. . . .’
‘My advice is don’t go . . . however— ‘
The sky was clear and dark. The stars, the flash of the guns and the continual flare of the bombs already showed up brightly in the darkness, and the large white building of the battery and the entry to the bridge1 loomed out. The air was shaken every
1 This pontoon bridge was erected during the summer of 1855. At first it was feared that the water was too rough in the Roadstead for a secure bridge to be built, but it served its purpose, and later on even stood the strain put upon it by the retreat of the Russian army to the North Side. second by a quick succession of artillery shots and explosions which became ever louder and more distinct. Through this roar, and as if answering it, came the dull murmur of the Roadstead. A slight breeze blew in from the sea and the air smelt moist. The brothers reached the bridge. A recruit, awkwardly striking his gun against his hand, called out, ‘Who goes there?’
‘Soldier!’
‘No one’s allowed to pass!’
‘How is that? We must.’
‘Ask the officer.’
The officer, who was sitting on an anchor dozing, rose and ordered that they should be allowed to pass.
‘You may go there, but not back.’
‘Where are you driving, all of a heap?’ he shouted to the regimental wagons which, laden high with gabions, were crowding the entrance.
As the brothers were descending to the first pontoon, they came upon some soldiers going the other way and talking loudly.
‘If he’s had his outfit money his account is squared — that’s so.’
‘Ah, lads,’ said another, ‘when one gets to the North Side one sees light again. It’s a different air altogether.’
‘Is it though?’ said the first. ‘Why, only the other day a damned ball flew over and tore two soldiers’ legs off for them, even there. . . .’
Waiting for the trap the brothers after crossing the first pontoon stopped on the second, which was washed here and there by the waves. The wind which seemed gentle on land was strong and gusty here; the bridge swayed and the waves broke noisily against beams, anchors, and ropes, and washed over the boards. To the right, divided from the light blue-grey starry horizon by a smooth, endless black line, was the sea, dark, misty, and with a hostile sullen roar. Far off in the distance gleamed the lights of the enemy’s fleet. To the left loomed the black hulk of one of our ships, against whose sides the waves beat audibly.
A steamer too was visible moving quickly and noisily from the North Side. The flash of a bomb exploding near the steamer lit up for a moment the gabions piled high on its deck, two men standing on the paddle-box, and the white foam and splash of the greenish waves cut by the vessel. On the edge of the bridge, his feet dangling in the water, a man in his shirt sat chopping something on the pontoon. In front, above Sevastopol, similar flashes were seen, and the terrible sounds became louder and louder. A wave flowing in from the sea washed over the right side of the bridge and wetted Volodya’s boots, and two soldiers passed by him splashing their feet through the water. Suddenly something came crashing down which lit up the bridge ahead of them, a cart driving over it, and a horseman, and fragments of a bomb fell whistling and splashing into the water.
‘Ah, Michael Semenich!’1 said the rider, stopping his horse in front of the elder Kozeltsov. ‘Have you recovered?’
‘As you see. And where is fate taking you?’
‘To the North Side for cartridges. You see I’m taking the place of the regimental adjutant to-day. . . . We’re expecting an attack from hour to hour.’
‘And where is Martsov?’
1 In addressing anyone in Russian, it is usual to employ the Christian name and patronymic: i.e. to the Christian name (in this case Michael) the father’s Christian name is joined (in this case Semen) with the termination vich (o-vich or e-vich) which means ‘son of’. The termination is often shortened to ich, and colloquially toych. Surnames are less used than in English, for the patronymic is suitable for all circumstances of life — both for speaking to and of any one — except that people on very intimate terms use only the Christian name, or a pet name. ‘His leg was torn off yesterday while he was sleeping in his room in town. . . . Did you know him?’
‘Is it true that the regiment is at the Fifth Bastion now?’
‘Yes, we have replaced the M — regiment. You’d better call at the Ambulance, you’ll find some of our fellows there — they’ll show you the way.’
‘And my lodgings in the Morskaya Street, are they safe?’
‘Safe, my dear fellow! They’ve long since been shattered by bombs. You won’t know Sevastopol again. Not a woman left, not a restaurant, no music! The last brothel left yesterday. It’s melancholy enough now. Good-bye!’
And the officer trotted away.
Terrible fear suddenly overcame Volodya. He felt as if a ball or a bomb-splinter would come the next moment and hit him straight on the head. The damp darkness, all these sounds, especially the murmur of the splashing water — all seemed to tell him to go no farther, that no good awaited him here, that he would never again set foot on this side of the bay, that he should turn back at once and run somewhere as far as possible from this dreadful place of death. ‘But perhaps it is too late, it is already decided now,’ thought he shuddering, Partly at that thought and Partly because the water had soaked through his boots and was making his feet wet.
He sighed deeply and moved a few steps away from his brother.
‘O Lord! Shall I really be killed — just I? Lord, have mercy on me!’ he whispered, and made the sign of the cross.
‘Well, Volodya, come on!’ said the elder brother when the trap had driven on to the bridge. ‘Did you see the bomb?’
On the bridge they met carts loaded with wounded men, with gabions, and one with furniture driven by a woman. No one stopped them at the farther side.
Keeping instinctively under the wall of the Nicholas Battery and listening to the bombs that here were bursting overhead, and to the howling of the falling fragments, the brothers came silently to that Part of the battery where the icon hangs. Here they heard that the Fifth Light Artillery, to which Volodya was appointed, was stationed at the Korabelnaya1 and they decided that Volodya, in spite of the danger, should spend the night with his elder brother at the Fifth Bastion and go from there to his battery next morning. After turning into a corridor and stepping across the legs of the soldiers who lay sleeping all along the wall of the battery they at last reached the Ambulance Station.
XI
On entering the first room, full of beds on which lay wounded men and permeated by a horribly disgusting hospital smell, they met two Sisters of Mercy just going out.
One, a woman of fifty, with black eyes and a stern expression, was carrying bandages and lint and giving orders to a young lad, a medical assistant, who was following her. The other, a very pretty girl of about twenty whose pale, delicate, fair face looked from under her white cap with a peculiarly sweet helplessness, was walking by the side of the older woman with her hands in her apron pockets, and seemed afraid of being left behind.
Kozeltsov asked them if they knew where Martsov was, whose leg had been torn off the day before.
1 The Korabelnaya was a suburb of Sevastopol lying to the east of the South Bay and to the south of the Roadstead. Like the ‘North Side’ it was connected with Sevastopol by a floating bridge. (See map.) ‘He is of the P — regiment, I think?’ asked the elder. ‘Is he a relation of yours?’
‘No, just a comrade.’
‘Take them to him,’ she said to the young sister in French. ‘It is this way,’ and she herself went up to one of the patients, followed by the assistant.
‘Come along, what are you looking at?’ said Kozeltsov to Volodya, who stood with raised eyebrows and a look of suffering on his face, unable to tear his eyes from the wounded. ‘Come now!’
Volodya followed his brother but still kept looking back and repeating unconsciously, ‘O, my God! My God!’
‘I suppose he has not been here long?’ the sister remarked to Kozeltsov, indicating Volodya, who followed them along the corridor with exclamations and sighs.
‘He has only just come.’
The pretty sister looked as
