‘Who is that black fellow there?’ said Volodya to Melnikov.
‘Can’t say. I’ll go and see.’
‘No, don’t. There’s no need.’
But Melnikov rose without heeding him, approached the black figure, and for a long time stood beside it just as indifferent and immovable.
‘That’s the powder-master, your honour!’ he said when he returned. “The vault has been knocked in by a bomb, so the infantry are carrying earth there.’
Now and then a bomb seemed to fly straight at the door of the bomb-proof. Then Volodya pressed behind the corner, but soon crept out again looking up to see if another was coming that way. Though Vlang from inside the bomb-proof again and again entreated him to come in, Volodya sat at the threshold for about three hours, finding a kind of pleasure in tempting fate and watching the flying bombs. By the end of the evening he knew how many guns were firing, from which positions, and where their shots fell.
XXIII
The next morning, 27 August, Volodya, fresh and vigorous after ten hours’ sleep, stepped across the threshold of the bomb-proof. Vlang too came out, but at the first sound of a bullet rushed wildly back to the entrance, pushing his way through the crowd with his head amid the general laughter of the soldiers, most of whom had also come out into the fresh air.
Vlang, the old sergeant, and a few others only came out into the trench at rare intervals, but the rest could not be kept inside: they all crept out of the stuffy bomb-proof into the fresh morning air and in spite of the firing, which continued as violently as on the day before, settled themselves — some by the threshold of the bomb-proof and some under the breastwork. Melnikov had been strolling about from battery to battery since early dawn, looking calmly upwards.
Near the threshold sat two old soldiers and one young curly-haired one, a Jew transferred to the battery from an infantry regiment. This latter had picked up one of the bullets that were lying about, and after flattening it out on a stone with the fragment of a bomb, was now carving out a cross like the Order of St. George. The others sat talking and watching his work. The cross was really turning out very well.
T say,’ said one of them, ‘if we stay here much longer we shall all have served our time and get discharged when there’s peace.’
‘You’re right. Why I had only four years left to serve, and I’ve been five months already in Sevastopol.’
‘That won’t be reckoned specially towards our discharge, it seems,’ said another.
At that moment a cannon-ball flew over the heads of the speakers and fell a couple of feet from Melnikov, who was coming towards them through the trench.
‘That one nearly killed Melnikov,’ said one of them.
‘It won’t kill me,’ said Melnikov.
‘Then I present you with this cross for your courage,’ said the young soldier, giving him the cross he had made.
‘. . . No, my lad, a month’s service here counts as a year for everything — that was said in the proclamation,’ continued one of the soldiers.
‘You may say what you like, but when we have peace we’re sure to have an Imperial review at Warsaw, and then if we don’t all get our discharge we shall be put on the permanent reserve.’
Just then a shrieking, glancing rifle-bullet flew just over the speakers’ heads and struck a stone. ‘Look out, or you’ll be getting your discharge in full before to-night,’ said one of the soldiers.
They all laughed.
And not only before night, but before two hours had passed, two of them had got their discharge in full and five more were wounded, but the rest went on joking just the same.
By the morning the two mortars had really been put into such a condition that they could be fired, and at ten o’clock Volodya called out his company and marched with it to the battery, in accordance with the order he had received from the commander of the bastion.
Not a trace of the fear noticeable the day before remained among the men as soon as they were actively engaged. Only Vlang could not master himself, but hid and ducked in the same old way, and Vasin lost some of his composure, fidgetted, and kept dodging. Volodya was in ecstasies, the thought of danger never entered his head. Joy at fulfilling his duty, at finding that not only was he no coward but that he was even quite brave, the sense of commanding and being in the presence of twenty men who were he knew watching him with curiosity, made him quite valiant. He was even vain of his courage and showed off before the soldiers, climbing out onto the banquette and unfastening his cloak on purpose to be more conspicuous.
The commander of the bastion making the round of his ‘household’ as he expressed it, accustomed as he had grown during the last eight months to courage of all kinds, could not help admiring this handsome lad, with Ins coat unbuttoned showing a red shirt fitting close to his delicate white neck, who with flushed face and shining eyes clapped his hands, gave the order, ‘One — two!’ in ringing tones, and ran gaily onto the breastwork to see where his bombs were falling. At half-past eleven the firing slackened on both sides, and at twelve o’clock precisely the storming of the Malakhov Redoubt, and of the Second, Third (the Redan), and Fifth Bastions, began.
XXIV
On the North Side of the Roadstead, towards midday, two sailors were standing on the telegraph hill between Inkerman and the Northern entrenchment: one of them, an officer, was looking at Sevastopol through the telescope fixed there. Another officer with a Cossack had just ridden up to the signal-post.
The sun shone brightly high above the Roadstead, and with its warm bright light played on the stationary vessels, the flapping sails, and the rowing boats. A light wind scarcely swayed the withering leaves of the oak-scrub near the telegraph post, filled the sails of the boats, and ruffled the waves. Sevastopol, still the same, with its unfinished church, its column, its quay, its boulevard showing green on the hill, and the elegant building of its library; with its little azure creeks bristling with masts, the picturesque arches of its aqueducts, and with clouds of blue powder-smoke now and then lit up by red flashes from the guns — this same beautiful, festive, proud Sevastopol, surrounded on one side by yellow smoking hills and on the other by the bright blue sea playing in the sunlight — could still be seen on the opposite side of the Roadstead.
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
