Chapter V
THE BRIGHT DISK of the sun shining through the milky-white mist had already risen to a considerable height. The purple-grey horizon gradually widened, but though it had receded considerably it was still as sharply outlined by a deceptive white wall of mist.
Beyond the felled wood a good-sized plain now opened in front of us. The black or milky-white or purple smoke of the fires expanded and fantastic shapes of white mist-clouds floated above the plain. An occasional group of mounted Tartars appeared far in the distance before us and at rare intervals the reports of our rifles1 and of their vintoukas and cannon were to be heard.
This, as Captain Khlopov said, was ‘not yet business, but only play.’
The commander of the 8th Company of Chasseurs, that formed our support, came up to our guns, pointed to three Tartars2 on horseback skirting the
1 Most of the Russian army at that time were armed with smooth-bore muskets, but a few had wide-calibred muzzle-loading rifles [stutzers), which were difficult to handle and slow to load. Vintovkas were also rifles.
2 Russians in the Caucasus used the word ‘Tartar’ loosely for any of the native Mohammedan tribes (Circassians, Kabardans, etc.), much as among ourselves the word ‘Niggers’ is used to denote almost any dark race. forest some 1,400 yards from us, and with the fondness for artillery fire common among infantry officers in general, asked me to let off a ball or bomb at them.
‘Do you see?’ he said with a kind and persuasive smile as he stretched his hand from behind my shoulder, ‘in front of those big trees there . . . one on a white horse and in a black Circassian cloak and two others behind. Do you see? Could you not, please?’
‘And there are three more riding at the outskirt of the forest,’ said Antónov, who had astonishingly sharp eyesight, coming up to us, and hiding behind his back the pipe he had been smoking. ‘There, the one in front has taken his gun out of its case. They can be seen distinctly, y’r honor!’
‘Look there! he’s fired, lads. D’ye see the white smoke?’ said Velenchuk, who was one of a group of soldiers standing a little behind us.
‘At our line surely, the blackguard!’ remarked another.
‘See what a lot of ’em come streaming out of the forest. Must be looking round… want to place a gun,’ said a third.
‘Supposing now a bomb was sent right into that lot, wouldn’t they spit!’
‘And what d’ye think, old fellow — that it would just reach ‘em?’ said Chikin.
‘Twelve hundred or twelve hundred and fifty yards: not more than that,’ said Maksimov calmly and as if speaking to himself, though it was evident he was just as anxious to fire as the rest: ‘if we were to give an elevation of forty-five lines to our “unicorn”1 we could hit the very point, that is to say, perfectly.’
‘D’ye know, if you were now to aim at that group you would be sure to hit somebody. There now, they are all together — please be quick and give the order
1 The ‘unicorn’ was a type of gun, narrowing towards the muzzle, used in the Russian artillery at that time. to fire,’ the company commander continued to entreat me.
‘Are we to point the gun?’ suddenly asked Antónov in an abrupt bass with a look as if of gloomy anger.
I must admit that I also felt a strong wish to fire, so I ordered the second gun to be trained.
I had hardly given the order before the shell was charged and rammed in and Antónov, leaning against the cheek of the gun-carriage and holding two of his thick fingers to the base-ring, was directing the movement of the tail of the gun. ‘Right, left — a bit to the left, a wee bit — more — more — right!’ he said, stepping from the gun with a look of pride.
The infantry officer, I, and Maksimov, one after the other, approached, put our heads to the sights, and expressed our various opinions.
‘By Heavens, it will shoot over,’ remarked Velenchuk, clicking his tongue, though he was only looking over Antónov’s shoulder and therefore had no grounds for this supposition. ‘By Heavens it will shoot over; it will hit that there tree, my lads!’
I gave the order: ‘Two.’
The men stepped away from the gun. Antonov ran aside to watch the flight of the shot. The touch-hole flashed and the brass rang. At the same moment we were enveloped in a cloud of powder-smoke and, emerging from the overpowering boom of the discharge, the humming, metallic sound of the flying shot receded with the swiftness of lightning and died away in the distance amid general silence.
A little beyond the group of horsemen a white cloudlet appeared; the Tartars galloped away in all directions and the report of the explosion reached us. ‘That was very fine!’ ‘Ah, how they galloped!’ ‘The devils don’t like that!’ came the words of approval and ridicule from the ranks of the artillery and infantry.
‘If we had had the gun pointed only a touch lower we should just have caught him. I said it would hit the tree and sure enough it did go to the right,’ remarked Velenchuk.
Chapter VI
LEAVING THE SOLDIERS to discuss how the Tartars galloped off when they saw the shell, why they had been riding there, and whether there were many of them in the forest, I went and sat down with the company commander under a tree a few steps off to wait while the cutlets he had invited me to share were being warmed up. The company commander, Bolkhov, was one of the officers nicknamed ‘bonjourists’ in the regiment. He was a man of some means, had formerly served in the Guards, and spoke French.
But in spite of all this his comrades liked him. He was clever enough, and had tact enough, to wear a coat of Petersburg make, to eat a good dinner, and to speak French, without too much offending his fellow officers. After talking about the weather, the military operations, our mutual acquaintances among the officers, and having assured ourselves of the satisfactory state of each other’s ideas by questions and answers and the views expressed, we involuntarily passed to more intimate conversation. And when people belonging to the same circle meet in the Caucasus a very evident, even if unspoken, question arises: ‘Why are you here?’ and it was to this silent question of mine that, as it seemed to me, my companion wished to reply.
‘When will this expedition end?’ he said lazily. ‘It is so dull.’
‘I don’t think it dull,’ said I. ‘It’s much worse on the staff.’
‘Oh, it’s ten thousand times worse on the staff,’ he said irascibly. ‘No, I mean when will the whole thing end?’ In the distance a puff of bluish smoke expanded and rose, blown about by the wind. When I had understood that this was a shot fired at us by the enemy, all before my eyes at the moment assumed a sort of new and majestic character. The piles of arms, the smoke of the fires, the blue sky, the green gun-carriages, Nikolayev’s sunburnt, moustached face — all seemed telling me that the ball that had already emerged from the smoke and was at that moment flying through space might be directed straight at my breast.
‘Where did you get the wine?’ I asked Bolkhov lazily, while deep in my soul two voices spoke with equal clearness. One said, ‘Lord receive my soul in peace,’ the other, ‘I hope I shall not stoop, but smile, while the ball is passing,’ and at that moment something terribly unpleasant whistled past our heads and a cannon ball crashed down a couple of paces from us.
‘There now, had I been a Napoleon or a Frederick I should certainly have paid you a compliment,’ Bolkhov remarked, turning towards me quite calmly.
‘You have done so as it is,’ I answered, with difficulty hiding the excitement produced in me by the danger just passed.
‘Well, what if I have? — no one will write it down.’
‘Yes, I will.’
‘Well, if you do put it down, it will only be “for critikism”, as Mischenkov says,’ he added with a smile.
‘Ugh! the damned thing!’ just then remarked Antónov behind us, as he spat over his shoulder with vexation, ‘just missed my legs!’
All my attempts to seem calm, and all our cunning phrases, suddenly seemed to me insufferably silly after that simple exclamation.
Chapter VII
THE ENEMY HAD really placed two guns where we had seen the Tartars riding, and they fired a shot every twenty or thirty minutes at our men who were felling the wood. My platoon was ordered forward to the plain to answer the enemy’s fire. A puff of smoke appeared on the outskirts of the forest, then followed a report and a whistle, and a ball fell in front or behind us. The enemy’s shots fell fortunately for us and we sustained no losses.
The artillerymen behaved splendidly as they always do; loaded quickly, pointed carefully at the spots where the puns of smoke were, and quietly joked with one another.
The infantry supports lay near in silent inaction awaiting their turn. The wood-fellers went on with their work, the axes rang faster and more unintermittently through the forest; but when the whistle of a shot
