‘The infantry have been sending to the camp for vodka,’ said Maksímov after a considerable silence; ‘they have just returned.’ He spat into the fire. ‘The sergeant says they saw our man.’
‘Is he alive?’ asked Antónov, turning the pot.
‘No, he’s dead.’
The young recruit suddenly raised his head in the little red cap, looked intently for a minute over the fire at Maksímov and at me, then quickly let his head sink again and wrapped himself in his cloak.
‘There now, it wasn’t for naught that death had laid its hand on him when I had to wake him in the “park” this morning,’ said Antónov.
‘Nonsense!’ said Zhdánov, turning the smouldering log, and all were silent.
Then, amid the general silence, came the report of a gun from the camp behind us. Our drummers beat an answering tattoo. When the last vibration ceased Zhdánov rose first, taking off his cap. We all followed his example.
Through the deep silence of the night rose a harmonious choir of manly voices:
‘Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from the evil one.’
‘We had a man in ’45 who was wounded in the same place,’ said Antónov when we had put on our caps and again sat down by the fire. ‘We carried him about with us on a gun for two days – do you remember Shévchenko, Zhdánov? – and then we just left him there under a tree.’
At this moment an infantryman with tremendous whiskers and moustaches came up to our fire, carrying a musket and pouch.
‘Give me a light for my pipe, comrades,’ said he.
‘All right, smoke away: there’s fire enough,’ remarked Chíkin.
‘I suppose it’s about Dargo14 you are telling, comrade,’ said the infantry soldier to Antónov.
‘Yes, about Dargo in ’45,’ Antónov replied.
The infantryman shook his head, screwed up his eyes, and sat down on his heels near us.
‘Yes, all sorts of things happened there,’ he remarked.
‘Why did you leave him behind?’ I asked Antónov.
‘He was suffering a lot with his stomach. As long as we halted it was all right, but as soon as we moved on he screamed aloud and asked for God’s sake to be left behind – but we felt it a pity. But when he began to give it us hot, killed three of our men from the guns and an officer besides and we somehow got separated from our battery.… It was such a go! We thought we shouldn’t get our guns away. It was muddy and no mistake!’
‘The mud was worst under the Indéysky15 Mountain,’ remarked one of the soldiers.
‘Yes, it was there he got more worse! So we considered it with Anóshenka – he was an old artillery sergeant. “Now really he can’t live and he’s asking for God’s sake to be left behind; let us leave him here.” So we decided. There was a tree, such a branchy one, growing there. Well, we took some soaked hard-tack Zhdánov had, and put it near him, leant him against the tree, put a clean shirt on him, and said good-bye, – all as it should be – and left him.’
‘And was he a good soldier?’
‘Yes, he was all right as a soldier,’ remarked Zhdánov.
‘And what became of him God only knows,’ continued Antónov; ‘many of the likes of us perished there.’
‘What, at Dargo?’ said the infantryman as he rose, scraping out his pipe and again half-closing his eyes and shaking his head; ‘all sorts of things happened there.’
And he left us.
‘And have we many still in the battery who were at Dargo?’ I asked.
‘Many? Why, there’s Zhdánov, myself, Patsán who is now on furlough, and there may be six others, not more.’
‘And why’s our Patsán holiday-making all this time?’ said Chíkin, stretching out his legs and lying down with his head on a log. ‘I reckon he’s been away getting on for a year.’
‘And you, have you had your year at home?’ I asked Zhdánov.
‘No, I didn’t go,’ he answered unwillingly.
‘You see, it’s all right to go,’ said Antónov, ‘if they’re well off at home or if you are yourself fit to work; then it’s tempting to go and they’re glad to see you.’
‘But where’s the use of going when one’s one of two brothers?’ continued Zhdánov. ‘It’s all they can do to get their bread; how should they feed a soldier like me? I’m no help to them after twenty-five years’ service. And who knows whether they’re alive still?’
‘Haven’t you ever written?’ I asked.
‘Yes, indeed! I wrote two letters, but never had an answer. Either they’re dead, or simply won’t write because they’re living in poverty themselves; so where’s the good?’
‘And is it long since you wrote?’
‘I wrote last when we returned from Dargo … Won’t you sing us “The Birch-Tree”?’ he said, turning to Antónov, who sat leaning his elbows on his knees and humming a song.
Antónov began to sing ‘The Birch-Tree’.
‘This is the song Daddy Zhdánov likes most best of all,’ said Chíkin to me in a whisper, pulling at my cloak. ‘Sometimes he right down weeps when Philip Antónych sings it.’
Zhdánov at first sat quite motionless with eyes fixed on the glimmering embers, and his face, lit up by the reddish light, seemed very gloomy; then his jaws below his ears began to move faster and faster, and at last he rose, and spreading out his cloak, lay down in the shadow behind the fire. Either it was his tossing and groaning as he settled down to sleep, or it may have been the effect of Velenchúk’s death and of the dull weather, but it really seemed to me that he was crying.
The bottom of the charred log, bursting every now and then into flames, lit up Antónov’s figure with his grey moustaches, red face, and the medals on the cloak that he had thrown over his shoulders, or it lit up someone’s boots, head, or back. The same gloomy drizzle fell from above, the air was still full of moisture and smoke, all around were the same bright spots of fires, now dying down, and amid the general stillness came the mournful sound of Antónov’s song; and when that stopped for an instant the faint nocturnal sounds of the camp – snoring, clanking of sentries’ muskets, voices speaking in low tones – took part.
‘Second watch! Makatyúk and Zhdánov!’ cried Maksímov.
Antónov stopped singing. Zhdánov rose, sighed, stepped across the log, and went slowly towards the guns.
1 The Térek Territory lies to the north-east of the Caucasian Mountains. The Great and Little Chéchnya are districts in the southern part of it.
2 The vintóvka was a long Asiatic rifle used by the Circassians (Cherkéses). When firing, they rested the barrel on a support fanned by two thin spiked sticks tied at the top by a strap.
3 A distinction very frequently met with in Russian is between literate and illiterate people; i.e. between those who can and those who cannot read and write.
4 A soldier’s card game. L. T.
5 Most of the Russian army at that time were armed with smooth-bore muskets, but a few had wide-calibred muzzle-loading rifles (stútzers), which were difficult to handle and slow to load. Vintóvkas were also rifles.
6Russians in the Caucasus used the word ‘Tartar’ loosely for any of the native Mohammedan tribes (Circassians, Kabardans, &c.).
7 The ‘unicorn’ was a type of gun, narrowing towards the muzzle, used in the Russian artillery at that time.
8 The chérez is a purse in the form of a garter, usually worn by soldiers below the knee. L. T.
9 The ‘Tartars’, being Mohammedans, made a point of not letting the bodies of their slain fall into the hands of the ‘unbelievers’, but removed them and buried them as heroes. The capture of three bodies therefore indicates the vigour of the attack and the demoralization of the enemy.