The whole place where his battalion had been stationed the day before was hidden in smoke, and enemy shouts and exclamations could be heard. As he went he met crowds of wounded and unwounded soldiers. Having run another thirty paces he saw his own company pressed to the wall.
‘The Schwartz Redoubt is taken!’ said a young officer, whose teeth were chattering. ‘All is lost!’
‘Nonsense!’ said Kozeltsóv angrily, and [wishing to rouse himself by a gesture] he drew his blunt little iron sword and cried:
‘Forward, lads! Hurrah!’
His voice sounded loud and clear and roused Kozeltsóv himself. He ran forward along the traverse, and about fifty soldiers ran shouting after him. From the traverse he ran out into the open ground. The bullets fell just like hailstones. Two hit him, but where, and what they had done – bruised him or wounded him – he had no time to determine. Before him through the smoke he could already see blue coats and red trousers, and hear shouts that were not Russian. One Frenchman stood on the breastwork waving his cap and shouting something. Kozeltsóv felt sure he would be killed, and this increased his courage. He ran on and on. Several soldiers outran him, others appeared from somewhere else and also ran. The blue uniforms were always at the same distance from him, running back to their trenches, but there were dead and wounded on the ground under his feet. When he had run to the outer ditch, everything became blurred in Kozeltsóv’s eyes and he felt a pain in his chest.
Half an hour later he was lying on a stretcher near the Nicholas Barracks and knew that he was wounded, but felt hardly any pain. He only wished for something cool to drink, and to lie more comfortably.
A plump little doctor with large black whiskers came up to him and unbuttoned his cloak. Kozeltsóv looked over his chin to see the doctor’s face and what he was doing to his wound, but he still felt no pain. The doctor covered the wound with the shirt, wiped his fingers on the skirt of his cloak and silently, without looking at the wounded man, passed on to another patient. Kozeltsóv unconsciously watched what was going on around him and, remembering what had happened at the Fifth Bastion with exceedingly joyful self-satisfaction, felt that he had performed his duty well – that for the first time in the whole of his service he had acted as well as it was possible to act, and that he had nothing to reproach himself with. The doctor, bandaging another man, pointed to Kozeltsóv and said something to a priest with a large red beard, who stood near by with a cross.
‘Am I dying?’ asked Kozeltsóv when the priest approached him.
The priest did not reply, but said a prayer and held a cross to the wounded man’s lips.
Death did not frighten Kozeltsóv. He took the cross with his weak hands, pressed it to his lips, and began to weep.
‘Were the French driven back?’ he asked the priest firmly.
‘The victory is ours at all points,’ answered the latter to console the wounded man, concealing from him the fact that a French standard was already waving from the Malákhov Redoubt.
‘Thank God!’ exclaimed the dying man, not feeling the tears that ran down his cheeks, [and experiencing inexpressible delight at the consciousness of having performed a heroic deed.]
The thought of his brother flashed through his brain. ‘God grant him as good a fate!’ thought he.
XXVI
BUT a different fate awaited Volódya. He was listening to a tale Vásin was telling when he heard the cry ‘The French are coming!’ The blood suddenly rushed to his heart and he felt his cheeks grow cold and pale. He remained immovable for a moment, but glancing round saw the soldiers fastening their uniforms and crawling out one after the other fairly coolly. One of them – Mélnikov probably – even joked, saying, ‘Take them some bread and salt.’12
Volódya, and Vlang who followed him like a shadow, climbed out of the bomb-proof and ran to the battery. There was no artillery firing at all from either side. The coolness of the soldiers did less to rouse Volódya than the pitiful cowardice of the cadet. ‘Can I possibly be like him?’ he thought, and ran gaily to the breastwork where his mortars stood. He could plainly see the French running straight towards him across the open ground, and crowds of them moving in the nearer trenches, their bayonets glittering in the sunshine. One short, broad-shouldered fellow in a Zouave uniform was running in front, sword in hand, jumping across the pits.
‘Fire case-shot!’ cried Volódya, running back from the banquette, but the soldiers had already arranged matters without him and the metallic ring of the discharged case-shot whistled over his head first from one mortar and then from the other. ‘One – two!’ ordered Volódya, running the distance between the two mortars and quite forgetting the danger. From one side and near at hand was heard the clatter of the musketry of our supports, and excited cries.
Suddenly a wild cry of despair arose on the left. ‘They’re behind us! Behind us!’ repeated several voices. Volódya looked round. About twenty Frenchmen appeared behind him. One of them, a handsome man with a black beard, was in front of the rest, but having run up to within ten paces of the battery he stopped, fired point-blank at Volódya, and then again started running towards him. For a moment Volódya stood petrified, unable to believe his eyes. When he recovered and glanced round he saw French uniforms on the breastwork before him; two Frenchmen were even spiking a cannon some ten paces from him. No one was near but Mélnikov, who had fallen at his side killed by a bullet, and Vlang, who had seized a linstock and was rushing forward with a furious look on his face, rolling his eyes and shouting.
‘Follow me, Vladímir Semënich! … Follow me!’ he cried in a desperate voice, brandishing his linstock at the Frenchmen who had appeared from behind. The furious figure of the cadet perplexed them. Vlang hit the front one on the head, the others involuntarily hesitated, and he ran to the trench where our infantry lay firing at the French, continually looking back and shouting desperately, ‘Come with me, Vladímir Semënich! Why are you stopping? Run!’ Having jumped in, he climbed out again to see what his adored ensign was doing. Something in a cloak lay prostrate where Volódya had stood, and that whole place was occupied by Frenchmen firing at our men.
XXVII
VLANG found his battery at the second line of defence. Of the twenty soldiers belonging to the mortar battery only eight were left.
Towards nine in the evening Vlang crossed over with the battery to the North Side on a steamer crowded with soldiers, cannon, horses, and wounded men. There was no firing anywhere. The stars shone as brightly in the sky as they had done the night before, but the sea was rocked by a strong wind. On the First and Second Bastions flames kept bursting up along the ground, explosions rent the air and lit up strange dark objects and the stones flying in the air around them. Something was burning near the docks and the red glare was reflected on the water. The bridge thronged with people was illuminated by a fire at the Nicholas Battery. A large flame seemed to stand above the water on the distant little headland of the Alexander Battery, lighting up from below the clouds of smoke that hung above it, and quiet, bold lights gleamed over the sea, as they had done yesterday, from the distant enemy fleet, and the fresh wind raised waves in the Roadstead. By the glaring light of the conflagration one could see the masts of our sinking ships as they slowly descended deeper and deeper into the water. There was no talking on board, only words of command given by the captain, the snorting and stamping of the horses on the vessel, and the moaning of the wounded, could be heard above the steam and the regular swish of the parting waters. Vlang, who had had nothing to eat all day, took a piece of bread from his pocket and began munching it, but suddenly remembering Volódya he began to sob so loud that the soldiers near him heard it.