The Frenchman helped the young lady to dismount, seated her on a folding chair and began to explain: 'Over there, on the hills opposite us, are the Turkish fortified positions. You see, where the shell-bursts fly up in the air like fountains? That is the very centre of their position. The Russo-Roumanian army extends in a parallel line about fifteen kilometres long, but from here we can only survey a part of that immense space.
Note that round hill. No, not that one, the other one, with the white tent. This is the command point, the temporary headquarters. The commander of the Western Division, Prince Karl of Roumania, is there, and so are the commander-in-chief Grand Duke Nicholas and the Emperor Alexander himself. Oh, the rockets, there go the rockets! A most picturesque spectacle, is it not?'
Lines of smoke were traced out in the air above the empty stretch of land that separated the opposing sides, as if someone had cut the realm of heaven into slices like a watermelon or a round loaf of bread. Lifting her head, Varya saw three coloured balls high above her -one close, the next a little further away, above the imperial headquarters, and the third right on the very horizon.
'Those, Varvara Andreevna, are balloons,' said Kazanzaki, who had appeared beside her. 'They correct the artillery fire from them using signalling flags.'
The gendarme looked even more repulsive than ever, cracking his knuckles in his excitement and flaring his nostrils nervously. He had caught the scent of human blood, the vampire. Varya demonstratively moved her chair further away, but he appeared not to notice the manoeuvre. He came up to her again and pointed off to one side beyond the low hills, where the rumbling sounded particularly loud.
'As always, our mutual friend Sobolev has sprung a surprise of his own. According to the plan of action, his role is to appear to threaten the Krishin redoubt, while the main forces strike their blow in the centre; but our ambitious little general couldn't wait, and this morning he launched a frontal attack. Not only has he broken away from the main forces and got himself cut off by the Turkish cavalry, he has put the entire operation in jeopardy! Well now, he'll catch it for that all right!'
Kazanzaki took a gold watch out of his pocket, tugged agitatedly on the peak of his kepi and crossed himself. 'Three o'clock! They'll go in now!'
Varya looked round and saw that the entire valley had begun to move: the islets of white tunics began heaving and fluttering, moving up quickly to the front line. There were pale-faced men running past the low hill, following an elderly officer with a long drooping moustache who was limping along nimbly at the front.
'Keep up, get those bayonets higher!' he shouted in a shrill, piercing voice, glancing round behind him. 'Sementsov, watch out! I'll rip your head off!'
Now there were other company columns running past, but Varya carried on gazing after that first one, with the elderly officer and the unknown Scmentsov.
The company spread out into a line and set off at a slow run towards the distant redoubt, where the fountains of earth began spurting up even more furiously.
'Right, now he'll give it to them,' someone said beside her.
In the distance the shells were already bursting fast and furiously and Varya could not see much under the smoke spreading across the ground, but her company was still running in neat formation and nobody seemed to be shelling it.
'Come on, Sementsov, come on,' Varya whispered, clenching her fist tight.
Soon 'her' men were completely hidden from sight by the backs of other columns that had spread out into lines to advance. When the open space in front of the redoubt was full to the halfway mark with white tunics, shell-bursts began springing up like neatly trimmed bushes in among the mass of men: a first, a second, a third, a fourth; and then again, a little bit closer: a first, a second, a third, a fourth. And again. And again.
'He's sweeping them fine, all right,' Varya heard someone say. 'So much for the artillery preparation. They shouldn't have wasted time showing off with their damned idiotic psychology. They should have just kept pounding them.'
'They've run! They're running!' Kazanzaki grabbed Varya's shoulder and squeezed it tightly.
She glanced up at him indignantly, but realised that the man was completely carried away. Somehow she managed to free herself and looked in the direction of the field.
It was hidden under a veil of smoke through which she caught brief glimpses of something white and black lumps of earth flying through the air.
All talk on the hill stopped. A crowd of silent men came running out of the blue-grey mist, skirting the observation point on both sides. Varya saw red blotches on the white tunics and cringed.
The smoke thinned a little and the valley was exposed, covered with the black rings of shell craters and white dots of soldiers' tunics. Varya noticed that the white dots were moving and she heard a dull howling sound that seemed to come from out of the earth itself - the cannon had just that moment stopped firing.
'The first trial of strength is over,' said a major she knew who had been attached to the journalists from central headquarters staff. 'Osman is well dug in; he'll take some shifting. First more artillery preparation then "hurrah-hurrah" again.' Varya felt sick.
Chapter Nine
IN WHICH FANDORIN RECEIVES A REPRIMAND FROM HIS CHIEF
The Russian Gazette (St Petersburg) 31 August (12 September) 1877
. . . Recalling the paternal parting words of his ardently adored commander, the intrepid youth exclaimed: 'I will get the message through, Mikhal Dmitrich, if it costs me my life!' The nineteen-year-old hero leapt up on to his Cossack steed and galloped off across the valley, swept by winds of lead, to where the main forces of the army lay beyond the Bashi-Bazouks lurking in ambush. Bullets whistled over the rider's head, but he only spurred on his fiery steed, whispering: 'Faster! Faster! The outcome of the battle depends on me!'
But alas, malign fate is more powerful than courage. Shots rang out from the ambush, sending the valiant orderly crashing to the ground. Drenched in blood, he leapt to his feet and dashed at the Mohamedan infidels, sword in hand, but like black kites the cruel enemy flung themselves on him and slew him, then hacked at his lifeless body with their swords.
Such was the death of Sergei Bereshchagin, the brother of the illustrious artist.
Thus there perished in the bud a most promising talent, fated never to blossom.
So fell the third of the riders despatched by Sobolev to the Emperor . . .
Some time after seven in the evening Varya found herself back at the familiar fork in the road, but instead of the hoarse-voiced captain she found an equally hoarse lieutenant giving instructions. He was having even greater difficulty than his predecessor, because now he had to direct two opposed streams of traffic: the line of ammunition wagons still moving up to the front line and the wounded being evacuated from the battlefield.
After the first attack Varya had lost her nerve and she realised that another terrible spectacle like that would be too much for her. She had set out for the rear, even crying a little along the way - fortunately there was nobody she knew anywhere nearby; but she had not gone all the way back to the camp, because she felt ashamed.
Shrinking violet, prim young lady, weaker sex, she rebuked herself. You knew you were going to a war, not a garden party at Pavlovsk Park; and on top of everything she desperately did not want to give the titular counsellor the satisfaction of knowing that he had been proved right yet again.