The firing began. At first with hand-held weapons only. Soon the machine guns supported by their tripods started shuddering epileptically in their muddy nests. Fiery tongues flared out of their narrow muzzles and the whole space was filled with an incessant clatter, as though storks were indulging in insane orgies. It was a simulation of the company’s means of defence against a frontal attack by the enemy. Live fire saturated the foreground cleared of all living beings perceptible to the naked eye or field glasses. Moles and mice were burying themselves in the shelters they had made in good time. To begin with, on the Emperor’s orders, the men had to use their imagination to picture the enemy in the wasteland before them. But soon there was no need for that. Suddenly, our men spotted the enemy they were shooting at. Through his binoculars, Bachmatiuk picked out something in the wilderness and he started waving two flags, a blue one and a yellow one. He was sending secret signals to invisible forces, and there, no more than a hundred and fifty metres away, blurry grey-blue figures began jumping up. They were Muscovites. As they came under fire and were hit, they tottered and fell to the ground; then they reappeared, now here, now there, ever more clearly silhouetted against the bright sky. This was how Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk had power here even over the Muscovites. He killed them and brought them back to life again.
The sun was now getting hot; the machine guns, churning up the mud, were rattling away, firing deliriously, when one of them began to falter; then it failed completely and fell silent. Bachmatiuk came running, touching the barrel as a mother feels a sick child’s forehead, and hissed. He waited until the barrel cooled a little, then checked the radiator. Of course, the water had run out. Three litres was not that much, given the continuous firing. The radiator needed refilling. But what with? The water was far away, where the “Muscovites” were dug in. Where the mules would be fed after the exercises. But you couldn’t go to the enemy emplacements to fetch water for the machine guns that were strafing them! You had to sort it out yourself. The men had water in their mess tins, but Bachmatiuk did not want to deprive them of their drinking-water on such a hot, strenuous day. Besides, he wanted to simulate with them the “extreme eventualities” likewise provided for in the Regulations concerning firearms instruction.
“Nedochodiuk!” he shouted. “Pick up the barrel and piss on it!” Łeś Nedochodiuk did not understand. He just stood there, not making a move.
“Nedochodiuk, did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, Regimental Sergeant-Major.”
“Well, why aren’t you pissing on it?”
Nedochodiuk still did not understand, so some of his comrades tried to help by making appropriate gestures. To no avail.
“Nedochodiuk!” shouted Bachmatiuk. “Why are you standing there like an idiot?”
“Regimental Sergeant-Major, I, I—”
“‘I, I’! What do you mean, ‘I’? In the army there’s no such thing as ‘I’!”
“Regimental Sergeant-Major, begging your pardon, I can’t.”
“Who says? Your Grace Count Potocki? His Excellency Prince Schwarzenberg?”
Not only was Nedochodiuk’s left eye all bloodshot, the redness began to spread to both his cheeks. Nedochodiuk reported:
“Regimental Sergeant-Major, Reserve Militiaman Łeś Nedochodiuk…”
Bachmatiuk did not let him finish.
“Your Grace cannot? Why not? Has he caught the clap?”
For a short while they exchanged fierce glances. Suddenly, Bachmatiuk turned away from Łeś and shouted:
“His Existence Reserve Militiaman Niewiadomski!”
“Present!”
“Unfasten His Grace’s trousers!”
Piotr Niewiadomski went up to Łeś, but when he was about to face him he hesitated. He could not even bring himself to face him. Bachmatiuk yelled right into his ear:
“That’s an order!”
He had received an order. His Existence Piotr Niewiadomski stretched out his hands before him like a blind man or a sleepwalker. With trembling fingers, he began searching for Łeś’s buttons.
Something extraordinary occurred. Łeś’s hands, motionless along the seams of his trousers as he stood to attention, rose and pushed Piotr away. They pushed him with such force that Piotr lost his balance and would have fallen on top of the RSM if the latter had not supported him with the cooling machine gun barrel. Without losing his temper, Bachmatiuk gave Piotr the barrel to hold and slowly approached Łeś like a predatory animal. He knew that Łeś would not dare to raise a finger against him. And with calm deliberation he unfastened his buttons. Then he tore the barrel from Piotr’s hands and in a voice trembling with supernatural force he declaimed:
“In the name of the Highest Command, I order you—piss!”
Łeś Nedochodiuk was trembling. With his right hand he reached for his trousers, but he immediately withdrew it. Bachmatiuk paled. Was this the end of the world, or wasn’t it? Bachmatiuk knew he must make a decision immediately, if the world was not to end. But what was that decision? If Łeś’s behaviour was an offence, or, as the Regulations stated, an infringement of discipline, he should arrest him on the spot and court-martial him. However, it could not be a question of insubordination unless there was no doubt that Reserve Militiaman Łeś Nedochodiuk could urinate on the Schwarzlose barrel, but was unwilling to do so. Difficult to prove, if there is no evidence and no doctor is to hand. Here, it was necessary to appeal to the deity and save one’s own authority, taking care to avoid inviting ridicule by interfering in the laws of nature, which could be just as intransigent as discipline in the Imperial and Royal Army.
Bachmatiuk chose a solution that satisfied both the deity and himself. Since it was not clear whether this was a case of insubordination or not, it was better to accept that it was not. So Bachmatiuk did not arrest Łeś and he did not even order him to give a report on the left flank. However, he had to do something with him. So, in a silence pregnant with the dread of the day of judgement, a silence that could not be drowned out by the clatter of the two “healthy” machine guns, he came so close to Łeś that the glittering peak of his cap struck him in the neck. As if his neck was struck by the blade of a guillotine. He was, however, shorter than Łeś, so he had to look up in order to meet his gaze. He found the bloodshot pupil of the Hutsul and saw there a readiness to murder. They looked at one another with deadly intensity. Bachmatiuk looked away from the bloodshot eye as if he was withdrawing a bloodstained bayonet. He closed his eyes, but there was a sea of blood even in those closed eyes. He did not open his eyes, but his cold breath, soured by alcohol and tobacco, wafted onto Łeś’s neck:
“My son, I’ll let out your soul!”
Then he leapt away from Łeś like a hangman from his victim. He gave a shrill whistle. Officers and NCOs followed his example and the whole company broke off the exercise.