“Shave!” cried Tarabas. And his orderly brought soap and razor, and Tarabas fitted his red nape into the hard back of the chair. While he was being shaved, he whistled cheerful tunes which he made up as he went along, slapping out the time against his great thighs. The day shone ever brighter and more golden.
“Open the window!” commanded Tarabas.
Through the open window the early but already dense blue of the autumn sky streamed into the room. The merry chatter of the sparrows filled the air as on a warm day before the spring has really come. It seemed as though there was not going to be a winter that year at all.
It was not until he came out into the yard and found his sergeant-major and five of his men already gone, that Tarabas remembered that this was a day on which unusual events were to be expected. He left the inn.
He found the single long main street of Koropta in a state of unwonted animation. In front of their little shops the Jewish shop-keepers had set out their wares on chairs and tables and wooden boxes. There were glass beads, imitation corals, fancy paper in dark-blue, gold, and silver, long scarlet sticks of sweets, cotton aprons ablaze with flowers, gleaming sickles, large pocket-knives with pink wooden handles, kerchiefs for women’s heads in Turkish colours and designs. Little peasant carts moved peaceably along in single file, as though strung on a thread, all the way down the street; here and there one of their little horses neighed, and the pigs lying helpless, fastened by their hind legs in the carts and barrows, grunted into the morning, doleful and happy at the same time.
“What’s all this?” asked Tarabas.
“Friday and pig-market!” answered his orderly.
“My horse!” commanded Tarabas.
Something about it all disturbed his ease. He did not like this Friday, he did not like this pig-market either. If he were to walk to the barracks as he did on other days, something untoward might easily happen on the way. He would have loved to make one sweep of the hand in passing and send the shop-keepers’ whole display tumbling from the high, wooden sidewalks down into the low road, under the wheels of the peasants’ little carts. He could feel a huge rage brewing in him. Friday! He would rather have ridden the whole Friday through, trampled it out of existence under his horse’s hoofs. He mounted and rode among the peasant vehicles, exploding now and then with a thunderous oath when they failed to make way for him in time, sometimes spitting with sure and skilful aim at the unconscious nape of some peasant’s neck moving along in front of him, sometimes tickling the terrified face of another with the thong of his leather riding-crop.
Arrived at the barracks, he saw at the first glance that his good Kontsev had done his duty. The barrels of beer and spirits which had come in on the morning train stood in two rows against the wall of the yard with five of his own men on guard beside them. It was a holiday for everyone. The officers were gathered in the shed of fresh planks which, since Tarabas’s arrival there, had served as the mess. Their talkative, resounding laughter could be heard from afar. Kontsev appeared and saluted, saying nothing. It was a perfectly wordless, throughly eloquent report. Tarabas understood, left him standing, and went on. The men and non-commissioned officers lay or squatted about on the ground. The sun shone down upon the bare yard with ever more benevolence and warmth. Everyone was waiting in a mood of cheerfulness, contentment, and holiday.
Towards eleven o’clock they lined up for the midday meal. The tin bowls clattered in a row, the hot, thick soup out of the cauldron splashed heavily from the cook’s huge ladle into them. Colonel Tarabas stood beside the field-kitchen. One after the other each man passed before him. He observed their faces closely. He was trying to discern which of these men were worth something, and which of them must be got rid of. Yes, Tarabas hoped to know men by their faces. Vain endeavour! But General Lakubeit could do it! To Colonel Tarabas all their faces looked stupid, cruel, treacherous, and sly that day. It was different in the war. In the war one saw at once exactly what a man was worth. None of these had red hair. None of them, unfortunately. That would have been a certain sign. Every red-haired man would have been eliminated by Colonel Tarabas, and in short order.
They were in great haste to be done with eating. Those who had spoons left them where they were inside their boots. They put the bowls to their mouths and gulped down the thick soup, sucked the meat off the bones, and hurled them wide over the barracks wall. All to arrive the sooner at the promised beer. Kontsev was the barman. Now, as the church clock began to strike noon and the sun’s heat had grown almost fierce, innumerable drinking vessels of the most various species appeared as if by magic; glasses, wooden, tin, and earthenware mugs, jugs and cans, brought in bundles and armfuls post-haste by soldiers, and set down carefully before the vats. At a gesture from Kontsev all the taps were turned. A loud rushing and foaming arose. And the faces of the soldiers, greedy though appeased, with the soupy traces of their dinner still in their beards, and their lips already moving with the water that gathered in their thirsty mouths, now lit up with a flame of almost sacred rapture. It made them all look alike, a regiment of brothers. In dense swarms they swept up to the barrels. A mighty drinking began. The vessels were not enough to go round, they had to be shared; their return was waited for impatiently, four, six hands to each mug held towards the richly, infinitely richly flowing taps. They drank beer. The white froth overflowed, soaked into the ground, hung in the corners of the mouths and in the moustaches of the men; their tongues came out and licked it off their beards, and the taste of it lingered on the palate, this extra gift of special grace which crowned the day of grace which was this festival. What a day!
Each with a tin jug filled to the brim with clear spirits, Kontsev and his five now began to push their way through the disorderly, surging crowd. They chose, changed their minds, picked out this one, then that one — without rhyme or reason, so it seemed to the men — and handed him a drink, then moved on with the grateful smile of the favoured one for thanks, and pursued by the inconsolable and disappointed gaze of the unfavoured. All those who had taken their great swallow of the vodka now felt their throats on fire, and must have more beer. But many a one, big and powerful as he was, fell instantly with a loud crash to the ground, struck by the white thunderbolt of the first draught. And it did not look as though he would ever rise again. Froth came out of the corners of his mouth, his lips were blue, the eyelids would not shut quite to, but showed the bluish edge of the eyeball, the face was distorted yet content, and filled with a cruel, stubborn joy. The men thus felled were then lifted high by two strong fellows and removed from the barracks. Four big lorries waited at the gate. One was already half full. The men had been disposed inside them carefully, one next to the other, as one might pack a box of monster tin soldiers. And they threw a kindly pall of canvas over the unconscious bodies.
It soon became apparent that Kontsev’s carefully thought-out arrangements had overlooked the immunity of some of these men’s constitutions. Some whom no beer nor spirits could affect profited by the general disorder to make their longed-for escape. Silent and stealthy so long as they were still within the precincts of the barracks, as soon as they were well away, they lifted up their voices in loud and drunken song and staggered down the by-paths to the little town which they had not seen for a long time, and for which they now felt seized with honest homesickness. Deep was the grudge they nourished against the frightful Tarabas ever since he had lured them into the barracks and laid his harsh yoke upon them there. Only his old guard lived a life worth living under him. And against these their resentment was almost greater than against the colonel. Once or twice the malcontents had tried to organize a general flight or open mutiny. The malcontents! Who was not that — except his own men whom Tarabas had brought with him to Koropta? Thither they had swarmed to join the army, but no sooner were their thirst and hunger stilled than they began to long again for freedom, for freedom, sweet sister of the bitter brother, hunger. Drilling for a new country which belonged to no one knew whom was silly, childish, and tiring. But every time the caged ones had a plan half formed it was infamously — and inexplicably — betrayed to Sergeant-Major Kontsev. The punishment was hideous. Many of the plotters were made to squat upon the narrow barracks wall for six hours at a stretch, watched by two men with guns primed to shoot, one inside and one outside the wall, with eyes and gun-barrel trained upon the culprit. Kontsev was past master in the art of inventing penalties and torments. With his own hands he would lash the outstretched arms of some to the rungs of a long ladder which the wretched victims had thus to carry round with them whilst they performed the various marching steps, or ran. Others again, carrying their carbines and full equipment, were made to race ten times without stopping and with a running start up the steep bank which had been raised at the farthest end of the barracks yard for use in shooting exercises. When these and similar chastisements had been experienced once or twice, there was an end of secret planning. But the resentment stayed within the mind and grew.