I
On the 4th of May, 1877, I arrived at Kishineff, and half an hour later had learnt that the 56th Division of Infantry was passing through the town. As I had come with the view of enlisting in some regiment and going to the war, I found myself, on the 7th of May, at 4 a.m., standing in the street amongst the grey ranks which had been formed up before the quarters of the Colonel of the 222nd (Starobielsky) Regiment. I was in a grey overcoat with red shoulder-straps and dark blue facings and a kepi, around which was a dark blue band. On my back was a knapsack, at my waist were cartridge-pouches, and I was holding a heavy Krinkoff rifle.
The band struck up as they brought out the colours from the Colonel’s quarters. Words of command rang out and the regiment presented arms. Then followed a fearful row. The Colonel gave a command which was taken up by the battalion, company, and, finally, section commanders, and as the result of all this shouting a confused and, to me, absolutely incomprehensible movement of grey overcoats took place, which ended in the regiment drawing itself out into a long column and marching off with measured tread to the sound of the regimental band as it thundered out a quick step. I too stepped out, trying to keep my dressing and to keep in step with my neighbour. My knapsack pulled me backwards, the heavy ammunition pouches pulled me forward; my rifle kept jumping off my shoulder, and the grey collar of my overcoat rubbed my neck. But in spite of all these little discomforts, the music, the rhythmic, ponderous movement of the column bristling with bayonets, the freshness of early morning, and the sight of the sunburnt and stem faces, all combined to inspire a feeling of calm determination.
Notwithstanding the earliness of the hour, people flocked to the courtyard gates of the houses, and half-dressed figures gazed at us from windows. We marched through the long straight street past the bazaar, where the Moldavians were already commencing to arrive in their oxcarts. The street wound up the hill and stopped at the town cemetery. The morning became overcast, and a cold drizzle commenced. The trees of the cemetery were discernible through the mist, and glimpses of tombstones could be caught above its gates and walls. As we skirted the cemetery, leaving it to our right, it seemed to me that it gazed perplexedly at us through the mist, asking: “Why are you going thousands and thousands of versts to die on foreign fields when it is possible to die here—to die peacefully, and lie beneath my wooden crosses and stone slabs? Stop here!”
But we did not stop. An unknown, mysterious force was drawing us—the strongest force in human life. Each of us, taken separately, would have gone home, but the whole mass went forward in obedience to discipline, and not from any recognition of the justice of the cause, nor from any feeling of hatred towards an unknown enemy; not from any fear of punishment, but moved solely by that hidden and unconscious something which will, for many a long day yet, lead humanity to sanguinary slaughter—the most potent cause of every description of human ill and suffering.
A wide and deep valley which stretched away beyond sight into the mist opened out behind the cemetery.
The rain became heavier. Somewhere far, far away, the clouds had made way for a ray of sunshine which caused the slanting and perpendicular strips of rain to glisten like silver. Through the mist which rolled along the green slopes of the valley could be distinguished long columns of troops ahead of us. Now and then there was the gleam of bayonets. And the guns, as they came into the sunlight, shone like some bright star, only to vanish in the course of a few moments. Sometimes the clouds came together; it became darker and the rain more frequent. An hour after our start I felt a little stream of cold water begin to trickle down my back. The first stage was not a long one, the distance from Kishineff to the village of G⸺ being in all only eighteen versts. However, not being accustomed to carry a weight of 20 to 35 pounds, I was at first unable even to eat when we at length reached the cottage told off to us. I leant against the wall, resting on my knapsack, and stood like this for some ten minutes fully equipped with my rifle in my hand. One of the soldiers going to the kitchen for his dinner took pity on me and took my canteen with him. But on his return he found me sound asleep. I slept until four o’clock in the morning, when I was awakened by the insufferably harsh sounds of a bugle sounding the “assembly,” and five minutes later I was again plodding along the muddy, sticky road under a fine drizzling rain. Before me jogged a grey back, on which was strapped a brown calfskin knapsack and an iron canteen, which rattled incessantly. The grey back had a rifle on one shoulder. On either side and behind me were similar grey figures. For the first few days I could not distinguish them one from the other. The 222nd Infantry Regiment of the Line which I had joined consisted for the most part of peasants from the Governments of Vyatka and Kostroma. They all had broad faces, now blue with cold, prominent cheekbones, and small grey eyes. Most of them were fair, with light-coloured hair and beards. Although I knew the names of several, I could not pick out their owners. A fortnight later I was unable to understand how I could ever have mixed up my two comrades, the one marching alongside me, and the other the possessor of the grey back which was constantly before my eyes. At first I had called them Feodoroff and Jitkoff indifferently, continually making mistakes, although they did not in the least resemble each other. Feodoroff, a corporal, was a young man of twenty-two, of average height, and splendidly built. His face, with its beautifully chiselled nose and lips, was as regular in its features as if it had been the work of some sculptor. His chin was covered with a fair curly beard, and there was a merry twinkle in his blue eyes. When the command was “Singers to the front!” he used to be the leader of our company. He was the possessor of a tenor voice, and would sing falsetto when high notes were necessary. He was a native of the Vladimir Government, but had lived since childhood in St. Petersburg. Contrary to the general rule, Petersburg “education” had not spoilt him, but had merely polished him, and had taught him to read the papers and to speak “wise words.”
“Of course, Vladimir Mikhailovich,” he used to say to me, “I can judge better than ‘Uncle’ Jitkoff, because ‘Peter’ has set its mark on me. There is a civilization in ‘Peter,’ but nothing but ignorance and savagery in the provinces. However, as he is not a young man, but, so to speak, has seen things and undergone various vicissitudes of fate, I cannot shout at him. He is forty, and I am only in my twenty-third year. But I am a corporal.”
“Uncle” Jitkoff was a gnarled-looking peasant of extraordinary strength and a perpetually morose visage.
His face was swarthy. He had prominent cheekbones and little eyes, which looked out from under his eyebrows.
He never smiled, and rarely spoke. He was a carpenter by trade, and was on “indefinite leave” when the mobilization order was issued. He had only a few months more to serve in the reserve when the war broke out and compelled him to take part in the campaign, leaving a wife and five small children behind him at home. In spite of an unprepossessing exterior and perpetual moroseness, there was something attractive in him—something kind and strong. Now, as I have said, it seems quite unintelligible to me how I could ever have mixed up these two neighbours, but for the first two days they seemed alike to me. Each was grey; each was tired and benumbed with the cold.
The rain was unceasing during the whole first half of May, and we were marching without tents. The seemingly never-ending sticky road rose over hills and dipped into gullies almost every verst. It was heavy marching. Clumps of mud stuck to our feet, a leaden grey sky hung low and threateningly over us, and rained a continual fine drizzle on us, and there was no end to it. There was no hope of drying and warming ourselves when we reached the night’s camp. The Romanians would not let us into their cottages, and, indeed, there was no room anywhere for such a mass of men. We used to march through the town or village and camp anywhere on the common.
“Halt! … Pile arms!”
And there was nothing for it, when we had eaten our hot broth, but to lie down actually in the mud. Water below, water above. It seemed as if one’s whole body was permeated with water.
Shivering, we wrapped ourselves up in our greatcoats, and, gradually getting warm with a moist warmth, slept soundly until again awakened by the universally detested “assembly.” Then again the grey column, the grey sky, muddy road, and dismal dripping hills and valleys. It was hard on us.
“They have opened all the windows of heaven,” said, with a sigh, our squad leader, a N.C.O. named Karpoff, a veteran who had served through the Khiva campaign. “We are soaked and soaked without end.”
“We shall get dry, Vasil Karpich! Look, there is the sun peeping out; it will dry us all. The march will be a long one. We shall have time to get dry and wet again before we reach the end of it. Mikhailich!” said my neighbour, turning to me, “is it far to the Danube?”
“Another three weeks yet.”
“Three weeks! But we shall get there in two weeks. …”
“We are going straight into the clutches of the devil,” muttered “Uncle” Jitkoff.
“What are you growling about, you old blackguard? You are only making mischief. Where the devil are we going to? Why do you say things like that?”
“Well, are we going on a holiday?” snarled Jitkoff.
“No, not on a holiday, but as our duty calls us, to carry out our oath. … What did you say when you were sworn in? Not sparing your life. You old fool! Take care what you are saying!”
“But what did I say, Vasil Karpich? Am I not going? If to die, then to die. … It’s all the same. …”
“Well, don’t let’s hear any more of it.”
Jitkoff relapsed into silence. His face became still more morose. For the matter of that, it was no time for talking. The going was too heavy. The feet kept slipping, and men kept constantly falling into the sticky mud. Deep swearing resounded through the battalion. Only Feodoroff did not hang his head, but kept unwearyingly relating to me story after story of Petersburg and the country.
However, there is an end to all things. One day, when I woke up in the morning in our bivouac near a village where a halt had been arranged, I saw a blue sky, huts with white plastered walls, and vineyards bathed in the bright morning sun, and heard gay, animated voices. All had already risen, had dried their clothes, and had recovered from the arduous ten days’ march in the rain without tents. During the halt they were brought up. The soldiers immediately stretched them out, and, having pitched them properly, driven in the tent-pegs, and tightened the canvas, were almost all lying in their shade.
“They did not help us when it was raining. They will guard us from the sun.”
“Yes, so the ‘Barin’s’ face shan’t get burnt,” joked Feodoroff, slyly winking towards me.