IV
Late that evening we reached Fokshan, passed through the unlighted, silent, and dusty little town, and came out somewhere into a field. It was as dark as pitch; the battalions were camped anyhow, and worn-out men slept as if dead. Scarcely anyone cared to eat the “dinner” which had been prepared. The soldier’s food is always dinner, whether it is early morning, daytime, or night. All night long stragglers were coming in. At dawn we were again on the march, but consoled ourselves with the fact that at the end of it there was to be a day’s halt.
Once again the moving ranks, once again the knapsack presses benumbed shoulders, once again the pain of sore and bleeding feet. But the first ten versts were performed in a kind of stupor. The short sleep we had had was not able to destroy the fatigue of yesterday, and the men practically slept as they marched. I slept so soundly that when we had our first halt I could not believe we had already covered ten versts, and could not recall any one part of the road we had traversed. Only when, as a prelude to a halt, the columns begin to close in and reform does one awake and think with joy of an hour’s rest and the possibility of throwing off one’s pack, of boiling water in one’s canteen, and lying free whilst sipping hot tea. As soon as arms are piled and knapsacks removed the majority commence collecting firewood—almost always the dry stalks of last year’s maize-crops. Two bayonets are stuck into the ground, a ramrod is laid on them, and two or three canteens hung on it. The dry, brittle stalks burn brightly and merrily. The flames lick the blackened canteens, and within ten minutes the water is boiling hard. The men used to throw the tea straight into the kettle, allowing it to boil for a short time, which resulted in a strong, almost black, tea, drunk for the most part without sugar, as the commissariat, while issuing plenty of tea (the men even smoked it when out of tobacco), gave us very little sugar. The tea was drunk in enormous quantities. A canteen which held about seven glasses was the usual one man’s portion.
Perhaps it seems strange that I go into such details. But a soldier’s life, when campaigning, is so hard, and entails so much deprivation, and the future holds out so little hope, that even tea or some such similar small luxury gives enormous pleasure. It was necessary to see, to realize with what serious, contented faces sunburnt, rough, and stern soldiers, young and old—true it is that there were scarcely any over forty years of age amongst us—like children, laid little sticks and stalks under the canteens, looked after the fire, and advised each other.
“You, Lutikoff, push them to the edge. That’s it. … They have begun to burn. Now the water will boil soon.”
Tea, and sometimes in cold and rainy weather a glass of vodka, or a pipe of tobacco, comprised the sum-total of a soldier’s pleasures, excluding, of course, all-healing sleep, when it was possible to forget bodily misfortunes and thoughts of a dark and terrifying future. Tobacco played no small role amongst these joys of life, exciting and supporting exhausted nerves. A tightly filled pipe would go round ten men, and, being returned to its owner, he would take the last pull, knock out the ash, and, with an air of importance, secrete the pipe in the upper part of his jackboot. I remember my grief at the loss of my pipe by one of my friends to whom I had lent it for a smoke, and how he, too, was grieved and ashamed about it, just as if he had lost a whole fortune entrusted to him.
At the chief halt (about midday) we used to rest for an hour and a half to two hours. After drinking our tea everyone would sleep. Quiet would reign in the bivouac. Only the sentry on the colours would pace to and fro, and some one or other of the officers would keep awake.
We would lie on the ground with our knapsacks under our heads, neither asleep nor awake. The scorching sun would burn our faces and necks. Flies would keep buzzing everlastingly around us, making real sleep impossible. Dreams mingled with reality. It was so short a time ago that life had been so different that in half-conscious slumber one expected to wake and find oneself at home; that this Steppe would disappear; this bare soil, with thorny bushes in place of grass; this pitiless sun and hot wind; these thousands of strangely attired men in dust-stained shirts; these piles of arms. It was all like some hideous nightmare.
Then the powerful voice of our little bearded battalion Major, Chernoglazoff, would give the command, “Ri-ise,” in a long-drawn-out and severe tone of voice, and the prostrate crowd of white shirts would move, stretch itself, rise, and commence to strap on its equipment, and form ranks—“Unpile arms!”
We take our rifles. Even now I well remember my rifle, No. 18,635, with its stock rather darker than the others, and a long scratch along the dark varnish. Yet another command, and the battalion, forming column, turns on to the road. At the extreme front of the column the Major’s horse was led, a prancing bay stallion called Vavara. The Major only rode on extreme occasions, always marching at the head of the battalion with Vavara, a true infantryman. He wished to show the soldiers that the “authorities” also endeavoured to do their duty, and the soldiers loved him for it. He was always cool and collected, never joked nor smiled. He was the first to rise in the morning and the last to lie down at night. His manner toward the men was firm and restrained, and he never allowed himself to rage or shout without reason. It was said that but for him goodness knows what Ventzel might have done.
Today is hot, but not like yesterday. We are no longer marching along the metalled road, but parallel with the railway, along a narrow byroad, so that most of us are marching over grass. There is no dust. Clouds are racing overhead. At intervals there are big raindrops. We gaze upwards at the clouds and stretch out our hands to see if it is really raining. Even yesterday’s stragglers have taken heart. It is no distance now, only some ten versts, and then a rest—the longed-for rest—not merely for one short night, but all night, the next day, and even that night too. The men, having cheered up, want to sing, and Feodoroff breaks out into the well-known song about Poltava. Having sung how suddenly a mischief-making bullet found its way into the Imperial headdress, he switched off into an idiotic and somewhat obscene, but extremely popular, song amongst men, about a certain Liza who went into the woods and found a beehive there, and all that happened from this find. Then followed the historic song about Peter the Great and the Senate, and, finally, a song of some fifty verses, an effort by the local talent of our battalion.
“Feodoroff,” I asked one day, “why do you sing all that bosh about Liza?”
I mentioned several other songs, idiotic and cynical to a degree.
“Orders, Vladimir Mikhailich. But why? Do you really call it singing? It is really a kind of screeching, just to work the chest and to make marching more lively.”
The singers tire themselves out, and the band begins to play. It is much easier to step out to the measured, loud, and, for the most part, lively marches. All, even the most tired, pull themselves together, march strictly in step, and keep their dressing. It is difficult to recognize the battalion. I remember how once we marched more than six versts in an hour without feeling tired, thanks to the band. But when the exhausted bandsmen ceased playing, the influence of the music went, and I felt as if I should drop straightaway, and so I should have done had not there been an opportune halt.
About five versts from our halt we came upon an obstacle. We were marching through the valley of some little river. On the one side there were mountains and on the other a narrow and somewhat high railway embankment. The recent rains had flooded the valley and converted our road into a kind of lake about thirty sajenes wide. The bed of the railway rose above it like a dam, and we had to cross over by it. A ganger on the line let the first battalion over, which thus successfully avoided the lake, but then declared that a train was due in five minutes’ time, and we must wait. We halted and had just piled arms, when the well-known carriage of the Brigadier-General appeared at the turn of the road.
He was a great man. I have never heard such a voice as he possessed, either on the operatic stage or amongst cathedral choirs. The echoes of his bass resounded in the air like a trumpet, his big well-fed figure, with its red, big head, enormous dark-coloured whiskers waving in the breeze, and heavy black eyebrows surmounting tiny little eyes, which shone like needles, was a most inspiring sight as he sat on his horse giving commands to the brigade. On one occasion on the manoeuvre-ground at Moscow during some evolutions, his appearance and general demeanour were so martial and inspiring that an old man in the crowd in a fit of enthusiasm shouted out:
“Bravo! That’s the sort we want!”
Since which occasion the General has always been known as “Bravo.”
He had ambitions. He carried several small volumes on military history throughout the campaign. His favourite topic of conversation with his officers was criticism of the Napoleonic campaigns. I, of course, only knew of this from hearsay, as we seldom saw our General. Generally he caught us up midway in the day’s march in his carriage, drawn by a troika. Having arrived at the quarters for the night, he would occupy a lodging and stay there until late the next morning and again catch us up during the day, when the men would always remark on the particular degree of purple in the face and the hoarseness accompanying his deafening salute to us:
“Health to you, Starobieltzi!”
“We wish Your Excellency health,” the men would reply, adding to themselves: “Old Bravo is off for another booze.”
And the General would go ahead, sometimes without any incident, and sometimes bestowing en route a thunderous “head-washing” on some poor company commander.
Noticing that the battalion had halted, the General rushed at us and jumped out of his carriage as quickly as his corpulency would admit. The Major went up to him.
“What’s this? Why have you halted? Who gave you leave?”
“Your Excellency, the road is under water, and a train is expected shortly over the rails.”
“Road under water? Train? Bosh! You are making old women of the men, teaching them to be mollycoddles. Don’t halt without orders! Consider yourself, sir, under arrest …”
“Your Excellency …”
“Don’t answer me!”
The General raised his eyes threateningly and turned his attention on another victim.
“Why, what’s this? Why is the commander of the second rifle company not in his place? Staff-Captain Ventzel, come here, please!”
Ventzel went forward, and the General poured a torrent of rage on him. I heard how Ventzel tried to reply, raising his voice, but the General shouted him down, and it was only possible to guess that Ventzel had said something disrespectful.
“You dare to reply? To be impertinent?” thundered the General. “Hold your tongue! Take his sword from him. Go to the money-chest, under arrest! An example to the men. … Afraid of water! My men, after me! Remember Suvoroff!”
The General went rapidly past the battalion with the cramped gait of one who has been sitting for a long time in a carriage.
“Follow me! Children! Remember Suvoroff!” he repeated, and waded in his patent-leather jackboots into the water. The Major, with a malicious expression on his face, glanced back and went forward with the General. The battalion moved after them. At first the water was knee-high, then it reached the waist, then higher and higher. The tall General moved freely, but the little Major was already striking out with his arms. The men, just like a flock of sheep when crossing a stream, jostled each other and staggered from side to side as they pulled their feet out of the soft clayey bottom in which they kept sticking. The company commanders and the battalion Adjutant, who were riding, and could have, in consequence, crossed over very comfortably, seeing the example set by the General, followed it, dismounted, and, leading their horses, waded into the muddy water, which had been churned up by hundreds of soldiers’ feet. Our company, composed of the tallest men in the battalion, crossed with comparative comfort, but the eighth company, which was marching abreast of us, and was composed of undersized men, were almost up to their ears in the water. Some of them even began to choke and clutch at us. A little gipsy soldier, with blanched face and terrified, wide-opened eyes, seized “Uncle” Jitkoff by the neck with both hands, having thrown away his rifle. Luckily for the gipsy, somebody seized it from going to the bottom.
Ten sajenes farther on the water became shallower, and everyone, being now out of danger, commenced to scramble out as quickly as possible, pushing and swearing at each other. Many of us laughed, but it was no laughing matter for the soldiers of the eighth company. Many of their faces were blue not only from cold. Behind us pressed the riflemen.
“Now then, whippersnappers, scramble out! They have sunk!” they cried.
“Very easy to have drowned,” replied the eighth company. “It was all right for him; he only wetted his whiskers. What a hero! People could be drowned here.”
“You should have sat in my canteen. I would have taken you over dry.”
“I didn’t think of that,” replied the little soldier good-humouredly at the gibe.
The cause of all this bustle having already succeeded in freeing his feet from the sticky bottom, and having got out of the water, was standing in a majestic pose on the bank, looking at the struggling mass of humanity in the water. He was wet to the skin, and had in reality soaked himself and his long whiskers. The water was trickling from his clothes. His polished leather top-boots were bulging with water, but he continued to shout encouragement to the men.
“Forward, my children! Remember Suvoroff!”
The soaking officers with gloomy faces were crowding around him. Amongst them was Ventzel, with distorted face, and minus his sword. Meanwhile the General’s coachman, having reached the bank, and having pushed off into the water, sat on the box with a huge whip, and got over successfully, a little to one side of the spot where he had crossed, and where the water scarcely reached the axles of the carriage-wheel.
“That is where, Your Excellency, we should have crossed over,” said the Major quietly. “Will you order the men to dry themselves?”
“Certainly, certainly, Sergei Nicolaich,” replied the General calmly. The cold water had quenched his ardour. He got into his carriage, sat down; then again stood up and cried out at the top of his extraordinarily powerful voice:
“Thank you, Starobieltzi! You are good fellows.”
“Pleased to try, Your Excellency!” replied the men in salute somewhat confusedly. And the dripping General drove off ahead.
The sun was still high. There were only five more versts to go, so the Major made a prolonged halt. We undressed, lit fires, dried our clothes, boots, knapsacks, and pouches, and two hours afterwards started off again, even laughing at the recollection of our bath.
“And so old Bravo has sent Ventzel off under arrest!” said Feodoroff.
“A good job. Let him march a day or two with the money-chest,” came the reply from someone in the riflemen company behind us.
“What’s that to do with you?”
“With me! Not only with me, but for the whole company it will be easier. At least we shall have a rest for a couple of days. We can’t stick him—that’s what it is to do with me!”
“Patience brings everything about.”
“Patience is all right, but it doesn’t always bring everything,” said Jitkoff in his usual surly tone. “If only the Turk will kill him!”
“And you, ‘Uncle’ Jitkoff, don’t despair. You have to think about our no longer being wet, that we are marching dry, and old Bravo is riding wet,” said Feodoroff, amidst general laughter.