VII
More and more wounded, carried on stretchers, or walking supported by others and talking loudly, passed Prince Gáltsin.
“Up they sprang, friends,” said the bass voice of a tall soldier, carrying two guns over his shoulder, “up they sprang, shouting ‘Allah! Allah!’ and just climbing one over another. You kill one, and another’s there, you couldn’t do anything; no end of ’em—”
But at this point in the story Gáltsin interrupted him.
“You are from the bastion?”
“Just so, y’r honour!”
“Well, what happened, tell me?”
“What happened? Well, y’r honour, such a force of ’em poured down on us over the rampart, it was all up. They quite overpowered us, y’r honour!”
“Overpowered? … but you repulsed them?”
“How’s one to repulse ’em, when his whole force came on, killed all our men, and no re’forcements are given?”
The soldier was mistaken, the trench remained ours; but it is a curious fact, which anyone may notice, that a soldier wounded in action always thinks the affair lost, and imagines it to have been a very bloody fight.
“How is that? I was told they had been repulsed,” said Gáltsin irritably. “Perhaps they were driven back after you left? Is it long since you came away?”
“I am straight from there, y’r honour!” answered the soldier; “it is hardly possible; they must have kept the trench, he overpowered us quite.”
“How are you not ashamed to have lost the trench? It’s awful!” said Gáltsin, provoked at such indifference.
“What if he’d the force?” muttered the soldier.
“Ah, y’r honour,” began a soldier from a stretcher which had just come up to them, “how could we help giving it up when he had killed almost all our men? If we had the force we wouldn’t have given it up, not for nothing. But as it was what could one do? I stuck one, and then something hits me. Oh, oh—h! steady, lads, steady! Oh, oh!” groaned the wounded man.
“Really, there seem too many men returning,” said Gáltsin, again stopping the same tall soldier with the two guns. “Why are you retiring? You there, stop!”
The soldier stopped, and took off his cap with his left hand.
“Where are you going, and why?” shouted Gáltsin severely; “you scoun—”
But having come close up to the soldier, Gáltsin noticed that no hand was visible beneath the soldier’s right cuff, and that the sleeve was soaked in blood to the elbow.
“I am wounded, y’r honour.”
“Wounded? How?”
“Here—must ’a’ been with a bullet,” said the man, pointing to his arm, “but I don’t know what struck my head here,” and bending his head, he showed the matted hair at the back stuck together with blood.
“And whose is this other gun?”
“It’s a French rifle I took, y’r honour! But I’d not have come away if it weren’t to lead this fellow—he may fall,” he added, pointing to a soldier who was walking a little in front, leaning on his gun, and painfully dragging his left leg.
Prince Gáltsin suddenly felt horribly ashamed of his unjust suspicions. He felt himself blushing, turned away and, neither questioning nor watching the wounded men any more, he went to the hospital.
Having pushed his way with difficulty through the porch among the wounded who had come on foot and the bearers who were carrying in the wounded and bringing out the dead, Gáltsin entered the first room, gave a look round, and involuntarily turned back and ran out into the street: it was too terrible!