IX
It was almost night when they reached Sevastopol. Driving towards the large bridge across the Roadstead Volódya was not exactly dispirited, but his heart felt heavy. All he had seen and heard was so different from his past, still recent, experiences—the large, light, parquet-floored examination hall, the jolly, friendly voices and laughter of his comrades, the new uniform, the beloved Tsar whom he had been accustomed to see for the last seven years, and who at parting from them had, with tears in his eyes, called them his children—and all he saw now was so little like his beautiful, radiant, high-souled dreams.
“Well, here we are,” said the elder brother when they reached the Michael Battery and dismounted from their trap. “If they let us cross the bridge we will go at once to the Nicholas Barracks. You can stay there till the morning, and I’ll go to the regiment and find out where your battery is and come for you tomorrow.”
“Oh, why? Let’s go together,” said Volódya. “I’ll go to the bastion with you. It doesn’t matter; one must get used to it sooner or later. If you go, so can I.”
“Better not.”
“No, please. I shall at least find out how …”
“My advice is, don’t go; but however …”
The sky was clear and dark; the stars, the ever-moving fire of the bombs and the flash of the guns, already showed up brightly in the darkness. The large white building of the battery, and the beginning of the bridge, loomed out in the darkness. Literally every second, several artillery shots and explosions ever more loudly and distinctly shook the air in quick succession. Through this roar, and as if answering it, came the dull murmur of the Roadstead. A slight breeze blew in from the sea and the air smelled moist. The brothers reached the bridge. A recruit, awkwardly striking his gun against his hand, called out, “Who goes there?”
“Soldier!”
“No one’s allowed to pass!”
“How is that? We must.”
“Ask the officer.”
The officer, who was sitting on an anchor dozing, rose and ordered that they should be allowed to pass.
“One may go there, but not back.”
“Where are you driving, all of a heap!” he shouted to the regimental wagons, which, laden high with gabions, were crowding the entrance.
As the brothers were descending to the first pontoon, they came upon some soldiers going in the opposite direction and talking loudly.
“If he’s had his outfit money his account is squared—that’s so.”
“Eh, lads,” said another, “when one gets to the North Side one sees light again. My word! it’s different air altogether.”
“Get along,” said the first. “Why, the other day a damned shot came flying here and tore off two soldiers’ legs for them, so that …”
Waiting for the trap, the brothers, after crossing the first pontoon, stopped on the second, on to which the waves washed here and there. The wind, which seemed gentle on land, was strong and gusty here; the bridge swayed, and the waves broke noisily against beams, anchors, and ropes, and washed over the boards. To the right, the sea, divided by a smooth, endless black line from the starry, light, bluish-grey horizon, roared dark, misty, and hostile. Far off in the distance gleamed the lights of the enemy’s fleet. To the left loomed the black bulk of one of our ships, against the sides of which the waves beat audibly. A steamer, too, was visible, moving quickly and noisily from the North Side. The flash of a bomb exploding near the steamer lit up, for a moment, the gabions piled high on its deck, two men standing on the paddle-box, and the white foam and splash of the greenish waves cut by the vessel. On the edge of the bridge, his feet dangling in the water, sat a man in his shirt repairing the pontoon. In front, above Sevastopol, the same fires were flying, and louder and louder came the terrible sounds. A wave flowing in from the sea washed over the right side of the bridge and wetted Volódya’s boots, and two soldiers passed by him splashing their feet through the water. Suddenly something came crashing down which lit up the bridge ahead of them, a cart driving over it, and a horseman; and bomb fragments fell whistling and splashing into the water.
“Ah, Michael Semyónitch!” said the rider, stopping his horse in front of the elder Kozeltsóf, “have you recovered?”
“As you see. And where is fate taking you?”
“To the North Side for cartridges. You see, I’m taking the place of the regimental adjutant today. … We are expecting an attack from hour to hour.”
“And where is Mártsof?”
“His leg was torn off yesterday while he was sleeping in his room in town. … Did you know him?”
“Is it true the regiment is now at the Fifth Bastion?”
“Yes; we have taken the place of the M⸺ regiment. You’d better call at the Ambulance; you’ll find some of our fellows are there; they’ll show you the way.”
“Well, and my lodgings in the Morskáya Street, are they safe?”
“Eh, my dear fellow! they’ve long since been shattered by the bombs. You’ll not know Sevastopol again; not a woman left, not a restaurant, no music: the last brothel left yesterday. It’s melancholy enough now. Goodbye!”
And the officer trotted away.
Terrible fear suddenly overcame Volódya; he felt as if a ball or a bomb-splinter would come at once and hit him straight on the head. The damp darkness, all these sounds, especially the murmur of the splashing water—all seemed to tell him to go no farther, that no good awaited him here, that he would never again set foot on this side of the bay, that he should turn back at once and run somewhere, as far as possible from this dreadful place of death. “But perhaps it is too late, it is already now decided,” thought he, shuddering partly at the idea and partly because the water had soaked through his boots and was wetting his feet.
Volódya sighed deeply and moved a few steps from his brother.
“O Lord! shall I really be killed—just I? Lord, have mercy on me!” he whispered, and made the sign of the cross.
“Well, Volódya, come!” said the elder brother when the trap had driven on to the bridge. “Did you see the bomb?”
On the bridge the brothers met carts loaded with wounded men, with gabions, and one with furniture driven by a woman. No one stopped them at the further side.
Keeping instinctively under the wall of the Nicholas Battery, and listening to the bombs that were here bursting overhead and to the howling of the falling fragments, the brothers came silently to that part of the battery where the icon hangs. Here they heard that the Fifth Light Artillery, to which Volódya was appointed, was stationed at the Korábelnaya, and they decided that Volódya, in spite of the danger, should spend the night with his elder brother at the Fifth Bastion, and go from there to his battery next morning. After turning into a corridor and stepping across the legs of the soldiers who lay sleeping all along the wall of the battery, they at last reached the Ambulance Station.