Short Fiction, Vsevolod Garshin [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

one of the premier importance. Nearly one-third of all a soldier’s discomforts during a campaign arise from the “calf,” as the soldiers nicknamed their clumsy knapsack. Others called it a “chest of drawers.” This “chest of drawers” hurts the shoulders, presses on the chest, tires out the feet, and lessens the stability of the body. Even in cool, fresh weather it makes the back under it wet with perspiration after five minutes’ marching. It is not, therefore, astonishing that the order to leave knapsacks behind was met with general satisfaction.

The company ran to its bivouac. Everyone had already assembled. Knapsacks were thrown into a heap and tents struck. We hurriedly dressed. However much the Russian may like to make a noise on every convenient occasion and when he is in a crowd, there was absolute silence. I have always been struck with this quietness during the mustering of the men whenever the “alarm” sounded.

In a quarter of an hour’s time we moved off. The total distance from Kovachitsa to Papkio is from nine to ten versts, but although we marched “light,” without knapsacks and only with our greatcoats slung bandolier-fashion across our shoulders with our tent-sheets wrapped up in them, these ten versts absolutely knocked us out. The heat was deadly, over 35° Réamur14 in the shade, and not the slightest vestige of a breeze. Everything seemed to have died. The maize did not move its dark-green leaves. The boughs and leaves of the pear-trees which we passed were motionless. Not a solitary bird did we see during the whole of this march. The men were done even after the first four versts. When half way a halt was called at a well, they were scarcely able to pile arms, and literally fell on to the ground.

“Have you got out of the way of marching, Gabriel Vassilivich?” I said to my neighbour, as he lay with half-closed eyes breathing heavily.

“Yes, if one doesn’t walk for a fortnight it spoils one,” he answered dully. “Let us go for a drink.”

We rose, and went to push our way to the well, or, more correctly speaking, to the spring. From an iron pipe placed in the wall of stone at about the height of a man a clear transparent stream ran into a stone trough. The men pressed each other as they got the water, and soaked each other as they passed their canteens full of water over the heads of their neighbours. We had a good drink and filled our water-bottles.

“Well, that’s a bit better. I can manage another march now,” said Gabriel Vassilivich, wiping his fair moustaches and beard with his sleeve.

He was an extraordinarily good-looking fellow, sturdy, active, with big blue eyes. He now lies on the Aislar heights and nothing is left of his blue eyes and handsome face.

Having given us a half-hour’s spell. Major F. led us further. The nearer we approached Papkio the more and more difficult it became. The sun baked us with such fury that it seemed as if it was hurrying to complete the job before we reached our destination and could take refuge from its heat in our tents. Some of us succumbed. Scarcely moving along, with my head lowered, I almost tripped over an officer who had fallen. He was lying, scarlet in the face and was breathing convulsively and heavily. They placed him in an ambulance-wagon.

The one and a half verst climb out of the valley along which we had marched up its right slope seemed to us the worst part of the whole road. The smells which always notified us of any approaching camp added still further to the suffocating heat. How I “stuck” it I absolutely don’t remember, but nevertheless I did. Others were less fortunate. Scarcely able to drag one foot after another we got into the order in which we were to camp, and, barely able to stand up, awaited the longed-for command from Major F.⁠—“Pile arms!” That is, pile arms and do what you like afterwards.

II

The men were so worn out that even the insufferable heat could not make them go for water. Only after half an hour’s rest did the orderlies assemble with their canteens and set off for the village. On that slope of the valley, on the summit of which we were encamped, was the Mussulman quarter of Papkio⁠—literally deserted since the plague. On the opposite side crowded the Bulgarian kishtas, precisely similar to the Turkish houses, with exactly the same squat tiled roofs. There could be heard the barking of dogs. People could be seen, also sheep and buffaloes, or “bufflös,” as our men called them. To the right was the valley along which we had just come, with a stream in the middle and endless fields of maize, barley, and wheat along its slopes. To the left, at right angles to our valley, was the valley of Lom, fading away on either side into a misty bluish distance, out of which the mountains on the right bank of the river could be seen with decreasing clearness.

Opposite us these heights rose to a great elevation. At one point on them there appeared at intervals a puff of white smoke which, slowly and slowly drifting, melted and disappeared, fused in the air. Half a minute later there would come a dull roar resembling the growl of distant thunder. This was the Morshansk Regiment carrying out a reconnaissance.

We found the springs, got some water, and returned in no particular order to our bivouac. The soldiers, having rested a little, were already more lively. The distant firing undoubtedly helped in this matter.

“Listen! What firing!”

“What do you think, chums? Are they ours or the Turks?” asked someone.

Somebody else replied that the Morshansk Regiment had taken no guns with them, and certainly, judging from the situation and direction of the smoke, they could not be shots from our guns.

More to the right of the village, much