Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

The artillerymen behaved splendidly, as they always do; loaded quickly, pointed carefully at the spots where the puffs of smoke were, and quietly joked with one another.

The infantry supports lay near in silent inaction awaiting their turn. The wood-fellers went on with their work, the axes rang faster and more unintermittently through the forest; but when the whistle of a shot became audible all were suddenly silent, and, in the midst of the deathly stillness, voices not quite calm exclaimed, “Scatter, lads!” and all eyes followed the ball ricochetting over wood piles and strewn branches.

The mist had now risen quite high and, turning into clouds, gradually disappeared into the dark-blue depths of the sky; the unveiled sun shone brightly, throwing sparkling reflections from the steel bayonets, the brass of the guns, the thawing earth, and the glittering hoarfrost. In the air one felt the freshness of the morning frost together with the warmth of the spring sunshine; thousands of different hues and tints mingled in the dry leaves of the forest, and the shining, beaten track plainly showed the traces left by wheels and the marks of roughshod horses’ feet.

The movement became greater and more noticeable between the two forces. On all sides the blue smoke of the guns appeared more and more frequently. Dragoons rode forward, the streamers of their lances flying; from the infantry companies one heard songs, and the carts laden with firewood formed into a train in our rear. The general rode up to our platoon and ordered us to prepare to retire. The enemy settled in the bushes on our left flank, and their snipers began to molest us seriously. A bullet came humming from the woods to the left and struck a gun-carriage, then came another, and a third.⁠ ⁠… The infantry supports that had been lying near us rose noisily, took up their muskets and formed into line.

The small-arm firing increased, and bullets flew more and more frequently. The retreat commenced, and consequently the serious part of the action, as is usual in the Caucasus.

Everything showed that the artillerymen liked the bullets as little as the infantry had liked the cannonballs. Antonov frowned, Chikin imitated the bullets and joked about them, but it was easy to see he did not like them. “It’s in a mighty hurry,” he said of one of them; another he called “little bee”; a third, which seemed to fly slowly past overhead with a kind of piteous wail, he called an “orphan,” which caused general laughter.

The recruit, who, unaccustomed to such scenes, bent his head to one side and stretched his neck every time a bullet passed, also made the soldiers laugh. “What, is that a friend of yours you’re bowing to?” they said to him. Velenchuk also, usually quite indifferent to danger, was now excited: he was evidently vexed that we did not fire case-shot in the direction whence the bullets came. He repeated several times in a discontented tone, “Why is he allowed to go for us and gets nothing in return? If we turned a gun that way and gave them a taste of case-shot they’d hold their noise, no fear!”

It was true that it was time to do this, so I ordered to fire a last bomb and then to load with case-shot.

“Case-shot!” Antonov called out briskly as he went through the thick of the smoke to sponge out the gun as soon as it was discharged.

At that moment I heard, just behind me, the rapid whiz of a bullet suddenly stopped with a dull thud by something. My heart stopped beating. “Someone of the men has been hit,” I thought, while a sad presentiment made me afraid to turn round. And, really, that sound was followed by the heavy fall of a body, and the heartrending “Oh-o-oh” of someone who had been wounded. “I’m hit, lads!” a voice I knew exclaimed with an effort. It was Velenchuk. He was lying on his back between the limbers and a cannon. The cartridge-bag he had been carrying was thrown to one side. His forehead was covered with blood, and a thick red stream was running down over his right eye and nose. He was wounded in the stomach but hardly bled at all there; his forehead he had hurt against a log in falling.

All this I made out much later; the first moment I could only see an indistinct mass, and, as it seemed to me, a tremendous quantity of blood.

Not one of the soldiers who were loading said a word, only the young recruit muttered something that sounded like “Dear me! he’s bleeding,” and Antonov, frowning, gave an angry grunt; but it was clear that the thought of death passed through the soul of each. All set to work very actively and the gun was loaded in a moment, but the ammunition-bearer bringing the case-shot went two or three steps round the spot where Velenchuk still lay groaning.

Everyone who has been in action undoubtedly knows that strange and though illogical yet powerful feeling of aversion for the spot where someone has been killed or wounded. It was evident that for a moment my men gave way to this feeling when Velenchuk had to be taken to the cart that came up to fetch him. Zhdanov came up angrily to the wounded man, and, taking him under the arms, lifted him without heeding his loud screams. “Now then, what are you standing there for? take hold!” he shouted, and about ten assistants, some of them superfluous, immediately surrounded Velenchuk. But hardly had they moved him when he began screaming and struggling terribly.

“What are you screaming like a hare for?” said Antonov roughly, holding his leg; “mind, or we’ll just leave you.”

And the wounded man really became quiet, and only now and then uttered, “Oh, it’s my death! Oh, oh, oh, lads!”

When he was laid in the cart he even stopped moaning, and I heard him speak to his comrades in low