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

the second battalion of the M⁠⸺ Regiment?” asked Praskoúhin, having run to his destination, and coming across some soldiers carrying earth in sacks.

“Just so, y’r honour!”

“Where is the Commander?”

Miháylof, thinking that the Commander of the Company was being asked for, got out of his hole and, taking Praskoúhin for a Commanding Officer, saluted, and approached him.

“The General’s orders are⁠ ⁠… that you⁠ ⁠… should go⁠ ⁠… quickly⁠ ⁠… and especially quietly⁠ ⁠… back⁠—no, not back, but to the reserves,” said Praskoúhin, looking askance in the direction of the enemy’s fire.

Having recognised Praskoúhin and made out what was wanted, Miháylof dropped his hand and passed on the order. The battalion became alert, the men took up their muskets, put on their cloaks, and set out.

No one, without experiencing it, can imagine the delight a man feels when, after three hours’ bombardment, he leaves so dangerous a spot as the lodgments. During those three hours Miháylof, who more than once⁠—and not without reason⁠—had thought his end at hand, had had time to accustom himself to the conviction that he would certainly be killed, and that he no longer belonged to this world, But, in spite of that, he had great difficulty in keeping his legs from running away with him when, leading the company with Praskoúhin at his side, he left the lodgment.

“Au revoir,” said a Major, with whom Miháylof had eaten bread and cheese sitting in the hole under the breastwork, and who was remaining at the bastion in command of another battalion, “I wish you a lucky journey.”

“And I wish you a lucky defence. It seems to be getting quieter now.”

But scarcely had he uttered these words when the enemy, probably observing the movement in the lodgment, began to fire more and more frequently.

Our guns replied, and heavy firing recommenced.

The stars were high in the sky but shone feebly. The night was pitch dark; only the flashes of the guns and the bursting bombs made things around suddenly visible. The soldiers walked quickly and silently, involuntarily outpacing one another, only their measured footfall on the dry road was heard besides the incessant roll of the guns, the ringing of bayonets when they came in contact, a sigh, or the prayer of some poor soldier lad, “Lord, O Lord! what is it?” Now and again you heard the moaning of a man hit, and the cry “Stretchers!” (in the Company Miháylof commanded, the artillery fire alone carried off twenty-six men that night). A flash on the dark and distant horizon, the cry “Can-n-non!” from the sentinel on the bastion, and a ball flew buzzing above the Company and plunged into the earth, making the stones fly.

“What the devil are they so slow for!” thought Praskoúhin, continually looking back as he marched beside Miháylof; “I’d really better run on; I’ve delivered the order.⁠ ⁠… However, no; they might afterwards say I’m a coward! What must be, will be: I’ll remain.”

“Now, why is he walking with me?” thought Miháylof, on his part. “I have noticed, over and over again, that he always brings ill-luck. Here it comes, I believe, straight for us.”

After they had gone a few hundred paces they met Kaloúgin, who was walking briskly towards the lodgments, clanking his sabre. He had been ordered by the General to find out how the works were progressing there. But meeting Miháylof, he thought he could just as well, instead of going himself under such a terrible fire⁠—which he was not ordered to do⁠—find out all about it from an officer who had been there. And Miháylof giving him full details of the work, Kaloúgin, after going some way with him, turned off into a trench leading to the bombproof.

“Well, what news?” asked an officer who was eating his supper there all alone.

“Nothing much; it seems that the affair is over.”

“Over? How’s that? On the contrary, the General has just gone again to the watchtower, and another regiment has arrived. Yes, there it is⁠—listen! The muskets again! Don’t you go; why should you?” added the officer, noticing a movement Kaloúgin made.

“By rights I certainly ought to be there,” thought Kaloúgin, “but I have already exposed myself much today: the firing is awful!”

“Yes, I think I’d better wait here for him,” he said. And about twenty minutes later the General and the officers who were with him returned; among them was the Junker Baron Pesth, but not Praskoúhin. The lodgments had been retaken and occupied by us.

After receiving a full account of the affair, Kaloúgin, accompanied by Pesth, left the bombproof.

XI

“Your coat is bloody; you don’t mean to say you were in the hand-to-hand fight?” asked Kaloúgin.

“Oh, it was awful! Just fancy⁠—”

And Pesth began to relate how he led his company, how the Company-Commander was killed, how he himself stabbed a Frenchman, and how, had it not been for him, we should have lost the day.

This tale was founded on facts: the Company-Commander was killed, and Pesth had bayonetted a Frenchman, but in recounting the details the Junker invented and bragged. He bragged unintentionally, because during the whole of the affair he had been, as it were, in a fog, and so dazed that everything that happened seemed to him to have happened somehow, somewhere, and to someone. And, very naturally, he tried to recall the details in a light advantageous to himself. What really occurred was this:⁠—

The battalion the Junker had been ordered to join for the sortie, stood for two hours under fire close to some low wall. Then the Battalion-Commander in front said something, the Company-Commanders became active, the battalion advanced from behind the breastwork, and, after going about a hundred paces, it stopped to form into company columns. Pesth was told to place himself on the right flank of the second company.

Quite unable to realise where he was and why he was there, the Junker took his place, and involuntarily holding his breath, while cold shivers ran down his back, he gazed into the dark distance, expecting something dreadful. He was, however, not