In midwinter, in the year 185-, a division of our batteries was engaged
in an expedition on the Great Chetchen River. On the evening of Feb.
26, having been informed that the platoon which I commanded in the
absence of its regular officer was detailed for the following day to
help cut down the forest, and having that evening obtained and given
the necessary directions, I betook myself to my tent earlier than
usual; and as I had not got into the bad habit of warming it with
burning coals, I threw myself, without undressing, down on my bed made
of sticks, and, drawing my Circassian cap over my eyes, I rolled myself
up in my _shuba,_ and fell into that peculiarly deep and heavy sleep
which one obtains at the moment of tumult and disquietude on the eve of
a great peril. The anticipation of the morrow's action brought me to
such a state.
At three o'clock in the morning, while it was still perfectly dark, my
warm sheep-skin was pulled off from me, and the red light of a candle
was unpleasantly flashed upon my sleepy eyes.
"It's time to get up," said some one's voice. I shut my eyes
involuntarily, wrapped my sheep-skin around me again, and dropped off
into slumber.
"It's time to get up," repeated Dmitri relentlessly, shaking me by the
shoulder. "The infantry are starting." I suddenly came to a sense of
the reality of things, started up, and sprang to my feet.
Hastily swallowing a glass of tea, and taking a bath in ice-water,
I crept out from my tent, and went to the park (where the guns were
placed). It was dark, misty, and cold. The night fires, lighted here
and there throughout the camp, lighted up the forms of drowsy soldiers
scattered around them, and seemed to make the darkness deeper by their
ruddy flickering flames. Near at hand one could hear monotonous,
tranquil snoring; in the distance, movement, the babble of voices,
and the jangle of arms, as the foot-soldiers got in readiness for the
expedition. There was an odor of smoke, manure, wicks, and fog. The
morning frost crept down my back, and my teeth chattered in spite of
all my efforts to prevent it.
Only by the snorting and occasional stamping of horses could one make
out in the impenetrable darkness where the harnessed limbers and
caissons were drawn up, and, by the flashing points of the lintstocks,
where the cannon were. With the words _s Bógom,--_ God speed it,--the
first gun moved off with a clang, followed by the rumbling caisson, and
the platoon got under way.
We all took off our caps, and made the sign of the cross. Taking its
place in the interval between the infantry, our platoon halted, and
waited from four o'clock until the muster of the whole force was made,
and the commander came.
"There's one of our men missing, Nikolaï Petróvitch," said a black
form coming to me. I recognized him by his voice only as the
platoon-artillerist Maksímof.
"Who?"
"Velenchúk is missing. When we hitched up he was here, I saw him; but
now he's gone."
As it was entirely unlikely that the column would move immediately,
we resolved to send Corporal Antónof to find Velenchúk. Shortly after
this, the sound of several horses riding by us in the darkness was
heard; this was the commander and his suite. In a few moments the head
of the column started and turned,--finally we also moved,--but Antónof
and Velenchúk had not appeared. However, we had not gone a hundred
paces when the two soldiers overtook us.
"Where was he?" I asked of Antónof.
"He was asleep in the park."
"What! he was drunk, wasn't he?"
"No, not at all."
"What made him go to sleep, then?"
"I don't know."
During three hours of darkness we slowly defiled in monotonous silence
across uncultivated, snowless fields and low bushes which crackled
under the wheels of the ordnance.
At last, after we had crossed a shallow but phenomenally rapid
brook, a halt was called, and from the vanguard were heard desultory
musket-shots. These sounds, as always, created the most extraordinary
excitement in us all. The division had been almost asleep; now the
ranks became alive with conversation, repartees, and laughter. Some of
the soldiers wrestled with their mates; others played hop, skip and
jump; others chewed on their hard-tack, or, to pass away the time,
engaged in drumming the different roll-calls. Meantime the fog slowly
began to lift in the east, the dampness became more palpable, and the
surrounding objects gradually made themselves manifest emerging from
the darkness.
I already began to make out the green caissons and gun-carriages, the
brass cannon wet with mist, the familiar forms of my soldiers whom I
knew even to the least details, the sorrel horses, and the files of
infantry, with their bright bayonets, their knapsacks, ramrods, and
canteens on their backs.
We were quickly in motion again, and, after going a few hundred paces
where there was no road, were shown the appointed place. On the right
were seen the steep banks of a winding river and the high posts of a
Tatar burying-ground. At the left and in front of us, through the fog,
appeared the black belt. The platoon got under way with the limbers.
The eighth company, which was protecting us, stacked their arms, and a
battalion of soldiers with muskets and axes started for the forest.
Not five minutes had elapsed when on all sides piles of wood began to
crackle and smoke; the soldiers swarmed about, fanning the fires with
their hands and feet, lugging brush-wood and logs; and in the forest
were heard the incessant strokes of a hundred axes and the crash of
falling trees.
The artillery, with not a little spirit of rivalry with the infantry,
heaped up their piles; and soon the fire was already so well under way
that it was impossible to get within a couple of paces of it. The
dense black smoke arose through the icy branches, from which the water
dropped hissing into the flames, as the soldiers heaped them upon the
fire; and the glowing coals dropped down upon the dead white grass
exposed by the heat. It was all mere boy's play to the soldiers; they
dragged great logs, threw on the tall steppe grass, and fanned the fire
more and more.
As I came near a bonfire to light a cigarette, Velenchúk, always
officious, but, now that he had been found napping, showing himself
more actively engaged about the fire than any one else, in an excess
of zeal seized a coal with his naked hand from the very middle of
the fire, tossed it from one palm to the other, two or three times,
and flung it on the ground. "Light a match and give it to him," said
another. "Bring a lintstock, fellows," said still a third.
When I at last lighted my cigarette without the aid of Velenchúk, who
tried to bring another coal from the fire, he rubbed his burnt fingers
on the back of his sheepskin coat, and, doubtless for the sake of
exercising himself, seized a great plane-tree stump, and with a mighty
swing flung it on the fire. When at last it seemed to him that he might
rest, he went close to the fire, spread out his cloak, which he wore
like a mantle fastened at the back by a single button, stretched his
legs, folded his great black hands in his lap, and opening his mouth a
little, closed his eyes.
"Alas![2] I forgot my pipe! What a shame, fellows!" he said after a
short silence, and not addressing anybody in particular.
[Footnote 1: Yunker (German _Junker_) is a non-commissioned officer
belonging to the nobility. Count Tolstoi himself began his military
service in the Caucasus as a Yunker.]
[Footnote 2: _Ekh-ma._]