Evert one who has been in action has doubtless experienced the strange
although illogical but still powerful feeling of repulsion for the
place in which any one has been killed or wounded. My soldiers were
noticeably affected by this feeling at the first moment when it became
necessary to lift Velenchúk and carry him to the wagon which had driven
up. Zhdánof angrily went to the sufferer, and, notwithstanding his
cry of anguish, took him under his arms and lifted him. "What are you
standing there for? Help lug him!" he shouted; and instantly the men
sprang to his assistance, some of whom could not do any good at all.
But they had scarcely started to move him from the place when Velenchúk
began to scream fearfully and to struggle.
"What are you screeching for, like a rabbit?" said Antónof, holding him
roughly by the leg. "If you don't stop we'll drop you."
And the sufferer really calmed down, and only occasionally cried out,
"_Okh!_ I'm dead! _o-okh,_ fellows![13] I'm dead!"
As soon as they laid him in the wagon, he ceased to groan, and I
heard that he said something to his comrades--it must have been a
farewell--in a weak but audible voice.
Indeed, no one likes to look at a wounded man; and I, instinctively
hastening to get away from this spectacle, ordered the men to take him
as soon as possible to a suitable place, and then return to the guns.
But in a few minutes I was told that Velenchúk was asking for me, and I
returned to the ambulance.
The wounded man lay on the wagon bottom, holding the sides with both
hands. His healthy, broad face had in a few seconds entirely changed;
he had, as it were, grown gaunt, and older by several years. His lips
were pinched and white, and tightly compressed, with evident effort
at self-control; his glance had a quick and feeble expression; but
in his eyes was a peculiarly clear and tranquil gleam, and on his
blood-stained forehead and nose already lay the seal of death.
In spite of the fact that the least motion caused him unendurable
anguish, he was trying to take from his left leg his purse,[14] which
contained money.
A fearfully burdensome thought came into my mind when I saw his bare,
white, and healthy-looking leg as he was taking off his boot and
untying his purse.
"There are three silver rubles and a fifty_-kopek_ piece," he said when
I took the girdle-purse. "You keep them."
The ambulance had started to move, but he stopped it.
"I was working on a cloak for Lieutenant Sulimovsky. He had paid me
two-o-o silver rubles. I spent one and a half on buttons, but half a
ruble lies with the buttons in my bag. Give them to him."
"Very good, I will," said I. "Keep up good hopes, brother."
He did not answer me; the wagon moved away, and he began once more
to groan, and to exclaim "_Okh!"_ in the same terribly heart-rending
tone. As though he had done with earthly things, he felt that he had
no longer any pretext for self-restraint, and he now considered this
alleviation permissible.
[Footnote 13: _bratsuí moï._]
[Footnote 14: _chéres;_ diminutive, _chéresok,--_a leather purse in the
form of a girdle, which soldiers wear usually under the knee.--AUTHOR'S
NOTE.]