Vlang found his battery again in the second line of defence, and of the
twenty soldiers who recently composed it, only eight were alive.
Towards nine o’clock in the evening Vlang and his men were crossing the
bay in a steamboat in the direction of Severnaïa. The boat was laden
with wounded, with cannon, and with horses. The firing had stopped
everywhere. The stars sparkled in the sky as on the night before, but a
strong wind was blowing and the sea was rough. On the first and second
bastions flames flashed up close to the ground, preceding explosions
which shook the atmosphere and showed stones and black objects of
strange form thrown into the air. Something near the docks was on fire,
and a red flame was reflected in the water. The bridge, covered with
people, was lighted up by fires from the Nicholas battery. A great sheaf
of flames seemed to rise over the water on the distant point of the
Alexander battery, and lighted up the under side of a cloud of smoke
which hovered over it. As on the preceding evening, the lights of the
hostile fleet sparkled afar on the sea, calm and insolent. The masts of
our scuttled vessels, slowly settling into the depths of the water,
contrasted sharply against the red glow of the fires. On the deck of the
steamboat no one spoke. Now and then, in the midst of the regular
chopping of the waves struck by the wheels, and the hissing of escaping
steam, could be heard the snorting of horses, the striking of their
iron-shod hoofs on the planks, the captain speaking a few words of
command, and also the dolorous groaning of the wounded. Vlang, who had
not eaten since the day before, drew a crust of bread from his pocket
and gnawed it, but at the thought of Volodia he broke out sobbing so
violently that the soldiers were surprised at it.
“Look! our Vlang is eating bread and weeping,” said Vassina.
“Strange!” added one of them.
“See! they have burned our barracks!” he continued, sighing. “How many
of our fellows are dead, and dead to no purpose, for the French have got
possession!”
“We have scarcely come out alive. We must thank God for it,” said
Vassina.
“It’s all the same. It is maddening!”
“Why? Do you think they will lead a happy life there? Wait a bit; we
will take them back. We will still lose some of our men, possibly, but
as true as God is holy, if the emperor orders it we will take them back!
Do you think they have been left as they were? Come, come; these were
only naked walls. The intrenchments were blown up. He has planted his
flag on the mamelon, it is true, but he won’t risk himself in the town.
Wait a bit; we won’t be behindhand with you! Only give us time,” he
said, looking in the direction of the French.
“It will be so, that’s sure,” said another, with conviction.
On the whole line of the bastions of Sebastopol, where during whole
months an ardent and energetic life was stirring, where during months
death alone relieved the agony of the heroes, one after the other, who
inspired the enemy’s terror, hatred, and finally admiration--on these
bastions, I say, there was not a single soul, everything there was dead,
fierce, frightful, but not silent, for everything all around was falling
in with a din. On the earth, torn up by a recent explosion, were lying,
here and there, broken beams, crushed bodies of Russians and French,
heavy cast-iron cannon overturned into the ditch by a terrible force,
half buried in the ground and forever dumb, bomb-shells, balls,
splinters of beams, ditches, bomb-proofs, and more corpses, in blue or
in gray overcoats, which seemed to have been shaken by supreme
convulsions, and which were lighted up now every instant by the red fire
of the explosions which resounded in the air.
The enemy well saw that something unusual was going on in formidable
Sebastopol, and the explosions, the silence of death on the bastions,
made them tremble. Under the impression of the calm and firm resistance
of the last day they did not yet dare believe in the disappearance of
their invincible adversary, and they awaited, silent and motionless,
the end of the dismal night.
The army of Sebastopol, like a sea whose liquid mass, agitated and
uneasy, spreads and overflows, moved slowly forward in the dark night,
undulating into the impenetrable gloom, over the bridge on the bay,
proceeding towards Severnaïa, leaving behind them those spots where so
many heroes had fallen, sprinkling them with their blood, those places
defended during eleven months against an enemy twice as strong as
itself, and which it had received the order this very day to abandon
without a fight.
The first impression caused by this order of the day weighed heavily on
the heart of every Russian; next the fear of pursuit was the dominant
feeling with all. The soldiers, accustomed to fight in the places they
were abandoning, felt themselves without defence the moment they left
those behind. Uneasy, they crowded together in masses at the entrance of
the bridge, which was lifted by violent wind gusts. Through the
obstruction of regiments, of militiamen, of wagons, some crowding the
others, the infantry, whose muskets clashed together, and the officers
carrying orders, made a passage for themselves with difficulty. The
inhabitants and the military servants accompanying the baggage begged
and wept to be permitted to cross, while the artillery, in a hurry to go
away, rolled along noisily, coming down towards the bay. Although the
attention was distracted by a thousand details, the feeling of
self-preservation, and the desire to fly as soon as possible from that
fatal spot, filled each one’s soul. It was thus with the mortally
wounded soldier lying among five hundred other unfortunates on the
flag-stones of the Paul quay, begging God for death; with the exhausted
militiaman, who by a last effort forces his way into the compact crowd
to leave a free passage for a superior officer; with the general who is
commanding the passage with a firm voice, and restraining the impatient
soldiers; with the straggling sailor or the battalion on the march,
almost stifled by the moving crowd; with the wounded officer borne by
four soldiers, who, stopped by the crowd, lay down the stretcher near
the Nicholas barracks; with the old artilleryman, who, during sixteen
years, has not left the cannon which, with the assistance of his
comrades and at the command of his chief, incomprehensible for him, he
is about to tumble over into the bay; and, at length, with the sailors
who have just scuttled their ships, and are vigorously rowing away in
their boats.
Arrived at the end of the bridge, each soldier, with very few
exceptions, takes off his cap and crosses himself. But besides this
feeling he has another, more poignant, deeper--a feeling akin to
repentance, to shame, to hatred; for it is with an inexpressible
bitterness of heart that each of them sighs, utters threats against the
enemy, and, as he reaches the north side, throws a last look upon
abandoned Sebastopol.