THE INVISIBLE BATTLE
On the evening of the following day Trenchard, Andrey Vassilievitch
and I were sent with sanitars and wagons to the little hamlet of
M----, five versts only from the Position. It was night when we
arrived there; no sound of cannon, only on the high hills (the first
lines of the Carpathians) that faced us the scattered watchfires of
our own Sixty-Fifth Division, and in the little village street a line
of cavalry moving silently, without a spoken word, on to the high-road
beyond. After much difficulty (the village was filled with the
officers of the Sixty-Fifth) we found a kitchen in which we might
sleep. Upon the rough earth floor our mattresses were spread, my feet
under the huge black oven, my head beneath a gilt picture of the
Virgin and Child that in the candlelight bowed and smiled, in company
with eight other pictures of Virgins and Children, to give us
confidence and encouragement.
It was a terrible night. On a high pillared bed set into the farther
wall, an old Galician woman, her head bound up in a red handkerchief,
knelt all night and prayed aloud. Her daughter crouched against the
wall, sleeping, perhaps, but nevertheless rocking ceaselessly a wooden
cradle that hung from a black bar in the ceiling. In this cradle lay
her son, aged one or two, and once and again he cried for half an hour
or so, protesting, I suppose, against our invasion. There was a smell
in the kitchen of sour bread, mice, and bad water. The heat was
terrible but the old lady told us that the grandchild was ill and
would certainly die were the window opened. The candle we blew out but
there remained a little burning lamp under the picture of the Virgin
immediately over the old lady's bed. I slept, but for how long I do
not know. I was only aware that suddenly I was awake, staring through
the tiny diamond-paned window, at the faint white light now breaking
in the sky. I could see from my mattress only a thin strip of this
light above the heavy mass of dark forest on the mountain-side.
I must have been still only half-awake because I could not clearly
divide, before my eyes, the true from the false. I could see quite
plainly in the dim white shadow the face of Trenchard; he was not
asleep, but was leaning on his elbow staring in front of him. I could
see the old woman with her red handkerchief kneeling in front of her
lamp and her prayer came like the turning of a wheel, harsh and
incessant. The cradle creaked, in the air was the heavy smell, and
suddenly, beyond the window, a cock crowed. These things were real.
But also I seemed to be in some place much vaster than the stuffy
kitchen of the night before. Under the light that was with every
minute growing stronger, I could fancy that many figures were moving
in the shadows; it seemed to me as though I were in some place where
great preparations were being made. I fancied then that I could
discern Marie Ivanovna's figure, then Nikitin, then Semyonov, then
Molozov.... There was a great silence but I felt that every one was
busily occupied in making ready for some affair. This was with half my
consciousness--with the other half I was perfectly aware of the actual
room, of Trenchard, the creaking cradle and the rest.
Then the forest that had been on the hills seemed to draw closer to
the house. I felt that it had invaded the garden and that its very
branches were rubbing against the windows. With all of this I was
aware that I was imagining some occurrence that I had already seen,
that was not, in any way, new to me, I was assured of the next event.
When we, all of us, Marie Ivanovna, Semyonov, Nikitin and the rest,
were ready we should move out into the forest, would stand, a vast
company, with our dogs and horses....
Why, it was Trenchard's dream that I was seeing! I was merely
repeating to myself his own imaginations--and with that I had
suddenly, as though some one had hypnotised me, fallen back into a
heavy dreamless sleep. It was already midday when I was wakened by
little Andrey Vassilievitch, who, sitting on my bed and evidently in a
state of the very greatest excitement, informed me that Dr. Semyonov
and the Sisters Marie Ivanovna and Anna Petrovna had arrived from ----,
and that we might be off at any moment. I was aware, as he
spoke, of a great stir beyond the window and saw, passing up through
the valley, a flood of soldiers, infantry, cavalry, kitchens with
clumsy black funnels bobbing on their unsteady wheels, cannon,
hundreds of carts; the soldiers came up through our own garden
treading down the cabbages, stopping at the well near our door and
filling their tin kettles, tramping up the road, spreading, like
smoke, in the far distance, up the high road that led into the
furthest forest.
"They say--to-night--for certain," said Andrey Vassilievitch, his fat
hand trembling on my bed. He began to talk, his voice shaking with
excitement. "Do you know, Ivan Andreievitch, I am continually
surprised at myself: 'Here you are, Andrey Vassilievitch, here, at the
war. What do you make of it?? I say to myself. Just consider.... No,
but seriously, Ivan Andreievitch, of course I must seem to all of you
something of a comic figure. When my wife was alive--how I wish that
you could have known her! Such a remarkable woman; every one who met
her was struck by her fine character--when my wife was alive I had my
position to support. That I should have been a comic figure would have
distressed her. But now, who cares? Nobody, you may very truly say....
Well, well. But the point is that this evening we shall really be in
the thick of it. And--may I tell you something, Ivan Andreievitch?
Only for yourself, because you are an Englishman and can be trusted:
to speak quite truthfully I'm frightened. I say to myself that one is
at the war and that one must be frightened at nothing, and still I
remain frightened.... Frightened of what?... I really cannot tell you.
Death, perhaps? But no, I should not be sorry to die--there are
reasons....
"And yet although I should not be sorry to die, I remain
frightened--all night I was awake--I do my utmost to control it, but
there is something stronger than I--something. I feel as though if I
once discovered what that something was I should not be frightened any
longer. Something definite that you could meet and say to yourself:
'There, Andrey Vassilievitch, you're not frightened of _that_, are
you? What is there to be frightened of?... Why then, you know, I don't
believe I should be frightened any more!'"
I remember that he then explained to me that he wished Nikitin had
been sent instead of Semyonov. Nikitin was much more sympathetic.
"You seem very fond of Nikitin," I said.
"We are friends ... we have been friends for many years. My wife was
very fond of him. I am a lonely man, Ivan Andreievitch, since the
death of my wife, and to be with any one who knew her is a great
happiness ... yes, a great happiness."
"And Semyonov?" I asked.
"I have nothing to say against Alexei Petrovitch," he answered
stiffly.
When later I joined the others at the cottage higher up the road taken
by the doctors of the Division, I discovered Trenchard in an ecstasy
of happiness. He did not speak to me but his shining eyes, the
eagerness with which standing back from the group he watched us all,
told me everything. Marie Ivanovna had been kind to him, and when I
found her in the centre of them, her whole body alert with excitement,
I forgot my anger at her earlier unkindness or, if I remembered it,
laid it to the charge of my own imagination or Trenchard's
sensitiveness.
Indeed we were all excited. How could we fail to be! There was some
big business toward, and in it we were to have our share. We were,
perhaps this very day, to penetrate into the reality of the thing that
for nine months now we had been watching. All of us, with our little
private histories like bundles on our backs, are venturing out to try
our fortune.... What are we going to find?
I remember indeed that early on that afternoon I felt the drama of the
whole affair so heavily that I saw in every soldier who passed me a
messenger of fate. They called me to a meal. Eat! Now! How absurd it
seemed! Semyonov watched me cynically:
"Eat and then sleep," he said, "or you'll be no use to any one."
Afterwards I went back to the kitchen and slept. That sleep was the
end of my melodrama. I was awakened by a rough hand on my shoulder to
find it dark beyond the windows and Semyonov watching me impatiently:
"Come, get up! It's time for us to start," and then moved out. I was
conscious that I was cold and irritable. I looked back with surprised
contempt to my earlier dramatic emotions. I was hungry; I put on my
overcoat, shivered, came out into the evening, saw the line of wagons
silhouetted against the sky, listened to the perfect quiet on every
side of me, yawned and was vexed to find Trenchard at my side.
"Why this is actually dull!" I thought to myself. "It is as though I
were going to some dinner that I know beforehand will be exceedingly
tiresome--only then I should get some food."
I was disappointed at the lack of drama in the affair. I looked at my
watch--it was ten o'clock. Semyonov was arranging everything with a
masterly disregard of personal feelings. He swore fine Russian oaths,
abused the sanitars, always in his cold rather satirical voice, his
heavy figure moving up and down the road with a practical vivid
alertness that stirred my envy and also my annoyance. I felt utterly
useless. He ordered me on to my wagon in a manner that, in my present
half-sleepy, half-surly mood seemed to me abominably abrupt. Trenchard
climbed up, very clumsily, after me.
I leaned back on the straw, let my arms fall and lay there, flat on my
back, staring straight into the sky.... With that my mood suddenly
changed. I was at peace with the whole world. To-night was again thick
with a heavy burden of stars that seemed to weigh like the silver lid
of some mighty box heavily down, down upon us, until trees and hills
and the dim Carpathians were bent flat beneath the pressure. I lying
upon my back, seeing only that sheet of stars, in my nostrils the
smell of the straw, rocked by the slow dreamy motion of the wagon, was
filled with an exquisite ease and lethargy. I was going into battle,
was I? I was to have to-night the supreme experience of my life? It
might be that to-night I should die--only last week two members of the
Red Cross--a nurse and a doctor--had been killed. It might be that
these stars, this straw, this quiet night were round me for the last
time. It did not matter to me--nothing could touch me. My soul was
somewhere far away, upon some business of its own, and how happy was
my body without the soul, how contented, how undisturbed! I could
fancy that I should go, thus rocking, into battle and there die before
my soul had time to return to me. What would my soul do then? Find
some other body, or go wandering, searching for me? A star, a flash of
light like a cry of happiness or of glad surprise, fell through heaven
and the other stars trembled at the sight.
My wagon stopped with a jerk. Some voice asked: what the devil were we
doing filling the road with our carts at the exact moment that
such-and-such a Division wished to move.
I heard Semyonov's voice, very cold, official and polite. Then again:
"Well, in God's name, hurry then! ... taking up the road! ... hurry, I
tell you!"
On we jogged again. Trenchard's voice came to me: he had been, it
might be, talking for some time.
"And so I'm not surprised, Durward, that you thought me a terrible
fool to show my feelings as I've done this last fortnight. But you
don't know what it is to me--to have something at last in your hands
that you've dreamed of all your life and never dared to hope for: to
have it and feel that at any moment it may slip away and leave you in
a worse state than you were before. I'd been wishing, these last
weeks, that I'd never met her, that I'd simply come to the war by
myself. But now--to-day--when she spoke to me as she did, asked me to
forgive her for what happened last night, my God, Durward! _I_ to
forgive _her_!... But I'll show her this very night what I can
do--this very night! They'll give me a chance, won't they? It would be
terrible if they didn't. Semyonov won't give me a chance if he can
help it. What have I done to Semyonov that he should hate me? What
have...."
But I didn't answer Trenchard. That part of me that had any concern
with him and his affairs was far away. But his voice had stirred some
more active life in me. I thought to myself now: Will there be some
concrete definite moment in this affair when I shall say to myself:
"Ah, there it is! There's the heart of this whole business! There's
the enemy! Slay him and you have settled the matter!" or, perhaps,
"Ah, now I've seen the secret. Now I've hunted the animal to his lair.
This is war, this thing here. Now all my days I remain quiet. There is
nothing more to fear"--or would it be perhaps that I should face
something and be filled, then, with ungovernable terror so that I
should run for my life, run, hide me in the hills, cover up my days so
that no one shall ever find me again?...
I raised myself on my elbow and looked at the country. We jolted over
a little brook, brushed through a thicket of trees, came on to a path
running at the forest's foot, and saw on our left a little wooden
house, a high wood fire burning in front of it. I looked at my watch.
It was one o'clock. Already a very faint glow throbbed in the sky. Out
of the forest, at long intervals, came a dull booming sound like the
shutting of a heavy iron door.
The wagons drew up. We had arrived at our destination.
"We shall be here," I heard Semyonov say, "some five hours or so.
You'd better sleep if you can."
A group of soldiers round the wood fire were motionless, their faces
glowing, their bodies dark. Our wagons, drawn up together, resembled
in the twilight strange beasts; the two Sisters lay down on one wagon,
Semyonov, Andrey Vassilievitch, Trenchard and I on another. My
irritated mood had returned. I had been the last to climb on to the
straw and the others had so settled themselves that I had no room to
lie flat. Semyonov's big body occupied half the wagon, Andrey
Vassilievitch's boots touched my head and at intervals his whole body
gave nervous jerks. It was also quite bitterly cold, which was curious
enough after the warmth of the earlier nights. And always, at what
seemed to be regular intervals, there came, from the forest, the
banging of the iron door.
I felt a passionate irritation against Andrey Vassilievitch. Why could
he not keep quiet? What, after all, was he doing here? I could hear
that he was dreaming. He muttered some woman's name:
"Sasha ... Sasha ... Sasha...."
"Can't you keep still?" I whispered to him, but in the cold I myself
was trembling. The dawn came at last with reluctance, flushing the air
with colour, then withdrawing into cold grey clouds, then stealing out
once more behind the forest in scattered strips of pale green gold,
then suddenly sending up into the heaven a flock of pink clouds like a
flight of birds, that spread in extending lines to the horizon,
covering at last a sky now faintly blue, with rosy bars. The flame of
the soldiers' fire grew faint, white mists rose in the fields, the
cannon in the forest ceased and the birds began.
I sat up on the cart, looked at my sleeping companions, and thought
how unpleasant they looked. Semyonov like a dead man, Andrey
Vassilievitch like a happy pig, Trenchard like a child who slept
after a scolding. I felt intense loneliness. I wanted some one to
comfort me, to reassure me against life which seemed to me suddenly
now perilous and remorseless; moreover some one seemed to be reviewing
my life for me and displaying it to me, laying bare all its
uselessness and insignificance.
"But I'm in no way a fine fellow," I could fancy myself crying. "I'm
sleepy and cold and hungry. If you'll remove Andrey Vassilievitch's
boots for me I'll lie flat on this wagon and you can let loose every
shrapnel in the world over my head and I'll never stir. I thought I
was interested in your war, and I'm not.... I thought no discomfort
mattered to me, but I find that I dislike so much being cold and
hungry that it outweighs all heroism, all sense of danger ... let me
alone!"
Then something occurred. Looking down over the side of the cart I saw,
to my great surprise, Marie Ivanovna.
"You!" I whispered.
"Hush!" she answered. "Come down."
I let myself down and at once she put her hand into mine.
"Walk with me just a little way," she whispered, "to those trees and
back." I had noticed at once that her voice trembled; now I perceived
that her whole body was shaking; her hand gave little startled quivers
under mine.
"You're cold," I said.
"No, I'm not cold," she answered still in a whisper, although we were
now some way from the wagons. "I'm frightened, Mr. Durward, that's
what's the matter--desperately frightened."
"Nonsense," I answered her. "You! Frightened! Never!"
"But I am. I've been terribly fr-frightened all night; and that
Sister Anna Petrovna, he (she sometimes confused her pronouns) sleeps
like a log. How can he? I've never slept, not for a moment, and I've
been so cold and every time the cannon sounded I wanted to run
away.... Oh, Mr. Durward, I'm so ashamed!"
Then, suddenly, desperately clutching my hand:
"Mr. Durward, you'll never tell any one, any one never.... Promise!"
"Never a soul," I answered. "It's only because you're cold and hungry
and sleepy that you think you're frightened. You're not frightened
really. But wouldn't you like me to wake Trenchard and get him to come
to you.... He'd be so happy?..."
She started fiercely from me. "Never! Never! Why, what _can_ you
think! You must never tell, most of all you must never tell him.... He
must _never_ know--nothing--"
The cannon began again. She caught my arm and stood with her body
trembling, pressed against mine. I could feel her draw a deep breath.
As I looked at her, her face white in the dawn, her large eyes staring
like a child's, her body so young and slender, she seemed another
creature, utterly, absolutely apart from the woman of this last
fortnight.
"Look here!" I said to her sternly. "You mustn't go on like this.
You've got work to do to-day. You've simply got to hold yourself in,
to tell yourself that nothing can touch you. Why to-night you'll laugh
at me if I remind you of this. You'll...."
But there was better tonic than my words, Semyonov's voice came to
us--"Hullo, you there! It's five o'clock--we're moving."
She drew herself sharply away from me. She raised her head, smiled at
me, then said:
"Thank you, Mr. Durward. It's all well now. There's Dr. Semyonov--let
us go back."
She greeted him with a voice that had in it not the slightest tremor.
There comes now a difficult matter. During the later months when I was
to reflect on the whole affair I saw quite clearly that that hour
between our leaving the wooden house and arriving in the trenches
bridged quite clearly for me the division in this business between
imagination and reality: that is, I was never after this to speak of
war as I would have spoken of it an hour before. I was never again to
regard the paraphernalia of it with the curiosity of a stranger--I had
become part of it. This hour then may be regarded as in some ways the
most important of all my experiences. It is certainly the occasion to
which if I were using my invention I should make the most. Here then
is my difficulty.
I have nothing to say about it. There's nothing at all to be made of
it....
I may say at once that there was no atom of drama in it. At one moment
I was standing with Marie Ivanovna under the sunrise, at another I was
standing behind a trench in the heart of the forest with a battery to
my left and a battery to my right, a cuckoo somewhere not very far
away, and a dead man with his feet sticking out from under the cloth
that covered him peacefully beneath a tree at my side. There had, of
course, been that drive in the wagons, bumping over the uneven road
whilst the sun rose gallantly in the heavens and the clanging of the
iron door grew, with every roll of our wheels, louder and louder. But
it was rather as though I had been lifted in a sheet from one life--a
life of speculation, of viewing war from a superior and safe
distance, of viewing indeed all catastrophe and reality from that same
distance--into the other. I had been caught up, had hung for a moment
in midair, had been "planted" in this new experience. For us all there
must have been at this moment something of this passing from an old
life into a new one, and yet I dare swear that not for any one of us
was there any drama, any thrill, any excitement. We stood, a rather
lonely little group, in the forest clearing whilst the soldiers in the
trench flung us a careless glance, then turned back to their business
of the day with an indifference that showed how ordinary and drab a
thing custom had made it.
Yes, we made a desolate little group. Semyonov had gone to a house on
the farther side of the road up which we had come, a house that flew
the Red Cross flag. We had only the right to care for the wounded of
certain Divisions and our presence had to be reported. We were left
then, Marie Ivanovna, Anna Petrovna, Andrey Vassilievitch, Trenchard
and I, all rather close together, uncomfortable, desolate and shy, as
boys feel on their first day at school. The battery on our left was
very near to us and we could see the sharp flash of its flame behind
the trees. The noise that it made was terrific, a sharp, angry, clumsy
noise, as though some huge giant clad in mail armour was flinging his
body, in a violent rage, against an iron door that echoed through an
empty house--my same iron door that I had heard all night. The rage of
the giant spread beyond his immediate little circle of trees and one
wondered at the men in the trenches because they were indifferent to
his temper.
The noise of the more distant batteries was still, as it had been
before, like the clanging of many iron doors very mild and gentle
against the clamour of our own enraged fury. The Austrian reply seemed
like the sleepy echo of this confusion, so sleepy and pleasant that
one felt almost friendly to the enemy.
Our own battery was inconsistent in his raging. Had he only chosen to
fling himself at his door every three minutes, say, or even every
minute, we could have prepared ourselves, but he was moved by nothing,
apparently, but his own irrational impulse. There would be a pause of
two minutes, then three furious explosions, then a pause of five
minutes, then another explosion.... I mastered quickly my impulse to
leap into the air at every report, by a kind of prolonged extension in
my mind of one report into another. Little Andrey Vassilievitch was
not so successful. At each explosion his body jerked as though it had
been worked by wires; then he glanced round to see whether any one had
noticed his agitation, then drew himself up, brushed off imaginary
dust from his uniform, coughed and frowned. Trenchard stood close to
Marie Ivanovna and looked at her anxiously once or twice as though he
would like to speak to her, but she, holding herself very stiffly,
watched with sternness the whole world as though she personally had
arranged the spectacle and was responsible for its success.
Soon Semyonov came back and said that he must go on to some further
trenches to discover the best position for us. To my intense surprise
Andrey Vassilievitch asked whether he might accompany him. I fancy
that he felt that he would venture anything to escape our adjacency to
the battery.
So they departed, leaving us more forlorn than before We sat down on
the stretchers: Anna Petrovna, fat, heavy, phlegmatic, silent; Marie
Ivanovna silent too but with a look now of expectation in her eyes as
though she knew that something was coming for her very shortly;
Trenchard near her, trying to be cheerful, but conscious of the dead
soldier under the tree from whom he seemed unable to remove his eyes.
There was, in the open space near us, a _kipiatilnik_, that is, a
large boiler on wheels in which tea is made. To this the soldiers were
crowding with their tin cans; the cuckoo, far away now, continued his
cry....
At long intervals, out of the forest, a wounded soldier would appear.
He seemed to be always the same figure, sometimes wounded in the head,
sometimes in the leg, sometimes in the stomach, sometimes in the
hand--but always the same, with a look in his eyes of mild protest
because this had happened to him, also a look of dumb confidence that
some one somewhere would make things right for him. He came either to
us or to the Red Cross building across the road, according to his
company. One soldier with a torn thumb cried bitterly, looking at his
thumb and shaking his head at it, but he alone showed any emotion. The
others suffered the sting of the iodine without a word, walking off
when they were bandaged, or carried by our sanitars on the stretchers,
still with that look of wonder and trust in their eyes.
And how glad we were when there was any work to do! The sun rose high
in the sky, the morning advanced, Semyonov and Andrey Vassilievitch
did not return. For the greater part of the time we did not speak, nor
move. I was conscious of an increasing rage against the battery. I
felt that if it was to cease I might observe, be interested, feel
excitement--as it was, it kept everything from me. It kept everything
from me because it insistently demanded my attention, like a vulgar
garrulous neighbour who persists in his tiresome story. Its perpetual
hammering had soon its physical effect. A sick headache crept upon me,
seized me, held me. I might look at the soldiers, sleeping now like
dead men in the trench, I might look at the Red Cross flag lazily
flapping in the breeze across the road, I might look at the corpse
with the soiled marble feet under the tree, I might look at Trenchard
and Marie Ivanovna silent and unhappy on the stretchers, on Anna
Petrovna comfortably slumbering with an open mouth, I might listen to
the distant batteries, to the sudden quick impatient chatter of the
machine guns, to the rattling give-and-take of the musketry somewhere
far away where the river was, I might watch the cool green hollows of
the forest glades, the dark sleepy shadows, the bright patches of
burning sky between the branches, I might say to myself that all these
things together made the impression of my first battle ... and then
would know, in my heart, that there was no impression at all, no
thrill, no drama, no personality--only a sick throb in my head and a
cold hand upon my chest and a desire to fling myself into any horror,
any danger, if I could but escape this indigestible monotony....
Once Trenchard, treading very softly as though every one around him
were asleep, came across and talked to me.
"You know," he said in a whisper, "this isn't at all what I expected."
"You needn't whisper," I answered irritably, "that battery's making
such a noise that I can't hear anything you say."
"Yes, isn't it!" he said with a little sigh. "It's very unpleasant
indeed. Do you think Semyonov's forgotten us? We've been here a good
many hours and we aren't doing very much."
"No," I answered. "We're doing nothing except get sick headaches."
There was a pause, then he said:
"Where is everything?"
"Everything?--What?"
"Well, the battle, for instance!"
"Oh, that's down the hill, I suppose. We're trying to cross the river
and they're trying to prevent us."
"Yes," he answered. "But that isn't exactly what I mean.... It's hard
to explain, but even if we were to see our soldiers trying to cross
the river and the Austrians trying to prevent them that wouldn't
be--well, wouldn't be exactly the real thing, would it? It would only
be a kind of side-show, rather unimportant like that dead man there!"
But my headache prevented my interest in his speculations. I said
nothing.
He added as though to himself:
"Perhaps each individual soldier sees the real thing for himself but
can't express what he sees...."
As I still made no answer, with another little sigh he got up and
walked back, on tip-toe, to the side of Marie Ivanovna.
Then suddenly, in the early hours of the afternoon, to our intense
relief, Semyonov and Andrey Vassilievitch appeared. Semyonov was, as
ever, short, practical, and unemotional.
"Been a long time, I'm afraid. We found it difficult to see exactly
where would be the best place. And, after all, we've got to
separate.... One Sister's wanted at the Red Cross over there. They've
asked for our help. The other will come with me on to the Position
until this evening. You three gentlemen, if you'll be so good, will
wait here until a wagon comes. Then it will take you down to the
trenches at the bottom of the hill. Then, if you don't mind, I would
like you to wait until dusk when we shall go out to fetch the
wounded.... Is that clear?"
We answered yes.
"Now which Sister will come with me? Marie Ivanovna, I think it would
interest you. No danger, except a stray shrapnel or two. Will you
come?"
There leapt upon us then, with an agitation that seemed to silence the
very battery itself, Trenchard's voice:
"No.... No ... Marie. No, it's dangerous. Semyonov says so. Your first
day...."
He spoke in English, his voice trembling. I turned to see his face
white, his eyes wide open and at the same time blind; he passionately
addressed himself to Marie Ivanovna and to her alone.
But she turned impatiently.
"Why, of course, Doctor. I'm ready at once."
Trenchard put his hand on her arm.
"You are not to go--Marie, do you hear? I have a right ... I tell you,
you are not to go!"
"Don't be so stupid, John," she shook off his arm. "Please, Doctor,
I'm ready."
Semyonov turned to Trenchard with a smile: "Mr. (they all called him
Mr. now), it will be quite well ... I will look after her."
"You ... you" (Trenchard could not control his voice), "you can't
prevent shrapnel--bullets. You don't care, you...."
Semyonov's voice was sharp: "I think it better that Sister Marie
Ivanovna should come with me. You understand, the rest of you.... We
shall meet at dusk."
Trenchard only said "Marie ..." then turned away from us. Anna
Petrovna, who had said nothing during this scene and had, indeed,
seemed to be oblivious of it, plunged with her heavy clumsy walk
across the road to the Red Cross house. The Doctor and Marie Ivanovna
disappeared behind the trench. I was, as was always my case with
Trenchard, both sympathetic and irritated. It was difficult for him,
of course, but what did he expect the girl to do? Could he have
supposed for a single moment that she would remain? Could it be
possible that he knew her so little as that? And why make a scene now
before Semyonov when he obviously could do nothing? I knew, moreover,
with a certainty that was almost ironic in its clarity, that Marie
Ivanovna did not love, did not, perhaps, even care for him. By what
moment in Petrograd, a moment flaming with their high purposes and the
purple shadows of a Russian "white night," had she been entranced into
some glorious vision of him? On the very day that followed, she had
known, I was convinced, her mistake. At the station she had known it,
and instead of the fine Sir Galahad "without reproach" of the previous
night she saw some figure that, had she been English born, would have
appeared to her as Alice's White Knight perchance, or at best the
warm-hearted Uncle Toby, or that most Christian of English
heroes--Parson Adams. I could imagine that life had been so impulsive,
so straightforward, so simple a thing to her that this sudden
implication in an affair complicated and even dishonest caused her
bitter disquiet. Looking back now I could trace again and again the
sudden flashes, through her happiness, of this distress.
He perhaps should have perceived it, but I could understand that he
could not believe that his treasure had at last after all these years
been given to him for so brief a moment. He could not, he would not,
believe it. Well, I knew that his eyes must very soon be opened to the
truth....
As I turned to see him sitting on the stretcher with his back to me,
his head hanging a little as though it were too heavy for his neck,
his back bent, his long arms fallen loose at his sides, I thought that
Alice's White Knight he, in solemn truth, presented.
He had a talent for doing things to his uniform. His cap, instead of
being raised in front, was flat, his jacket bulged out above his belt,
and the straps on his boot had broken from their holdings. He filled
the pockets of his trousers, in moments of absent-minded absorption,
with articles that he fancied that he would need--sometimes food,
black bread and sausage, sometimes a large pocket-knife, a folding
drinking glass, a ball of string, a notebook. These things protruded,
or gave his clothes a strange bulky look, fat in some places, thin in
others. As I saw him his shoulder-blades seemed to pierce his coat: I
could fancy with what agitation his hands were clenched.
We sat down, the three of us together, and again the battery leapt
upon us. Now the sun was hot above the trees and the effect of the
noise behind us was that we ourselves, every two or three minutes,
were caught up, flung to the ground, recovered, breathless, exhausted,
only to be hurled again!
How miserable we were, how lost, how desolate, Trenchard hearing in
every sound the death of his lady, Andrey Vassilievitch dreaming, I
fancy, that he had been caught in some cage out of which he would
never again escape. I, sick, almost blind with headache, and yet
exasperated, irritated by the emptiness of it all. If only we might
run down that hill! There surely we should find....
At the very moment when the battery had finished as it seemed to me
its work of smashing my head into pulp the wagon arrived.
"Now," I thought to myself as I climbed on to the straw, "I shall
begin to be excited!" We, all three of us, kneeling on the cart,
peered forward into the dim blue afternoon. We were very silent--only
once Trenchard said to me, "Perhaps we shall find her down here:
where we're going. What do you think, Durward?"
"I'm afraid not!" I answered. "But still she'll be all right. Semyonov
will look after her!"
"Oh! Semyonov!" he answered.
How joyful we were to leave our battery behind us. As the trees closed
around it we could fancy its baffled rage. Other batteries now seemed
to draw nearer to us and the whole forest was filled with childish
quarrelling giants; but as we began to bump down the hill out of the
forest stranger sounds attacked us. On either side of us were
cornfields and out of the heart of those from under our very feet as
it seemed there were explosions of a strange stinging metallic
kind--not angry and human as the battery had been, but rather like
some huge bottle cracking in the sun. These huge bottles--one could
fancy them green and shining somewhere in the corn--cracked one after
another; positively the sound intensified the heat of the sun upon
one's head. There were too now, for the first time in our experience,
shrapnel. They were not over us, but ran somewhere on our right across
the valley. Their sound was "fireworks" and nothing more--so that
alarm at their gentle holiday temper was impossible. Brock's Fireworks
on a Thursday evening at the Crystal Palace, oneself a small boy
sitting with both hands between one's knees, one's mouth open, a damp
box of chocolates on one's lap, the murmured "Ah ..." of the happy
crowd as the little gentle "Pop!" showed green and red against the
blue night sky. Ah! there was the little "Pop!" and after it a tiny
curling cloud of smoke in the air, the whole affair so gentle, so kind
even. There! sighing overhead they go! Five, six little curls of
smoke, and then beneath our very horses' feet again a huge green
bottle cracking in the sun!
And with all this noise not a living soul to be seen! We had before us
as we slowly bumped down the hill a fair view. The river was hidden
from us, but there was a little hamlet guarded happily by a green
wood; there was a line of fair hills, fields of corn, and the long
dusty white road. Not a soul to be seen, only our bumping cart and,
now and then, against the burning sky those little curling circles of
smoke. The world slumbered....
Suddenly from the ditch at the side of the road a soldier appeared,
spoke to our driver and disappeared again.
"What did he say?" I asked.
"He says, your Honour, that we must hasten. We may be hit."
"Hit here--on this road?"
"_Tak totchno._"
"Well, hurry then."
I caught a little frightened sigh behind me from Andrey Vassilievitch,
whom the events of the day had frozen into horror-stricken silence. We
hurried, bumping along; at the bottom of the hill there was a
farmhouse. From behind it an officer appeared.
"What are you doing there? You're under fire.... Red Cross? Ah yes, we
had a message about you. Dr. Semyonov?... Yes. Please come this way.
Hurry, please!"
We were led across the farmyard and almost tumbled into a trench at
the farther end of it.
It wasn't until I felt some one touch my shoulder that I realised my
position. We were sitting, the three of us, in a slanting fashion with
our backs to the earthworks of the trench. To our right, under an
improvised round roof, a little dried-up man like a bee, with his
tunic open at the neck and a beard of some days on his chin, was
calling down a telephone.
Next to me on the left a smart young officer, of a perfect neatness
and even dandiness, was eating his supper, which his servant,
crouching in front of him, ladled with a spoon out of a tin can.
Beyond him again the soldiers in a long line under the farm wall were
sewing their clothes, eating, talking in whispers, and one of them
reading a newspaper aloud to himself.
A barn opposite us in ruins showed between its bare posts the green
fields beyond. Now and then a soldier would move across the yard to
the door of the farm, and he seemed to slide with something between
walking and running, his shoulders bent, his head down. The sun, low
now, showed just above the end of the farm roof and the lines of light
were orange between the shadows of the barn. All the batteries seemed
now very far away; the only sound in the world was the occasional sigh
of the shrapnel. The farmyard was bathed in the peace of the summer
evening.
The Colonel, when he had finished his conversation with some humorous
sally that gave him great pleasure, greeted us.
"Very glad to see you, gentlemen.... Two Englishmen! Well, that's the
Alliance in very truth ... yes.... How's London, gentlemen? Yes,
_golubchik_, that small tin--the grey one. No, _durak_, the _small_
one. Dr. Semyonov sent a message. Pray make yourselves comfortable,
but don't raise your heads. They may turn their minds in this
direction at any moment again. We've had them once already this
afternoon. Eh, Piotr Ivanovitch (this to the smart young officer),
that would have made your Ekaterina Petrovna jump in her sleep--ha,
ha, ha--oh, yes, but I can see her jumping.... Hullo, telephone--Give
it here! That you, Ivan Leontievitch? No ... very well for the
moment.... Two Englishmen here sitting in my trench--truth itself!
Well, what about the Second 'Rota'? Are they coming down?... _Yeh
Bogu_, I don't know! What do you say?..."
The young officer, in a very gentle and melodious voice, offered
Trenchard, who was sitting next to him, some supper.
"One of these cutlets?"
Trenchard, blushing and stammering, refused.
"A cigarette, then?"
Trenchard again refused and Piotr Ivanovitch, having done his duty,
relapsed into his muffled elegance. We sat very quietly there;
Trenchard staring with distressed eyes in front of him. Andrey
Vassilievitch, very uncomfortable, his fat body sliding forward on the
slant, pulling itself up, then sliding again--always he maintained his
air of importance, giving his cough, twisting the ends of his
moustache, staring, fiercely, at some one suddenly that he might
disconcert him, patting, with his plump little hands, his clothes.
The shadows lengthened and a great green oak that hung over the barn
seemed, as the evening advanced, to grow larger and larger and to
absorb into its heart all the flaming colours of the day, to press
them into its dark shadow and to hide them, safe and contented, until
another morning.
I sat there and gradually, caught, as it seemed to me, into a world of
whispers and half-lights, I slipped forward a little down into the
dark walls of the trench and half-slumbered, half clung still to the
buzzing voice of the Colonel, the languid replies of the young
officer. I felt then that some one was whispering to me that my real
adventure was about to begin. I could see quite plainly, like a road
up which I had gone, the events of the day behind me. I saw the ride
under the stars, the cold red dawn. Marie Ivanovna standing beneath
my cart, the sudden battery and the desolate hours of waiting, the
wounded men stumbling out of the forest, the ride down the hill and
the green bottles bursting in the sun, the sudden silences and the
sudden sounds, my own weariness and discomfort and loneliness and now
Something--was it the dark green oak that bent down and hid the world
for me?--whispered, "You're drawing near--you're close--you're almost
there.... In a moment you will see ... you will see ... you will
see...."
Somewhere the soldiers were singing, and then all sounds ceased. We
were standing, many of us, in the dark, the great oak and many other
giant trees were about us and the utter silence was like a sudden
plunge into deep water on a hot day. We were waiting, ready for the
Creature, breathless with suspense.
"Now!" some one cried, and instantly there was such a roar that I
seemed to be lifted by it far into the sky, held, rocked, then dropped
gently. I woke to find myself standing up in the trench, my hands to
my ears. I was aware first that the sky had changed from blue into a
muddy grey, then that dust and an ugly smell were in my eyes, my
mouth, my nose. I remembered that I repeated stupidly, again and
again: "What? what? what?" Then the grey sky slowly fell away as
though it were pushed by some hand and I saw the faint evening blue,
with (so strange and unreal they seemed) silver-pointed stars. I
caught my breath and realised that now the whole right corner of the
barn was gone. The field stretched, a dark shadow, to the edge of the
yard. In the ground where the stakes of the barn had been there was a
deep pit; scattered helter-skelter were bricks, pieces of wood, and
over it all a cloud of thin fine dust that hovered and swung a little
like grey silk. The line of soldiers was crouched back into the trench
as though it had been driven by some force. From, as it appeared, a
great distance, I heard the Colonel's voice: "_Slava Bogu_, another
step to the right and we'd not have had time to say 'good-bye.'... Get
in there, you ... with your head out like that, do you want another?"
I was conscious then of Andrey Vassilievitch sitting huddled on the
ground of the trench, his head tucked into his chest.
"You're not hurt, are you?" I said, bending down to him,
He got up and to my surprise seemed quite composed. He was rubbing his
eyes as though he had waked from sleep.
"Not at all," he answered in his shrill little voice. "No.... What a
noise! Did you hear it, Ivan Andreievitch?"
Did I hear it? A ridiculous question!
"But I assure you I was not alarmed," he said eagerly, turning round
to the young officer, who was rather red in the face but otherwise
unruffled. "The first time that one has been so close to me. What a
noise!"
Trenchard searched in his pockets for something.
"What is it?" I asked.
"My handkerchief!" he answered. "So dusty after that. It's in my
eyes!"
He tumbled on to the ground a large clasp pocket-knife, a hunk of
black bread, a cigarette-case and some old letters. "I had one," he
muttered anxiously. "Somewhere, I know...."
I heard the Colonel's voice again. "No one touched! There's some more
of their precious ammunition wasted.... What about your Ekaterina,
Piotr Ivanovitch--Ho, ho, ho!... Here, _golubchik_, the telephone!...
Hullo! Hullo!"
For myself I had the irritation that one might feel had a boy thrown a
stone over the wall, broken a window and run away. Moreover, I felt
that again I had missed--IT. Always round the corner, always just out
of sight, always mocking one's clumsy pursuit. And still, even now, I
felt no excitement, no curiosity. My feet had not yet touched the
enchanted ground....
The trench had at once slipped back into its earlier composure. The
dusk was now creeping down the hill; with every stir of the breeze
more stars were blown into the sky; the oak was all black now like a
friendly shadow protecting me.
"There'll be no more for a while," said the Colonel. He was right.
There was stillness; no battery, however distant, no pitter-patter of
rifle fire, no chattering report of the machine guns.
Men began to cross the yard, slowly, without caution. The dusk caught
us so that I could not see the Colonel's face; a stream that cut the
field, hidden in the day, was now suddenly revealed by a grinning
careless moon.
Then a soldier crossed the yard to us, told us that Dr. Semyonov
wished us to start and had sent us a guide; the wagons were ready.
At that instant, whence I know not, for the first time that day,
excitement leapt upon me.
Events had hitherto passed before me like the shadowed film of a
cinematograph; it had been as though some one had given me glimpses of
a life, an adventure, a country with which I should later have some
concern but whose boundaries I was not yet to cross. Now, suddenly,
whether it was because of the dark and the silence I cannot say, I had
become, myself, an actor in the affair. It was not simply that we were
given something definite to do--we had had wounded during the
morning--it was rather that, as in the children's game we were "hot,"
we had drawn in a moment close to some one or something of whose
presence we were quite distinctly aware. As we walked across the yard
into the long low field, speaking in whispers, watching a shaft of
light, perhaps some distant projector that trembled in pale white
shadows on the horizon, we seemed to me to be, in actual truth, the
hunters of Trenchard's dream.
Never, surely, before, had I known the world so silent. Under the
hedges that lined the field there were soldiers like ghosts; our own
wagons, with the sanitars walking beside them, moved across the ground
without even the creak of a wheel. Semyonov was to meet us in an
hour's time at a certain crossroad. I was given the command of the
party. I was now, in literal truth, breathlessly excited. My heart was
beating in my breast like some creature who makes running leaps at
escape. My tongue was dry and my brain hot. But I was happy ... happy
with a strange exaltation that was unlike any emotion that I had known
before. It was in part the happiness that I had known sometimes in
Rugby football or in tennis when the players were evenly matched and
the game hard, but it was more than that. It had in it something of
the happiness that I have known, after many days at sea, on the first
view of land--but it was more than that. Something of the happiness of
possessing, at last, some object which one has many days desired and
never hoped to attain--but more, too, than that. Something of the
happiness of danger or pain that one has dreaded and finds, in actual
truth, give way before one's resolution--but more, again, than that.
This happiness, this exultation that I felt now but dimly, and was to
know more fully afterwards (but never, alas, as my companions were to
know it) is the subject of this book. The scent of it, the full
revelation of it, has not, until now, been my reward; I can only, as a
spectator, watch that revelation as it came afterwards to others more
fortunate than I. But what I write is the truth as far as I, from the
outside, have seen it. If it is not true, this book has no value
whatever.
We were warned by the soldier who guarded us not to walk in a group
and we stole now, beneath a garden-wall, white under the moon, in a
long line. I could hear Trenchard behind me stumbling over the stones
and ruts, walking as he always did with little jerks, as though his
legs were beyond his control. We came then on to the high road, which
was so white and clear in the moonlight that it seemed as though the
whole Austrian army must instantly whisper to themselves: "Ah, there
they are!" and fire. The ditch to our right, as far as I could see,
was lined with soldiers, hidden by the hedge behind them, their rifles
just pointing on to the white surface of the land. Our guide asked
them their division and was answered in a whisper. The soldiers were
ghosts: there was no one, save ourselves, alive in the whole world....
Then a little incident occurred. I was walking in the rear of our
wagons that I might see that all were there. I felt a touch on my arm
and found Andrey Vassilievitch standing in the middle of the road. His
face, staring at me as though I were a stranger, expressed desperate
determination.
"Come on," I said. "We've no time to waste."
"I'm not coming," he whispered back. His voice was breathless as
though he had been running.
"Nonsense," I answered roughly, and I put my hand on his arm. His body
trembled in jerks and starts.
"It's madness ... this road ... the moon.... Of course they'll
fire.... We'll all be killed. But it isn't ... it isn't ... I can't
move...."
"You _must_ move.... Come, Andrey Vassilievitch, you've been brave
enough all day. There's no danger, I tell you. See how quiet
everything is. You _must_...."
"I can't.... It's nothing ... nothing to do with me.... It's awful all
day--and now this!"
I thought of Marie Ivanovna early in the morning. I looked down the
road and saw that the wagons were slowly moving into the distant
shadows.
"You _must_ come," I repeated. "We can't leave you here. Don't think
of yourself. And nothing can touch you--nothing, I tell you."
"I'll go back, I must. I can't go on."
"Go back? How can you? Where to? You can't go back to the trench. We
shan't know where to find you." A furious anger seized me; I caught
his arm. "I'll leave you, if you like. There are other things more
important."
I move away from him. He looked down the long road, looked back.
"Oh, I can't ... I can't," he repeated.
"What did you come for?" I whispered furiously. "What did you think
war was?... Well, good-bye, do as you please!"
As I drew away I saw a look of desperate determination in his eyes. He
looked at me like a dog who expects to be beaten. Then what must have
been one of the supreme moments of his life came to him. I saw him
struggle to command, with the effort of his whole soul, his terror.
For a moment he wavered. He made a hopeless gesture with his hand,
took two little steps as though he would run into the hedge amongst
the soldiers and hide there, then suddenly walked past me, quickly,
towards the wagons, with his own absurd little strut, with his head
up, giving his cough, looking, after that, neither to the right, nor
to the left.
In silence we caught up the wagons. Soon, at some cross-roads, they
came to a pause. The guide was waiting for me. "It would be better,
your Honour," he whispered, "for the wagons to stay here. We shall go
now simply with the stretchers...."
We left the wagons and, some fifteen of us, turned off down a lane to
the left. Sometimes there were soldiers in the hedges, sometimes they
met us, slipping from shadow to shadow. Always we asked whether they
knew of any wounded. We found a wounded soldier groaning under the
hedge. One leg was soaked in blood and he gave little shrill desperate
cries as we lifted him on to the stretcher. Another soldier, lying on
the road in the moonlight, murmured incessantly: "_Bojé moi! Bojé moi!
Bojé moi!_" But they were all ghosts. We alone, in that familiar and
yet so unreal world, were alive. When a stretcher was filled, four
sanitars turned back with it to the wagons, and we were soon a very
small party. We arrived at a church--a large fantastic white church
with a green turret that I had seen from the opposite hill in the
morning. Then it had seemed small and very remote. I had been told
that much firing had been centring round it, and it seemed now for me
very strange that we should be standing under its very shadow, its
outline so quiet and grave under the moon, with its churchyard, a
little orchard behind it, and a garden, scenting the night air, close
at hand. Here in the graveyard there was a group of wounded soldiers,
in their eyes that look of faithful expectation of certain relief. Our
stretchers were soon full.
We were about to turn back when suddenly the road behind us was filled
with shadows. As we came out of the churchyard an officer stepped
forward to meet us. We saluted and shook hands. He seemed a boy, but
stood in front of his men with an air as though he commanded the
whole of this world of ghosts.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
We explained.
"Well, if you'll excuse me, you'd better make haste. An attack very
shortly ... yes. I should advise you to be out of this. Petrogradsky
Otriad? Yes ... very glad to have the pleasure...."
We left him, his men a grey cloud behind him, and when we had taken a
few steps he seemed, with his young air of importance, his happy
serious courtesy, to have been called out of the ground, then, with
all his shadows behind him, to have been caught up into the air. These
were not figures that had anything to do with the little curling
wreaths of smoke, the bottles cracking in the sun, our furious giants
of the morning.
"Ah, _Bojé moi, Bojé moi_!" sighed the wounded.... It was impossible,
in such a world of dim shadow, that there should ever be any other
sound again.
My excitement had never left me; I had had no doubt, during this last
half-hour, that I was on the Enchanted Ground of the Enemy, so stray
and figurative had been my impressions all day. Now they were all
gathered into this half-hour and the whole affair received its climax.
"Ah," I thought to myself, "if I might only stay here now I should
draw closer and closer--I should make my discovery, hunt him down. But
just when I am on the verge I must leave it all. Ah, if I could but
stay!"
Nevertheless we hastened. The world, in spite of the ghosts, was real
enough for us to be conscious of that attack looming behind us. We
found our wagons, transferred our wounded, then hurried down the road.
We found the cross-roads and there, waiting for us, Semyonov and
Marie Ivanovna. Standing in the moonlight, commanding, as it seemed
to me, all of us, even Semyonov, she was a very different figure from
the frightened girl of the early morning. Now her life was in her
eyes, her body inflamed with the fire of the things that had come to
her. So young in experience was she, so ignorant of all earlier
adventure, that she could well be seized, utterly and completely, by
her new vision ... possessed by some vision she was.
And that vision was not Trenchard. Seeing her, he hurried towards her,
with a glad cry:
"Ah, you are safe!"
But she did not notice him.
"Quick, this way!... Yes, the stretchers here.... No, I have
everything.... At once. There is little time!"
The wounded were laid on the stretchers in the square of the
cross-roads. Semyonov and Marie Ivanovna bandaged them under the
moonlight and with the aid of electric-torches. On every side of me
there were little dialogues: "No ... not there. More this way. Yes,
that bandage will do. It's fresh. Hold up his leg. No, _durak_, under
the knee there.... Where's the lint?... Turn him a little--there--like
that. _Horosho, golubchik_. _Seitchass_! No, turn it back over the
thigh. Now, once more ... that's it. What's that--bullet or
shrapnel?... Take it back again, over the shoulder.... Yes, twice!"
Once I caught sight of Trenchard, hurrying to be useful with the
little bottle of iodine, stumbling over one of the stretchers, causing
the wounded man to cry out.
Then Semyonov's voice angrily:
"Tchort! Who's that?... Ah, Meester! of course!"
Then Marie Ivanovna's voice: "I've finished this, Alexei
Petrovitch.... That's all, isn't it?"
These voices were all whispers, floating from one side of the road to
the other. The wounded men were lifted back on to the wagons. We moved
off again; Semyonov, Trenchard, Marie Ivanovna and I were now sitting
together.
We left the flat fields where we had been so busy. Very slowly we
began to climb the hill down which I had come this afternoon. Behind
me was a great fan of country, black now under a hidden moon, dead as
though our retreat from it, depriving it of the last proofs of life,
had flung it back into non-existence. Before us was the black forest.
Not a sound save the roll of our wheels and, sometimes, a cry from one
of the wounded soldiers, not a stir of wind....
I looked back. Without an instant's warning that dead world, as a
match is set to a waiting bonfire, broke into flame. A thousand
rockets rose, soaring, in streams of light into the dark sky; the
fields that had been vapour ran now with light. A huge projector, the
eye, as it seemed to me, of that enemy for whom I had all day been
searching, slowly wheeled across the world, cutting a great path
across the plain, picking houses and trees and fields out of space,
then dropping them back again. The rockets were gold and green,
sometimes as it seemed ringed with fire, sometimes cold like dead
moons, sometimes sparkling and quivering like great stars. And with
this light the whole world crackled into sound as though the sky, a
vast china plate, had been smashed by some angry god and been flung,
in a million pieces, to earth. The rifle-fire rose from horizon to
horizon like a living thing. Now the shrapnel rose, breaking on the
dark sky in flashes of fire. Suddenly some house was burning! The
flames rose in a column, breaking into tongues that advanced and
retreated, climbed and fell again. In the farthest distance other
houses had caught and their glow trembled in faint yellow light fading
into shadow when the projector found them. With a roar at our back
our own cannon began; the world bellowed and shook and trembled at our
feet.
We reached the top of the hill. I caught one final vision, the picture
seeming to sway with all its lights, its shadows, its giant eye that
governed it, its colours and its mist, like a tapestry blown by wind.
I saw in our wagon, their faces lighted by the fire, Semyonov and
Marie Ivanovna. Semyonov knelt on the wooden barrier of the cart, his
figure outlined square and strong. She was kneeling behind him, her
hands on his shoulders. Her face was exultant, victorious. She seemed
to me the inspirer of that scene, to have created it, to hold it now
with the authority of her gaze.
Behind her Trenchard was in shadow.
We were on the hill-top, the cannon, as it seemed, on every side of
us. We hung for a moment so, the sky flaming up to our feet. Then we
had fallen down between the woods, every step muffling the sounds.
Everything was dark as though a curtain had been dropped.
Semyonov turned round to me.
"Well," he said, "there's your battle.... You've been in the thick of
it to-day!"
I saw his eyes turned to Marie Ivanovna as though already he possessed
her.
I was suddenly tired, disappointed, exhausted.
"We've not been in the thick of it," I answered. "We have missed
it--all day we have missed it!"
I tried to settle down in my wagon. "I beg your pardon," I said
irritably to Trenchard, "but your boot is in my neck!"