And quiet flows the Don; a novel (31 page)

ure, the sight of the horse's croup, wet and glittering like steel, remained impressed in his memory.

Still not realizing the nature of the misfortune that had come upon them, Pyotr gazed stupidly at the foam flying in the dust, then glanced around the rolling steppe. From all sides the Cossacks were running over the yellow strips of stubble towards the village; across the steppe, as far as the distant upland, little clouds of dust indicating horsemen were to be seen, A long trail of dust moved along the road to the village. The Cossacks who were on the active service list abandoned their work, took their horses out of the shafts and galloped off to the village. Pyotr saw Christonya unharness his Guards charger from a wagon and ride off at a wild pace, glancing back over his shoulder.

"What's it all about?" Natalya half groaned, with a frightened look at Pyotr. Her gaze, the gaze of a trapped hare, startled him to action. He galloped back to the reaper, jumped off his horse before it had halted, hustled into the trousers he had flung off while working, and waving his hand to his father, tore off to add one more cloud of dust to those which had already blossomed over the sultry steppe.

He found a dense grey crowd assembled on the square. Many were already wearing their army uniform and equipment. The blue military caps of the men belonging to the Ataman's Regiment rose a head higher than the rest, like Dutch ganders among the small fry of the farmyard.

The village tavern was closed. The military police officer had a gloomy and care-worn look. The women, attired in their holiday clothes, lined the fences along the streets. One word was on everybody's lips: "Mobilization." Intoxicated, excited faces. The general anxiety had been communicated to the horses, and they were kicking and plunging and snorting angrily. The square was strewn with empty bottles and wrappers from cheap sweets. A cloud of dust hung low in the air.

Pyotr led his saddled horse by the rem. Close to the church fence a big swarthy Cossack of the Ataman's Regiment stood buttoning up his blue sharovari, with his mouth gaping in a white-toothed smile, while a stocky little woman, his wife or sweetheart, stormed at him.

"I'll give it you for going with that hussy!" the little woman promised.

27—1933 417

She was drunk, her dishevelled hair was scattered with the husks of sunflower seed, her flowered kerchief hung loose. The guardsman tightened his belt and, grinning widely, dropped to his haunches, leaving enough room for a year-old calf to pass under the voluminous folds of his sharouari.

"Keep off, Mashka."

"You great shameless brute! Woman-chaser!"

"What about it?"

"I'll give it you!"

Near him a red-bearded sergeant-major was arguing with an artilleryman.

"Nothing will come of it, never fear!" he was assuring him. "We'll be mobilized for a few days, and then back home again."

"But suppose there's a war?"

"Pah, my friend! What country could stand up to us?"

In a neighbouring group a handsome, elderly Cossack was arguing heatedly.

"It's nothing to do with us. Let them do their own fighting, we haven't got our corn in yet."

"It's a shame! Here we are standing here, and on a day like this we could harvest enough for a whole year."

"The cattle will get among the stooks!"

"And we'd just begun to reap the barley!"

"They say the Austrian tsar's been murdered."

"No, his heir."

"But the ataman says they've called us up just in case."

"We're in for it now, lads."

"Another twelve months and I'd have been out of the third line of reserves," an elderly Cossack said regretfully.

"What do they want you for. Grandad?"

"Don't you worry, as soon as they start killing the men off, they'll be taking the old ones, too."

"The tavern's closed!"

"What about going to Marfutka's? She'd sell us a barrel!"

The inspection started. Three Cossacks led a fourth, blood-stained and completely drunk, into the village administration. He threw himself back, tore his shirt open, and rolling his eyes, shouted:

"I'll show the muzhiks! I'll have their blood! They'll know the Don Cossack!"

The circle around him laughed approvingly.

"That's right, give it to them!"

"What have they grabbed him for?"

"He went for some muzhik!"

"Well, they deserve it."

"We'll give them some more!"

"I took a hand when they put them down in 1905. That was a sight worth seeing!"

"There's going to be war. They'll be sending us again to put them down."

"Enough of that. Let them hire people for that, or let the police do it. It's a shame for us to."

Mokhov's shop was surging with people. In the middle Ivan Tomilin was arguing drunken-ly with the owners. Mokhov was trying to pacify him. Atyopin, his partner, had retired to the doorway. "What's all this?" he expostulated. "My word, this is an outrage! Boy, run for the ataman!"

Rubbing his sweaty hands on his trousers, Tomilin pressed against the frowning merchant and sneered:

"You've squeezed us and squeezed us with your interest, you swine, and now you've got the wind up. I'll smash your face in! Stealing our Cossack rights, you fat slug!"

The village ataman was busily pouring out soothing words for the benefit of the Cossacks sun-ounding him: "War? No, there won't be any war. His Honour the chief of the military police said the mobilization was only a drill. There's no need for alarm."

"Good! Back to the fields as soon as we're home!"

"What are the authorities thinking about? I have over a hundred dessiatines of harvesting to do."

"Timoshka! Tell our folk we'll be home again tomorrow."

"Looks as if they've put a notice up. Let's go and have a look."

Until late at night the square was alive and noisy with excited crowds.

Some four days later the red trucks of the troop trains were carrying the Cossack regiments and batteries towards the Russo-Aus-trian frontier.

"War. . . ."

From the stalls came the snorting of horses and the damp stench of dung.

The same kind of talk in the wagons, the songs mostly of this kind:

The Don's awake and stirring. The quiet and Christian Don, In obedience to the call. The monarch's call, it marches on.

At the stations the Cossacks were eyed with inquisitive, benevolent looks. People stared curiously at the stripes on the Cossacks' trousers, at their faces, still dark from their recent labour in the fields.

"War...."

Newspapers screamed out the news. At the stations the women waved their handkerchiefs, smiled, threw cigarettes and sweets. Only once, just before the train reached Voronezh, did an old railway worker, half drunk, thrust his head into the truck where Pyotr Melekhov was crowded with twenty-nine other Cossacks, and ask:

"You going?"

"Yes. Get in and come with us. Grandad," one of the Cossacks replied.

"My boy., . . Bullocks for slaughter!" the old man responded and shook his head reproachfully.

V

During the fourth week of June, 1914, the divisional staff transferred Grigory Melekhov's regiment to the town of Rovno, to take part in manoeuvres. Two infantry divisions were located in the neighbourhood as well as cavalry units. The Fourth Squadron was stationed in the village of Vladislavka. A fortnight later, tired out with continual manoeuvring, Grigory and the other Cossacks of the Fourth Squadron were lying in their tents, when the squadron commander. Junior Captain Polkov-nikov, galloped furiously back from the regiment staff.

"We'll be on the move again I suppose," Pro-khor Zykov suggested tentatively, and fell silent waiting for the sound of the bugle.

The troop sergeant thrust the needle with which he had been mending his trousers into the lining of his cap, and remarked:

"Looks like it; they won't let us rest for a moment."

"Sergeant-major said the brigade commander will be visiting us."

A minute or two later the bugler sounded the alarm. The Cossacks jumped to their feet.

"What have I done with my pouch?" Pro-khor exclaimed, searching frantically.

"Boot and saddle!"

"Your pouch can go to hell," Grigory shouted as he ran out.

The sergeant-major ran into the yard and, holding the hilt of his sword, made for the hitching posts. They had their horses saddled well within regulation time. As Grigory was tearing up the tent-pegs the sergeant managed to mutter to him:

"It's war this time, my boy!"

"You're fooling!"

"God's truth! The sergeant-major told me."

The squadron formed up in the street, the commander at its head. "In troop columns!" his command flew over the ranks.

Hoofs clattered as the horses trotted out of the village on to the highway. From a neighbouring village the First and Fifth squadrons could be seen riding towards the station.

A day later the regiment was detrained at a station some thirty-five versts from the Austrian frontier. Dawn was breaking behind the station birch-trees. The morning promised to be fine. The engine fussed and rumbled over the tracks. The lines glittered under a varnish of dew. The Cossacks of the Fourth Squadron led their horses by the bridles out of the wagons and over the level-crossing, mounted, and moved off in column formation. Their voices sounded eerily in the crumbling, lilac darkness. Faces and the contours of horses emerged uncertainly out of the gloom.

"What squadron is that?"

"And who are you? Where've you come from?"

"I'll show you who I am! How dare you speak to an officer in that way?"

"Sorry, Your Honour, didn't recognize you."

"Ride on! Ride on!"

"What are you dawdling about for? Get moving."

"Where's your Third Troop, sergeant-major?"

"Squadron, bring up the rear!"

Muttered whispers in the column:

"Bring up the rear, blast him, when we haven't slept for two nights."

"Give me a puff, Syomka, haven't had a smoke since yesterday."

"Hold your horse. . . ."

"He's bitten through his saddle-strap, the devil."

"Mine's lost a hoof in front."

A little farther on the Fourth Squadron was held up for a while by the first, which had detrained before it. Against the bluish grey of the sky the silhouettes of the horsemen ahead stood out clearly, as though drawn with Indian ink. Their lances swung like bare sunflower stalks. Occasionally a stirrup jingled or a saddle creaked.

Prokhor Zykov was riding at Grigory's side. Prokhor stared into his face and whispered:

"Melekhov, you're not afraid, are you?"

"What is there to be afraid of?"

"We may be in action today."

"Well, what of it?"

"But I'm afraid," Prokhor admitted, his fingers playing nervously with the dewy reins. "I didn't sleep a wink all night."

Once more the squadron advanced; the horses moved at a measured pace, the lances swayed and flowed rhythmically. Dropping

the reins, Grigory dozed. And it seemed to him that it was not the horse that put its legs forward springily, rocking him in the saddle, but he himself who was walking along a warm, dark road, and walking with unusual ease, with irresistible joy. Prokhor chattered away at his side, but his voice mingled with the creak of the saddle and the clatter of hoofs, and did not disturb his thoughtless doze.

The squadron turned into a by-road. The silence rang in their ears. Ripe oats hung over the wayside, their tops smoking with dew. The horses tried to reach the low ears and dragged the reins out of their riders' hands. The gracious daylight crept under Grigory's puffy eyelids. He raised his head and heard Prokhor's monotonous voice, like the creak of a cartwheel.

He was abruptly aroused by a heavy, rumbling roar that billowed across the oatfields.

"Gun-fire!" Prokhor almost shouted, and fright clouded his calf-like eyes. Grigory lifted his head. In front of him the troop-sergeant's grey greatcoat rose and fell in time with the horse's back; on each side stretched fields of unreaped corn; a skylark danced in the sky at the height of a telegraph pole. The entire squadron was aroused, the sound of the firing ran through it like an electric current. Lashed into

activity. Junior Captain Polkovnikov put the squadron into a fast trot. Beyond a cross-road, where a deserted tavern stood, they began to meet with carts of refugees. A squadron of smart-looking dragoons went by. Their captain, riding a sorrel thoroughbred, stared at the Cossacks ironically and spurred on his horse. They came upon a howitzer battery stranded in a muddy and swampy hollow. The riders were lashing at their horses, while the gunners struggled with the carriage wheels. A great, pock-marked artilleryman passed carrying an armful of boards probably torn from the fence of the tavern.

A little farther on they overtook an infantry regiment. The soldiers were marching fast, their greatcoats rolled on their backs. The sun glittered on their polished mess-tins and streamed from their bayonets. A lively little corporal in the last company threw a lump of mud at Gri-gory:

"Here, catch! Chuck it at the Austrians!" "Don't play about, grasshopper!" Grigory replied, and cut the lump of mud in its flight with his whip.

"Say hullo to 'em from us, Cossacks!" "You'll have a chance yourselves." At the head of the column someone struck up a bawdy song; a soldier with fat womanish

buttocks marched beside the column slapping his stumpy calves. The officers laughed. The keen sense of approaching danger had brought them closer to the men and made them more tolerant.

From now on the column was continually passing foot regiments crawling like caterpillars, batteries, baggage-wagons. Red Cross wagons. The deathly breath of fighting close at hand was in the air.

A little later, as it was entering a village, the Fourth Squadron was overtaken by the commander of the regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Ka-ledin, accompanied by his second in command. As they passed, Grigory heard the latter say agitatedly toKaledin: "This village isn't marked on the map, Vasily Maximovich! We may find ourselves in an awkward position." Grigory did not catch the colonel's reply. The adjutant galloped past overtaking them. His horse was stepping heavily on its left hind-foot. Grigory mechanically noted its fine points. The regiment was continually changing its pace, and the horses began to sweat. The cottages of a small village lying under a gentle slope appeared in the distance. On the other side of the village was a wood, its green tree-tops piercing the azure dome of the sky. From beyond the wood splashes of gunfire mingled