And quiet flows the Don; a novel (34 page)

Kruchkov, who had recently been made a corporal, sat hunched in his saddle like a bird. He screwed up his eyes at a paunchy grey cloud and, imitating the accent of the squadron commander Captain Popov, asked Mitka:

"Ah . . . te-e-11 me, Korshunov, what do we ca-a-all our squadron comma-a-ander?"

Mitka, who had frequently had a taste of the

strap for his obstinacy and dislike of obedience, put on a respectful expression.

"Captain Popov, corporal!"

"What?"

"Captain Popov, corporal!"

"That's not what I want to know. You tell me what we, Cossacks, call him 'mongst ourselves."

Ivankov gave Mitka a cautioning wink and grinned widely. Mitka glanced round and sav. the captain riding up behind.

"Now then, answer up!"

"He is called Captain Popov, corporal."

"Fourteen stripes for you. Answer me, you young bastard!"

"I don't know, corporal."

"When we get to camp," Kruchkov said, speaking in his normal voice. "I'll belt the hide off you. Answer my question!"

"I don't know."

"Don't you know the nickname we've got for him, rat-face?"

Mitka heard the furtive tread of the captain's horse behind them and remained silent.

"Well?" Kruchkov scowled furiously.

A restrained titter broke out in the rear ranks. Not realizing what the laughter was about, and thinking that the Cossacks were laughing at him, Kruchkov snarled:

"Be careful, Korshunov! I'll give you fifty of the best when we get to camp!"

Mitka shrugged resignedly.

"Black goose."

"That's it."

"Kruchkov!" came a voice from behind.

Corporal Kruchkov, the "old" Cossack, started in his saddle and sat at attention.

"What's your game, scoundrel?" burst out the captain, drawing level with Kruchkov. "What are you teaching this young Cossack?"

Kruchkov blinked. A purple flush flooded his cheeks. Laughter came from the rear ranks.

"Who did I teach a lesson to last year? Who did I break this nail on?" The captain held the long pointed nail of his little finger under Kruchkov's nose. "Never let rne hear that again! Understand, my man?"

"Yes, Your Honour."

The captain backed out of line and let the squadron go past.

Kruchkov straightened his shoulder-strap and glanced round at the receding figure of the captain. Adjusting his lance, he shook his head crossly:

"Where did he spring from, the old goose?"

Perspiring with laughter, Ivankov told him:

"He was riding behind us. He heard everything. Must have guessed what you'd be talking about."

"You should have given me a wink, blockhead."

"Should I?"

"Think you shouldn't, eh? Fourteen of the best!"

On arriving at its destination, the regiment was broken up by squadrons among the estates in the district. During the day the Cossacks cut the clover and meadow grass for the landowners; at night they grazed their hobbled horses in the fields assigned to them, and played cards or told stories by the smoke of the camp-fires. The Sixth Squadron was billeted on the large estate of a Polish landowner. The officers lived in the house, played cards, got drunk, and paid attention to the steward's daughter; the Cossacks pitched their tents a couple of versts away from the house. Each morning the steward drove out in a drozhki to their camp. The corpulent, estimable gentleman would get out of the drozhki and invariably welcome the Cossacks with a wave of his white, glossy-peaked cap.

"Come and cut hay with us, sir; it'll shake your fat down a bit," the Cossacks called to him. The steward smiled phlegmatically, wiped his

bald head with his handkerchief, and went with the sergeant-major to point out the next section of hay to be cut.

At midday the field-kitchen arrived. The Cossacks washed and went to get their food.

They ate in silence, but in the rest period after dinner made up for their lack of conversation.

"Rotten stuff, the grass here. Don't compare with the steppe."

"Not much quitch though."

"They've finished mowing by now back home."

"Will be finished soon. New moon yesterday, there'll be rain."

"That Pole's a mean old beggar. Might have stood us a bottle for our pains."

"Ho-ho! He'd rob the altar to get a bottle himself."

"See, lads, what do you make of that? The more a man's got, the more he wants, eh?"

"Ask the tsar about that."

"Who's seen the master's daughter?"

"What about her?"

"There's a wench with plenty of meat on her!"

"Aye. . . ."

"Don't know how true it is, but they say she's had proposals from the royal family,"

"A juicy bit like her wouldn't go to a common man, would it?"

"I've heard a rumour, lads, that there's going to be a big review for us soon."

"What did I say, if a cat's got nothing to do, he'll. . . ."

"Put a sock in it, Taras!"

"Give us a puff of your fag, boy?"

"You scrounging devil, you've got an arm as long as a beggar's at the church door."

"Look, lads, old Fedot can pull all right."

"He's smoked it to ash already."

"Look again, man, it's as fiery as a woman."

They lay on their bellies, smoking. Their bare backs were scorched red in the sun. In a corner of the field about five "old" Cossacks were questioning a new recruit:

"Where d'ye come from?"

"Yelanskaya."

"From the salt mines, eh?"

"Yes, corporal."

"How do they cart salt down your way?"

Not far off, Kruchkov lay on a horse-cloth, idly twisting his scanty moustache round his finger.

"With horses."

"And what else?"

"Bullocks, corporal."

"And how do they bring fish from the Crimea?

You know, kind of bullock, with humps on their backs, eat thistles. What are they called?"

"Camels."

"Haw-haw-haw \"

Kruchkov got up lazily and walked towards the guilty recruit, hunching his camel-like shoulders and stretching out his saffron-swarthy neck with its big Adam's apple.

"Bend over!" he commanded, taking off his belt.

In the hot dusk of the June evening the Cossacks sang around the camp-fires:

A Cossack went to a distant land. Riding his horse o'er the plain; His native village he left for aye;

A silvery tenor voice sobbed mournfully, while the basses expressed deep, velvety sorrow:

He'll n'er come hack again.

Now the tenor rose to a higher pitch of grief:

In vain did his youthful Cossack bride Gaze northwards every morn and eve; Waiting in hope that her Cossack dear Would return from the land he ne'er will

leave.

Many voices tended the song, and it grew rich and heady like home-brewed beer;

But beyond the hills where the snow lies

deep. The ice-fields crack and the tempests blow. Where grimly how the pines and firs The Cossack's hones lie beneath the snow.

The voices told their simple tale of Cossack life and the tenor supported them with its quivering notes, like a skylark soaring above the thawed earth of April:

As the Cossack lay dying he pleaded and

begged That above him a mound be piled on his

grave. Where a giielder-tree from his native land Its blossoms bright should for ever wave.

At another camp-fire, the group was smaller and the song was in a different strain:

From the stormy Azov Sea, The ships are sailing up the Don, For back to his own country A young ataman has come.

At yet another, the squadron's story-teller, coughing from the smoke, was spinning tales. The Cossacks listened with unflagging attention. Only occasionally, when the hero of the story cleverly escaped from a plot laid against

him by the evil spirit, did someone's hand gleam white in the fire-light as it was slapped against the leg of his boot, or a thick smoky voice gasp delighted approval. Then the flowing, unbroken tones of the story-teller would continue.

A week or so after the regiment's arrival at its country quarters the squadron commander sent for the smith and the sergeant-major.

"What condition are the horses in?"

"Not so bad. Your Honour, in pretty good shape."

The captain twisted the black moustache that had earned him his nickname and said in his rasping voice:

"The regimental commander has issued instructions for all stirrups and bits to be tinned. There is to be an imperial review of the regiment. Let everything be polished until it gleams, the saddles and the rest of the equipment. The Cossacks must be a sight to gladden the eye. When can you be ready?"

The sergeant-major looked at the smith; the smith looked at the sergeant-major. Then both of them looked at the captain. The sergeant-major suggested:

"How about Sunday, Your Honour?" and respectfully touched the tip of his tobacco-mouldered moustache with his finger,

"Mind it is Sunday!" the captain added threateningly and dismissed them both.

The preparations for the review were put in hand the same day. Ivankov, son of the squadron blacksmith and a good smith himself, helped to tin the stirrups and bits. The Cossacks groomed their horses, cleaned the bridles, and rubbed the snaffles and other metal parts of the horses' equipment with bath-brick. By the end of the week the regiment was shining like a new twenty-kopeck piece. Everything glittered with polishing, from the horses' hoofs to the Cossacks' faces. On the Saturday the regimental commander inspected the regiment and thanked the officers and Cossacks for their zealous preparations and splendid appearance.

The azure thread of July days reeled past. The Cossack horses were in perfect condition; only the Cossacks themselves were uneasy and troubled with the maggot of uncertainty. Not a whisper was to be heard of the imperial review. The week passed in unending talk, continual preparation. Then like a bolt from the blue came an order for the regiment to return to Vilno.

They were back in the city by evening. A second order was at once issued to the squadrons. The Cossacks' boxes were to be collected

and stored in the warehouse, and preparations made for a possible further removal.

"Your Honour, what's it all about?" the Cossacks implored their troop officers for the truth. The officers shrugged their shoulders. They themselves would have given a lot to know it.

"I don't know."

"Will there be manoeuvres in the presence of His Majesty?"

"No one has any idea yet."

But on the first of August the regimental commander's orderly managed to whisper to a friend:

"It's war, my boy!"

"You're lying!"

"God's truth! But not a word to anyone!"

Next morning the regiment was drawn up in squadrons outside the barracks, awaiting the commander.

At the head of the Sixth Squadron rode Captain Popov on a fine mount. His left hand, immaculately gloved, held the bridle. The horse, arching its neck, rubbed its muzzle on the corded muscles of its chest.

The colonel came round a corner of the barrack buildings and, riding his horse to the front of the regiment, turned the animal sideways. The adjutant, elegantly extending his little finger, drew out his handkerchief to wipe his

nose, but had no time to accomplish the operation. The colonel threw his voice into the tense silence:

"Cossacks!"

"Now it's coming!" everyone thought. The tension held them like a steel spring. Mitka Korshunov's horse was stepping from hoof to hoof, and he irritatedly brought his heel against its flank. Beside him Ivankov sat his horse motionlessly, listening with his hare-lipped mouth open, exposing a dark line of uneven teeth. Kruchkov was behind him, hunching his shoulders and frowning, further on Lapin twitched his gristly ears like a horse, while behind him could be seen the jagged outline of Shchegolkov's clean-shaven Adam's apple.

"Germany has declared war on us. . . ."

Along the ranks ran a whisper as though a puff of wind had rippled across a field of ripe, heavy-eared oats. A horse's neigh slashed through it. Round eyes and gaping mouths turned in the direction of the First Squadron where the animal had dared to neigh.

The colonel said much more. He chose his words carefully, seeking to arouse a feeling of national pride. But the picture that rose before the thousand Cossacks was not of silken foreign banners falling rustling at their feet, but of their own everyday life thrown into confusion, of

their wives, children, sweethearts, of ungath-ered grain, and orphaned villages in distress.

"In two hours we entrain . . ." was the only thought that penetrated all minds.

The officers' wives, who were standing in a bunch not far away, wept into their handkerchiefs. Lieutenant Khoprov had almost to carry away in his arms his blonde pregnant Polish wife.

The regiment rode singing to the station. The Cossacks' voices drowned the band, and it lapsed into confused silence. The officers' wives rode in drozhkis, a colourful crowd foamed along the pavements, the horses' hoofs raised a cloud of dust. Laughing at his own and others' sorrow, twitching his left shoulder so that his blue shoulder-strap tossed hectically, the leading singer struck up a bawdy Cossack song. Deliberately running the words into one another, to the accompaniment of newly shod hoofs the squadron carried its song along to the red trucks at the station. The adjutant, his face purple with laughter and embarrassment, galloped up to the singers. One of the Cossacks winked cynically at the crowd of women seeing them off, and it was not sweat but a bitter brew of wormwood that streamed down his bronzed cheeks to the black tips of his mouth.

On the track the engine gave a warning bellow as it got up steam.

Trains. . . . Trains. . . . Trains innumerable.

Along the country's arteries, over the railway lines to the western frontier, a seething, distracted Russia was pumping its grey-coated blood.

VIII

At a little town on the line the regiment was broken up into its respective squadrons. On the instructions of the divisional staff the Sixth Squadron was put at the disposal of the Third Army Infantry Corps, and proceeded to Pelika-liye.