And quiet flows the Don; a novel (36 page)

Standing with the reins looped over their arms, the Cossacks fired. Ivankov's horse reared at the shot and sent him headlong. As he fell he saw one of the Germans first lean to one side, then, throwing out his arms, suddenly tumble from his saddle. The others did not stop or even unsling their carbines from their shoulders, but rode on at a gallop in open formation. The pennants on their lances fluttered in the wind. Astakhov was the first to remount his horse. The Cossacks plied their whips. The Germans swung to the left, and the Cossacks following them passed close to the fallen dragoon. Beyond, an undulating stretch of country was intersected with shallow ravines. As the Germans rode up the farther side of each ravine the Cossacks dismounted and sent shots after them. A little farther on another German went down.

"Our Cossacks should be coming from that farm in a minute. That's the second outpost," Astakhov muttered, thrusting a cartridge clip into the magazine of his rifle with his tobacco-stained finger. The Germans broke into a steady trot. As the Cossacks rode past the farm they glanced towards it, but it was deserted. The sun licked greedily at the tiled roof. Afterwards they learned that the outpost had withdrawn the previous night, having discovered that the

telegraph wires about half a verst away had been cut.

Astakhov sent another shot after the Germans, firing from the saddle, and one of them who had been lagging slightly behind shook his head and spurred on his horse.

"We'll drive them along to the first outpost," Astakhov shouted, turning round to the others behind him. As he did so, Ivankov noticed that Astakhov's nose was peeling and a piece of skin was hanging from his nostril.

"Why don't they turn and defend themselves?" he asked anxiously, adjusting his rifle on his back.

"Wait and see," grunted Shchegolkov, panting like a broken-winded horse.

The Germans dropped into a ravine and disappeared. On the farther side was ploughed land. On this side, scrub and an occasional bush. Astakhov reined in his horse, pushed back his cap, and wiped the beads of sweat away with the back of his hand. He looked at the others, spat and said:

"Ivankov, you ride down and see where they've got to."

Ivankov, red in the face, his back damp with sweat, licked his crusted lips thirstily and rode off.

"Oh for a smoke!" Kruchkov muttered, driving the gadflies off with his whip.

Ivankov rode steadily down into the ravine, rising in his stirrups and gazing across the bottom. Suddenly he saw the glittering points of lances; then the Germans appeared; they had turned their horses and were galloping back up the slope to the attack. The officer was in front, his sword raised picturesquely. In the seconds that elapsed while Ivankov wheeled his horse, the moody clean-shaven face of the officer and the fine way he sat in the saddle engraved themselves on Ivankov's memory. The thunder of German horses' hoofs flailed his heart. His back felt the pinching chill of death almost painfully. Without a cry he wheeled his horse round and rode back towards the others.

Astakhov did not have time to put his tobacco pouch in his pocket. Seeing the Germans behind Ivankov, Kruchkov was the first to ride down to meet them. The dragoons on the right flank were sweeping round to cut Ivankov off, and were overtaking him at amazing speed. Ivankov was lashing at his horse, wry shudders passing over his face and his eyes starting out of his head. Bent to the saddle-bow, Astakhov took the lead. Brown dust boiled in the horses' wake.

"Any moment now they'll catch me!" The numbing thought gripped Ivankov's mind and it did not occur to him to show resistance. He gathered his great body into a ball, his head touching his horse's mane.

A big, ruddy-faced German overtook him and thrust his lance at his back. The point pierced Ivankov's leather belt and passed sideways for about an inch into his body.

"Brothers, turn back!" he shouted insanely, drawing his sabre. He parried a second thrust aimed at his side, and cut down a German riding at him from the left. The next moment he was surrounded. A burly German horse struck the side of his mount, almost knocking it off its feet, and Ivankov got a terrible blurred close-up of an enemy face.

Astakhov was the first to reach the group. He was driven off. He swung his sabre and twisted like an eel in his saddle, his teeth bared, his face changed and deathly. Ivankov was lashed across the neck with the point of a sword. A dragoon towered above him on the left, and the terrifying gleam of steel glittered in his eyes. He countered with his sabre; steel clashed against steel. From behind, a lance caught in his shoulder-strap and thrust insistently, tearing the strap away. Beyond his horse's head appeared the perspiring, fevered face

of a freckled elderly German, who tried to get at Ivankov's chest with his sword. But the sword would not reach, and dropping it, the German tore his carbine from its yellow saddle-holster, his blinking eyes fixed on Ivankov's face. He did not succeed in freeing his carbine, for Kruchkov reached at him across his horse with a lance. The German, tearing the lance away from his breast, threw himself back, groaning in fear and astonishment.

Eight dragoons surrounded Kruchkov, trying to capture him alive. But causing his horse to rear, he fought until they succeeded in knocking the sabre out of his hand. He snatched a lance from a German and wielded it as though on the parade ground. Beaten back, the Germans hacked at the lance with their swords. They bunched together over a small patch of dismal, clayey ploughed land, seething and rocking in the struggle as though shaken by the wind.

Maddened with terror, the Cossacks and Germans thrust and hacked at whatever came their way: backs, arms, horses and weapons. The horses jostled and kicked against one another in a frenzy of mortal fear. Regaining some measure of self-command, Ivankov tried several times to strike at the head of a long-faced, flaxen-haired German who had fastened on him,

but his sabre fell on the man's helmet and slipped off.

Astakhov broke through the ring and galloped free, streaming with blood. The German officer chased after him. Tearing his rifle from his shoulder, Astakhov fired and killed him almost at point-blank range. This proved to be the turning-point in the struggle. Having lost their commander, the Germans, all of them wounded with clumsy blows, dispersed and retreated. The Cossacks did not pursue them. They did not fire after them. They rode straight back to their squadron at Pelikaliye, while the Germans picked up a wounded comrade and fled towards the frontier.

After riding perhaps half a verst Ivankov swayed in his saddle.

"I'm. ... I shall drop . . ." he halted his horse. But Astakhov pulled at his reins, crying:

"Come on!"

Kruchkov smeared the blood over his face and felt his chest. Crimson spots were showing damply on his shirt. Beyond the farm where the second outpost had been stationed the party disagreed as to the way.

"To the right!" Astakhov said, pointing towards the green, swampy ground of an alder wood.

"No, to the left!" Kruchkov insisted.

They separated. Astakhov and Ivankov arrived at the regimental headquarters after Kruch-kov and Shchegolkov. They found the Cossacks of their squadron awaiting them. Ivankov dropped the reins, jumped from the saddle, swayed and fell. They had difficulty in freeing the sabre-hilt from his clutching fingers.

Within an hour almost the entire squadron rode out to where the German officer lay. The Cossacks removed his boots, clothing and weapons and crowded around to look at the young, frowning, yellow face of the dead man. One of them managed to capture the officer's watch with a silver face-guard, and sold it on the spot to his troop sergeant. In a wallet they found a few bank-notes, a letter, a lock of flaxen hair and a photograph of a girl with a proud, smiling mouth.

IX

Afterwards this incident was transformed into a heroic exploit. Kruchkov, a favourite of the squadron commander, received the Cross of St. George. His comrades remained in shadow. The hero was sent to the divisional staff headquarters, where he lived in clover until the end of the war, receiving three more crosses because influential ladies and officers came from Petersburg and Moscow to look at him. The ladies "ah-ed"

and "oh-ed," and regaled the Don Cossack with expensive cigarettes and chocolates. At first he cursed them by all the devils, but afterwards, under the benevolent influence of the staff toadies in officers' uniform, he made a remunerative business of it. He told the story of his "exploit," laying the colours on thick and lying without a twinge of conscience, while the ladies went into raptures, and stared admiringly at the pock-marked, brigand face of the Cossack hero. Everyone was pleased and happy.

The tsar visited headquarters, and Kruchkov was taken to be shown to him. The sleepy emperor looked Kruchkov over as if he were a horse, blinked his heavy eyelids, and patted the Cossack on the shoulder.

"A fine Cossack lad!" he remarked and, turning to his suite, asked for some Seltzer water.

Kruchkov's forelock figured constantly in the newspapers and magazines. There were Kruchkov brands of cigarettes. The merchants of Nizhny-Novgorod presented him with a gold-mounted sabre.

The uniform taken from the German officer Astakhov had killed was mailed to a plywood board and General von Rennenkampf put it in his car with Ivankov and his adjutant to hold it and drove before parading troops about to go

to the front, making the customary fiery speeches in the official jargon.

And what had really happened? Men, who had not yet acquired the knack of killing their own kind, had clashed on the field of death, and in the mortal terror that embraced them, had charged, and struck, and battered blindly at each other, mutilating one another and their horses; then they had turned and fled, frightened by a shot which had killed one of their number. They had ridden away morally crippled.

And it was called a heroic exploit.

X

The front was not yet the huge unyielding viper that it was to become. Cavalry skirmishes and battles flared up along the frontier. In the days immediately following the declaration of war the German command put out feelers in the shape of strong cavalry detachments that caused alarm among the Russian troops by slipping past the frontier posts and spying out the disposition and numbers of their forces. The Russian Eighth Army was screened by the 12th Cavalry Division under the command of General Kaledin. On its left flank the 11th Cavalry Division had advanced across the Austrian frontier, but having captured Leshnuv

and Brodi, was brought to a halt when the Aus-trians were reinforced by Hungarian cavalry. The Hungarian cavalry hurled itself at the Russian units and forced them back towards Brodi.

Since his first battle Grigory Melekhov had been tormented by a dreary inward pain. He grew noticeably thinner and frequently, whether on the march or resting, sleeping or waking, he saw the features and form of the Austrian whom he had killed by the railings. In his sleep he lived again and again through that first battle, and even felt the shuddering convulsion of his right hand clutching the lance. He would awaken and drive the dream off violently, shading his painfully screwed-up eyes with his hand.

The cavalry trampled down the ripened corn and scarred the fields with hoofprints, and it was as though a pounding hailstorm had swept Galicia. The heavy soldiers' boots tramped the roads, scratched the macadam, churned up the August mud. The gloomy face of the earth was pock-marked with shells; fragments of iron and steel rusted there, yearning for human blood. At night ruddy flickerings lit up the horizon: trees, villages, towns blazed like summer lightning. In August-when fruits ripen and com is

ready for harvest-the sky was unsmilingly grey, the rare fine days were oppressive and sultry,

August was drawing to a close. The leaves turned yellow in the orchards, and a mournful purple spread from their stalks. From a distance it looked as though the trees were gashed with wounds and bleeding to death.

Grigory studied with interest the changes that occurred in his comrades. Prokhor Zykov returned from hospital with the marks of a horseshoe on his cheek, and pain and bewilderment lurking in the corners of his lips. His calfish eyes blinked more than ever. Yegor Zharkov lost no opportunity to curse and swear, was even bawdier than before, and riled against everything under the sun. Yemelyan Groshev, a serious and efficient Cossack from Grigory's own village, seemed to char; his face turned dark, and he laughed awkwardly and morosely. Changes were to be observed in every face; each was inwardly nursing and rearing the seeds of grief implanted by the war.

The regiment was withdrawn from the line for a three-day rest, and its complement was made up by reinforcements from the Don. The Cossacks of Grigory's squadron were about to go for a dip in a neighbouring lake, when a considerable force of cavalry rode into the village from the station some three versts away. By the

time the men had reached the dam of the lake the force was riding down the hill. Prokhor Zy-kov was pulling off his shirt when, looking up, he stared and exclaimed:

"They're Cossacks, Don Cossacks!"

Grigory gazed after the colimin crawling into the estate where the Fourth Squadron was quartered.

"Reserves, most likely."

"Look boys; surely that's Stepan Astakhov? There in the third rank from the front," Gro-shev exclaimed, and gave a short grating laugh.

"And there's Anikushka."

"Grisha! Melekhov! There's your brother. D'you see him?"

Narrowing his eyes, Grigory stared, trying to recognize the horse Pyotr was riding. "Must have bought a new one!" he thought, turning his gaze to his brother's face. Deeply tanned, with moustache clipped and brows bleeched by the summer sun, it was strangely altered since their last meeting.

Grigory went to meet him, taking off his cap and waving mechanically. After him poured the half-dressed Cossacks, trampling underfoot the brittle undergrowth of angelica and burdock.

Led by an elderly, stocky captain with a wooden hardness in the lines of his authoritative clean-shaven mouth, the detachment swung