And quiet flows the Don; a novel (38 page)

August 13th

Here and there unharvested corn-fields. Sleak marmots on the hillocks. They bear a striking resemblance to the picture-postcard Germans we see impaled on Kozma Kruchkov's lance. Once upon a time when I was a student of mathematics and other exact sciences, little did I think I should live to become such a "jin-goist." When I get into a regiment I shall have a talk with the Cossacks.

August 22nd

At one of the stations along the line I saw the first group of prisoners. A fine-looking Austrian officer with a sportsman's bearing was being taken under guard to the station building. Two young ladies strolling along the platform smiled at him. He managed a very neat bow without stopping and blew them a kiss.

Even as a prisoner he was clean-shaven, gallant, his brown boots glistened. I watched him as he walked away. A young handsome fellow, a pleasant friendly face. If you met him in battle, your arm would not lift to strike.

August 24th

Refugees, refugees, refugees. , . , Every line is crowded with trains of refugees and troops.

The first hospital train has just passed. When it stopped a young soldier jumped out. His face was bandaged. We got talking. He had been wounded with grape-shot. Awfully glad he probably won't have to do any more service; his eye was damaged. He was actually laughing.

August 27th

I am in my regiment. The regimental commander is a very fine old man. A Cossack from the lower Don. One can feel the smell of blood

round here. There are rumours that we shall be in the front line the day after tomorrow. Mine is the Third Troop of the Third Squadron-Cossacks from Konstantinovskaya stanitsa. A dull lot. Only one wag and songster.

I August 28th

We are going up. Today there is a lot of noise out there. Sounds like thunder rumbling in the distance. I even sniffed the air for rain. But the sky is like blue satin.

Yesterday my horse went lame, grazed its leg on the wheel of a field-kitchen. Everything is new and strange. I don't know what to start on, what to write about.

August 30th

Yesterday there was no time to write. Now I am writing in the saddle. The jolting makes my pencil perform some monstrous antics. There are three of us riding with a forage train for grass.

Now the lads are tying down the load and I am lying on my stomach making a belated record of what happened yesterday. Yesterday Sergeant Tolokonnikov (he addresses me contemptuously as "student." "Hi there, student, can't you see your horse has got a shoe coming off?") sent six of us out on reconnaissance. We

drove through some burnt-out village or other. It was very hot. The horses were sweating and so were we. Cossacks should not have to wear serge trousers in summer. In a ditch outside the village I saw my first corpse. A German, Lying on his back with his legs in the ditch. One arm twisted under him, a rifle magazine clasped in the other. No rifle anywhere near. A ghastly sight. A cold shiver runs down my spine as I think of it. . . . He looked as if he had been sitting with his legs in the ditch, and had then lain back to rest. Grey uniform and helmet. You could see the leather lining. I was so dazed by this first experience that I don't remember his face. Only the big yellow ants crawling over the yellow forehead and glassy half-closed eyes. The Cossacks crossed themselves as they rode past. I looked at the small spot of blood on the right side of his uniform. The bullet had hit him in the right side and gone straight through. As I rode past I noticed that where the bullet had come out, the stain on the uniform and the clot of blood on the ground were much bigger and the uniform was torn raggedly.

I rode past shuddering. So that is how it happens.

The senior sergeant, whose nickname is "Teaser," tried to restore our spirits by telling

us a dirty story, but his own lips were trembling.

About half a verst on from the village we came to a gutted factory, just brick walls blackened with smoke at the top. We were afraid to go straight along the road because it lay past this heap of ashes, so we decided to go round it. As soon as we struck off the road somebody started firing at us from the factory. The sound of that first shot, ashamed though I am to admit it, nearly toppled me out of my saddle. I grabbed the pommel and instinctively ducked down and tugged the reins. We galloped back to the village past the ditch where the dead German lay, and did not recover our wits until the village was behind us. Then we turned round and dism.ounted. We left two men with the horses and the other four of us made our way back to that ditch. We crouched down to go along it. From a distance I saw the legs of the dead German in short yellow boots dangling over the edge. When I passed him I held my breath, as if he were asleep and I were afraid of waking him. The grass under him was moist and green.

We lay down in the ditch and a few minutes later nine German uhlans rode out from behind the ruins of the gutted factory. I could tell they were uhlans by their uniforms. One of them,

evidently an officer, shouted something in a gutteral voice and the whole detachment rode in our direction. The lads are calling for me to come and help them load the grass. I must go.

August 30th

I want to finish describing how I shot at a man for the first time. The German uhlans rode down on us and I can still see those lizard-green uniforms, the glistening bell-shapes of their helmets, their lances with the flags fluttering at the tips.

They were mounted on dark bay horses. For some reason I let my glance wander to the bank of the ditch and noticed a small emerald-green beetle. It grew larger and larger before my eyes until it seemed enormous. Brushing aside the blades of grass like a giant, it lumbered towards my elbow that I had propped on the dry crumbling clay of the bank; it climbed the sleeve of my tunic and crawled quickly on to the rifle, then from the rifle, on to the sling. I was still watching it on its journey when I heard the Teaser's voice bawling: "Fire, what's the matter with you?!"

I settled my elbow more firmly, screwed up my left eye and felt my heart swelling till it was as huge as that emerald beetle. My sights trembled against a background of grey-green

uniform. I pressed the trigger and heard the moaning flight of my bullet. Next to me the Teaser fired. I must have had my sights too low because the bullet ricochet-ted off a tussock and kicked up a spurt of dust. It was the first shot I had ever fired at a man. I emptied the magazine without aiming. And it was only when I pulled the trigger and got no response that I had a look at the Germans. They were galloping back in the same good order as before, with the officer bringing up the rear. There were nine of them and I could see the dark bay croupe of the officer's horse and the metal plate on the top of his uhlan's helmet.

September 2nd

In War and Peace Tolstoi has a passage in which he speaks of the line between opposing armies, the line of the unknown that seems to divide the living from the dead. The squadron in which Nikolai Rostov is serving goes into the attack and Rostov sees that line in his mind's eye. I remember that passage particularly vividly today, because today at dawn we attacked a unit of Germ.an hussars. Ever since early morning their troops, with excellent artillery support, had been harrassing our infantry. I saw some of our men-the 241st and 273rd

infantry regiments, I think-fleeing in panic. They had been literally demoralized after being thrown into an attack with no artillery support. Enemy fire had accounted for nearly a third of their number and they were being pursued by German hussars. Then our regiment, which had been standing in reserve in a forest clearing, was thrown into action. This is how I remember the affair.

We left the village of Tishvichi between two and three in the morning. Dawn was coming and it was very dark. The air was heavy with the smell of oats and pine needles. The regiment proceeded in squadrons. We turned off the road and struck across the fields. The horses snorted as they sprinkled the heavy dew off the oats with their hoofs.

It was chilly even in a greatcoat. They kept the regiment tracking across the fields for a long time and an hour passed before an officer rode up and handed an order to the regimental commander. Our old man passed on the order in a dissatisfied tone and the regiment turned at right angles into the woods. Our columns were bunched closely on the narrow path. Fighting was going on somewhere to the left. Judging by the noise a large number of German batteries were in action. The sound of the gunfire vibrated in the air and it felt as if all that

scented pinewood was on fire above us. Until sunrise we could only listen. A cheer went up, a limp, ragged sort of cheer, and then-stillness threaded with the clean hammering of machine-guns. At that moment my head was in a whirl; the only thing I could think of, and that picture* was utterly and painfully clear, were the faces of our infantry as they advanced.

In my mind's eye I could see the baggy grey figures in their flat army caps and clumsy soldier's top-boots pounding over the autumn earth, and I could hear the sharp hoarse chuckle of the German machine-guns as they set to work transforming those living sweating human bodies into corpses. The two regiments were mown down and fled, abandoning their arms. Then a regiment of German hussars charged down on them. We came out on their flank at a distance of about seven hundred yards or less. An order was given. We formed up instantly. I heard a single cold command. "Forward!" It seemed to hold us back for a moment like a bit, then we were flying ahead. My horse's ears were pressed so flat against its head you couldn't have prised them up with your fingers. I glanced round-behind me were the regimental commander and two officers. Yes, this was it, this was the line dividing the

living from the dead. Here it was, the great moment of insanity!

The hussars wavered and turned back. Before my eyes our squadron commander Cheme-tsov cut down a German hussar. I saw a Cossack of the Sixth Squadron overtake a German and hack madly at his horse's croup. Ribbons of skin streamed from the sabre as it rose and fell. It was inconceivable! There was no name for it! On the way back I saw Chernetsov's face, intent and controlledly cheerful-he might have been sitting at the card table, instead of in the saddle, having just murdered a man, Squadron-Commander Chernetsov will go far. A capable fellow!

September 4th

We are resting. The Fourth Division of the Second Army Corps is being brought up to the front. We are stationed at the small town of Kobylino. This morning units of the 11th Cavalry Division and the Urals Cossacks went through the town at a fast pace. Fighting continues in the west. A constant rumble. After dinner I went to the field hospital. A train of wounded had just arrived. Stretcher-bearers were unloading a big wagon and laughing. I went up to them. A tall ginger-haired soldier had just climbed down with the help of an or-

derly, "What do you think of that, Cossack," he said, addressing me. "They've given me a load of peas in the behind. It's full of grape-shot." The orderly asked him if the shell had burst behind him. "Behind me be damned, I was advancing behind-first myself." A nurse came out of one of the cottages. I glanced at her and suddenly felt so weak I had to lean against a cart. Her resemblance to Liza was extraordinary. The same eyes, the same oval face, nose, hair. Even her voice was similar. Or was I imagining things? Now, I suppose, I shall see a resemblance to her in every woman I meet.

September 5th

The horses have had a day's feeding in the stalls and we are off to the front again. Physically I am a wreck. The bugler is playing the order to mount. There's a man I should love to put a bullet through!

The squadron commander had sent Grigory Melekhov with a message to regimental headquarters. As he rode through the district where the recent fighting had taken place Grigory noticed a dead Cossack lying at the side of the highway. He lay with his fair curly head close to the hoof-pitted road. Grigory dismounted and, holding his nose (the dead man already

reeked of decay), searched the body. In the trousers pocket he found this notebook, a stub of mdelible pencil and a purse. He removed the cartridge belt and glanced at the pale, moist face that was already beginning to decompose. The temples and the bridge of the nose were turning black, on the forehead a slantwise furrow fixed in mortal concentration was grimed with dust.

Grigory covered the face with a cambric handkerchief that he found in the dead man's pocket and rode on to headquarters, pausing now and then to glance round. He handed in the notebook to the headquarters clerks, who gathered round to read it and laugh over this other man's brief life and its earthly desires.

XII

During August the 11th Cavalry Division took town after town by storm, and by the end of the month they were deployed around the town of Kamenka-Strumilovo. Behind them came the army; infantry units massed on important strategic sectors, staff units and baggage trains gathered at the railway junctions. The front stretched from the Baltic like a death-dealing whiplash. At staff headquarters a big offensive was being planned; generals

pored over their maps, dispatch riders dashed to and fro with battle orders, hundreds of thousands of soldiers marched to their death.

The reconnaissance patrols reported that considerable forces of enemy cavalry were approaching the town. In the wooids along the roads skirmishes were fought between Cossack detachments and the enemy advance guards.

Ever since seeing his brother, Grigory Me-lekhov had sought to put an end to his painful thoughts, and to recover his former tranquillity of spirit. But it was no use. Among the last reinforcements from the second line of reservists a Cossack, Alexei Uryupin, had been drafted into Grigoiy's troop. Uryupin was tall, rather round-shouldered with an aggressive lower jaw and drooping Kalmyk whiskers. His merry, fearless eyes were always smiling, and he was bald, with only scanty ruddy hair around the edges of his angular scull. On the very first day of his arrival he was nicknamed "Tufty."

After fighting around Brodi the regiment had a day's respite. Grigory and Uryupin were quartered in the same hut. They soon fell into conversation.