Short Fiction Vsevolod Garshin (best e reader for epub .txt) 📖

was marching abreast of us, and was composed of undersized men, were almost up to their ears in the water. Some of them even began to choke and clutch at us. A little gipsy soldier, with blanched face and terrified, wide-opened eyes, seized “Uncle” Jitkoff by the neck with both hands, having thrown away his rifle. Luckily for the gipsy, somebody seized it from going to the bottom.

Ten sajenes farther on the water became shallower, and everyone, being now out of danger, commenced to scramble out as quickly as possible, pushing and swearing at each other. Many of us laughed, but it was no laughing matter for the soldiers of the eighth company. Many of their faces were blue not only from cold. Behind us pressed the riflemen.

“Now then, whippersnappers, scramble out! They have sunk!” they cried.

“Very easy to have drowned,” replied the eighth company. “It was all right for him; he only wetted his whiskers. What a hero! People could be drowned here.”

“You should have sat in my canteen. I would have taken you over dry.”

“I didn’t think of that,” replied the little soldier good-humouredly at the gibe.

The cause of all this bustle having already succeeded in freeing his feet from the sticky bottom, and having got out of the water, was standing in a majestic pose on the bank, looking at the struggling mass of humanity in the water. He was wet to the skin, and had in reality soaked himself and his long whiskers. The water was trickling from his clothes. His polished leather top-boots were bulging with water, but he continued to shout encouragement to the men.

“Forward, my children! Remember Suvoroff!”

The soaking officers with gloomy faces were crowding around him. Amongst them was Ventzel, with distorted face, and minus his sword. Meanwhile the General’s coachman, having reached the bank, and having pushed off into the water, sat on the box with a huge whip, and got over successfully, a little to one side of the spot where he had crossed, and where the water scarcely reached the axles of the carriage-wheel.

“That is where, Your Excellency, we should have crossed over,” said the Major quietly. “Will you order the men to dry themselves?”

“Certainly, certainly, Sergei Nicolaich,” replied the General calmly. The cold water had quenched his ardour. He got into his carriage, sat down; then again stood up and cried out at the top of his extraordinarily powerful voice:

“Thank you, Starobieltzi! You are good fellows.”

“Pleased to try, Your Excellency!” replied the men in salute somewhat confusedly. And the dripping General drove off ahead.

The sun was still high. There were only five more versts to go, so the Major made a prolonged halt. We undressed, lit fires, dried our clothes, boots, knapsacks, and pouches, and two hours afterwards started off again, even laughing at the recollection of our bath.

“And so old Bravo has sent Ventzel off under arrest!” said Feodoroff.

“A good job. Let him march a day or two with the money-chest,” came the reply from someone in the riflemen company behind us.

“What’s that to do with you?”

“With me! Not only with me, but for the whole company it will be easier. At least we shall have a rest for a couple of days. We can’t stick him⁠—that’s what it is to do with me!”

“Patience brings everything about.”

“Patience is all right, but it doesn’t always bring everything,” said Jitkoff in his usual surly tone. “If only the Turk will kill him!”

“And you, ‘Uncle’ Jitkoff, don’t despair. You have to think about our no longer being wet, that we are marching dry, and old Bravo is riding wet,” said Feodoroff, amidst general laughter.

V

We continued to march parallel with the railway. Trains filled with men, horses, and supplies were continually passing us. The men looked enviously at the goods wagons being whirled past us, through the open doors of which were to be seen horses’ muzzles.

“Eh? But what luck for the horses! Meanwhile we have to walk.”

“A horse is stupid, and gets thin,” argued Vasili Karpich. “But you are a man, and can look after yourself properly.”

Once, when we were halted, a Cossack galloped up to the Major with an important piece of news. We were ordered to fall in without knapsacks or arms, just in our white shirts. None of us knew what this meant. The officers examined us. Ventzel, as usual, was shouting and swearing, tugging at badly-put-on belts, and with kicks ordering men to adjust their shirts. Then they marched us to the bed of the railway, and after a good deal of manoeuvring, the regiment was stretched in two ranks along the route. The line of white shirts extended more than a verst.

“Children,” shouted the Major, “His Majesty the Emperor is passing by!”

And we commenced to await the Emperor. Our division was an outlying one, stationed far from Petersburg and Moscow. Barely one-tenth of the men composing it had ever seen their Tsar, and all waited the Imperial train impatiently. Half an hour passed by, and no train. The men were allowed to sit down, and began to talk.

“Will the train stop?” asked someone.

“Don’t reckon on that! Stopping for every regiment! He will look at us out of the window, and that’s good enough for us.”

“And we shall not distinguish which is he. There are a number of Generals with him.”

“I shall know. The year before last I saw him at K⁠⸺ as close as that;” and the soldier stretched out his hand to show how close he had been to the Emperor.

Finally, after two hours’ expectancy, smoke appeared in the distance. The regiment rose and took up its proper dressing. First passed the train with the servants and kitchen. The cooks and their assistants in white caps looked at us out of the windows, and for some reason laughed. About 200 sajenes behind came the Imperial train. The engine-driver, seeing the regiment drawn up, slackened speed, and the carriages slowly rumbled past before eyes greedily searching the