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

no news had come from the Danube, there were rumours amongst us, each one more improbable than the other. Some said that we had already crossed and were pursuing the Turks, others said the attempt to cross had failed and whole regiments had been destroyed.

“Some had been drowned, others had been shot,” said someone.

“And you are lying,” interrupted Vassili Karpich.

“Why am I lying, if it is true?”

“True! Who told you?”

“What?”

“The truth? Where did you hear it?”

“We all know. The firing goes on and nothing more.”

“All say it. A Cossack has been to the General, and⁠ ⁠…”

“Cossack! Did you see him? What is he like, this Cossack?”

“An ordinary Cossack⁠ ⁠… just as he ought to look.”

“As he ought to! What a tongue you have got⁠—just like an old woman. Better to keep your mouth shut. No one has been, so no one could know.”

I went to Ivan Platonich. The officers were sitting fully equipped and ready, with their revolvers fastened to their waist-belts. Ivan Platonich, as usual, was red, puffing, and breathing heavily, and was wiping his neck with a dirty handkerchief. Stebelkoff was excited, bright, and for some reason had pomaded his usually drooping moustaches so that they stuck out in pointed ends.

“Look at our Lieutenant! He has got himself up for action,” said Ivan Platonich, winking at him. “Ah, my dear chap, I am sorry for you. We shall have no such moustaches in our mess! They will do for you, Stebelkoff,” said the Captain jokingly. “Well, you are not afraid?”

“I shall try not to be,” said Stebelkoff in a brave voice.

“Well, and you, you warrior, is it terrifying?”

“I don’t know, Ivan Platonich.⁠ ⁠… Has nothing been heard from there?”

“Nothing. The Lord only knows what is happening there.” Ivan Platonich sighed deeply. “We move off in an hour’s time,” he added after a short pause.

The fly of the tent opened, and the Adjutant Lukin poked his head in. He looked very serious and pale.

“You here, Ivanoff? Orders have been given to swear you in.⁠ ⁠… Not now, but when we move off. Ivan Platonich, a fifth packet of cartridges to the men.”

He refused to come in and sit down, saying that he had much to do, and went off somewhere. I also left.

About twelve o’clock dinners were served. The men ate little. After dinner we were ordered to remove our sight-protectors (leather covers) from our rifles and extra ammunition was issued. The men began to prepare for action. They commenced to examine their knapsacks and throw away anything superfluous. Torn shirts and drawers, various kinds of rags, old boots, brushes, greasy handbooks⁠—all were thrown away. Some of the men appeared to have brought a quantity of useless things in their knapsacks as far as the Danube. I saw a “schelkun”⁠—a small piece of wood used in time of peace before parades and reviews for polishing kit-straps⁠—lying on the ground, heavy stone pomade jars, all sorts of small boxes and bits of boards, and even a whole boot-tree.

“Go on; throw away. It will be easier marching. We shall not want them tomorrow.”

“Five hundred versts I have carried you⁠ ⁠… and what for?” argued Lutikoff, examining some rag. “I can’t take you with me.”

It became the fashion that day to throw away things and to clean out knapsacks. When we left the camp it showed up in the dark background of the Steppe as a quadrangular space dotted with multicoloured rags and other articles.

Before marching, when the regiment was already standing waiting the word of command, several officers and our young regimental chaplain collected in front. I was called out of the ranks with four “volunteers” from other regiments. All had enlisted for the campaign. Having handed over our rifles to neighbours, we went forward and stood near the colours. My unknown comrades were in a state of agitation, and I, too, felt my heart beating faster than usual.

“Take hold of the colours,” said the battalion commandant. The colour-bearer lowered the colour and others of the colour-party removed the case. An old faded green silk fabric unfolded to the wind. We stood around it, and, grasping the pole with one hand and holding the other aloft, we repeated the words of the chaplain, as he read out the ancient military oath of Peter’s time. They recalled to me what Vassili Karpich had said on our first march. Where does it come in? thought I, and after a long list of the occasions and places on and in which His Imperial Majesty had served, I heard these words: “Do not spare your life.” We five all repeated them in one voice, and, glancing at the rows of gloomy men ready for action, I felt that they were no empty words.

We returned to our places. The regiment stirred, and dissolving into a long column, set off with forced step for the Danube. The firing which we had heard had now ceased.

As through a dream I remember that march. The dust raised by the horses of Cossack regiments as they overtook us, the broad steppes sloping down to the Danube, the opposite bank showing up blue, fifteen versts away. The fatigue, heat, and the jostling and fighting at the wells under Zimnitza. The dirty little town filled with troops, some Generals who waved their caps at us from a balcony and shouted “Hurrah!” to which we replied.

“They have crossed! They are over!” buzzed voices around us.

“Two hundred killed, five hundred wounded.”

VIII

It was already dark when, having come down from the bank, we crossed a tributary of the Danube by a small bridge, and marched over a low sandy island still wet from the water which had but just receded from it. I remember the sharp clank of the bayonets of the soldiers as the men collided with each other in the darkness, the deep rumble of the artillery which had overtaken us, the black expanse of the wide river, the lights on the other bank, where we had to cross tomorrow, and where, I reflected,