CHAPTER III
THE INVISIBLE BATTLE
On the evening of the following day Trenchard, Andrey Vassilievitchand I were sent with sanitars and wagons to the little hamlet ofM----, five versts only from the Position. It was night when wearrived there; no sound of cannon, only on the high hills (the firstlines of the Carpathians) that faced us the scattered watchfires ofour own Sixty-Fifth Division, and in the little village street a lineof cavalry moving silently, without a spoken word, on to the high-roadbeyond. After much difficulty (the village was filled with theofficers of the Sixty-Fifth) we found a kitchen in which we mightsleep. Upon the rough earth floor our mattresses were spread, my feetunder the huge black oven, my head beneath a gilt picture of theVirgin and Child that in the candlelight bowed and smiled, in companywith eight other pictures of Virgins and Children, to give usconfidence and encouragement.
It was a terrible night. On a high pillared bed set into the fartherwall, an old Galician woman, her head bound up in a red handkerchief,knelt all night and prayed aloud. Her daughter crouched against thewall, sleeping, perhaps, but nevertheless rocking ceaselessly a woodencradle that hung from a black bar in the ceiling. In this cradle layher son, aged one or two, and once and again he cried for half an houror so, protesting, I suppose, against our invasion. There was a smellin the kitchen of sour bread, mice, and bad water. The heat wasterrible but the old lady told us that the grandchild was ill andwould certainly die were the window opened. The candle we blew out butthere remained a little burning lamp under the picture of the Virginimmediately over the old lady's bed. I slept, but for how long I donot know. I was only aware that suddenly I was awake, staring throughthe tiny diamond-paned window, at the faint white light now breakingin the sky. I could see from my mattress only a thin strip of thislight above the heavy mass of dark forest on the mountain-side.
I must have been still only half-awake because I could not clearlydivide, before my eyes, the true from the false. I could see quiteplainly in the dim white shadow the face of Trenchard; he was notasleep, but was leaning on his elbow staring in front of him. I couldsee the old woman with her red handkerchief kneeling in front of herlamp and her prayer came like the turning of a wheel, harsh andincessant. The cradle creaked, in the air was the heavy smell, andsuddenly, beyond the window, a cock crowed. These things were real.But also I seemed to be in some place much vaster than the stuffykitchen of the night before. Under the light that was with everyminute growing stronger, I could fancy that many figures were movingin the shadows; it seemed to me as though I were in some place wheregreat preparations were being made. I fancied then that I coulddiscern Marie Ivanovna's figure, then Nikitin, then Semyonov, thenMolozov.... There was a great silence but I felt that every one wasbusily occupied in making ready for some affair. This was with half myconsciousness--with the other half I was perfectly aware of the actualroom, of Trenchard, the creaking cradle and the rest.
Then the forest that had been on the hills seemed to draw closer tothe house. I felt that it had invaded the garden and that its verybranches were rubbing against the windows. With all of this I wasaware that I was imagining some occurrence that I had already seen,that was not, in any way, new to me, I was assured of the next event.When we, all of us, Marie Ivanovna, Semyonov, Nikitin and the rest,were ready we should move out into the forest, would stand, a vastcompany, with our dogs and horses....
Why, it was Trenchard's dream that I was seeing! I was merelyrepeating to myself his own imaginations--and with that I hadsuddenly, as though some one had hypnotised me, fallen back into aheavy dreamless sleep. It was already midday when I was wakened bylittle Andrey Vassilievitch, who, sitting on my bed and evidently in astate of the very greatest excitement, informed me that Dr. Semyonovand the Sisters Marie Ivanovna and Anna Petrovna had arrived from ----,and that we might be off at any moment. I was aware, as hespoke, of a great stir beyond the window and saw, passing up throughthe valley, a flood of soldiers, infantry, cavalry, kitchens withclumsy black funnels bobbing on their unsteady wheels, cannon,hundreds of carts; the soldiers came up through our own gardentreading down the cabbages, stopping at the well near our door andfilling their tin kettles, tramping up the road, spreading, likesmoke, in the far distance, up the high road that led into thefurthest forest.
"They say--to-night--for certain," said Andrey Vassilievitch, his fathand trembling on my bed. He began to talk, his voice shaking withexcitement. "Do you know, Ivan Andreievitch, I am continuallysurprised at myself: 'Here you are, Andrey Vassilievitch, here, at thewar. What do you make of it?? I say to myself. Just consider.... No,but seriously, Ivan Andreievitch, of course I must seem to all of yousomething of a comic figure. When my wife was alive--how I wish thatyou could have known her! Such a remarkable woman; every one who mether was struck by her fine character--when my wife was alive I had myposition to support. That I should have been a comic figure would havedistressed her. But now, who cares? Nobody, you may very truly say....Well, well. But the point is that this evening we shall really be inthe thick of it. And--may I tell you something, Ivan Andreievitch?Only for yourself, because you are an Englishman and can be trusted:to speak quite truthfully I'm frightened. I say to myself that one isat the war and that one must be frightened at nothing, and still Iremain frightened.... Frightened of what?... I really cannot tell you.Death, perhaps? But no, I should not be sorry to die--there arereasons....
"And yet although I should not be sorry to die, I remainfrightened--all night I was awake--I do my utmost to control it, butthere is something stronger than I--something. I feel as though if Ionce discovered what that something was I should not be frightened anylonger. Something definite that you could meet and say to yourself:'There, Andrey Vassilievitch, you're not frightened of _that_, areyou? What is there to be frightened of?... Why then, you know, I don'tbelieve I should be frightened any more!'"
I remember that he then explained to me that he wished Nikitin hadbeen sent instead of Semyonov. Nikitin was much more sympathetic.
"You seem very fond of Nikitin," I said.
"We are friends ... we have been friends for many years. My wife wasvery fond of him. I am a lonely man, Ivan Andreievitch, since thedeath of my wife, and to be with any one who knew her is a greathappiness ... yes, a great happiness."
"And Semyonov?" I asked.
"I have nothing to say against Alexei Petrovitch," he answeredstiffly.
When later I joined the others at the cottage higher up the road takenby the doctors of the Division, I discovered Trenchard in an ecstasyof happiness. He did not speak to me but his shining eyes, theeagerness with which standing back from the group he watched us all,told me everything. Marie Ivanovna had been kind to him, and when Ifound her in the centre of them, her whole body alert with excitement,I forgot my anger at her earlier unkindness or, if I remembered it,laid it to the charge of my own imagination or Trenchard'ssensitiveness.
Indeed we were all excited. How could we fail to be! There was somebig business toward, and in it we were to have our share. We were,perhaps this very day, to penetrate into the reality of the thing thatfor nine months now we had been watching. All of us, with our littleprivate histories like bundles on our backs, are venturing out to tryour fortune.... What are we going to find?
I remember indeed that early on that afternoon I felt the drama of thewhole affair so heavily that I saw in every soldier who passed me amessenger of fate. They called me to a meal. Eat! Now! How absurd itseemed! Semyonov watched me cynically:
"Eat and then sleep," he said, "or you'll be no use to any one."
Afterwards I went back to the kitchen and slept. That sleep was theend of my melodrama. I was awakened by a rough hand on my shoulder tofind it dark beyond the windows and Semyonov watching me impatiently:
"Come, get up! It's time for us to start," and then moved out. I wasconscious that I was cold and irritable. I looked back with surprisedcontempt to my earlier dramatic emotions. I was hungry; I put on myovercoat, shivered, came out into the evening, saw
the line of wagonssilhouetted against the sky, listened to the perfect quiet on everyside of me, yawned and was vexed to find Trenchard at my side.
"Why this is actually dull!" I thought to myself. "It is as though Iwere going to some dinner that I know beforehand will be exceedinglytiresome--only then I should get some food."
I was disappointed at the lack of drama in the affair. I looked at mywatch--it was ten o'clock. Semyonov was arranging everything with amasterly disregard of personal feelings. He swore fine Russian oaths,abused the sanitars, always in his cold rather satirical voice, hisheavy figure moving up and down the road with a practical vividalertness that stirred my envy and also my annoyance. I felt utterlyuseless. He ordered me on to my wagon in a manner that, in my presenthalf-sleepy, half-surly mood seemed to me abominably abrupt. Trenchardclimbed up, very clumsily, after me.
I leaned back on the straw, let my arms fall and lay there, flat on myback, staring straight into the sky.... With that my mood suddenlychanged. I was at peace with the whole world. To-night was again thickwith a heavy burden of stars that seemed to weigh like the silver lidof some mighty box heavily down, down upon us, until trees and hillsand the dim Carpathians were bent flat beneath the pressure. I lyingupon my back, seeing only that sheet of stars, in my nostrils thesmell of the straw, rocked by the slow dreamy motion of the wagon, wasfilled with an exquisite ease and lethargy. I was going into battle,was I? I was to have to-night the supreme experience of my life? Itmight be that to-night I should die--only last week two members of theRed Cross--a nurse and a doctor--had been killed. It might be thatthese stars, this straw, this quiet night were round me for the lasttime. It did not matter to me--nothing could touch me. My soul wassomewhere far away, upon some business of its own, and how happy wasmy body without the soul, how contented, how undisturbed! I couldfancy that I should go, thus rocking, into battle and there die beforemy soul had time to return to me. What would my soul do then? Findsome other body, or go wandering, searching for me? A star, a flash oflight like a cry of happiness or of glad surprise, fell through heavenand the other stars trembled at the sight.
My wagon stopped with a jerk. Some voice asked: what the devil were wedoing filling the road with our carts at the exact moment thatsuch-and-such a Division wished to move.
I heard Semyonov's voice, very cold, official and polite. Then again:"Well, in God's name, hurry then! ... taking up the road! ... hurry, Itell you!"
On we jogged again. Trenchard's voice came to me: he had been, itmight be, talking for some time.
"And so I'm not surprised, Durward, that you thought me a terriblefool to show my feelings as I've done this last fortnight. But youdon't know what it is to me--to have something at last in your handsthat you've dreamed of all your life and never dared to hope for: tohave it and feel that at any moment it may slip away and leave you ina worse state than you were before. I'd been wishing, these lastweeks, that I'd never met her, that I'd simply come to the war bymyself. But now--to-day--when she spoke to me as she did, asked me toforgive her for what happened last night, my God, Durward! _I_ toforgive _her_!... But I'll show her this very night what I cando--this very night! They'll give me a chance, won't they? It would beterrible if they didn't. Semyonov won't give me a chance if he canhelp it. What have I done to Semyonov that he should hate me? Whathave...."
But I didn't answer Trenchard. That part of me that had any concernwith him and his affairs was far away. But his voice had stirred somemore active life in me. I thought to myself now: Will there be someconcrete definite moment in this affair when I shall say to myself:"Ah, there it is! There's the heart of this whole business! There'sthe enemy! Slay him and you have settled the matter!" or, perhaps,"Ah, now I've seen the secret. Now I've hunted the animal to his lair.This is war, this thing here. Now all my days I remain quiet. There isnothing more to fear"--or would it be perhaps that I should facesomething and be filled, then, with ungovernable terror so that Ishould run for my life, run, hide me in the hills, cover up my days sothat no one shall ever find me again?...
I raised myself on my elbow and looked at the country. We jolted overa little brook, brushed through a thicket of trees, came on to a pathrunning at the forest's foot, and saw on our left a little woodenhouse, a high wood fire burning in front of it. I looked at my watch.It was one o'clock. Already a very faint glow throbbed in the sky. Outof the forest, at long intervals, came a dull booming sound like theshutting of a heavy iron door.
The wagons drew up. We had arrived at our destination.
"We shall be here," I heard Semyonov say, "some five hours or so.You'd better sleep if you can."
A group of soldiers round the wood fire were motionless, their facesglowing, their bodies dark. Our wagons, drawn up together, resembledin the twilight strange beasts; the two Sisters lay down on one wagon,Semyonov, Andrey Vassilievitch, Trenchard and I on another. Myirritated mood had returned. I had been the last to climb on to thestraw and the others had so settled themselves that I had no room tolie flat. Semyonov's big body occupied half the wagon, AndreyVassilievitch's boots touched my head and at intervals his whole bodygave nervous jerks. It was also quite bitterly cold, which was curiousenough after the warmth of the earlier nights. And always, at whatseemed to be regular intervals, there came, from the forest, thebanging of the iron door.
I felt a passionate irritation against Andrey Vassilievitch. Why couldhe not keep quiet? What, after all, was he doing here? I could hearthat he was dreaming. He muttered some woman's name:
"Sasha ... Sasha ... Sasha...."
"Can't you keep still?" I whispered to him, but in the cold I myselfwas trembling. The dawn came at last with reluctance, flushing the airwith colour, then withdrawing into cold grey clouds, then stealing outonce more behind the forest in scattered strips of pale green gold,then suddenly sending up into the heaven a flock of pink clouds like aflight of birds, that spread in extending lines to the horizon,covering at last a sky now faintly blue, with rosy bars. The flame ofthe soldiers' fire grew faint, white mists rose in the fields, thecannon in the forest ceased and the birds began.
I sat up on the cart, looked at my sleeping companions, and thoughthow unpleasant they looked. Semyonov like a dead man, AndreyVassilievitch like a happy pig, Trenchard like a child who sleptafter a scolding. I felt intense loneliness. I wanted some one tocomfort me, to reassure me against life which seemed to me suddenlynow perilous and remorseless; moreover some one seemed to be reviewingmy life for me and displaying it to me, laying bare all itsuselessness and insignificance.
"But I'm in no way a fine fellow," I could fancy myself crying. "I'msleepy and cold and hungry. If you'll remove Andrey Vassilievitch'sboots for me I'll lie flat on this wagon and you can let loose everyshrapnel in the world over my head and I'll never stir. I thought Iwas interested in your war, and I'm not.... I thought no discomfortmattered to me, but I find that I dislike so much being cold andhungry that it outweighs all heroism, all sense of danger ... let mealone!"
Then something occurred. Looking down over the side of the cart I saw,to my great surprise, Marie Ivanovna.
"You!" I whispered.
"Hush!" she answered. "Come down."
I let myself down and at once she put her hand into mine.
"Walk with me just a little way," she whispered, "to those trees andback." I had noticed at once that her voice trembled; now I perceivedthat her whole body was shaking; her hand gave little startled quiversunder mine.
"You're cold," I said.
"No, I'm not cold," she answered still in a whisper, although we werenow some way from the wagons. "I'm frightened, Mr. Durward, that'swhat's the matter--desperately frightened."
"Nonsense," I answered her. "You! Frightened! Never!"
"But I am. I've been terribly fr-frightened all night; and thatSister Anna Petrovna, he (she sometimes confused her pronouns) sleepslike a log. How can he? I've never slept, not for a moment, and I'vebeen so cold and every time the cannon sounded I wanted to runaway.... Oh, Mr. Durward, I'm s
o ashamed!"
Then, suddenly, desperately clutching my hand:
"Mr. Durward, you'll never tell any one, any one never.... Promise!"
"Never a soul," I answered. "It's only because you're cold and hungryand sleepy that you think you're frightened. You're not frightenedreally. But wouldn't you like me to wake Trenchard and get him to cometo you.... He'd be so happy?..."
She started fiercely from me. "Never! Never! Why, what _can_ youthink! You must never tell, most of all you must never tell him.... Hemust _never_ know--nothing--"
The cannon began again. She caught my arm and stood with her bodytrembling, pressed against mine. I could feel her draw a deep breath.As I looked at her, her face white in the dawn, her large eyes staringlike a child's, her body so young and slender, she seemed anothercreature, utterly, absolutely apart from the woman of this lastfortnight.
"Look here!" I said to her sternly. "You mustn't go on like this.You've got work to do to-day. You've simply got to hold yourself in,to tell yourself that nothing can touch you. Why to-night you'll laughat me if I remind you of this. You'll...."
But there was better tonic than my words, Semyonov's voice came tous--"Hullo, you there! It's five o'clock--we're moving."
She drew herself sharply away from me. She raised her head, smiled atme, then said:
"Thank you, Mr. Durward. It's all well now. There's Dr. Semyonov--letus go back."
She greeted him with a voice that had in it not the slightest tremor.
There comes now a difficult matter. During the later months when I wasto reflect on the whole affair I saw quite clearly that that hourbetween our leaving the wooden house and arriving in the trenchesbridged quite clearly for me the division in this business betweenimagination and reality: that is, I was never after this to speak ofwar as I would have spoken of it an hour before. I was never again toregard the paraphernalia of it with the curiosity of a stranger--I hadbecome part of it. This hour then may be regarded as in some ways themost important of all my experiences. It is certainly the occasion towhich if I were using my invention I should make the most. Here thenis my difficulty.
I have nothing to say about it. There's nothing at all to be made ofit....
I may say at once that there was no atom of drama in it. At one momentI was standing with Marie Ivanovna under the sunrise, at another I wasstanding behind a trench in the heart of the forest with a battery tomy left and a battery to my right, a cuckoo somewhere not very faraway, and a dead man with his feet sticking out from under the cloththat covered him peacefully beneath a tree at my side. There had, ofcourse, been that drive in the wagons, bumping over the uneven roadwhilst the sun rose gallantly in the heavens and the clanging of theiron door grew, with every roll of our wheels, louder and louder. Butit was rather as though I had been lifted in a sheet from one life--alife of speculation, of viewing war from a superior and safedistance, of viewing indeed all catastrophe and reality from that samedistance--into the other. I had been caught up, had hung for a momentin midair, had been "planted" in this new experience. For us all theremust have been at this moment something of this passing from an oldlife into a new one, and yet I dare swear that not for any one of uswas there any drama, any thrill, any excitement. We stood, a ratherlonely little group, in the forest clearing whilst the soldiers in thetrench flung us a careless glance, then turned back to their businessof the day with an indifference that showed how ordinary and drab athing custom had made it.
Yes, we made a desolate little group. Semyonov had gone to a house onthe farther side of the road up which we had come, a house that flewthe Red Cross flag. We had only the right to care for the wounded ofcertain Divisions and our presence had to be reported. We were leftthen, Marie Ivanovna, Anna Petrovna, Andrey Vassilievitch, Trenchardand I, all rather close together, uncomfortable, desolate and shy, asboys feel on their first day at school. The battery on our left wasvery near to us and we could see the sharp flash of its flame behindthe trees. The noise that it made was terrific, a sharp, angry, clumsynoise, as though some huge giant clad in mail armour was flinging hisbody, in a violent rage, against an iron door that echoed through anempty house--my same iron door that I had heard all night. The rage ofthe giant spread beyond his immediate little circle of trees and onewondered at the men in the trenches because they were indifferent tohis temper.
The noise of the more distant batteries was still, as it had beenbefore, like the clanging of many iron doors very mild and gentleagainst the clamour of our own enraged fury. The Austrian reply seemedlike the sleepy echo of this confusion, so sleepy and pleasant thatone felt almost friendly to the enemy.
Our own battery was inconsistent in his raging. Had he only chosen tofling himself at his door every three minutes, say, or even everyminute, we could have prepared ourselves, but he was moved by nothing,apparently, but his own irrational impulse. There would be a pause oftwo minutes, then three furious explosions, then a pause of fiveminutes, then another explosion.... I mastered quickly my impulse toleap into the air at every report, by a kind of prolonged extension inmy mind of one report into another. Little Andrey Vassilievitch wasnot so successful. At each explosion his body jerked as though it hadbeen worked by wires; then he glanced round to see whether any one hadnoticed his agitation, then drew himself up, brushed off imaginarydust from his uniform, coughed and frowned. Trenchard stood close toMarie Ivanovna and looked at her anxiously once or twice as though hewould like to speak to her, but she, holding herself very stiffly,watched with sternness the whole world as though she personally hadarranged the spectacle and was responsible for its success.
Soon Semyonov came back and said that he must go on to some furthertrenches to discover the best position for us. To my intense surpriseAndrey Vassilievitch asked whether he might accompany him. I fancythat he felt that he would venture anything to escape our adjacency tothe battery.
So they departed, leaving us more forlorn than before We sat down onthe stretchers: Anna Petrovna, fat, heavy, phlegmatic, silent; MarieIvanovna silent too but with a look now of expectation in her eyes asthough she knew that something was coming for her very shortly;Trenchard near her, trying to be cheerful, but conscious of the deadsoldier under the tree from whom he seemed unable to remove his eyes.There was, in the open space near us, a _kipiatilnik_, that is, alarge boiler on wheels in which tea is made. To this the soldiers werecrowding with their tin cans; the cuckoo, far away now, continued hiscry....
At long intervals, out of the forest, a wounded soldier would appear.He seemed to be always the same figure, sometimes wounded in the head,sometimes in the leg, sometimes in the stomach, sometimes in thehand--but always the same, with a look in his eyes of mild protestbecause this had happened to him, also a look of dumb confidence thatsome one somewhere would make things right for him. He came either tous or to the Red Cross building across the road, according to hiscompany. One soldier with a torn thumb cried bitterly, looking at histhumb and shaking his head at it, but he alone showed any emotion. Theothers suffered the sting of the iodine without a word, walking offwhen they were bandaged, or carried by our sanitars on the stretchers,still with that look of wonder and trust in their eyes.
And how glad we were when there was any work to do! The sun rose highin the sky, the morning advanced, Semyonov and Andrey Vassilievitchdid not return. For the greater part of the time we did not speak, normove. I was conscious of an increasing rage against the battery. Ifelt that if it was to cease I might observe, be interested, feelexcitement--as it was, it kept everything from me. It kept everythingfrom me because it insistently demanded my attention, like a vulgargarrulous neighbour who persists in his tiresome story. Its perpetualhammering had soon its physical effect. A sick headache crept upon me,seized me, held me. I might look at the soldiers, sleeping now likedead men in the trench, I might look at the Red Cross flag lazilyflapping in the breeze across the road, I might look at the corpsewith the soiled marble feet under the tree, I might look at Trenchardand Marie Ivanovna silent and unhappy on the s
tretchers, on AnnaPetrovna comfortably slumbering with an open mouth, I might listen tothe distant batteries, to the sudden quick impatient chatter of themachine guns, to the rattling give-and-take of the musketry somewherefar away where the river was, I might watch the cool green hollows ofthe forest glades, the dark sleepy shadows, the bright patches ofburning sky between the branches, I might say to myself that all thesethings together made the impression of my first battle ... and thenwould know, in my heart, that there was no impression at all, nothrill, no drama, no personality--only a sick throb in my head and acold hand upon my chest and a desire to fling myself into any horror,any danger, if I could but escape this indigestible monotony....
Once Trenchard, treading very softly as though every one around himwere asleep, came across and talked to me.
"You know," he said in a whisper, "this isn't at all what I expected."
"You needn't whisper," I answered irritably, "that battery's makingsuch a noise that I can't hear anything you say."
"Yes, isn't it!" he said with a little sigh. "It's very unpleasantindeed. Do you think Semyonov's forgotten us? We've been here a goodmany hours and we aren't doing very much."
"No," I answered. "We're doing nothing except get sick headaches."
There was a pause, then he said:
"Where is everything?"
"Everything?--What?"
"Well, the battle, for instance!"
"Oh, that's down the hill, I suppose. We're trying to cross the riverand they're trying to prevent us."
"Yes," he answered. "But that isn't exactly what I mean.... It's hardto explain, but even if we were to see our soldiers trying to crossthe river and the Austrians trying to prevent them that wouldn'tbe--well, wouldn't be exactly the real thing, would it? It would onlybe a kind of side-show, rather unimportant like that dead man there!"
But my headache prevented my interest in his speculations. I saidnothing.
He added as though to himself:
"Perhaps each individual soldier sees the real thing for himself butcan't express what he sees...."
As I still made no answer, with another little sigh he got up andwalked back, on tip-toe, to the side of Marie Ivanovna.
Then suddenly, in the early hours of the afternoon, to our intenserelief, Semyonov and Andrey Vassilievitch appeared. Semyonov was, asever, short, practical, and unemotional.
"Been a long time, I'm afraid. We found it difficult to see exactlywhere would be the best place. And, after all, we've got toseparate.... One Sister's wanted at the Red Cross over there. They'veasked for our help. The other will come with me on to the Positionuntil this evening. You three gentlemen, if you'll be so good, willwait here until a wagon comes. Then it will take you down to thetrenches at the bottom of the hill. Then, if you don't mind, I wouldlike you to wait until dusk when we shall go out to fetch thewounded.... Is that clear?"
We answered yes.
"Now which Sister will come with me? Marie Ivanovna, I think it wouldinterest you. No danger, except a stray shrapnel or two. Will youcome?"
There leapt upon us then, with an agitation that seemed to silence thevery battery itself, Trenchard's voice:
"No.... No ... Marie. No, it's dangerous. Semyonov says so. Your firstday...."
He spoke in English, his voice trembling. I turned to see his facewhite, his eyes wide open and at the same time blind; he passionatelyaddressed himself to Marie Ivanovna and to her alone.
But she turned impatiently.
"Why, of course, Doctor. I'm ready at once."
Trenchard put his hand on her arm.
"You are not to go--Marie, do you hear? I have a right ... I tell you,you are not to go!"
"Don't be so stupid, John," she shook off his arm. "Please, Doctor,I'm ready."
Semyonov turned to Trenchard with a smile: "Mr. (they all called himMr. now), it will be quite well ... I will look after her."
"You ... you" (Trenchard could not control his voice), "you can'tprevent shrapnel--bullets. You don't care, you...."
Semyonov's voice was sharp: "I think it better that Sister MarieIvanovna should come with me. You understand, the rest of you.... Weshall meet at dusk."
Trenchard only said "Marie ..." then turned away from us. AnnaPetrovna, who had said nothing during this scene and had, indeed,seemed to be oblivious of it, plunged with her heavy clumsy walkacross the road to the Red Cross house. The Doctor and Marie Ivanovnadisappeared behind the trench. I was, as was always my case withTrenchard, both sympathetic and irritated. It was difficult for him,of course, but what did he expect the girl to do? Could he havesupposed for a single moment that she would remain? Could it bepossible that he knew her so little as that? And why make a scene nowbefore Semyonov when he obviously could do nothing? I knew, moreover,with a certainty that was almost ironic in its clarity, that MarieIvanovna did not love, did not, perhaps, even care for him. By whatmoment in Petrograd, a moment flaming with their high purposes and thepurple shadows of a Russian "white night," had she been entranced intosome glorious vision of him? On the very day that followed, she hadknown, I was convinced, her mistake. At the station she had known it,and instead of the fine Sir Galahad "without reproach" of the previousnight she saw some figure that, had she been English born, would haveappeared to her as Alice's White Knight perchance, or at best thewarm-hearted Uncle Toby, or that most Christian of Englishheroes--Parson Adams. I could imagine that life had been so impulsive,so straightforward, so simple a thing to her that this suddenimplication in an affair complicated and even dishonest caused herbitter disquiet. Looking back now I could trace again and again thesudden flashes, through her happiness, of this distress.
He perhaps should have perceived it, but I could understand that hecould not believe that his treasure had at last after all these yearsbeen given to him for so brief a moment. He could not, he would not,believe it. Well, I knew that his eyes must very soon be opened to thetruth....
As I turned to see him sitting on the stretcher with his back to me,his head hanging a little as though it were too heavy for his neck,his back bent, his long arms fallen loose at his sides, I thought thatAlice's White Knight he, in solemn truth, presented.
He had a talent for doing things to his uniform. His cap, instead ofbeing raised in front, was flat, his jacket bulged out above his belt,and the straps on his boot had broken from their holdings. He filledthe pockets of his trousers, in moments of absent-minded absorption,with articles that he fancied that he would need--sometimes food,black bread and sausage, sometimes a large pocket-knife, a foldingdrinking glass, a ball of string, a notebook. These things protruded,or gave his clothes a strange bulky look, fat in some places, thin inothers. As I saw him his shoulder-blades seemed to pierce his coat: Icould fancy with what agitation his hands were clenched.
We sat down, the three of us together, and again the battery leaptupon us. Now the sun was hot above the trees and the effect of thenoise behind us was that we ourselves, every two or three minutes,were caught up, flung to the ground, recovered, breathless, exhausted,only to be hurled again!
How miserable we were, how lost, how desolate, Trenchard hearing inevery sound the death of his lady, Andrey Vassilievitch dreaming, Ifancy, that he had been caught in some cage out of which he wouldnever again escape. I, sick, almost blind with headache, and yetexasperated, irritated by the emptiness of it all. If only we mightrun down that hill! There surely we should find....
At the very moment when the battery had finished as it seemed to meits work of smashing my head into pulp the wagon arrived.
"Now," I thought to myself as I climbed on to the straw, "I shallbegin to be excited!" We, all three of us, kneeling on the cart,peered forward into the dim blue afternoon. We were very silent--onlyonce Trenchard said to me, "Perhaps we shall find her down here:where we're going. What do you think, Durward?"
"I'm afraid not!" I answered. "But still she'll be all right. Semyonovwill look after her!"
"Oh! Semyonov!" he answered.
How joyful we
were to leave our battery behind us. As the trees closedaround it we could fancy its baffled rage. Other batteries now seemedto draw nearer to us and the whole forest was filled with childishquarrelling giants; but as we began to bump down the hill out of theforest stranger sounds attacked us. On either side of us werecornfields and out of the heart of those from under our very feet asit seemed there were explosions of a strange stinging metallickind--not angry and human as the battery had been, but rather likesome huge bottle cracking in the sun. These huge bottles--one couldfancy them green and shining somewhere in the corn--cracked one afteranother; positively the sound intensified the heat of the sun uponone's head. There were too now, for the first time in our experience,shrapnel. They were not over us, but ran somewhere on our right acrossthe valley. Their sound was "fireworks" and nothing more--so thatalarm at their gentle holiday temper was impossible. Brock's Fireworkson a Thursday evening at the Crystal Palace, oneself a small boysitting with both hands between one's knees, one's mouth open, a dampbox of chocolates on one's lap, the murmured "Ah ..." of the happycrowd as the little gentle "Pop!" showed green and red against theblue night sky. Ah! there was the little "Pop!" and after it a tinycurling cloud of smoke in the air, the whole affair so gentle, so kindeven. There! sighing overhead they go! Five, six little curls ofsmoke, and then beneath our very horses' feet again a huge greenbottle cracking in the sun!
And with all this noise not a living soul to be seen! We had before usas we slowly bumped down the hill a fair view. The river was hiddenfrom us, but there was a little hamlet guarded happily by a greenwood; there was a line of fair hills, fields of corn, and the longdusty white road. Not a soul to be seen, only our bumping cart and,now and then, against the burning sky those little curling circles ofsmoke. The world slumbered....
Suddenly from the ditch at the side of the road a soldier appeared,spoke to our driver and disappeared again.
"What did he say?" I asked.
"He says, your Honour, that we must hasten. We may be hit."
"Hit here--on this road?"
"_Tak totchno._"
"Well, hurry then."
I caught a little frightened sigh behind me from Andrey Vassilievitch,whom the events of the day had frozen into horror-stricken silence. Wehurried, bumping along; at the bottom of the hill there was afarmhouse. From behind it an officer appeared.
"What are you doing there? You're under fire.... Red Cross? Ah yes, wehad a message about you. Dr. Semyonov?... Yes. Please come this way.Hurry, please!"
We were led across the farmyard and almost tumbled into a trench atthe farther end of it.
It wasn't until I felt some one touch my shoulder that I realised myposition. We were sitting, the three of us, in a slanting fashion withour backs to the earthworks of the trench. To our right, under animprovised round roof, a little dried-up man like a bee, with histunic open at the neck and a beard of some days on his chin, wascalling down a telephone.
Next to me on the left a smart young officer, of a perfect neatnessand even dandiness, was eating his supper, which his servant,crouching in front of him, ladled with a spoon out of a tin can.Beyond him again the soldiers in a long line under the farm wall weresewing their clothes, eating, talking in whispers, and one of themreading a newspaper aloud to himself.
A barn opposite us in ruins showed between its bare posts the greenfields beyond. Now and then a soldier would move across the yard tothe door of the farm, and he seemed to slide with something betweenwalking and running, his shoulders bent, his head down. The sun, lownow, showed just above the end of the farm roof and the lines of lightwere orange between the shadows of the barn. All the batteries seemednow very far away; the only sound in the world was the occasional sighof the shrapnel. The farmyard was bathed in the peace of the summerevening.
The Colonel, when he had finished his conversation with some humoroussally that gave him great pleasure, greeted us.
"Very glad to see you, gentlemen.... Two Englishmen! Well, that's theAlliance in very truth ... yes.... How's London, gentlemen? Yes,_golubchik_, that small tin--the grey one. No, _durak_, the _small_one. Dr. Semyonov sent a message. Pray make yourselves comfortable,but don't raise your heads. They may turn their minds in thisdirection at any moment again. We've had them once already thisafternoon. Eh, Piotr Ivanovitch (this to the smart young officer),that would have made your Ekaterina Petrovna jump in her sleep--ha,ha, ha--oh, yes, but I can see her jumping.... Hullo, telephone--Giveit here! That you, Ivan Leontievitch? No ... very well for themoment.... Two Englishmen here sitting in my trench--truth itself!Well, what about the Second 'Rota'? Are they coming down?... _YehBogu_, I don't know! What do you say?..."
The young officer, in a very gentle and melodious voice, offeredTrenchard, who was sitting next to him, some supper.
"One of these cutlets?"
Trenchard, blushing and stammering, refused.
"A cigarette, then?"
Trenchard again refused and Piotr Ivanovitch, having done his duty,relapsed into his muffled elegance. We sat very quietly there;Trenchard staring with distressed eyes in front of him. AndreyVassilievitch, very uncomfortable, his fat body sliding forward on theslant, pulling itself up, then sliding again--always he maintained hisair of importance, giving his cough, twisting the ends of hismoustache, staring, fiercely, at some one suddenly that he mightdisconcert him, patting, with his plump little hands, his clothes.
The shadows lengthened and a great green oak that hung over the barnseemed, as the evening advanced, to grow larger and larger and toabsorb into its heart all the flaming colours of the day, to pressthem into its dark shadow and to hide them, safe and contented, untilanother morning.
I sat there and gradually, caught, as it seemed to me, into a world ofwhispers and half-lights, I slipped forward a little down into thedark walls of the trench and half-slumbered, half clung still to thebuzzing voice of the Colonel, the languid replies of the youngofficer. I felt then that some one was whispering to me that my realadventure was about to begin. I could see quite plainly, like a roadup which I had gone, the events of the day behind me. I saw the rideunder the stars, the cold red dawn. Marie Ivanovna standing beneathmy cart, the sudden battery and the desolate hours of waiting, thewounded men stumbling out of the forest, the ride down the hill andthe green bottles bursting in the sun, the sudden silences and thesudden sounds, my own weariness and discomfort and loneliness and nowSomething--was it the dark green oak that bent down and hid the worldfor me?--whispered, "You're drawing near--you're close--you're almostthere.... In a moment you will see ... you will see ... you willsee...."
Somewhere the soldiers were singing, and then all sounds ceased. Wewere standing, many of us, in the dark, the great oak and many othergiant trees were about us and the utter silence was like a suddenplunge into deep water on a hot day. We were waiting, ready for theCreature, breathless with suspense.
"Now!" some one cried, and instantly there was such a roar that Iseemed to be lifted by it far into the sky, held, rocked, then droppedgently. I woke to find myself standing up in the trench, my hands tomy ears. I was aware first that the sky had changed from blue into amuddy grey, then that dust and an ugly smell were in my eyes, mymouth, my nose. I remembered that I repeated stupidly, again andagain: "What? what? what?" Then the grey sky slowly fell away asthough it were pushed by some hand and I saw the faint evening blue,with (so strange and unreal they seemed) silver-pointed stars. Icaught my breath and realised that now the whole right corner of thebarn was gone. The field stretched, a dark shadow, to the edge of theyard. In the ground where the stakes of the barn had been there was adeep pit; scattered helter-skelter were bricks, pieces of wood, andover it all a cloud of thin fine dust that hovered and swung a littlelike grey silk. The line of soldiers was crouched back into the trenchas though it had been driven by some force. From, as it appeared, agreat distance, I heard the Colonel's voice: "_Slava Bogu_, anotherstep to the right and we'd not have had time to say 'good-bye.'... Getin there, you ... with your head out li
ke that, do you want another?"I was conscious then of Andrey Vassilievitch sitting huddled on theground of the trench, his head tucked into his chest.
"You're not hurt, are you?" I said, bending down to him,
He got up and to my surprise seemed quite composed. He was rubbing hiseyes as though he had waked from sleep.
"Not at all," he answered in his shrill little voice. "No.... What anoise! Did you hear it, Ivan Andreievitch?"
Did I hear it? A ridiculous question!
"But I assure you I was not alarmed," he said eagerly, turning roundto the young officer, who was rather red in the face but otherwiseunruffled. "The first time that one has been so close to me. What anoise!"
Trenchard searched in his pockets for something.
"What is it?" I asked.
"My handkerchief!" he answered. "So dusty after that. It's in myeyes!"
He tumbled on to the ground a large clasp pocket-knife, a hunk ofblack bread, a cigarette-case and some old letters. "I had one," hemuttered anxiously. "Somewhere, I know...."
I heard the Colonel's voice again. "No one touched! There's some moreof their precious ammunition wasted.... What about your Ekaterina,Piotr Ivanovitch--Ho, ho, ho!... Here, _golubchik_, the telephone!...Hullo! Hullo!"
For myself I had the irritation that one might feel had a boy thrown astone over the wall, broken a window and run away. Moreover, I feltthat again I had missed--IT. Always round the corner, always just outof sight, always mocking one's clumsy pursuit. And still, even now, Ifelt no excitement, no curiosity. My feet had not yet touched theenchanted ground....
The trench had at once slipped back into its earlier composure. Thedusk was now creeping down the hill; with every stir of the breezemore stars were blown into the sky; the oak was all black now like afriendly shadow protecting me.
"There'll be no more for a while," said the Colonel. He was right.There was stillness; no battery, however distant, no pitter-patter ofrifle fire, no chattering report of the machine guns.
Men began to cross the yard, slowly, without caution. The dusk caughtus so that I could not see the Colonel's face; a stream that cut thefield, hidden in the day, was now suddenly revealed by a grinningcareless moon.
Then a soldier crossed the yard to us, told us that Dr. Semyonovwished us to start and had sent us a guide; the wagons were ready.
At that instant, whence I know not, for the first time that day,excitement leapt upon me.
Events had hitherto passed before me like the shadowed film of acinematograph; it had been as though some one had given me glimpses ofa life, an adventure, a country with which I should later have someconcern but whose boundaries I was not yet to cross. Now, suddenly,whether it was because of the dark and the silence I cannot say, I hadbecome, myself, an actor in the affair. It was not simply that we weregiven something definite to do--we had had wounded during themorning--it was rather that, as in the children's game we were "hot,"we had drawn in a moment close to some one or something of whosepresence we were quite distinctly aware. As we walked across the yardinto the long low field, speaking in whispers, watching a shaft oflight, perhaps some distant projector that trembled in pale whiteshadows on the horizon, we seemed to me to be, in actual truth, thehunters of Trenchard's dream.
Never, surely, before, had I known the world so silent. Under thehedges that lined the field there were soldiers like ghosts; our ownwagons, with the sanitars walking beside them, moved across the groundwithout even the creak of a wheel. Semyonov was to meet us in anhour's time at a certain crossroad. I was given the command of theparty. I was now, in literal truth, breathlessly excited. My heart wasbeating in my breast like some creature who makes running leaps atescape. My tongue was dry and my brain hot. But I was happy ... happywith a strange exaltation that was unlike any emotion that I had knownbefore. It was in part the happiness that I had known sometimes inRugby football or in tennis when the players were evenly matched andthe game hard, but it was more than that. It had in it something ofthe happiness that I have known, after many days at sea, on the firstview of land--but it was more than that. Something of the happiness ofpossessing, at last, some object which one has many days desired andnever hoped to attain--but more, too, than that. Something of thehappiness of danger or pain that one has dreaded and finds, in actualtruth, give way before one's resolution--but more, again, than that.This happiness, this exultation that I felt now but dimly, and was toknow more fully afterwards (but never, alas, as my companions were toknow it) is the subject of this book. The scent of it, the fullrevelation of it, has not, until now, been my reward; I can only, as aspectator, watch that revelation as it came afterwards to others morefortunate than I. But what I write is the truth as far as I, from theoutside, have seen it. If it is not true, this book has no valuewhatever.
We were warned by the soldier who guarded us not to walk in a groupand we stole now, beneath a garden-wall, white under the moon, in along line. I could hear Trenchard behind me stumbling over the stonesand ruts, walking as he always did with little jerks, as though hislegs were beyond his control. We came then on to the high road, whichwas so white and clear in the moonlight that it seemed as though thewhole Austrian army must instantly whisper to themselves: "Ah, therethey are!" and fire. The ditch to our right, as far as I could see,was lined with soldiers, hidden by the hedge behind them, their riflesjust pointing on to the white surface of the land. Our guide askedthem their division and was answered in a whisper. The soldiers wereghosts: there was no one, save ourselves, alive in the whole world....
Then a little incident occurred. I was walking in the rear of ourwagons that I might see that all were there. I felt a touch on my armand found Andrey Vassilievitch standing in the middle of the road. Hisface, staring at me as though I were a stranger, expressed desperatedetermination.
"Come on," I said. "We've no time to waste."
"I'm not coming," he whispered back. His voice was breathless asthough he had been running.
"Nonsense," I answered roughly, and I put my hand on his arm. His bodytrembled in jerks and starts.
"It's madness ... this road ... the moon.... Of course they'llfire.... We'll all be killed. But it isn't ... it isn't ... I can'tmove...."
"You _must_ move.... Come, Andrey Vassilievitch, you've been braveenough all day. There's no danger, I tell you. See how quieteverything is. You _must_...."
"I can't.... It's nothing ... nothing to do with me.... It's awful allday--and now this!"
I thought of Marie Ivanovna early in the morning. I looked down theroad and saw that the wagons were slowly moving into the distantshadows.
"You _must_ come," I repeated. "We can't leave you here. Don't thinkof yourself. And nothing can touch you--nothing, I tell you."
"I'll go back, I must. I can't go on."
"Go back? How can you? Where to? You can't go back to the trench. Weshan't know where to find you." A furious anger seized me; I caughthis arm. "I'll leave you, if you like. There are other things moreimportant."
I move away from him. He looked down the long road, looked back.
"Oh, I can't ... I can't," he repeated.
"What did you come for?" I whispered furiously. "What did you thinkwar was?... Well, good-bye, do as you please!"
As I drew away I saw a look of desperate determination in his eyes. Helooked at me like a dog who expects to be beaten. Then what must havebeen one of the supreme moments of his life came to him. I saw himstruggle to command, with the effort of his whole soul, his terror.For a moment he wavered. He made a hopeless gesture with his hand,took two little steps as though he would run into the hedge amongstthe soldiers and hide there, then suddenly walked past me, quickly,towards the wagons, with his own absurd little strut, with his headup, giving his cough, looking, after that, neither to the right, norto the left.
In silence we caught up the wagons. Soon, at some cross-roads, theycame to a pause. The guide was waiting for me. "It would be better,your Honour," he whispered, "for the wagons to stay here. We shall gonow simpl
y with the stretchers...."
We left the wagons and, some fifteen of us, turned off down a lane tothe left. Sometimes there were soldiers in the hedges, sometimes theymet us, slipping from shadow to shadow. Always we asked whether theyknew of any wounded. We found a wounded soldier groaning under thehedge. One leg was soaked in blood and he gave little shrill desperatecries as we lifted him on to the stretcher. Another soldier, lying onthe road in the moonlight, murmured incessantly: "_Boje moi! Boje moi!Boje moi!_" But they were all ghosts. We alone, in that familiar andyet so unreal world, were alive. When a stretcher was filled, foursanitars turned back with it to the wagons, and we were soon a verysmall party. We arrived at a church--a large fantastic white churchwith a green turret that I had seen from the opposite hill in themorning. Then it had seemed small and very remote. I had been toldthat much firing had been centring round it, and it seemed now for mevery strange that we should be standing under its very shadow, itsoutline so quiet and grave under the moon, with its churchyard, alittle orchard behind it, and a garden, scenting the night air, closeat hand. Here in the graveyard there was a group of wounded soldiers,in their eyes that look of faithful expectation of certain relief. Ourstretchers were soon full.
We were about to turn back when suddenly the road behind us was filledwith shadows. As we came out of the churchyard an officer steppedforward to meet us. We saluted and shook hands. He seemed a boy, butstood in front of his men with an air as though he commanded thewhole of this world of ghosts.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
We explained.
"Well, if you'll excuse me, you'd better make haste. An attack veryshortly ... yes. I should advise you to be out of this. PetrogradskyOtriad? Yes ... very glad to have the pleasure...."
We left him, his men a grey cloud behind him, and when we had taken afew steps he seemed, with his young air of importance, his happyserious courtesy, to have been called out of the ground, then, withall his shadows behind him, to have been caught up into the air. Thesewere not figures that had anything to do with the little curlingwreaths of smoke, the bottles cracking in the sun, our furious giantsof the morning.
"Ah, _Boje moi, Boje moi_!" sighed the wounded.... It was impossible,in such a world of dim shadow, that there should ever be any othersound again.
My excitement had never left me; I had had no doubt, during this lasthalf-hour, that I was on the Enchanted Ground of the Enemy, so strayand figurative had been my impressions all day. Now they were allgathered into this half-hour and the whole affair received its climax."Ah," I thought to myself, "if I might only stay here now I shoulddraw closer and closer--I should make my discovery, hunt him down. Butjust when I am on the verge I must leave it all. Ah, if I could butstay!"
Nevertheless we hastened. The world, in spite of the ghosts, was realenough for us to be conscious of that attack looming behind us. Wefound our wagons, transferred our wounded, then hurried down the road.We found the cross-roads and there, waiting for us, Semyonov andMarie Ivanovna. Standing in the moonlight, commanding, as it seemedto me, all of us, even Semyonov, she was a very different figure fromthe frightened girl of the early morning. Now her life was in hereyes, her body inflamed with the fire of the things that had come toher. So young in experience was she, so ignorant of all earlieradventure, that she could well be seized, utterly and completely, byher new vision ... possessed by some vision she was.
And that vision was not Trenchard. Seeing her, he hurried towards her,with a glad cry:
"Ah, you are safe!"
But she did not notice him.
"Quick, this way!... Yes, the stretchers here.... No, I haveeverything.... At once. There is little time!"
The wounded were laid on the stretchers in the square of thecross-roads. Semyonov and Marie Ivanovna bandaged them under themoonlight and with the aid of electric-torches. On every side of methere were little dialogues: "No ... not there. More this way. Yes,that bandage will do. It's fresh. Hold up his leg. No, _durak_, underthe knee there.... Where's the lint?... Turn him a little--there--likethat. _Horosho, golubchik_. _Seitchass_! No, turn it back over thethigh. Now, once more ... that's it. What's that--bullet orshrapnel?... Take it back again, over the shoulder.... Yes, twice!"
Once I caught sight of Trenchard, hurrying to be useful with thelittle bottle of iodine, stumbling over one of the stretchers, causingthe wounded man to cry out.
Then Semyonov's voice angrily:
"Tchort! Who's that?... Ah, Meester! of course!"
Then Marie Ivanovna's voice: "I've finished this, AlexeiPetrovitch.... That's all, isn't it?"
These voices were all whispers, floating from one side of the road tothe other. The wounded men were lifted back on to the wagons. We movedoff again; Semyonov, Trenchard, Marie Ivanovna and I were now sittingtogether.
We left the flat fields where we had been so busy. Very slowly webegan to climb the hill down which I had come this afternoon. Behindme was a great fan of country, black now under a hidden moon, dead asthough our retreat from it, depriving it of the last proofs of life,had flung it back into non-existence. Before us was the black forest.Not a sound save the roll of our wheels and, sometimes, a cry from oneof the wounded soldiers, not a stir of wind....
I looked back. Without an instant's warning that dead world, as amatch is set to a waiting bonfire, broke into flame. A thousandrockets rose, soaring, in streams of light into the dark sky; thefields that had been vapour ran now with light. A huge projector, theeye, as it seemed to me, of that enemy for whom I had all day beensearching, slowly wheeled across the world, cutting a great pathacross the plain, picking houses and trees and fields out of space,then dropping them back again. The rockets were gold and green,sometimes as it seemed ringed with fire, sometimes cold like deadmoons, sometimes sparkling and quivering like great stars. And withthis light the whole world crackled into sound as though the sky, avast china plate, had been smashed by some angry god and been flung,in a million pieces, to earth. The rifle-fire rose from horizon tohorizon like a living thing. Now the shrapnel rose, breaking on thedark sky in flashes of fire. Suddenly some house was burning! Theflames rose in a column, breaking into tongues that advanced andretreated, climbed and fell again. In the farthest distance otherhouses had caught and their glow trembled in faint yellow light fadinginto shadow when the projector found them. With a roar at our backour own cannon began; the world bellowed and shook and trembled at ourfeet.
We reached the top of the hill. I caught one final vision, the pictureseeming to sway with all its lights, its shadows, its giant eye thatgoverned it, its colours and its mist, like a tapestry blown by wind.I saw in our wagon, their faces lighted by the fire, Semyonov andMarie Ivanovna. Semyonov knelt on the wooden barrier of the cart, hisfigure outlined square and strong. She was kneeling behind him, herhands on his shoulders. Her face was exultant, victorious. She seemedto me the inspirer of that scene, to have created it, to hold it nowwith the authority of her gaze.
Behind her Trenchard was in shadow.
We were on the hill-top, the cannon, as it seemed, on every side ofus. We hung for a moment so, the sky flaming up to our feet. Then wehad fallen down between the woods, every step muffling the sounds.Everything was dark as though a curtain had been dropped.
Semyonov turned round to me.
"Well," he said, "there's your battle.... You've been in the thick ofit to-day!"
I saw his eyes turned to Marie Ivanovna as though already he possessedher.
I was suddenly tired, disappointed, exhausted.
"We've not been in the thick of it," I answered. "We have missedit--all day we have missed it!"
I tried to settle down in my wagon. "I beg your pardon," I saidirritably to Trenchard, "but your boot is in my neck!"
The Dark Forest Page 3