Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  The indecision was not to last much longer. One evening, when we had been at Mittövo about a week, he was at the Cross watching the sun, like a crimson flower, sink behind the dim grey forest. The Nestor, in the evening mist, was a golden shadow under the hill. This beauty made him melancholy. He was wishing passionately, as he stood there, for work, hard, dangerous, gripping work. He did not know that that was to be the last idle minute of his life. Hearing a step on the path he turned round to find Semyonov at his side.

  “Lovely view, isn’t it?” said Semyonov, watching him.

  “Lovely,” answered Trenchard.

  Semyonov sat down on the little stone seat beneath the Cross and looked up at his rival. Trenchard looked down at him, hating his square, stolid composure, his thick thighs, his fair beard, his ironical eyes. “You’re a beastly man!” he thought.

  “How long are you going to be with us, do you think?” asked Semyonov.

  “Don’t know — depends on so many things.”

  “Why don’t you go back to England? They want soldiers.”

  “Wouldn’t pass my eyesight.”

  “When are they going to begin doing something on the other Front, do you think?”

  “When they’re ready, I suppose.”

  “They’re very slow. Where’s all your army we heard so much about?”

  “There’s a big army going to be ready soon.”

  “Yes, but we were told things would begin in May. It’s only the Germans who’ve begun.”

  “I don’t know; I’ve seen no English papers for some weeks.”

  There was a pause. Semyonov smiled, stood up, looked into Trenchard’s eyes.

  “I must go to England,” he said slowly, “after the war. Marie Ivanovna and I will go, I hope, together. She told me to-day that that is one of the things that she hopes we will do together — later on.”

  Trenchard returned Semyonov’s gaze. After a moment he said:

  “Yes — you would enjoy it.” He waited, then added: “I must be walking back now. I’m late!” And he turned away to the house.

  CHAPTER VII

  ONE NIGHT

  Marie Ivanovna herself spoke to me of Semyonov. She found me alone waiting for my morning tea. We were before the others, and could hear, in the next room, Molozov splashing water about the floor and crying to Michail, his servant, to pour “Yestsho! Yestsho!” “Yestsho! Yestsho!”— “Still more! Still more,” over his head.

  She stood in the doorway looking as though she hated my presence.

  “The others have not arrived,” I said. “It’s late to-day.”

  “I can see,” she answered. “Every one is idle now.”

  Then her voice changed. She came across to me. We talked of unimportant things for a while. Then she said: “I’m very happy, Mr. Durward.... Be kind about it. Alexei Petrovitch and I....” She hesitated.

  I looked at her and saw that she was again the young and helpless girl whom I had not seen since that early morning before our first battle. I said, very lamely, “If you are happy, Marie Ivanovna, I am glad.”

  “You think it terrible of me,” she said swiftly. “And why do you all talk of being happy? What does that matter? But I can trust him. He’s strong and afraid of nothing.”

  I could say nothing.

  “Of course you think me very bad — that I have treated — John — shamefully — yes?... I will not defend myself to you. What is there to defend? John and I could never have lived together, never. You yourself must see that.”

  “It does not matter what I think,” I answered. “I am Trenchard’s friend, and he has no knowledge of life nor human nature. He has made a bad start. You must forgive me if I think more of him than of you, Marie Ivanovna.”

  “Yes,” she said fiercely. “It is John — John — John, you all think of. But John would not have loved me if he knew me as I truly am. And now, at last, I can be myself. It does not matter to Alexei Petrovitch what I am.”

  “But you have known him so short a time — and you have been so quick. If you had waited....”

  “Waited!” she caught me up. “Waited! How can one wait when one isn’t allowed to wait? It must be finished here, at once, and I’m not going to finish alone. I’m frightened, Mr. Durward, but also I must see it right through. He makes me brave. He’s afraid of nothing. I couldn’t leave this, and yet I was frightened to go on alone. With him beside me I’m not afraid.”

  Anna Petrovna interrupted us.

  “It’s Goga’s stomach again,” she said placidly. “He’s had great pain all night. It was those sweets yesterday. Just give me that glass, my dear. Weak tea’s the only thing he can have.”

  Well, I had said nothing to Marie Ivanovna. What was there I could have said?

  And the next thing about Trenchard was that he had got his wish, and was lying on his back once more, in one of our nice, simple, uncomfortable haycarts, looking up at the evening sky. This was the evening after his conversation with Semyonov. Quite suddenly the battle had caught us into its arms again. It was raging now in the woods to the right of us, woods on the further side of the Nestor, situated on a tributary. I will quote now directly from his diary:

  As our line of carts crossed the great river I could hear the muffled “brum-brum” of the cannons and “tap-tap-tap” of the machine-guns now so conventionally familiar. Nikitin was lying in silence at my side. Behind us came twenty wagons with the sanitars; the evening was very still, plum-colour in the woods, misty over the river; the creaking of our carts was the only sound, save the “brum-brum” and the “tap-tap-tap”....

  I lay on my back and thought of Semyonov and myself. I had in my mind two pictures. One was of Semyonov sitting on the stone under the cross, looking up at me with comfortable and ironical insolence, Semyonov so strong and resolute and successful. Semyonov who got what he wanted, did what he wanted, said what he wanted.

  The other picture was of myself, as I had been the other night when I had gone with the wagons to Nijnieff to fetch the wounded. I saw myself standing in a muddy little lane just outside the town, under pouring rain. The wagons waited there, the horses stamping now and then, and the wounded men on the only wagon that was filled, moaned and cried. Shrapnel whizzed overhead — sometimes crying, like an echo, in the far distance, sometimes screaming with the rage of a hurt animal close at hand. Groups of soldiers ran swiftly past me, quite silent, their heads bent. Somewhere on the high road I could hear motor-cars spluttering and humming. At irregular intervals Red Cross men would arrive with wounded, would ask in a whisper that was inhuman and isolating whether there were room on my carts. Then the body would be lifted up; there would be muttered directions, the wounded man would cry, then the other wounded would also cry — after that, there would be the dismal silence again, silence broken only by the shrapnel and the heavy plopping smothers of the rain. But it was myself upon whom my eyes were fixed, myself, a miserable figure, the rain dripping from me, slipping down my neck, squelching under my boots. And as I stood there I was afraid. That was what I now saw. I had been terribly afraid for the first time since I had come to the war. I had worked all day in the bandaging room, and perhaps my physical weariness was responsible; but whatever it might be there I was, a coward. At the threat of every shrapnel I bent my head and shrugged my shoulders, at every cry of the wounded men — one man was delirious and sang a little song — a shudder trembled all down my body. I thought of the bridge between myself and the Otriad — how easily it might be blown up! and then, if the Division were beaten back what massacre there would be! I wanted to go home, to sleep, to be safe and warm — above all, to be safe! I saw before me some of the wounded whom I had bandaged to-day — men without faces or with hanging jaws that must be held up with the hand whilst the bandage was tied. One man blind, one man mad (he thought he was drowning in hot water), one man holding his stomach together with his hands. I saw all these figures crowding round me in the lane — I also saw the dead men in the forest, the skull, the f
lies, the strong blue-grey trousers.... I shook so that my teeth chattered — a very pitiful figure.

  Well, that was the other night. It was true that to-night I did not feel frightened — at least not as yet. But then it was a beautiful evening, very peaceful, still and warm — and there was Nikitin. In any case there were those two figures whom I must consider — Semyonov and myself. That brief conversation last night had brought us quite sharply face to face. I found to my own surprise that Semyonov’s declaration of his engagement had not been a great shock to me, had not indeed altered very greatly the earlier situation. But it had shown me quite clearly that my own love for Marie Ivanovna was in no way diminished, that I must protect her from a man who was, I felt, quite simply a “beastly” man.

  Well, then if Semyonov and I were to fight it out, I would need to be at my best. Did that little picture of the other evening show me at my best? This business presented a bigger fight than the simple one with Semyonov. I knew, quite clearly, as I lay on my back in the cart, that the fight against Semyonov and the fight against ... was mingled together, depended for their issue one upon the other — that the dead men in the forest had no merely accidental connexion with Marie Ivanovna’s safety and Semyonov’s scornful piracies.

  Well, then ... Semyonov and I, I and my old dead uncle, myself shaking in the road the other night under the rain! What was to be the issue of all of it?

  I, on this lovely evening, saw quite clearly the progress of events that had brought me to this point. One: that drive with Durward on the first day when we had stopped at the trench and heard the frogs. Two: the evening at O —— , when Marie Ivanovna had been angry and we had first heard the cannon. Three: the day at S —— and Marie kneeling on the cart with her hand on Semyonov’s shoulder. Four: her refusal of me, the bodies in the forest, the Retreat, that night Nikitin (getting well into the thick of it now). Five: the talk with Marie in the park. Six: the wet night at Nijnieff. Seven: last night’s little talk with Semyonov.... Yes, I could see now that I had been advancing always forward into the forest, growing ever nearer and nearer, perceiving now the tactics of the enemy, beaten here, frightened there, but still penetrating — not, as yet, retreating ... and always, my private little history marching with me, confused with the private little histories of all of the others, all of them penetrating more deeply and more deeply....

  And if I lost my nerve I was beaten! If I had lost my nerve no protecting of Marie, no defiance of Semyonov — and, far beyond these, abject submission to my enemy in the forest. If I had lost my nerve!... Had I? Was it only weariness the other night? But twice now I had been properly beaten, and why, after all, should I imagine that I would be able to put up a fight — I who had never in all my life fought anything successfully? I lay on my back, looked at the sky. I sat up, looked at the country, I set my teeth, looked at Nikitin.

  Nikitin grunted. “I’ve had a good nap,” he said. “You should have had one. There’ll be plenty of work for us to-night by the sound of it.” We turned a corner of the road through the wood and one of our own batteries jumped upon us.

  “I’m glad it’s not raining,” I said.

  “We’ve still some way to go,” said Nikitin, sitting up. “What a lovely evening!” Then he added, quite without apparent connexion, “Well, you’re more at home amongst us all now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” said I.

  “I’m glad of that. And what do you think of Andrey Vassilievitch?”

  I answered: “Oh! I like him! ... but I don’t think he’s happy at the war,” I added.

  “I want you to like him,” Nikitin said. “He’s a splendid man ... I have known him many years. He is merry and simple and it is easy to laugh at him, but it is always easy to laugh at the best people. You must like him, ‘Mr.’... He likes you very much.”

  I felt as though Nikitin were here forming an alliance between the three of us. Well, I liked Nikitin, I liked Andrey Vassilievitch. I listened to the battery, now some way behind us, then said:

  “Of course, I am his friend if he wishes.”

  Nikitin repeated solemnly: “Andrey Vassilievitch is a splendid fellow.”

  Then we arrived. Here, beside the broad path of the forest there was a clearing and above the clearing a thick pattern of shining stars curved like the top of a shell. Here, in the open, the doctors had made a temporary hospital, fastening candles on the trees, arranging two tables on trestles, all very white and clean under a brilliant full moon. There were here two Sisters whom I did not know, several doctors, one of them a fat little army doctor who had often been a visitor to our Otriad. The latter greeted Nikitin warmly, nodded to me. He was a gay, merry little man with twinkling eyes. “Noo tak. Fine, our hospital, don’t you think? Plenty to do this night, my friend. Here, golubchik, this way.... Finger, is it? Oh! that’s nothing. Here, courage a moment. Where are the scissors?... scissors, some one. One moment.... One ... moment. Ah! there you are!” The finger that had been hanging by a shred fell into the basin. The soldier muttered something, slipped on to his knees, his face grey under the moon, then huddled into nothing, like a bundle of old clothes, fainted helplessly away.

  “Here, water!... No, take him over there! That’s right. Well, ‘Mr.’ — how are you? Lovely night.... Plenty of work there’ll be, too. Oh! you’re going down to the Vengerovsky Polk? Yes, they’re down to the right there somewhere — across the fields.... Warm over there.”

  The noise just then of the batteries was terrific. We were compelled to shout at one another. A battery behind us bellowed like a young bull and the shrapnel falling at some distance amongst the trees had a strange splashing sound as of a stone falling into water.[A] The candles twinkled in the breeze and the place had the air of a Christmas-tree celebration, the wounded soldiers waiting their turn as children wait for their presents. The starlight gave the effect of a blue-frosted crispness to the pine-strewn ground. We arranged our wagons safely, then, followed by the sanitars, walked off, Nikitin almost fantastically tall under the starlight as he strode along. The forest-path stopped and we came to open country. Fields with waving corn stretched before us to be lost in the farther distance in the dark shadows of the forest.

  [A] It must be remembered that this account is Trenchard’s — taken from his diary. In my own experience I have never known the bursting of shell to sound in the least like a stone in water. But he insists on the accuracy of this. Throughout this and the succeeding chapters there are many statements for which I have only his authority. — P.D.

  A little bunch of soldiers crouched here, watching, Nikitin spoke to them.

  “Here, golubchik ... tell me! what polk?”

  “Moskovsky, your Honour.”

  “And the Vengerovsky ... they’re to the right, are they?”

  “Yes, your Honour. By the high road, when it comes into the forest.”

  “What? There where the road turns?”

  “Tak totchno.”

  “How are things down there just now? Wounded, do you think?”

  “Ne mogoo znat. I’m unable to say, your Honour ... but there’s been an attack there an hour ago.”

  “Are those ours?” — listening to a battery across the fields.

  “Ours, your Honour.”

  “Well, we’ll go on and see.”

  I had listened to this conversation with the sensation of a man who has stopped himself on the very edge of a precipice. I thought in those few moments with a marvellous and penetrating clarity. I had, after all, been always until now at the battle of S —— , or when I had gone with the wagons to Nijnieff, on the outskirts of the thing. I knew that to-night, in another ten minutes, I would be in the middle — the “very middle.” As I waited there I recalled the pages of the diary of some officer, a diary that had been shown me quite casually by its owner. It had been a miracle of laconic brevity: “6.30 A. M., down to the battery. All quiet. 8.0, three of their shells. One of ours killed, two wounded. Five yards’ distance. 8.30, breakfasted; K. arrived
from the ‘Doll’s House’ — all quiet there,” and so on. This, I knew, was the proper way to look at the affair: “6.0 A. M., down to the battery. 7.0 A. M., breakfasted. 8.0 A. M., dead....” For the life of me now I could not look at it like that. I saw a thousand things that were, perhaps, not really there, but were there at any rate for me. If I was beaten to-night I was beaten once and for all.... I saw the shining road under the starlight and shadows of wounded men, groaning and stumbling, whispering their way along.

  “Let’s go,” said Nikitin.

  I drew a breath and stepped out into the moonlight. A shell burst with a delicate splash of fire amongst the stars. The road looked very long and very, very lonely.

  However, soon I found myself walking along it quite casually and talking about unimportant peaceful things. “Come,” I thought to myself. “This really isn’t so bad.”

  “It’s a great pity,” Nikitin said, “that I can’t read English. Have to take your novelists as they choose to give them us. Who is there now in England?”

  “Well,” said I as one talks in a dream, “there’s Hardy, and Henry James, and Conrad. I’ve seen translations of Conrad in Petrograd. And then there’s Wells—”

  “Yes, Wells I know. But he writes stories for boys.... There’s Jack London, but his are American. I like to read an English novel sometimes. Your English life is so cosy. You have tea before the fire and everything is comfortable. We don’t know what comfort is in Russia.”

  A machine gun “rat-tat-tat-tated” close to us, and three rockets, like a flight of startled birds, rose suddenly together on the far horizon.

  “No, we have no comfort in Russia,” repeated Nikitin. “Now I fancy that an English country-house....”

  We had reached the further wood; the moonlight fell away from us and the shadows shifted and trembled under the reflection of rockets and a projector that swung lazily and unsteadily, like something nodding in its sleep.

  On the left of the road there was a house standing back in its own garden. I could see dimly that this was a row of country villas.