And quiet flows the Don; a novel

by Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, 1905-

"Sergeant-major said the brigade commander will be visiting us."

  A minute or two later the bugler sounded the alarm. The Cossacks jumped to their feet.

  "What have I done with my pouch?" Pro-khor exclaimed, searching frantically.

  "Boot and saddle!"

  "Your pouch can go to hell," Grigory shouted as he ran out.

  The sergeant-major ran into the yard and, holding the hilt of his sword, made for the hitching posts. They had their horses saddled well within regulation time. As Grigory was tearing up the tent-pegs the sergeant managed to mutter to him:

  "It's war this time, my boy!"

  "You're fooling!"

  "God's truth! The sergeant-major told me."

  The squadron formed up in the street, the commander at its head. "In troop columns!" his command flew over the ranks.

  Hoofs clattered as the horses trotted out of the village on to the highway. From a neighbouring village the First and Fifth squadrons could be seen riding towards the station.

  A day later the regiment was detrained at a station some thirty-five versts from the Austrian frontier. Dawn was breaking behind the station birch-trees. The morning promised to be fine. The engine fussed and rumbled over the tracks. The lines glittered under a varnish of dew. The Cossacks of the Fourth Squadron led their horses by the bridles out of the wagons and over the level-crossing, mounted, and moved off in column formation. Their voices sounded eerily in the crumbling, lilac darkness. Faces and the contours of horses emerged uncertainly out of the gloom.

  "What squadron is that?"

  "And who are you? Where've you come from?"

  "I'll show you who I am! How dare you speak to an officer in that way?"

  "Sorry, Your Honour, didn't recognize you."

  "Ride on! Ride on!"

  "What are you dawdling about for? Get moving."

  "Where's your Third Troop, sergeant-major?"

  "Squadron, bring up the rear!"

 
  Muttered whispers in the column:

  "Bring up the rear, blast him, when we haven't slept for two nights."

  "Give me a puff, Syomka, haven't had a smoke since yesterday."

  "Hold your horse. . . ."

  "He's bitten through his saddle-strap, the devil."

  "Mine's lost a hoof in front."

  A little farther on the Fourth Squadron was held up for a while by the first, which had detrained before it. Against the bluish grey of the sky the silhouettes of the horsemen ahead stood out clearly, as though drawn with Indian ink. Their lances swung like bare sunflower stalks. Occasionally a stirrup jingled or a saddle creaked.

  Prokhor Zykov was riding at Grigory's side. Prokhor stared into his face and whispered:

  "Melekhov, you're not afraid, are you?"

  "What is there to be afraid of?"

  "We may be in action today."

  "Well, what of it?"

  "But I'm afraid," Prokhor admitted, his fingers playing nervously with the dewy reins. "I didn't sleep a wink all night."

  Once more the squadron advanced; the horses moved at a measured pace, the lances swayed and flowed rhythmically. Dropping

  the reins, Grigory dozed. And it seemed to him that it was not the horse that put its legs forward springily, rocking him in the saddle, but he himself who was walking along a warm, dark road, and walking with unusual ease, with irresistible joy. Prokhor chattered away at his side, but his voice mingled with the creak of the saddle and the clatter of hoofs, and did not disturb his thoughtless doze.

  The squadron turned into a by-road. The silence rang in their ears. Ripe oats hung over the wayside, their tops smoking with dew. The horses tried to reach the low ears and dragged the reins out of their riders' hands. The gracious daylight crept under Grigory's puffy eyelids. He raised his head and heard Prokhor's monotonous voice, like the creak of a cartwheel.

  He was abruptly aroused by a heavy, rumbling roar that billowed across the oatfields.

  "Gun-fire!" Prokhor almost shouted, and fright clouded his calf-like eyes. Grigory lifted his head. In front of him the troop-sergeant's grey greatcoat rose and fell in time with the horse's back; on each side stretched fields of unreaped corn; a skylark danced in the sky at the height of a telegraph pole. The entire squadron was aroused, the sound of the firing ran through it like an electric current. Lashed into

  activity. Junior Captain Polkovnikov put the squadron into a fast trot. Beyond a cross-road, where a deserted tavern stood, they began to meet with carts of refugees. A squadron of smart-looking dragoons went by. Their captain, riding a sorrel thoroughbred, stared at the Cossacks ironically and spurred on his horse. They came upon a howitzer battery stranded in a muddy and swampy hollow. The riders were lashing at their horses, while the gunners struggled with the carriage wheels. A great, pock-marked artilleryman passed carrying an armful of boards probably torn from the fence of the tavern.

  A little farther on they overtook an infantry regiment. The soldiers were marching fast, their greatcoats rolled on their backs. The sun glittered on their polished mess-tins and streamed from their bayonets. A lively little corporal in the last company threw a lump of mud at Gri-gory:

  "Here, catch! Chuck it at the Austrians!" "Don't play about, grasshopper!" Grigory replied, and cut the lump of mud in its flight with his whip.

  "Say hullo to 'em from us, Cossacks!" "You'll have a chance yourselves." At the head of the column someone struck up a bawdy song; a soldier with fat womanish

  buttocks marched beside the column slapping his stumpy calves. The officers laughed. The keen sense of approaching danger had brought them closer to the men and made them more tolerant.

  From now on the column was continually passing foot regiments crawling like caterpillars, batteries, baggage-wagons. Red Cross wagons. The deathly breath of fighting close at hand was in the air.

  A little later, as it was entering a village, the Fourth Squadron was overtaken by the commander of the regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Ka-ledin, accompanied by his second in command. As they passed, Grigory heard the latter say agitatedly toKaledin: "This village isn't marked on the map, Vasily Maximovich! We may find ourselves in an awkward position." Grigory did not catch the colonel's reply. The adjutant galloped past overtaking them. His horse was stepping heavily on its left hind-foot. Grigory mechanically noted its fine points. The regiment was continually changing its pace, and the horses began to sweat. The cottages of a small village lying under a gentle slope appeared in the distance. On the other side of the village was a wood, its green tree-tops piercing the azure dome of the sky. From beyond the wood splashes of gunfire mingled

  with the frequent rattle of rifle-shots. The horses pricked up their ears. The smoke of bursting shrapnel hovered in the sky a long way off ; the rifle-fire moved slowly to the right of the company, now dying away, now growing louder.

  Grigory listened tensely to every sound, his nerves tautened into little bundles of sensation. Prokhor Zykov fidgeted in his saddle, talking incessantly:

  "Grigory, those shots sound just like boys rattling sticks along railings, don't they?"

  "Shut up, magpie!"

  The squadron entered the village. Soldiers were milling about in the yards. The inhabitants of the cottages, alarm and confusion written on their faces, were packing their belongings to flee. As Grigory passed he noticed that soldiers were firing the roof of a shed, but its owner, a tall, grey-haired Byelorussian, crushed by his sudden misfortune, went past them without paying the slightest attention. Grigory saw the man's family loading a cart with red-covered pillows and ramshackle furniture, and the man himself was carefully carrying a broken wheel-rim, which was of no value to anybody, and had probably lain in the yard for years. Grigory was amazed at the stupidity of the women, who were piling the carts with

  flower pots and icons and were leaving necessary and valuable articles behind in their houses. Down the street the feathers from a feather-bed blew like a miniature snow-storm and there was a pungent smell of burning soot
and musty cellars in the air.

  At the end of the village they met a Jew running towards them. The narrow slit of his mouth was torn apart in a cry!

  "Mister Cossack, Mister Cossack! Oh, my God!"

  A short, round-headed Cossack rode ahead of him at a trot, waving his whip and ignoring him completely,

  "Stop!" a junior captain from the Second Squadron shouted to the Cossack.

  The Cossack bent over the pommel of his saddle and galloped into a side street.

  "Stop, you scoundrel. What regiment are

  you

  2"

  The Cossack's round head pressed closer to the horse's neck. He galloped madly towards a tall fence, reared his horse, and took the jump neatly.

  "The Ninth Regiment is stationed here. Your Honour, That's where he's from," said the sergeant.

  "Let him go to the devil," the junior captain frowned, and turned to the Jew who was

  clutching at his stirrup. "What did he take from you?"

  "Mister Officer .. . my watch. Mister Officer." The Jew blinked, turning his handsome face towards the approaching officers.

  The junior captain, freeing the stirrup with his foot, started forward.

  "The Germans would have taken it anyhow, when they came," he said smiling into his moustache.

  The Jew stood confusedly in the middle of the road. His face twitched.

  "Make way, master Sheeny," shouted the squadron commander sternly, raising his whip.

  The Fourth Squadron rode by, hoofs clattering, saddles creaking. The Cossacks jeered at the disconcerted Jew, and spoke among themselves:

  "The likes of us can't help stealing."

  "Everything sticks to a Cossack's hand."

  "Let them be more careful about their things!"

  "A nimble fellow, that!"

  "The way he took that fence, like a borzoi."

  Sergeant-Major Kargin dropped behind the squadron, and to the accompaniment of laughter from the Cossacks lowered his lance and shouted:

  "Run, Sheeny, before I. , .."

  The Jew gasped and ran. The sergeant-major overtook him and struck him with his whip. Grigory saw the Jew stumble and, covering his face with his palms, turn to the sergeant-major. Through his thin fingers the blood was trickling.

  "What for?" he sobbed.

  The sergeant-major, his sharp button-like eyes smiling greasily as he rode away, shouted:

  "Don't go barefoot, you fool!"

  Beyond the village a group of engineers was completing a broad trestle bridge across a hollow overgrown with sedge and yellow water-lilies. Close by a motor car stood rattling and humming with a chauffeur fussing round it. A stout grey-haired general with a Spanish beard and baggy cheeks was half-sitting, half-lying on the back seat. Lieutenant-Colonel Ka-ledin and the commander of the engineers' battalion stood at attention by the car. The general, clutching the strap of his map case, bawled furiously at the engineer:

  "You were ordered to finish this work yesterday. Silence! You should have arranged the supply of materials beforehand. Silence!" he roared again, although the officer had made no attempt to open his trembling lips. "How do you expect me to cross over? Answer me. Captain, how am I to cross?"

  A young black-moustached general also sitting in the car smoked a cigar and smiled. The engineer captain bent forward and pointed to one side of the bridge.

  At the bridge the squadron rode down into the hollow. The horses sank into the brownish-black mud up to their knees, and feathery white shavings scattered down on them from the bridge.

  The squadron crossed the Austrian frontier at noon. The horses leaped the broken black-and-white pole of the frontier post. From the right came the rumble of gunfire. In the distance the red-tiled roofs of a farm showed up in the perpendicular lays of the sun. A bitter-tasting cloud of dust settled thickly on everything. The regimental commander issued orders for advance patrols to be detached and sent ahead. The Third Troop under Lieutenant Semyonov was sent out from the Fourth Squadron. The regiment, split up into squadrons, was left behind in a grey haze. A detachment of some twenty Cossacks rode past the farm along the rutted road.

  The lieutenant led the reconnaissance patrol about three versts, then halted to study his map. The Cossacks gathered in a group to smoke. Grigory dismounted to ease his saddle-girth, but the sergeant-major shouted:

  "What do you think you're doing? Get back on your horse!"

  The lieutenant lit a cigarette, and carefully wiped his binoculars. A valley lay before them in the midday heat. To the right rose the jagged outline of a wood pierced by a pointed spear of railway tracks. About a verst and a half away was a little village, beyond it the gouged clay banks of a stream and the cool glassy surface of the water. The officer stared intently through his binoculars, studying the deathly stillness of the village streets, but they were as deserted as a graveyard. Only the blue ribbon of water beckoned challengingly.

  "That must be Korolyovka!" the officer indicated the village with his eyes.

  The sergeant-major took his horse nearer the lieutenant; he made no reply, but the expression of his face said eloquently: "You know better than I! I'm concerned only with minor questions."

  "We'll go there," the officer said irresolutely, putting away his binoculars and frowning as though he had a toothache.

  "We may run into them. Your Honour?"

  "We'll be careful."

  Prokhor Zykov kept close to Grigory. They rode cautiously down into the deserted street. Every window suggested an ambush, every

  open cellar door evoked a feeling of loneliness and sent a sickening shudder down the back. All eyes were drawn as though by magnets to the fences and ditches. They rode in like beasts of prey, like wolves approaching human habitations in the blue winter night-but the streets were empty. The silence was stupefying. From the open window of one house came the innocent sound of a clock striking. The chimes rang out like pistol shots, and Grigory saw the officer tremble and his hand flash to his revolver.

  There was not a soul in the village. The patrol forded the river. The water reached the horses' bellies, they entered willingly and tried to drink, but their riders pulled at the reins and urged them on. Grigory stared thirstily down at the turbid water, close yet inaccessible; it drew him almost irresistibly. Had it been possible he would have jumped out of his saddle and lain without undressing with the stream murmuring over him until his sweating chest and back were shivering with cold.

  From the rise beyond the village they saw a distant town: square blocks of houses, brick buildings, gardens, and church spires. The officer rode to the top of the hill and put his binoculars to his eyes.

  "There they are," he shouted, the fingers of his left hand playing nervously.

  The sergeant-major rode to the sun-baked crest followed by the other Cossacks in single file, and stared. They saw tiny figures scurrying about the town. Wagons dammed up the side streets; horsemen were galloping to and fro. With eyes screwed up, gazing from under his palm, Grigory was able to distinguish even the grey, unfamiliar colour of the uniforms. Before the town stretched the brown lines of freshly-dug trenches, with men swarming about them.

  "What a lot of them!" Prokhor said with a gasp.

  The others, all gripped by the same feeling, were silent. Grigory listened to the quickening throb of his heart and realized that the feeling he was experiencing at the sight of these foreigners was something quite different from what he had felt in the face of "the enemy" on manoeuvres.

  The sergeant-major drove the Cossacks hurriedly back down the rise. The lieutenant made some pencil notes in his field notebook, and then beckoned to Grigory: "Melekhov!" "Sir!"

  Grigory dismounted and went to the officer, his legs feeling like stone after the long ride. The officer handed him a folded paper.

  "You've got the best horse. Deliver this to the regimental commander. At a gallop!"

  Grigory put the paper in his breast-pocket and went back to his horse, slipping his chin-strap under his c
hin as he went. The officer watched him until he had mounted, then glanced at his wrist-watch.

  The regiment had nearly reached the village of Korolyovka when Grigory rode up with the report. After reading it the colonel gave an order to his adjutant, who galloped off to the First Squadron.

  The Fourth Squadron streamed through Korolyovka and, as quickly as though on the parade ground, spread out in formation over the fields beyond. Lieutenant Semyonov rode up with his men. The horses tossed their heads to shake off the horse-flies, and there was a continual jingle of bridles. The noise of the First Squadron passing through the village sounded heavily in the midday silence.

  Junior Captain Polkovnikov rode on his prancing horse to the front of the ranks. Gathering the reins tightly in one hand, he dropped the other to his sword-knot. Grigory held his breath and awaited the word of command.

  There was a rumble of hoofs on the left flank as the First Squadron got into position.

  The officer wrenched his sabre from its sheath; the blade gleamed like blue light.

  "Squadron!" He swung his sabre to the right, then to the left, and finally lowered it in front of him, holding it poised above the horse's ears. Grigory tried to think what the next order would be. "Lances at the ready! Sabres out! Into the attack . . . gallop!" The officer snapped, and gave his horse the rein.

  The earth groaned dully under the crushing impact of a thousand hoofs. Grigory, who was in the front ranks, had hardly brought his lance to the ready when his horse, carried away by a lashing flood of other horses, broke into a gallop and went off at full speed. Ahead of him the figure of the commanding officer bobbed up and down against the grey background of the field. A black wedge of ploughed land sped irresistibly towards him. The First Squadron raised a surging quivering shout, the Fourth Squadron took it up. The ground streaked past close under the horses' straining bellies. Through the roaring whistle in his ears Grigory caught the sound of distant firing. The first bullet whined high above them, furrowing the glassy vault of the sky. Grigory pressed the hot shaft of his lance against his side until