‘Who goes there?’ Kruchkov called.
‘And what do you want?’ a voice answered in Russian from the leading rank.
‘Who goes there? I shall fire!’ Kruchkov rattled the bolt of his rifle.
One of the riders reined in his horse and turned it towards the fence.
‘We’re the frontier guard,’ he said. ‘Are you an outpost?’
‘Yes.’
‘From which regiment?’
‘The Third Cossack …’
‘Who are you talking to there, Trishin?’ a voice called out of the darkness. The man by the fence replied:
‘There’s a cossack outpost stationed here, your Excellency.’
A second horseman rode up to the fence.
‘Good luck, cossacks! Have you been here long?’ he asked, striking a match and lighting a cigarette. By the momentary gleam Kruchkov saw an officer of the frontier guard.
‘Since yesterday,’ he replied.
‘Our guard is being withdrawn,’ the officer said. ‘You must bear well in mind that you are now the farthest outpost. The enemy may advance tomorrow.’ He turned and gave the order for his men to ride on.
At that moment the wind pitilessly tore the bandage of cloud away from the moon, and over the village, the gardens, the steep roof of the hut and the detachment of frontier guards riding up the hill, fell a flood of deathly yellow light.
Next morning Rvachev rode back to the company with a report. During the night the horses had stood saddled. The cossacks were alarmed by the thought that they were now left to confront the enemy. They had not experienced the feeling of isolation and loneliness so long as they knew the frontier guard was ahead of them, but the news that the frontier was open had a marked effect upon them.
Mrikhin had a talk with the Polish farmer, and for a small sum the man agreed to let them cut clover for their horses. The Pole’s meadow lay not far from the shed. Mrikhin sent Ivankov and Shchegolkov to mow. Shchegolkov mowed whilst Ivankov raked the dank, heavy grass together and tied it into bundles.
As they were thus occupied, Mrikhin, who was gazing through the binoculars along the road leading to the frontier, noticed a boy running across the fields from the south-west. The lad ran down the hill like a brown hare; when still some distance off he shouted and waved the long sleeve of his coat. He ran up to Mrikhin, gasping for breath and rolling his eyes, and panted:
‘Cossack! Cossack! The Germans! The Germans are coming!’
He pointed with his hand. Holding the binoculars to his eyes, Mrikhin saw a distant group of horsemen. Without removing the binoculars he shouted:
‘Kruchkov! Run and call the boys! A German patrol is coming!’
Kruchkov ran to the meadow. Now Mrikhin could clearly see the group of horsemen flowing along beyond the greyish streak of grassland. He could even distinguish the bay colour of their horses and the dark blue tint of their uniforms. There were over twenty of them, and they were riding in a compact mass, coming from the south-west, whereas he had been expecting them from the north-west. They crossed the road and went along the ridge above the valley in which the village lay.
Meantime Kruchkov ran across the field to where Ivankov and Shchegolkov were mowing. ‘Drop it!’ he shouted as he came up.
‘Now what’s the matter?’ Shchegolkov asked, thrusting the scythe by the point into the ground.
‘The Germans!’
Ivankov threw down the bundle of grass. The Pole, bent almost to the ground, ran off to the hut, followed by the cossacks. The little party leapt into their saddles and galloped up the rise out of the village. When they reached the crest of the hill the Germans were already between them and the town of Pelikalia. They were riding at a trot, led by an officer on a docktailed roan.
‘After them! We’ll get them at our second outpost,’ Mrikhin ordered.
They put their horses into a swift trot. The blue uniforms of the German dragoons were clearly visible. They had caught sight of the cossacks following them, and were cantering in the direction of the second Russian outpost, which was stationed at a farm some two miles back from the village of Liubov. The distance between the two parties perceptibly diminished.
‘We’ll fire at them!’ Mrikhin shouted, jumping from his saddle.
Standing with the reins over their arms, the cossacks fired. Ivankov’s horse reared at the shot and sent him headlong. As he fell he saw one of the Germans first lean to one side, then, throwing out his arms, suddenly tumble from his saddle. The others did not stop or even unsling their carbines from their shoulders, but rode on at a gallop in open formation. Mrikhin was the first to remount his horse. The cossacks plied their whips. The Germans swung to the left, and the cossacks following them passed close to the fallen dragoon. Beyond stretched an undulating country intersected with shallow ravines. As the Germans rode up the farther side of each ravine the cossacks sent shots after them. A little farther on another German went down.
‘Our cossacks should be coming from that farm in a minute. That’s the second outpost,’ Mrikhin muttered, thrusting a cartridge into the magazine of his rifle with his tobacco-stained finger. As the cossacks rode past the farm they glanced towards it, but it was deserted. Afterwards they learnt that the outpost had withdrawn the previous night, having discovered that the telegraph wires some half a mile away had been cut.
Mrikhin sent another shot after the Germans, firing from the saddle, and one, lagging slightly behind, shook his head and spurred up his horse.
‘We’ll drive them along to the third outpost,’ Mrikhin shouted, turning round to the others behind him. Only then did Ivankov notice that Mrikhin’s nose was peeling and a piece of skin was hanging from his nostril.
‘Why don’t they turn and defend themselves?’ he asked anxiously, adjusting his rifle on his back.
The Germans dropped into a ravine and disappeared. On the farther side was ploughed land. On this side, scrub and an occasional bush. Mrikhin reined in his horse, removed his cap, and wiped the sweat away with the back of his hand. The Germans did not appear on the other side of the ravine. Mrikhin looked at the others, spat and said:
‘Ivankov, you ride down and see where they’ve got to.’
Ivankov thirstily licked his lips and rode off.
‘Oh for a smoke!’ Kruchkov muttered, driving the gadflies off with his whip.
Ivankov rode steadily down into the ravine, rising in his stirrups and gazing across the bottom. Suddenly he saw the glittering points of lances; then the Germans appeared, their horses turned round and galloping back up the slope to the attack. During the moment in which Ivankov was wheeling his horse round, the clean-shaven, moody face of the officer and his statuesque seat in the saddle were impressed on his memory. His back felt the pinching chill of death almost painfully. He silently galloped back towards the others.
Mrikhin did not have time to fold up his tobacco pouch. Seeing the Germans behind Ivankov, Kruchkov was the first to ride down to meet them. The dragoons on the right flank were sweeping round to cut Ivankov off, and were overtaking him with savage swiftness. Ivankov was lashing at his horse, wry shudders passing over his face and his eyes staring out of his head. Bent to the saddle-bow, Mrikhin took the lead.
‘Only to get back to his comrades!’ That one idea possessed Ivankov, and he had no thought of defence. He gathered his great body into a ball, his head touching his horse’s mane.
A big, ruddy-faced German overtook him and thrust his lance at his back. The point pierced Ivankov’s leather belt and passed sideways for a good inch into his body.
‘Brothers, turn back!’ he shouted almost deliriously, drawing his sabre. He parried a second thrust aimed at his side and cut down a German riding at him from the left. But he was surrounded. A German horse struck the side of his own mount, almost knocking it off its feet, and Ivankov saw the terrible face of an enemy at point-blank range.
Mrikhin was the first to reach the group. He was driven off. He swung his sabre and turned like an elec
tric fan in his saddle, his teeth bared, his face changed and deathly. Ivankov was slashed across the neck with the point of a sword. A dragoon towered above him on the left, and the terrifying gleam of steel glittered in his eyes. He countered with his sabre; steel clashed against steel. From behind, a lance caught in his shoulder-strap and thrust insistently, tearing the strap away. Beyond his horse’s head appeared the perspiring, fevered face of an elderly German, who tried to reach Ivankov’s breast with his sword. But he failed, and dropping it, he tore his carbine from its saddle-holster, not turning his blinking eyes from Ivankov’s face for a moment. He did not succeed in freeing his carbine, for Kruchkov reached at him across his horse with a lance he had torn from the grip of another dragoon. The German, tearing the lance away from his breast, threw himself back groaning in fear and astonishment:
‘Mein mutter!’
Eight dragoons surrounded Kruchkov, trying to capture him alive. But causing his horse to rear, he fought until they had to attempt to strike him down. He wielded his captured lance as though on the parade-ground. Beaten back, the Germans now came at him with drawn swords. They bunched together over a small patch of dismal, clayey ploughed land, seething and rocking in the struggle as though shaken by the wind.
Beside themselves with terror, the cossacks and Germans thrust and cut at whatever came their way: backs, arms, horses and weapons. The horses jostled and knocked against one another in a frenzy of mortal fear. Regaining some measure of self-command, Ivankov tried several times to strike at the head of a long-faced, flaxen-haired German who had fastened on him, but his sabre fell on the man’s helmet and slipped off.
Mrikhin broke through the ring and galloped free, streaming with blood. The German officer chased after him. Tearing his rifle from his shoulder, Mrikhin fired and killed him almost at point-blank range. This proved to be the turning-point in the struggle. Having lost their commander, the Germans, all of them wounded with clumsy blows, dispersed and retreated. The cossacks did not pursue them. They did not fire after them. They rode straight back to their company at Pelikalia, whilst the Germans picked up a wounded comrade and fled towards the frontier.
After riding perhaps half a mile Ivankov swayed in his saddle.
‘I’m … I shall drop …’ he halted his horse. But Mrikhin pulled at his reins, crying:
‘Come on!’
Kruchkov wiped the blood from his face and felt his breast. Crimson spots were showing damply on his shirt. Beyond the farm where the second outpost had been stationed the party disagreed as to the way.
‘To the right!’ Mrikhin said, pointing towards the green, swampy ground of an alder wood.
‘No, to the left!’ Kruchkov insisted.
They separated. Mrikhin and Ivankov arrived at the regimental headquarters after Kruchkov and Shchegolkov. They found the cossacks of their company awaiting them. Ivankov dropped the reins, jumped from the saddle, and swayed and fell. They had difficulty in freeing the sabre-hilt from his stony grasp.
Within an hour almost the entire company rode out to where the German officer lay. The cossacks removed his boots, clothing and weapons and crowded around to look at the young, frowning, yellow face of the dead man. One of them managed to capture the officer’s watch, and sold it on the spot to his troop sergeant. In a pocket-book they found a few coins, a letter, a lock of flaxen hair and a photograph of a girl with a proud, smiling mouth.
Afterwards this incident was transformed into an heroic exploit. Kruchkov, a favourite of the company commander, told his story and received the Cross of St George. His comrades remained in shadow. The hero was sent to the divisional staff headquarters, where he lived in clover until the end of the war, receiving three more crosses because influential women and officers came from Petersburg and Moscow to look at him. The ladies ‘ahed’ and ‘ohed’, the ladies regaled the Don cossack with expensive cigarettes and chocolates. At first he cursed them by all the devils, but afterwards, under the benevolent influence of the staff toadies in officers’ uniforms, he made a remunerative business of it. He told the story of his ‘exploit’, laying the colours on thickly and lying without a twinge of conscience, while the ladies went into raptures, and stared admiringly at the pock-marked, brigand face of the cossack hero.
The Tsar visited headquarters, and Kruchkov was taken to be shown to him. The sleepy Emperor looked Kruchkov over as if he were a horse, blinked his heavy eyelids, and slapped the cossack on the back.
‘Good cossack lad!’ he remarked, and turning to his suite, he asked for some Seltzer water.
Kruchkov’s shaggy head was continually pictured in the newspapers and journals. There were Kruchkov brands of cigarettes. The merchants of Nizhni-Novgorod presented him with a gold-mounted firearm.
And what had really happened? Men had clashed on the field of death, and, embraced by mortal terror, had fought, struck, inflicted blind blows on one another, wounded one another’s horses; then they had turned and fled, frightened by a shot which had killed one of their number. They had ridden away mortally mutilated.
And it was called an heroic exploit.
Chapter Four
After his first battle Gregor Melekhov was tormented by a dreary inward pain. He grew noticeably thin, lost weight, and frequently, whether attacking or resting, sleeping or waking, he saw the features and form of the Austrian whom he had killed by the railings. In his sleep he lived again and again through that first battle, and even felt the shuddering convulsion of his right hand clutching the lance. He would awake and drive the dream off violently, shading his painfully screwed-up eyes with his hand.
The cavalry trampled down the ripened corn and left their hoof-prints on the fields as though hail had rattled over all Galicia. The heavy soldiers’ boots tramped the roads, scratched the macadam, churned up the August mud. The gloomy face of the earth was pock-marked with shells; fragments of iron and steel tore into it, yearning for human blood. At night ruddy flickerings lit up the horizon: trees, villages, towns were flaming like summer lightning. In August – when fruits ripen and corn is ready for harvest – the wind-swept sky was unsmilingly grey, the rare fine days were oppressive and sultrily steaming.
August declined to its close. The leaves turned an oily yellow in the orchards, and a mournful purple flooded the stalks. From a distance it seemed as though the trees were rent with wounds and streaming with blood.
Gregor studied with interest the changes that occurred in his comrades. Prokhor Zikov returned from hospital with the marks of a horse-shoe on his cheek, and pain and bewilderment lurking in the corners of his lips. His calfish eyes blinked more than ever. Yegor Zharkov lost no opportunity of cursing and swearing, was more bawdy than ever, and imprecated everything under the sun. Yemelian Groshev, a serious and efficient cossack from Gregor’s own village, seemed to char; his face turned dark, and he laughed awkwardly and morosely. Changes were to be observed in every face; each was inwardly nursing and rearing the iron seeds implanted by the war, and the young cossacks were wilting and drooping like the stalks of mown grass.
The regiment was withdrawn from the line for a three-day rest, and its complement was made up by reinforcements from the Don. The cossacks of Gregor’s company were about to go for a bathe in a neighbouring lake, when a considerable force of cavalry rode into the village from the station some two miles away. By the time the men had reached the dam of the lake the force was riding down the hill. Prokhor Zikov was pulling off his shirt when, looking up, he stared and exclaimed:
‘They’re cossacks, Don cossacks!’
Gregor gazed after the column crawling like a snake into the road leading to the estate where the fourth company was quartered.
‘Reinforcements, I expect,’ he remarked.
‘Look, boys; surely that’s Stepan Astakhov? There in the third rank from the front,’ Groshev exclaimed, laughing gratingly.
‘And there’s Anikushka.’
‘Gregor! There’s your brother. D’you see him?’
Narrowin
g his eyes, Gregor stared, trying to recognize the horse Piotra was riding. ‘Must have bought a new one!’ he thought, turning his gaze to his brother’s face. It was strangely changed since their last meeting.
Gregor went to meet him, taking off his cap and waving mechanically. After him poured the half-undressed cossacks, avoiding the broken undergrowth of angelica and burdock.
Led by an elderly, corpulent captain with a wooden, fixed expression on his authoritative lips, the detachment swung round the orchard into the estate. ‘A stickler!’ Gregor thought, as he smiled with joyous agitation at his brother.
‘Hallo, Piotra!’ he shouted.
‘Glory be! We’re going to be together. How are you, Gregor?’
‘Oh, all right.’
‘So you’re still alive?’
‘After a fashion.’
‘Greetings from the family.’
‘How are they all?’
‘Very well.’
Piotra rested his palm on the croup of his horse and turned his entire body round in the saddle, smilingly running his eyes over Gregor’s form. Then he rode on, and was hidden by the oncoming ranks of other cossacks, known and unknown.
Yegor Zharkov came from the lake dressed only in his shirt and hopping on one leg, trying to thrust the other into his trousers as he ran.
‘Why, here’s Zharkov!’ rose a shout from the ranks.
‘Hallo, stallion! Have they had to hobble you then?’
‘How’s my mother?’ Zharkov asked.
‘She’s all right. She sent her love, but no presents. Things are difficult enough as it is.’
Yegor listened with an unusually serious expression to the reply, and then sat down on his bare bottom in the grass, hiding his anxious face and struggling ineffectually to get his trembling leg into his trousers.
The detachment was drawn up in the yard. The other cossacks returned to their bathe, being joined soon after by the new arrivals. Gregor dropped down at his brother’s side. The damp, crumbling clay of the dam smelt raw and deathly. He sat killing the bloodless, flaccid lice in the folds and hems of his shirt, and told his brother:
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 25