LITMIR.BIZ

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stood out beyond a wild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns the enemy’s horse patrols could be discerned.

      Among the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in command of the rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the country through his fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvitski, who had been sent to the rearguard by the commander in chief, was sitting on the trail of a gun carriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had handed him a knapsack and a flask, and Nesvitski was treating some officers to pies and real doppelkummel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some on their knees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass.

      “Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It’s a fine place! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?” Nesvitski was saying.

      “Thank you very much, Prince,” answered one of the officers, pleased to be talking to a staff officer of such importance. “It’s a lovely place! We passed close to the park and saw two deer… and what a splendid house!”

      “Look, Prince,” said another, who would have dearly liked to take another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the countryside—“See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something. They’ll ransack that castle,” he remarked with evident approval.

      “So they will,” said Nesvitski. “No, but what I should like,” added he, munching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, “would be to slip in over there.”

      He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and gleamed.

      “That would be fine, gentlemen!”

      The officers laughed.

      “Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls among them. On my word I’d give five years of my life for it!”

      “They must be feeling dull, too,” said one of the bolder officers, laughing.

      Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out something to the general, who looked through his field glass.

      “Yes, so it is, so it is,” said the general angrily, lowering the field glass and shrugging his shoulders, “so it is! They’ll be fired on at the crossing. And why are they dawdling there?”

      On the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and from their battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant report of a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.

      Nesvitski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.

      “Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?” he said.

      “It’s a bad business,” said the general without answering him, “our men have been wasting time.”

      “Hadn’t I better ride over, your excellency?” asked Nesvitski.

      “Yes, please do,” answered the general, and he repeated the order that had already once been given in detail: “and tell the hussars that they are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected.”

      “Very good,” answered Nesvitski.

      He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the knapsack and flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle.

      “I’ll really call in on the nuns,” he said to the officers who watched him smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the hill.

      “Now then, let’s see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!” said the general, turning to an artillery officer. “Have a little fun to pass the time.”

      “Crew, to your guns!” commanded the officer.

      In a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and began loading.

      “One!” came the command.

      Number one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a deafening metallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads of our troops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little smoke showing the spot where it burst.

      The faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone got up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as plainly visible as if but a stone’s throw away, and the movements of the approaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came fully out from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the solitary shot and the brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a single joyous and spirited impression.

      CHAPTER VII

      Two of the enemy’s shots had already flown across the bridge, where there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvitski, who had alighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few steps behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince Nesvitski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again and pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile.

      “What a fine fellow you are, friend!” said the Cossack to a convoy soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. “What a fellow! You can’t wait a moment! Don’t you see the general wants to pass?”

      But the convoyman took no notice of the word “general” and shouted at the soldiers who were blocking his way. “Hi there, boys! Keep to the left! Wait a bit.” But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvitski saw the rapid, noisy little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round the piles of the bridge chased each other along. Looking on the bridge he saw equally uniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered shakos, knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and feet that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks of the bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of men, like a fleck of white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer, in a cloak and with a type of face different from that of the men, squeezed his way along; sometimes like a chip of wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot, an orderly, or a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry; and sometimes like a log floating down the river, an officers’ or company’s baggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on all sides, moved across the bridge.

      “It’s as if a dam had burst,” said the Cossack hopelessly. “Are there many more of you to come?”

      “A million all but one!” replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat, with a wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man.

      “If he” (he meant the enemy) “begins popping at the bridge now,” said the old soldier dismally to a comrade, “you’ll forget to scratch yourself.”

      That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.

      “Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?” said an orderly, running behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it.

      And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry soldiers who had evidently been drinking.

      “And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt end of his gun…” a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said gaily, with a wide swing of his arm.

      “Yes, the ham was just delicious…” answered another with a loud laugh. And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvitski did not learn who had been struck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.

      “Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they’ll all be killed,” a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully.

      “As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean,” said a young soldier with an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from

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