Chapter X

“You have some blood on your overcoat; were you fighting hand-to-hand?” asked Kalouguine.

“Oh! it is frightful! Imagine--” And Pesth began to relate how he had led his company after the death of his chief, how he had killed a Frenchman, and how, without his assistance, the battle would have been lost. The foundation of the tale, that is, the death of the chief and the Frenchman killed by Pesth, was true, but the yunker, elaborating the details, enlarged on them and boasted.

He boasted without premeditation. During the whole affair he had lived in a fantastic mist, so much so that everything that had happened seemed to him to have taken place vaguely, God knows where or how, and to belong to some one besides himself. Naturally enough he tried to invent incidents to his own advantage. However, this is the way the thing happened:

The battalion to which he had been detailed to take part in the sortie remained two hours under the enemy’s fire, then the commander said a few words, the company chiefs began to move about, the troops left the shelter of the parapet and were drawn up in columns a hundred paces farther on. Pesth was ordered to place himself on the flank of the second company. Neither understanding the situation nor the movement, the yunker, with restrained breath and a prey to a nervous tremor which ran down his back, placed himself at the post indicated, and gazed mechanically before him into the distant darkness, expecting something terrible. However, the sentiment of fear was not the dominating one in his case, for the firing had ceased. What appeared to him strange, uncomfortable, was to find himself in the open field outside the fortifications.

The commander of the battalion once more pronounced certain words, which were again repeated in a low voice by the officers, and suddenly the black wall formed by the first company sank down. The order to lie down had been given; the second company did the same, and Pesth in lying down pricked his hand with some sharp thing. The small silhouette of the captain of the second company alone remained standing, and he brandished a naked sword without ceasing to talk and to walk back and forth in front of the soldiers.

“Attention, children! Show yourselves brave men! No firing! get at the wretches with the bayonet! When I shout ‘hurrah!’ follow me--closely and all together--we will show them what we can do. We won’t cover ourselves with shame, will we, children? For the Czar, our father!”

“What’s the name of the company chief?” asked Pesth from a yunker next to him. “He is a brave one!”

“Yes, he’s always so under fire. He is called Lissinkoffsky.”

Just at this moment a flame spurted out, followed by a deafening report; splinters and stones flew in the air. Fifty seconds later one of the stones fell from a great height and crushed the foot of a soldier. A shell had fallen in the middle of the company, a proof that the French had noticed the column.

“Ah! you are sending us shells now! Let us get at you and you will taste the Russian bayonet, curse you!”

The captain shouted so loud that the commander of the battalion ordered him to be silent.

The first company rose up, after that the second; the soldiers took up their muskets and the battalion advanced.

Pesth, seized by a foolish terror, could not remember whether they marched far; he went on like a drunken man. Suddenly thousands of fires flashed on all sides, with whizzings and crackings. He gave a yell and ran forward, because they all yelled and ran; then he tripped and fell over something. It was the company chief, wounded at the head of his troops, who took the yunker for a Frenchman and seized his leg. Pesth pulled his feet away and got up. Some one threw himself on him in the darkness, and he was almost knocked over again. A voice shouted to him, “Kill him, then! What are you waiting for?”

A hand seized his musket, the point of his bayonet buried itself in something soft.

“Ah! Dieu!”

These words were spoken in French, with an accent of pain and fright. The yunker knew he had just killed a Frenchman. A cold sweat moistened his whole body; he began to tremble, and threw down his musket. But that lasted only a second; the thought that he was a hero came to his mind. Picking up his gun, he left the dead man, running and shouting “Hurrah!” with the rest. Twenty steps farther on he reached the trench where our troops and the commander of battalion were.

“I have killed one!” said he to the latter.

“You are a brave fellow, baron,” was the reply.