Chapter IX

When they arrived, at nightfall, at the great bridge over the bay, Volodia was not exactly in bad humor, but a terrible weight lay on his heart. Everything he saw, everything he heard, harmonized so little with the last impressions that had been left in his mind by the great, light examination-hall with polished floor, the voices of his comrades and the gayety of their sympathetic bursts of laughter, his new uniform, the well-beloved Czar, whom he was accustomed to see during seven years, and who, taking leave of them with tears in his eyes, had called them “his children”--yes, everything he saw little harmonized with his rich dreams sparkling from a thousand facets.

“Here we are!” said his brother, getting out of the carriage in front of the M---- battery. “If they let us cross the bridge we will go straight to the Nicholas barracks. You will stop there until to-morrow morning. As for me, I shall go back to my regiment to find out where the battery is, and to-morrow I will go and hunt you up.”

“Why do that? rather let’s go together,” said Volodia. “I will go to the bastion with you; won’t that be the same thing? One must get accustomed to it. If you go there, why can’t I go?”

“You would do better not to go.”

“Let me go--please do. At least I will see what it is--”

“I advise you not to go there; but, nevertheless--”

The cloudless sky was sombre, the stars, and the flashes of the cannon, and the bombs flying in space, shone in the darkness. The _tête du pont_ and the great white pile of the battery came out sharply in the dark night. Every instant reports, explosions, shook the air, together or separately, ever louder, ever more distinct. The mournful murmur of the waves played an accompaniment to this incessant roll. A fresh breeze filled with moisture blew from the sea. The brothers approached the bridge. A soldier awkwardly shouldered arms and shouted,

“Who comes there?”

“A soldier.”

“You can’t pass.”

“Impossible--we must pass!”

“Ask the officer.”

The officer was taking a nap, seated on an anchor. He arose and gave the order to let them pass.

“You can go in, but you can’t come out. Attention! Where are you getting to all together?” he shouted to the wagons piled up with gabions, which were stopping at the entrance to the bridge.

On the first pontoon they met some soldiers talking in a loud voice.

“He has received his outfit; he has received it all.”

“Ah! friends,” said another voice, “when a fellow gets to Severnaïa he begins to revive. There is quite another air here, by heavens!”

“What nonsense are you talking there?” said the first. “The other day a cursed bomb-shell carried away the legs of two sailors. Oh! oh!”

The water in several places was dashing into the second pontoon, where the two brothers stopped to await their carriage. The wind, which had appeared light on land, blew here with violence and in gusts. The bridge swayed, and the waves, madly dashing against the beams, broke upon the anchors and the ropes and flooded the flooring. The sea roared with a hollow sound, forming a black, uniform, endless line, which separated it from the starry horizon, now lighted by a silvery glow. In the distance twinkled the lights of the hostile fleet. On the left rose the dark mass of a sailing ship, against the sides of which the water dashed violently; on the right, a steamer coming from Severnaïa, noisily and swiftly advanced. A bomb-shell burst, and lighted up for a second the heaps of gabions, revealing two men standing on the deck of the ship, a third in shirt-sleeves, sitting with swinging legs, busy repairing the deck, and showing the white foam and the dashing waves with green reflections made by the steamer in motion.

The same lights continued to furrow the sky over Sebastopol, and the fear-inspiring sounds came nearer. A wave driven from the sea broke into foam on the right side of the bridge and wet Volodia’s feet. Two soldiers, noisily dragging their legs through the water, passed by. Suddenly something burst with a crash and lighted up before them the part of the bridge along which was passing a carriage, followed by a soldier on horseback. The pieces fell whistling into the water, which spouted up in jets.

“Ah, Mikhaïl Semenovitch!” said the horseman, drawing up before Koseltzoff the elder, “here you are--well again?”

“Yes, as you see. Where in God’s name are you going?”

“To Severnaïa for cartridges. They send me in place of the aide-de-camp of the regiment. They are expecting an assault every moment.”

“And Martzeff, where’s he?”

“He lost a leg yesterday in the city; in his room. He was asleep. You know him, perhaps.”

“The regiment is in the fifth, isn’t it?”

“Yes; it relieved the M----. Stop at the field-hospital, you will find our fellows there; they will show you the way.”

“Have my quarters in the Morskaïa been kept?”

“Ah, brother, the shells destroyed them long since! You wouldn’t recognize Sebastopol any longer. There isn’t a soul there; neither women, nor band, nor eating-house. The last café closed yesterday. It is now so dismal! Good-by!” and the officer went away on the trot.

A terrible fear suddenly seized Volodia. It seemed to him that a shell was going to fall on him, and that a piece would surely strike him on the head. The moist darkness, the sinister sounds, the constant noise of the wrathful waves, all seemed to urge him to take not another step, and to tell him that no good awaited him there; that his foot would never touch the solid earth on the other side of the bay; that he would do well to turn back, to flee as quickly as possible this terrible place where death reigns. “Who knows? Perhaps it is too late. My lot is fixed.” He said this to himself, trembling at the thought, and also on account of the water which was running into his boots. He sighed deeply, and kept away from his brother a little.

“My God! shall I really be killed--I? Oh, my God, have mercy on me!” he murmured, making the sign of the cross.

“Now we will push on, Volodia,” said his companion, when their carriage had rejoined them. “Did you see the shell?”

Farther on they met more wagons carrying wounded men and gabions. One of them, filled with furniture, was driven by a woman. On the other side no one stopped their passage.

Instinctively hugging the wall of the Nicholas battery the two brothers silently went along it, with ears attentive to the noise of the shells which exploded over their heads and to the roar of the pieces thrown down from above; and at last they reached the part of the battery where the holy image was placed. There they learned that the Fifth Light Artillery Regiment, which Volodia was to join, was at Korabelnaïa. They consequently made up their minds in spite of the danger to go and sleep in the fifth bastion, and to go from there to their battery on the next day. Passing through the narrow passage, stepping over the soldiers who were sleeping along the wall, they at last reached the hospital.