War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [710]
Axes and swords were at work on all sides. Everything got done without any orders. A supply of firewood was brought for the night, little lean-tos were set up for the officers, pots boiled, guns and ammunition were put in order.
The wattle wall brought by the eighth company was set up in a half circle on the north side, propped with stakes, and a campfire was built in front of it. They beat the tattoo, called the roll, ate supper, and settled for the night by the campfires—some mending their footgear, some smoking their pipes, some, stripped naked, steaming out lice.
VIII
It would seem that in those almost unimaginably hard conditions of existence in which the Russian soldiers found themselves at that time—without warm boots, without winter coats, without a roof over their heads, in the snow at eighteen degrees of frost, without even a full ration of provisions, which did not always keep up with the army—it would seem that the soldiers must present a very sad and dejected spectacle.
On the contrary, never, in the very best material conditions, did an army present a more cheerful, lively spectacle. That came from the fact that each day all those who began to lose heart or strength were thrown out of the army. All those who were physically and morally weak had long since stayed behind, leaving only the flower of the army—in strength of spirit and body.
The eighth company, sheltered by the wattle wall, gathered the most people of all. Two sergeants major joined them, and their campfire blazed brighter than the others. They demanded an offering of firewood for the right to sit by the wall.
“Hey, Makeev, you…did you get lost, or did the wolves eat you? Fetch that firewood,” shouted a red-mugged, red-headed soldier, squinting and blinking from the smoke, but not moving away from the fire. “Crow, you go at least and fetch some firewood,” this soldier addressed someone else. The redhead was not a sergeant or a corporal, but he was a lusty soldier and therefore ordered about those who were weaker than he. The skinny, small, sharp-nosed soldier who had been called “Crow” obediently got up and was about to go and carry out the order, but just then the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier carrying a load of firewood came into the light of the campfire.
“Give it here. That’s great!”
The wood was broken up, laid on, blown at, fanned with the skirts of greatcoats, and the flames hissed and crackled. The soldiers moved up and lit their pipes. The handsome young soldier who had brought the firewood set his arms akimbo and began stamping his chilled feet quickly and deftly in place.
“Cold is the dew, ah, mother dear, how good, I’ll be a musketeer,” he sang along, as if hiccuping at each syllable of the song.
“Hey, your soles’ll fly off!” cried the redhead, noticing that one of the dancer’s soles was loose. “Swallowed dancing poison!”
The dancer stopped, tore off the loose piece of leather, and threw it in the fire.
“Right you are, brother,” he said, and, sitting down, he took a scrap of blue French broadcloth from his pack and began wrapping his foot in it. “It’s the steam does it,” he added, stretching out his feet to the fire.
“We’ll get new ones soon. They say when we’ve killed them off, we’ll all get double the goods.”
“And see, that son of a bitch Petrov fell behind all right,” said one sergeant major.
“I’ve had an eye on him for a long time,” said the other.
“Some soldier boy…”
“And in the third company, I heard, there were nine men missing yesterday.”
“Yes, but figure, once your feet are frozen, how are you going to walk?”
“Eh, empty chatter!” said the sergeant major.
“Or do you want the same thing?” said an old soldier, turning reproachfully to the one who had talked about frozen feet.
“And what do you think?” the sharp-nosed soldier known as “Crow” began in a squeaky and trembling voice, suddenly rising up from behind the campfire. “A sleek man gets thin, but for a thin man it’s death. Me, for instance. I can’t stand it anymore,” he suddenly said resolutely,