The detachment advanced to the river; the black hills and gorges were left behind; the dawn appeared. The vault of the heavens, in which a few pale stars were still dimly visible, seemed higher; the sunrise glow beyond shone brightly in the east; a fresh, penetrating breeze blew from the west, and the white mists rose like vapour above the rushing stream.
VIII
The guide pointed out a ford, and the cavalry vanguard, followed by the General, began crossing the stream. The water, which reached to the horses’ chests, rushed with tremendous force between the white boulders, which here and there appeared on a level with its surface, and formed foaming and gurgling ripples round the horses’ legs. The horses, surprised by the noise of the water, lifted their heads and pricked their ears, but stepped evenly and carefully, against the current, on the uneven bottom of the stream. Their riders lifted their feet and weapons. The infantry, literally in nothing but their shirts, linked arm-in-arm by twenties, and holding above the water their muskets, to which their bundles of clothing were fastened, made great efforts (as the strained expression of their faces showed) to resist the force of the current. The mounted artillerymen, with loud shouts, drove their horses at a trot into the water. The guns and the green ammunition-wagons, over which the water occasionally splashed, rang against the stony bottom, but the good little horses, churning the water, pulled at the traces in unity and, with dripping manes and tails, clambered out on the opposite bank.
As soon as the crossing was accomplished, the General’s face suddenly assumed a meditative and serious look, and he turned his horse and, followed by the cavalry, rode at a trot down a broad glade which opened out before us in the midst of the forest. A cordon of mounted Cossacks was scattered along the skirts of the forest.
In the woods we noticed a man on foot dressed in a Circassian coat and wearing a tall cap—then a second and a third. One of the officers said: “Those are Tartars.” Then a puff of smoke appeared from behind a tree, a shot, and another. … Our rapid fire drowns the enemy’s. Only now and then a bullet, with a slow sound like the buzzing of a bee’s wings, passes by and proves that the firing is not all ours! Now the infantry at a run, and the guns at a trot, pass into the cordon. You can hear the boom of the guns, the metallic sounds of flying grapeshot, the hissing of rockets and the crackle of muskets. Over the wide glade you can see on all sides cavalry, infantry, and artillery. Puffs of smoke mingle with the dew-covered verdure and the mist. Colonel Hasanov, approaching the General at full gallop, suddenly reins in his horse.
“Your excellency, shall we order the cavalry to charge?” he says, raising his hand to his cap; “the enemy’s colours are in sight,” and he points with his whip to some mounted Tartars, in front of whom ride two men on white horses, with bits of blue and red stuff fastened to poles in their hands.
“Go, and God be with you, Ivan Mikhaylovich!” says the General. The Colonel turns his horse sharply round, draws his sword, and shouts “Hurrah!”
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” comes from the ranks, and the cavalry gallop after him. …
Everyone looks on with interest: there is a pennon, another, a third and a fourth. …
The enemy, not waiting for the attack, hides in the wood and thence opens a small-arms fire. Bullets come flying more and more frequently. “Quel charmant coup d’œil!” says the General, slightly rising, English fashion, in his saddle on his slim-legged black horse.
“Charmant!” answered the Major, rolling his r’s; and striking his horse, he rides up to the General: “C’est un vrai plaisir, que la guerre dans un aussi beau pays,” he says.
“Et surtout en bonne compagnie,” replies the General, with a pleasant smile. The Major bows.
At that moment a hostile cannonball, with a disagreeable whiz, flies past and strikes something. We hear behind us the moan of a wounded man.
This moaning strikes me in so strange a manner that the warlike scene instantly loses for me all its charm. But no one, except myself, seems to notice it: the Major laughs with apparently greater gusto; another officer repeats with perfect calm the first words of a sentence he was just saying; the General looks the other way, and with the quietest smile says something in French. “Shall we reply to their fire?” asks the commander of the artillery, galloping up.
“Yes, frighten them a bit!” carelessly replies the General, lighting a cigar.
The battery takes up its position, and the firing begins. The earth groans under the shots; fires flash incessantly, and smoke, through which it is scarcely possible to distinguish the artillerymen moving round their guns, veils your sight.
The aoul has been bombarded. Colonel Hasanov rides up again, and at the General’s command gallops towards the aoul. The war-cry is raised again, and the cavalry disappears in the cloud of dust which it raises.
The spectacle was truly magnificent. The one thing that spoilt the general impression for me, who took no part in the affair and was unaccustomed to it, was that this movement, and the animation and the shouting, appeared unnecessary. Involuntarily the comparison suggested itself to me of a man swinging his arms from the shoulders to cut the air with an axe.
IX
Our troops had taken possession of the village, and not a single soul of the enemy remained in it, when the General and his suite, with which I had mingled, rode up to it.
The long, clean huts, with their flat earthen roofs and shapely chimneys, stood on irregular stony mounds, between which flowed a small stream.
On one side you saw green gardens with enormous pear
