Soon Semyonov came back and said that he must go on to some further trenches to discover the best position for us. To my intense surprise Andrey Vassilievitch asked whether he might accompany him. I fancy that he felt that he would venture anything to escape our adjacency to the battery.
So they departed, leaving us more forlorn than before. We sat down on the stretchers: Anna Petrovna, fat, heavy, phlegmatic, silent; Marie Ivanovna silent too but with a look now of expectation in her eyes as though she knew that something was coming for her very shortly; Trenchard near her, trying to be cheerful, but conscious of the dead soldier under the tree from whom he seemed unable to remove his eyes. There was, in the open space near us, a kipiatilnik, that is, a large boiler on wheels in which tea is made. To this the soldiers were crowding with their tin cans; the cuckoo, far away now, continued his cry. …
At long intervals, out of the forest, a wounded soldier would appear. He seemed to be always the same figure, sometimes wounded in the head, sometimes in the leg, sometimes in the stomach, sometimes in the hand—but always the same, with a look in his eyes of mild protest because this had happened to him, also a look of dumb confidence that someone somewhere would make things right for him. He came either to us or to the Red Cross building across the road, according to his company. One soldier with a torn thumb cried bitterly, looking at his thumb and shaking his head at it, but he alone showed any emotion. The others suffered the sting of the iodine without a word, walking off when they were bandaged, or carried by our sanitars on the stretchers, still with that look of wonder and trust in their eyes.
And how glad we were when there was any work to do! The sun rose high in the sky, the morning advanced, Semyonov and Andrey Vassilievitch did not return. For the greater part of the time we did not speak, nor move. I was conscious of an increasing rage against the battery. I felt that if it was to cease I might observe, be interested, feel excitement—as it was, it kept everything from me. It kept everything from me because it insistently demanded my attention, like a vulgar garrulous neighbour who persists in his tiresome story. Its perpetual hammering had soon its physical effect. A sick headache crept upon me, seized me, held me. I might look at the soldiers, sleeping now like dead men in the trench, I might look at the Red Cross flag lazily flapping in the breeze across the road, I might look at the corpse with the soiled marble feet under the tree, I might look at Trenchard and Marie Ivanovna silent and unhappy on the stretchers, on Anna Petrovna comfortably slumbering with an open mouth, I might listen to the distant batteries, to the sudden quick impatient chatter of the machine guns, to the rattling give-and-take of the musketry somewhere far away where the river was, I might watch the cool green hollows of the forest glades, the dark sleepy shadows, the bright patches of burning sky between the branches, I might say to myself that all these things together made the impression of my first battle … and then would know, in my heart, that there was no impression at all, no thrill, no drama, no personality—only a sick throb in my head and a cold hand upon my chest and a desire to fling myself into any horror, any danger, if I could but escape this indigestible monotony. …
Once Trenchard, treading very softly as though everyone around him were asleep, came across and talked to me.
“You know,” he said in a whisper, “this isn’t at all what I expected.”
“You needn’t whisper,” I answered irritably, “that battery’s making such a noise that I can’t hear anything you say.”
“Yes, isn’t it!” he said with a little sigh. “It’s very unpleasant indeed. Do you think Semyonov’s forgotten us? We’ve been here a good many hours and we aren’t doing very much.”
“No,” I answered. “We’re doing nothing except get sick headaches.”
There was a pause, then he said:
“Where is everything?”
“Everything?—What?”
“Well, the battle, for instance!”
“Oh, that’s down the hill, I suppose. We’re trying to cross the river and they’re trying to prevent us.”
“Yes,” he answered. “But that isn’t exactly what I mean. … It’s hard to explain, but even if we were to see our soldiers trying to cross the river and the Austrians trying to prevent them that wouldn’t be—well, wouldn’t be exactly the real thing, would it? It would only be a kind of sideshow, rather unimportant like that dead man there!”
But my headache prevented my interest in his speculations. I said nothing.
He added as though to himself:
“Perhaps each individual soldier sees the real thing for himself but can’t express what he sees. …”
As I still made no answer, with another little sigh he got up and walked back, on tiptoe, to the side of Marie Ivanovna.
Then suddenly, in the early hours of the afternoon, to our intense relief, Semyonov and Andrey Vassilievitch appeared. Semyonov was, as ever, short, practical, and unemotional.
“Been a long time, I’m afraid. We found it difficult to see exactly where would be the best place. And, after all, we’ve got to separate. … One Sister’s wanted at the Red Cross over there. They’ve asked for our help. The other will come with me on to the Position until this evening. You three gentlemen, if you’ll be so good, will wait here until a wagon comes. Then it will take you down to the trenches at the bottom of the hill. Then, if you don’t mind, I would like you to wait until dusk when we shall go
