The Dark Forest

gradually, caught, as it seemed to me, into a world of whispers and half-lights, I slipped forward a little down into the dark walls of the trench and half-slumbered, half clung still to the buzzing voice of the Colonel, the languid replies of the young officer. I felt then that someone was whispering to me that my real adventure was about to begin. I could see quite plainly, like a road up which I had gone, the events of the day behind me. I saw the ride under the stars, the cold red dawn. Marie Ivanovna standing beneath my cart, the sudden battery and the desolate hours of waiting, the wounded men stumbling out of the forest, the ride down the hill and the green bottles bursting in the sun, the sudden silences and the sudden sounds, my own weariness and discomfort and loneliness and now Something⁠—was it the dark green oak that bent down and hid the world for me?⁠—whispered, “You’re drawing near⁠—you’re close⁠—you’re almost there.⁠ ⁠… In a moment you will see⁠ ⁠… you will see⁠ ⁠… you will see.⁠ ⁠…”

Somewhere the soldiers were singing, and then all sounds ceased. We were standing, many of us, in the dark, the great oak and many other giant trees were about us and the utter silence was like a sudden plunge into deep water on a hot day. We were waiting, ready for the Creature, breathless with suspense.

“Now!” someone cried, and instantly there was such a roar that I seemed to be lifted by it far into the sky, held, rocked, then dropped gently. I woke to find myself standing up in the trench, my hands to my ears. I was aware first that the sky had changed from blue into a muddy grey, then that dust and an ugly smell were in my eyes, my mouth, my nose. I remembered that I repeated stupidly, again and again: “What? what? what?” Then the grey sky slowly fell away as though it were pushed by some hand and I saw the faint evening blue, with (so strange and unreal they seemed) silver-pointed stars. I caught my breath and realised that now the whole right corner of the barn was gone. The field stretched, a dark shadow, to the edge of the yard. In the ground where the stakes of the barn had been there was a deep pit; scattered helter-skelter were bricks, pieces of wood, and over it all a cloud of thin fine dust that hovered and swung a little like grey silk. The line of soldiers was crouched back into the trench as though it had been driven by some force. From, as it appeared, a great distance, I heard the Colonel’s voice: “Slava Bogu, another step to the right and we’d not have had time to say ‘goodbye.’⁠ ⁠… Get in there, you⁠ ⁠… with your head out like that, do you want another?” I was conscious then of Andrey Vassilievitch sitting huddled on the ground of the trench, his head tucked into his chest.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” I said, bending down to him,

He got up and to my surprise seemed quite composed. He was rubbing his eyes as though he had waked from sleep.

“Not at all,” he answered in his shrill little voice. “No.⁠ ⁠… What a noise! Did you hear it, Ivan Andreievitch?”

Did I hear it? A ridiculous question!

“But I assure you I was not alarmed,” he said eagerly, turning round to the young officer, who was rather red in the face but otherwise unruffled. “The first time that one has been so close to me. What a noise!”

Trenchard searched in his pockets for something.

“What is it?” I asked.

“My handkerchief!” he answered. “So dusty after that. It’s in my eyes!”

He tumbled on to the ground a large clasp pocketknife, a hunk of black bread, a cigarette-case and some old letters. “I had one,” he muttered anxiously. “Somewhere, I know.⁠ ⁠…”

I heard the Colonel’s voice again. “No one touched! There’s some more of their precious ammunition wasted.⁠ ⁠… What about your Ekaterina, Piotr Ivanovitch⁠—Ho, ho, ho!⁠ ⁠… Here, golubchik, the telephone!⁠ ⁠… Hullo! Hullo!”

For myself I had the irritation that one might feel had a boy thrown a stone over the wall, broken a window and run away. Moreover, I felt that again I had missed⁠—it. Always round the corner, always just out of sight, always mocking one’s clumsy pursuit. And still, even now, I felt no excitement, no curiosity. My feet had not yet touched the enchanted ground.⁠ ⁠…

The trench had at once slipped back into its earlier composure. The dusk was now creeping down the hill; with every stir of the breeze more stars were blown into the sky; the oak was all black now like a friendly shadow protecting me.

“There’ll be no more for a while,” said the Colonel. He was right. There was stillness; no battery, however distant, no pitter-patter of rifle fire, no chattering report of the machine guns.

Men began to cross the yard, slowly, without caution. The dusk caught us so that I could not see the Colonel’s face; a stream that cut the field, hidden in the day, was now suddenly revealed by a grinning careless moon.

Then a soldier crossed the yard to us, told us that Dr. Semyonov wished us to start and had sent us a guide; the wagons were ready.

At that instant, whence I know not, for the first time that day, excitement leapt upon me.

Events had hitherto passed before me like the shadowed film of a cinematograph; it had been as though someone had given me glimpses of a life, an adventure, a country with which I should later have some concern but whose boundaries I was not yet to cross. Now, suddenly, whether it was because of the dark and the silence I cannot say, I had become, myself, an actor in the affair. It was not simply that we were given something definite to do⁠—we had had wounded during the morning⁠—it was rather that, as in the children’s game we were