Chapter XIX

A table, covered with a stained tablecloth, was placed in the middle of the room in which Volodia had been received by the colonel the evening before. The latter gave him his hand, and asked him questions about Petersburg and about his journey.

“Now, gentlemen, please come up to the brandy. The ensigns don’t drink,” he added, with a smile.

The commander of the battery did not seem as stern to-day as the day before; he had rather the air of a kind and hospitable host than that of a comrade among his officers. In spite of that, all, from the old captain to Ensign Dedenko, evinced respect for him which betrayed itself in the timid politeness with which they spoke to him and came up in line to drink their little glass of brandy.

The dinner consisted of cabbage-soup, served in a great tureen in which swam lumps of meat with fat attached, laurel leaves, and a good deal of pepper, Polish _zrasi_ with mustard, _koldouni_ with slightly rancid butter; no napkins; the spoons were of pewter and of wood, the glasses were two in number. On the table was a single water decanter with broken neck. The conversation did not flag. They first spoke of the battle of Inkerman, in which the battery took a part. Each related his impressions, his opinions on the causes of the failure, keeping silent as soon as the battery commander spoke. Then they complained of the lack of cannon of a certain calibre; they talked of certain other improvements, which gave Volodia an opportunity of showing his knowledge. The curious part was that the talk did not even touch upon the frightful situation of Sebastopol, which seemed to mean that each one, on his part, thought too much about it to speak of it.

Volodia, very much astonished, and even vexed, that there was no question of the duties of his service, said to himself that he seemed to have come to Sebastopol only in order to give the details about the new cannon and to dine with the battery commander.

During the repast a shell burst very near the house. The floor and the wall were shaken by it as by an earthquake, and powder-smoke spread over the window outside.

“You certainly didn’t see that at Petersburg, but here we often have these surprises. Go, Vlang,” added the commander, “and see where the shell burst.”

Vlang went to look, and announced that it had burst in the yard. After that they did not speak of it again.

A little before the end of the dinner one of the military clerks came in to give to his chief three sealed envelopes. “This one is very urgent. A Cossack has just brought it from the commander of the artillery,” he said. The officers watched the practised fingers of their superior with anxious impatience while he broke the seal of the envelope, which bore the words “in haste,” and drew a paper from it.

“What can that be?” each one thought. “Can it be the order to leave Sebastopol for a rest, or the order to bring out the whole battery upon the bastion?”

“Once more!” cried the commander, angrily, throwing the sheet of paper on the table.

“What is it, Apollo Serguéïtch?” asked the oldest of the officers.

“They want an officer and men for a mortar battery. I have only four officers, and my men are not up to the full number,” he growled, “and now they ask for some of them. However, some one must go, gentlemen,” he continued, after a moment; “they must be there at seven o’clock. Send me the sergeant-major. Now, gentlemen, who will go? Decide it among yourselves.”

“But here is this gentleman who hasn’t yet served,” said Tchernovitzky, pointing to Volodia.

“Yes; I wouldn’t ask for anything better,” said Volodia, feeling a cold sweat moisten his neck and his backbone.

“No--why not?” interrupted the captain. “No one ought to refuse; but it is useless to ask him to go; and since Apollo Serguéïtch leaves us free, we will draw lots, as we did the other time.”

All consented to this. Kraut carefully cut several little paper squares, rolled them up, and threw them into a cap. The captain cracked a few jokes and profited by this occasion to ask the colonel for wine, “to give us courage,” he added. Dedenko had a depressed air, Volodia smiled, Tchernovitzky declared that he would be chosen by the lot. As to Kraut, he was perfectly calm.

They offered Volodia the first chance. He took one of the papers, the longest, but immediately changed it for another, shorter and smaller, and unrolling it, read the word “Go.”

“It is I,” he said, with a sigh.

“All right. May God protect you! It will be your baptism of fire,” said the commander, looking with a pleasant smile at the disturbed face of the ensign. “But get ready quickly, and in order that it may be pleasanter, Vlang will go with you in the place of the artificer.