Chapter XXVI

Vlang found his battery again in the second line of defence, and of the twenty soldiers who recently composed it, only eight were alive.

Towards nine o’clock in the evening Vlang and his men were crossing the bay in a steamboat in the direction of Severnaïa. The boat was laden with wounded, with cannon, and with horses. The firing had stopped everywhere. The stars sparkled in the sky as on the night before, but a strong wind was blowing and the sea was rough. On the first and second bastions flames flashed up close to the ground, preceding explosions which shook the atmosphere and showed stones and black objects of strange form thrown into the air. Something near the docks was on fire, and a red flame was reflected in the water. The bridge, covered with people, was lighted up by fires from the Nicholas battery. A great sheaf of flames seemed to rise over the water on the distant point of the Alexander battery, and lighted up the under side of a cloud of smoke which hovered over it. As on the preceding evening, the lights of the hostile fleet sparkled afar on the sea, calm and insolent. The masts of our scuttled vessels, slowly settling into the depths of the water, contrasted sharply against the red glow of the fires. On the deck of the steamboat no one spoke. Now and then, in the midst of the regular chopping of the waves struck by the wheels, and the hissing of escaping steam, could be heard the snorting of horses, the striking of their iron-shod hoofs on the planks, the captain speaking a few words of command, and also the dolorous groaning of the wounded. Vlang, who had not eaten since the day before, drew a crust of bread from his pocket and gnawed it, but at the thought of Volodia he broke out sobbing so violently that the soldiers were surprised at it.

“Look! our Vlang is eating bread and weeping,” said Vassina.

“Strange!” added one of them.

“See! they have burned our barracks!” he continued, sighing. “How many of our fellows are dead, and dead to no purpose, for the French have got possession!”

“We have scarcely come out alive. We must thank God for it,” said Vassina.

“It’s all the same. It is maddening!”

“Why? Do you think they will lead a happy life there? Wait a bit; we will take them back. We will still lose some of our men, possibly, but as true as God is holy, if the emperor orders it we will take them back! Do you think they have been left as they were? Come, come; these were only naked walls. The intrenchments were blown up. He has planted his flag on the mamelon, it is true, but he won’t risk himself in the town. Wait a bit; we won’t be behindhand with you! Only give us time,” he said, looking in the direction of the French.

“It will be so, that’s sure,” said another, with conviction.

On the whole line of the bastions of Sebastopol, where during whole months an ardent and energetic life was stirring, where during months death alone relieved the agony of the heroes, one after the other, who inspired the enemy’s terror, hatred, and finally admiration--on these bastions, I say, there was not a single soul, everything there was dead, fierce, frightful, but not silent, for everything all around was falling in with a din. On the earth, torn up by a recent explosion, were lying, here and there, broken beams, crushed bodies of Russians and French, heavy cast-iron cannon overturned into the ditch by a terrible force, half buried in the ground and forever dumb, bomb-shells, balls, splinters of beams, ditches, bomb-proofs, and more corpses, in blue or in gray overcoats, which seemed to have been shaken by supreme convulsions, and which were lighted up now every instant by the red fire of the explosions which resounded in the air.

The enemy well saw that something unusual was going on in formidable Sebastopol, and the explosions, the silence of death on the bastions, made them tremble. Under the impression of the calm and firm resistance of the last day they did not yet dare believe in the disappearance of their invincible adversary, and they awaited, silent and motionless, the end of the dismal night.

The army of Sebastopol, like a sea whose liquid mass, agitated and uneasy, spreads and overflows, moved slowly forward in the dark night, undulating into the impenetrable gloom, over the bridge on the bay, proceeding towards Severnaïa, leaving behind them those spots where so many heroes had fallen, sprinkling them with their blood, those places defended during eleven months against an enemy twice as strong as itself, and which it had received the order this very day to abandon without a fight.

The first impression caused by this order of the day weighed heavily on the heart of every Russian; next the fear of pursuit was the dominant feeling with all. The soldiers, accustomed to fight in the places they were abandoning, felt themselves without defence the moment they left those behind. Uneasy, they crowded together in masses at the entrance of the bridge, which was lifted by violent wind gusts. Through the obstruction of regiments, of militiamen, of wagons, some crowding the others, the infantry, whose muskets clashed together, and the officers carrying orders, made a passage for themselves with difficulty. The inhabitants and the military servants accompanying the baggage begged and wept to be permitted to cross, while the artillery, in a hurry to go away, rolled along noisily, coming down towards the bay. Although the attention was distracted by a thousand details, the feeling of self-preservation, and the desire to fly as soon as possible from that fatal spot, filled each one’s soul. It was thus with the mortally wounded soldier lying among five hundred other unfortunates on the flag-stones of the Paul quay, begging God for death; with the exhausted militiaman, who by a last effort forces his way into the compact crowd to leave a free passage for a superior officer; with the general who is commanding the passage with a firm voice, and restraining the impatient soldiers; with the straggling sailor or the battalion on the march, almost stifled by the moving crowd; with the wounded officer borne by four soldiers, who, stopped by the crowd, lay down the stretcher near the Nicholas barracks; with the old artilleryman, who, during sixteen years, has not left the cannon which, with the assistance of his comrades and at the command of his chief, incomprehensible for him, he is about to tumble over into the bay; and, at length, with the sailors who have just scuttled their ships, and are vigorously rowing away in their boats.

Arrived at the end of the bridge, each soldier, with very few exceptions, takes off his cap and crosses himself. But besides this feeling he has another, more poignant, deeper--a feeling akin to repentance, to shame, to hatred; for it is with an inexpressible bitterness of heart that each of them sighs, utters threats against the enemy, and, as he reaches the north side, throws a last look upon abandoned Sebastopol.

FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The Military Gazette.--TRANS.

[B] A sort of arbor covered with ivy was then used in most fashionable parlors.--TRANS.

[C] A cadet. The yunker ranks between sergeant and second-lieutenant, and belongs to the class of commissioned officers. Both the title and the function are borrowed from the German (_junker_). The present spelling is adopted to represent more nearly the Russian pronunciation.--TRANS.

[D] The Russian soldiers accustomed to fight the Turks and to hear their battle-cries, always tell that the French have the same shout, “Allah!”--TRANS.

[E] The last station before Sebastopol.--TRANS.

[F] This is the literal translation of the common phrase used by the soldiers in reply to a greeting from their superior officers.--TRANS.

[G] In certain regiments the officers nicknamed the soldiers “Moscow,” half in scorn, half in kindly sport.--TRANS.

[H] American.