Four Soldiers

by Hubert Mingarelli

While I was wondering if I should point it out to him, we heard gunshots from the camp. Three shots, with spaces in between. We understood. When the last one had faded to silence, Kyabine stood up, evading the bit of grass which was still floating there in the air, and he went to throw his fish back in the water. We picked up our coats and our rifles and we looked at Pavel, thinking that perhaps he was going to say something about the pond. But he didn’t say anything, and we left.

  45

  WE WERE SITTING on our railway sleepers. Our bags were packed, our blankets rolled up and tied underneath them. We’d folded up the tent and it was ready to be fastened to Kyabine’s back. All over the camp, they were waiting, just like us, each man sitting next to his belongings. Evening fell. This was the first time since we’d come out of the forest that not a single fire crackled and glowed here at dusk. We could hear almost nothing. Occasionally the lads next to us whispered things to each other.

  The Evdokim kid had gone to talk with the other kids, the ones who’d walked up the railway tracks with him.

  Sifra was next to me. I said to him that at least we were leaving with clean blankets. He said we should have washed our coats too. I said yeah, it was a shame that we hadn’t done that. And suddenly I wished we had one more day here, so we could go to the pond to wash our coats, and frantically rub away the dirt to celebrate that extra day. And why not have another extra day to let them dry in the sun?

  Kossarenko’s company entered our camp. Kossarenko was marching at the front with a sergeant. Just behind them, a man led five mules. They were good, fat mules. They must have requisitioned those mules, because their own mules – the company’s mules, I mean – had been eaten in the forest, like ours.

  The company halted. Our commander went over to Kossarenko. They shook hands. Our commander took out a cigarette case and they started talking.

  It was too dark now to recognise the men from Kossarenko’s company who we’d met in the forest last winter.

  When Kossarenko and our commander had finished their cigarettes, Kossarenko talked to the mule-driver and his sergeant. Some of the lads from their company took the bags off two of their mules and divided them between the three others. Our commander called out to someone from our company to take the two mules. Then he looked at his watch. Just after that, Kossarenko gave the order to leave, and while his company was getting ready, I thought to myself: In an hour, that will be us.

  When the company disappeared into the night, Pavel, who had been sitting on the sleeper across from me until then, stood up. He looked all around and he seemed to be listening for something.

  ‘What are you doing, Pavel?’ I asked.

  He didn’t reply. He just shook his head and sat back down on the sleeper. Suddenly Kyabine asked me: ‘So how does it stay there on its own like that?’

  ‘What?’

  And then I remembered. He was talking about the bit of grass that was floating in the air.

  ‘I don’t know, Kyabine,’ I lied. ‘It just does.’

  He was disappointed by this response. But I thought I’d done the right thing. All of a sudden I wanted to tell Kyabine not to worry and I wanted this hour to be over and us to be marching because all four of us were sad and lost and we were so afraid. And if I’d known, I’d have taken all three of them in my arms and then they’d have been so embarrassed, and God, so would I, but having said it, having suddenly thought it, I have the impression that I actually did it and now I’m even sadder.

  The hour passed and we left.

  46

  WE MOVED THROUGH the darkness, between fields.

  I walked next to Pavel. In front of us were Kyabine and the Evdokim kid. And in front of them was Sifra. Kyabine was carrying the tent on his back and his bag on his chest. The Evdokim kid was carrying the tent pole and his blanket.

  We didn’t know how far the company was stretched out on the road because it was too dark to see.

  The sky was dark too – it looked like the plain upside down – and sometimes the moon illuminated the edges of clouds and the fields, and all the men in the company that we could see had strange silhouettes then because of the way they were carrying their loads, because of the blankets, bags and guns and all the other junk that they had on their backs.

  Some of them had their tin cup and plate tied to their belts next to each other and they kept clanking together, making a continual racket. Those men were real idiots.

  But I guessed that the company must be stretched out quite a long way because the mules that Kossarenko had given us – the mules that were walking at the front of the column – well, we hadn’t heard their horseshoes for quite some time.

  All we heard was the metal clanking of the idiots.

  Someone said: ‘Hey, put your pans away!’

  Someone replied: ‘Shut your mouth!’

  Sergeant Ermakov wasn’t far away. Somewhere ahead of us, he shouted into the night: ‘I’ll shut you all up in a minute! Silence!’

  Then one of those idiots started singing in a low voice. He sang so softly that we couldn’t understand the words. But we quickly realised that he was singing in time with the clanking of his tin cup against his plate.

  Kyabine turned back to Pavel and me, and he nodded in the direction of where the song was coming from. He seemed to like it.

  The man who was singing did not keep it up very long. Either he ran out of breath or he just didn’t feel like it any more. We continued advancing through the darkness, and sometimes someone would cough or whisper something, and strangely, at the moment when they fell silent again, we became aware that it was nighttime. And I thought: At least tonight Pavel won’t wake up in terror because he’s dreaming that Sifra has cut his throat. I was happy for him, and for Sifra too. Or at least I tried to think I was. Because in reality I wasn’t completely happy. It had always been thanks to Pavel’s nightmares that I’d been able to spend those moments alone with him. And so I felt a bit ashamed that I couldn’t feel completely happy for Pavel and Sifra.

  We heard a rumbling noise ahead of us. It grew closer, then it passed us on the bridge. Because of the noise and the darkness, we weren’t able to tell if there was any water under the bridge.

  The rumbling of the wooden planks faded behind us. Then we didn’t hear anything any more.

  We marched in silence. Nobody spoke.

  The strangest, funniest silhouette of all those in front of us was Kyabine’s, loaded as he was with the tent and his bag, and with the butt of his rifle appearing to come out of his neck.

  I asked Pavel in a whisper how he was. He replied that he was fine. Kyabine turned around because he heard us. I asked him the same question. He told me everything was all right. And at that, he touched Sifra’s shoulder. Sifra turned around and signalled that he was fine. The Evdokim kid seemed to be holding up too. Sometimes he would lift his head and look up at the sky.

  47

  WE STOPPED FOR a rest. We didn’t know how long we’d been walking. We were out of breath. Pavel, Kyabine, Sifra, the kid and I sat on our bags in the middle of the road and we spread our blankets over our backs before the cold of the night could freeze us.

  Sergeant Ermakov ordered everyone to their feet. The ones who’d lain down in the field to sleep for a while were herded onto the road. Some of them had actually fallen asleep and they made strange movements when they got up, blinking confusedly in the darkness as they tried to work out where they were.

  The kid had taken off his felt peasant boots and was holding his ankles. Pavel was staring at something over my shoulder.

  We caught our breath. Slowly the air moved under our blankets and froze our sweat.

  Suddenly Kyabine said to the kid: ‘We had a really nice hut in the forest.’

  The kid looked at him.

  ‘With a stove,’ Kyabine added. ‘Eh, Pavel? Didn’t we?’

  ‘Yeah, we did,’ said Pavel.

  ‘But Pavel,’ Kyabine asked, ‘why did we burn them?’

  Pavel shrugged. Bu
t this wasn’t enough for Kyabine, so he asked me: ‘Eh? Why did we burn the huts?’

  ‘Because we didn’t need them any more, Kyabine.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Of course.’

  And then, as he often did when something was troubling him, Kyabine lost interest in us and started thinking.

  The kid was still holding his ankles when the order came to start marching again. I stayed next to him because he was struggling to get his boots back on. He seemed terrified of being left behind and he started getting more and more anxious. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told him, ‘I’ll wait for you.’

  That was when he realised that he’d been putting them on the wrong feet. All the others had left when he stood up and started rolling up his blanket.

  ‘I’d keep it on for a while longer if I were you,’ I advised him.

  He put it back over his shoulders. He picked up the tent pole and we set off.

  He was very grateful that I’d waited for him and he held the pole very straight. We were the last ones in the column. Pavel, Kyabine and Sifra were too far ahead for us to see them.

  ‘How do you feel?’ I asked him.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Are we going to march all night?’ he asked me.

  ‘I guess so.’

  We said all this in a whisper, because of the darkness.

  ‘Did you manage to write everything about the pond?’ I asked.

  ‘Nearly everything, yeah.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘Yeah. But I’ve nearly finished.’

  To take his mind off things, I said: ‘Don’t forget Kyabine’s fish.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You’ve seen how much it matters to him.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So, listen,’ I said, carefully choosing my words. ‘When you’ve finished with the pond, there’s something else I’d like you to write.’ I paused, to plan even more carefully what I had to say. ‘Listen, what I’d like you to write about . . . well, it’s Pavel. I’d like you to write that Pavel and me . . . that we were really lucky to find each other. It was lucky too for Kyabine and Sifra, of course, but with Pavel . . . well, shit, you understand, don’t you? It was even luckier, you know?’

  ‘Yeah, I understand.’

  He listened very attentively.

  ‘Write it how you want, and take your time.’

  He nodded.

  I waited for a moment and then I said: ‘Has Pavel said anything to you that’s a bit like what I said about him?’

  ‘No.’

  I started walking faster.

  ‘Come on, let’s catch up with the others.’

  We marched and marched and we caught up with them and we continued marching and marching through the night, and sometimes we would pass through a village or a dark forest. And for a long time nobody in the company spoke – not us nor anybody around us.

  I was walking with Sifra at one point, and then with Pavel, and then I lost sight of them and suddenly I realised that I was walking on my own, next to someone in the company whose name I didn’t know.

  48

  SOMETIMES WE WOULD march past Sergeant Ermakov as he stood by the side of the road, leaning on his rifle. And long before we reached him, we could hear him telling us to advance.

  What did he think we were doing?

  The company left the road and entered a field. Far in the distance on the left there was a dark line: it was the edge of a forest and now we could see stars shining above it, between black clouds.

  We walked through the short grass. Around me and in front of me, I caught sight of bowed, staggering figures. And they stretched out as far ahead of me as I could see.

  I was still walking on my own. I tried to spot Kyabine’s enormous silhouette, but he must have been out of sight in the darkness, or somewhere behind me. My fingers tightened suddenly and I thought I’d lost my rifle. In fact I’d fastened it across my bag, but I didn’t remember that at the time.

  I thought I could see Pavel up ahead. I didn’t have enough strength to catch him up. I called out to him. But nobody replied or turned around.

  I thought to myself: Either it’s not him or he didn’t hear me.

  Soon after this, the order came through that we were stopping. Most of the men lay down where they were as soon as they heard it, but I kept walking, steering my way between them as I went in search of the others. I found Sifra first, then I heard Kyabine calling out to us. We headed towards him. Pavel came too, accompanied by the Evdokim kid.

  We sat in the grass without even thinking about unstrapping our bags. We were all hollow-eyed, our mouths agape. The kid rolled onto his side with a groan. Pavel leaned down and said: ‘Don’t fall asleep now.’

  The kid didn’t move and he didn’t reply.

  ‘Did you hear me? You mustn’t fall asleep. Have a rest but don’t fall asleep.’

  He spoke to him gently. The kid nodded. I helped him to sit up. He was wild-eyed and there was white spittle at the corners of his mouth. I took off my bag and wedged it under his back. A moment later, he lowered his head and started to sob.

  ‘It’s all right, lad,’ I told him. ‘We’re all here.’

  Kyabine kept staring at the kid. It made him sad and shy to see the kid sobbing like that.

  Suddenly, realising that I couldn’t remember, I asked who had the watch tonight.

  Pavel took it out of his pocket. I held out my hand and he passed it to me. I opened it and kissed the photograph. Kyabine kissed it passionately, and even Sifra gave it a shy peck because Kyabine asked him to, and it was touching to see him do it because he never had before. I was happy that he’d done it at last, and even though we knew that the watch didn’t really bring us luck, I thought to myself: Well, why shouldn’t it bring us luck? Pavel took it back and then handed it to the Evdokim kid.

  ‘Go on, you too.’

  He almost stopped sobbing. He held the watch in his hand and looked at us.

  ‘Open it and kiss the picture,’ I said, to encourage him.

  He did it and then he handed the watch back to Pavel. We spread our blankets over our backs and the sky started to turn blue far off to our left, above the forest. Pavel took out his cigarettes and gave one to each of us. They tasted really awful and bitter, but we smoked them down to the filter and afterwards we concentrated on fighting off sleep. It was hard for the kid.

  When dawn broke, we were still there, sitting in the field, and we could see where we were now, and where all the others in the company were, all around us, and lots of them were asleep. The mules that Kossarenko had given us were standing next to each other, eating grass, with all the boxes from the company office and all the cook’s things still loaded on their backs.

  Sergeant Ermakov’s voice echoed over the field: ‘No fires!’

  Other voices passed on this message:

  ‘No fires!’

  ‘No fires!’

  And then someone else called out in the same peremptory tones: ‘No women!’

  For once, Ermakov didn’t lose his temper because someone had made a joke. In fact, he even replied with one of his own: ‘Women are allowed, but only if they’re pretty.’

  ‘And I bet you’ve got loads of pretty women in your pocket, haven’t you, sarge?’

  ‘Yeah, come over here and I’ll give you one.’

  ‘Coming!’

  In the distance were some tiny narrow sheds painted in all different colours, and there was the big forest to the left that ended at the foot of a low hill, and behind the hill there was a town. We couldn’t see the town but we could see threads of grey smoke rising up and forming a flat cloud that drifted over the forest.

  There was a town somewhere behind the hill, and it was wonderful news that we would soon see a town again. Kaliakine, our commander, stood to the side on his own. He had a blanket over his shoulders too and he was staring in the direction of the sheds.

  49

  WHEN I
T CAME time to get up again, we had to wake the men who’d fallen asleep and they were shaky and dazed as they struggled to their feet, and in their eyes you could see dreadful glimmers. You had the impression that they were ready to kill the ones who’d woken them.

  We reformed our ranks and set off towards the colourful sheds. They were built at the ends of patches of garden that the owners had started to plough, and in places you could see the tops of vegetables emerging from the earth. Sergeant Ermakov told us to be careful not to tread on them. Although it was really too late, because it looked like Kossarenko’s company had passed this way before us: the gardens were already badly damaged.

  All the same, we tried to be careful and the ranks came apart. The whole company became scattered.

  Pavel and I went into a yellow-painted shed. There was no window and it was dark inside. At the back of the shed, we found some rope and a nicely sharpened pickaxe. Kyabine, Sifra and the Evdokim kid were waiting for us outside. Brandishing the pickaxe, Pavel said we’d be able to dig trenches around the tent to protect us from the rain. He broke the handle in half to make it less cumbersome to carry. We heard the first gunshots and the shells exploded at the front of the column with a terrible roar. The mules bolted at a gallop towards the edge of the forest while huge clods of earth flew from where the shells had hit.

  All over the gardens, men were screaming. We threw ourselves to the ground. I fell on top of Kyabine and rolled onto my back. The kid was kneeling behind one of the sheds. He held the tent pole in both hands, as if he were clinging to it. Pavel ordered him to lie down. Sifra crawled up behind us. When he reached us, a second salvo came from the edge of the forest, and this time the shells exploded closer to us. A shed was blown into the air. Bits of plank fell back down to earth. We covered our heads with our bags. Yassov, the hand sculptor, crawled past us. He was moving fast, heading for one of the sheds. We heard men calling out behind us. Further ahead, one started screaming that he’d been hit. We waited but they didn’t fire again and soon – apart from the man who was screaming – silence descended over the gardens again. I lifted my head to look over at the forest. Nothing moved. I didn’t see anything. The mules had vanished. All I saw was the dark line of undergrowth. I told the others that I didn’t see anything.