“Oh, the gallant Russian soldier, Fear with him can find no place; He, when bombs are bursting round him, Calls them ‘brother’ to their face.”
Then a dance would be played on the harmonium, and the ensign would roar out—
“Gregorash, Skvortzov, up and dance, you hounds!”
The two recruits obeyed the order without a murmur, but in both their song and dance there lay something dead, mechanical, and resigned, at which one was inclined to weep.
Only in the 5th Company were they easy-going and free, and there the drills began every day an hour later than the rest and were concluded an hour earlier.
You might have fancied that every member of it had been specially chosen, for they all looked lively, well-fed. The lads of the 5th Company looked their officers bravely and openly in the face, and the very rubashka was worn with a certain aristocratic elegance.
Their commander, Stelikovski—a very eccentric old bachelor and comparatively rich (he drew from some unknown quarter two hundred roubles every month), was of an independent character, with a dry manner, who stood aloof from his comrades, and lastly, was in bad odour on account of his dissolute life.
He attracted and hired young girls from the lower class, often minors, and these he paid handsomely, and sent back to their native places after the lapse of a month. Corporal punishment—nay, even threats and insulting words—were strictly forbidden in his company, although, as far as that goes, there was by no means any coddling of the men, who, however, in appearance, and readiness, and capability, were not inferior to any company of guardsmen in existence.
Being himself masterful, cool, and self-reliant in the highest degree, he was also able to implant those qualities firmly in his subordinates.
What, in other companies, could not be attained after a whole week’s drill amid threats, yells, and oaths, blows and stripes, Stelikovski attained with the greatest calm in a single day.
He was a man of few words, seldom raised his voice, and when, on occasion, he did speak, the soldiers stood as if carved in stone.
Among the officers he was shunned and hated, but worshipped by his men—a state of things that, most certainly, was unique in the whole of the Russian Army.
At length the 15th of May arrived, when the Great Review, ordered by the Brigadier-General, was to take place.
In all the companies, except the 5th, the non-coms. had their men drawn up by 4 a.m. The poor, tortured, drowsy, gaping soldiers were trembling as though with cold in their coarse shirts, although the air was mild and balmy and the weather serene, and their gloomy, depressed glances and sallow, greyish, chalky faces gave a painful impression in the gleaming, bright summer morning.
When the clock struck six, the officers began to join their companies.
The regiment had not to be assembled and in line before 10 a.m., but, with the exception of Stelikovski, not one of the Captains thought of letting their poor wearied soldiers have their proper sleep and gain strength for the toils awaiting them that day.
On the contrary, never had their fussiness and zeal been greater than on this morning. The air was thick with oaths, threats, and insults; ear-boxing, slaps on the mouth, kicks, and blows with the fist rained down, at each slightest blunder, on the miserable, utterly exhausted soldiers.
At 9 a.m. the companies marched to the parade-ground, about five hundred paces in front of the camp.
Sixteen outposts, provided with small, multi-coloured flags for signalling, were stationed in an absolutely straight line about half a verst long, so as to mark out, with mathematical accuracy, the points where each company’s right wing should be placed at the parade past the Brigadier-General.
Lieutenant Kovako, who had been allotted this highly important task, was, of course, one of the heroes of the day, and, conscious of this, he galloped, like a madman—red, perspiring, and with his cap on his neck—backwards and forwards along the line, shouting and swearing, and also belabouring with his sabre the ribs of his lean white charger. The poor beast, grown grey with age and having a cataract in its right eye, waved its short tail convulsively.
Yes, on Lieutenant Kovako and his outposts depended the whole regiment’s weal and woe, for it was he who bore the awful responsibility of the sixteen companies’ respective “gaps” and “dressing.”
Precisely at ten minutes to 10 a.m., the 5th Company marched out of camp.
With brisk, long, measured steps, that made the earth tremble, these hundred men marched past all the other companies and took their place in the line. They formed a splendid, select corps; lithe, muscular figures with straight backs and brave bearing, clean, shining faces, and the little peakless cap tipped coquettishly over the right ear.
Captain Stelikovski—a little thin man, displaying himself in tremendously wide breeches—carelessly promenaded, without troubling himself in the least about the time his troops kept when marching, five paces on the side of the right flank, peering amusedly, and now and then shaking his head whimsically now to the right, now to the left, as though to control the troops’ “dressing” and attention.
Colonel Liech, the commander of the battalion, who, like the rest of the officers, had been, ever since dawn, in a state of examination-fever and nervous irritability, rushed up to Stelikovski with furious upbraidings for having “come too late.” The latter slowly and coolly took out his watch, glanced at it, and replied in a dry, almost contemptuous tone:
“The commander of the regiment ordered me to be here by ten o’clock.
It still wants three minutes to that hour.
I do not consider I am justified in worrying and exerting my men unnecessarily.”
“Don’t, if you please,” croaked Liech, gesticulating and pulling his reins.
“I must ask you to be silent when your superior officer makes a remark.”
But he only too well understood that he was wrong and would get the worst of it, and he rode quickly on, and visited his wrath on the 8th Company, whose officers had ordered the knapsacks to be opened.
“What the deuce are you about?
What is this foolery?
Are you thinking of opening a bazaar or a general shop?
This is just like beginning a hunt by cramming the hounds with food.
Close your knapsacks and put them on quickly.
You ought to have thought of this before.”
At a quarter to eleven they began dressing the companies on the lines laid down.
This was for all a very minute, tedious, and troublesome task.
Between the echelons long ropes were tightly stretched along the ground.
Every soldier in the front rank was obliged to see, with the most painful accuracy, that his toes just grazed the tightly-stretched rope, for in that lay the fundamental condition of the faultless dressing of the long front.
Moreover, the distance between the toes, like the breadth of the gun-stock and the somewhat inclined position of the upper part of the body, had to be the same along the whole line.
While anxiously superintending these details the Captains often flew into a towering rage. Frantic shouts and angry words of command were heard everywhere:
“Ivanoff, more forward, you—Syaroschtan, right shoulder forward, left back!”
At 10.30 a.m. the commander of the regiment arrived.
He rode on a powerful chestnut-brown gelding with white legs.
Colonel Shulgovich was an imposing, almost majestic, figure on horseback. He had a firm “seat,” although he rode in infantry style, with stirrups far too short.
In greeting his regiment he yelled in his tremendous voice, in which a certain jubilant heroic note in honour of the occasion was audible—
“Good morning, my fine fellows.”
Romashov, who remembered his 4th platoon and especially Kliabnikov’s wretched appearance, could not refrain from smiling.