Telegin issued his commands under his breath.
Cover of some sort would be required—the soldiers began stripping off their shirts, filling them with sand, and setting them along the bulwarks.
They worked in silence—this was no joking matter.
Day was beginning to break.
The preparations were over.
The small rusty mountain gun was posted in the bows.
Fifty men went on board, lying down behind the improvised sandbags.
Khvedin took the wheel, crying out:
"Full steam ahead!"
The water seethed beneath the paddles.
The steamer rapidly skirted the islands and made for the town along the main stream.
Yellow lights could be seen here and there in the town.
Behind, a vague line of mountains, shrouded in night, could be made out.
The sound of cocks crowing now came quite distinctly to the ears.
Ivan Ilyich stood near the gun.
He could not get used to the idea that in a short time they would have to shoot into this inviolable stillness.
A Khvalinsk dweller, a harmless little man looking like a priest with a taste for fishing, who had volunteered to be gun-layer, said amiably:
"Comrade Commander, what if we were to aim right at the post office?
Bang in the middle of it.... See—where those two yellow lights are...."
"Aim at the post office!" thundered the voice of Khvedin through the megaphone.
"Ready!
Open sights!"
The gunner squatted down, peeping along the tube of the gun, which he trained on the lights.
He loaded it.
Then he turned to Telegin:
"Move back a little, dear Comrade, this thing might explode."
"Fire!" barked Khvedin.
The gun went off, recoiling violently, and emitting a blinding flash.
The roar boomed over the river, and the hills sent back an answering rumble.
"Fire, fire!" shouted Khvedin, turning the helm.
"Rapid fire from the port side!
Volleys, volleys for the swine!"
He stamped, flew into a passion, thundered out fantastic oaths.
Irregular volleys came from the deck.
The bank on the Khvalinsk side was getting nearer and nearer.
The gunner loaded his gun conscientiously and fired again. Splinters from some sort of shed flew into the air.
Now the outlines of wooden houses, orchards, and belfries could be clearly seen.
Splintering flashes of rifle fire burst out from the landing stage below.
And then Telegin heard the sound he had all along been dreading: the abrupt hurried barking of a machine gun.
He felt the familiar tautness in his toes, as if all his blood vessels were contracting.
Squatting down beside the gun, he drew the attention of the gunner to a long structure halfway up the side of a slope.
"Try to land her over there, where those bushes are...."
"Tchk!" said the gunner. "That's a nice little house, but never mind!"
The gun boomed out a third time.
The machine gun fell quiet for a moment or two, and then its rap-rap came from somewhere higher up.
The steamer approached the landing stage with a sharp turn.
The bullets flew high, among the funnels and masts.
"Don't wait for the ship to moor—jump!" cried Khvedin.
"Hurrah, boys!"
The sides of the landing stage creaked violently.