'I said felt boots', Nai-Turs rejoined in a monotone, squinting down at the toes of his boots.
'What?' the general asked in perplexity, staring at the colonel with amazement.
'Give me those felt boots at once.'
'What are you talking about?'
The general's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
Nai-Turs turned to the door, opened it a little and shouted out into the passage:
'Hey there, platoon!'
The general turned a grayish white, his glance swivelling from Nai-Turs' face to the telephone receiver, from there to the ikon of the Virgin hanging in the corner, then back to the colonel's face.
There was a clinking and shuffling in the passage, then several red-banded cadets' forage caps of the Alexeyevsky Military Academy and some black bayonets appeared in the doorway.
The general started to rise from his padded armchair.
'I have never heard anything like it . . . this is mutiny . . .'
'Please countersign the requisition order, sir', said Nai. 'We haven't much time, we move off in an hour.
The enemy is right outside the city.'
'What on earth do you mean by . . .'
'Come on, hurry up', said Nai-Turs in a funereal voice.
Hunching his head between his shoulders, his eyes starting from his head, the general pulled the piece of paper from under the naked woman and with a shaking hand, spattering ink, scrawled in the corner:
'Issue the above stores.'
Nai-Turs took the paper, tucked it into the cuff of his sleeve, turned to his cadets and gave the order:
'Load up the felt boots.
Look sharp.'
Clumping and rattling, the cadets began to file out.
As Nai waited for them to leave, the general, purple in the face, said to him:
'I shall immediately ring the commander-in-chief's headquarters and raise the matter of having you court-martialled.
This is unheard-of . . .'
'Go ahead and try', replied Nai-Turs, swallowing his saliva. 'Just try.
Just out of interest, go ahead and try.' He put his hand on the revolver-butt peeping out of his unbuttoned holster.
The general's face turned blotchy and he was silent.
'If you pick up that telephone, you silly old man,' Nai suddenly said in a gentle voice, 'I'll give you a hole in your head from this Colt and that will be the end of you.'
The general sat back in his chair.
The folds of his neck were still purple, but his face was gray.
Nai-Turs turned around and went out.
For a few more minutes the general sat motionless in his armchair, then crossed himself towards the ikon, picked up the telephone receiver, raised it to his ear, heard the operator's muffled yet intimate voice . . . suddenly he had a vision of the grim eyes of that laconic colonel of hussars, replaced the receiver and looked out of the window.
He watched the cadets in the yard busily carrying gray bundles of felt boots out of the black doorway of the stores, where the quartermaster-sergeant could be seen holding a piece of paper and staring at it in utter amazement.
Nai-Turs was standing with his legs astraddle beside a two-wheeled cart and gazing at it.
Weakly the general picked up the morning paper from the table, unfolded it and read on the front page:
On the river Irpen clashes occurred with enemy patrols which were attempting to penetrate towards Svyatoshino . . .
He threw down the newspaper and said aloud:
'Cursed be the day and the hour when I took on this . . .'
The door opened and the assistant chief of the supply section entered, a captain who looked like a tailless skunk.
He stared meaningly at the folds of purpling flesh above the general's collar and said:
'Permission to report, sir.'
'See here, Vladimir Fyodorich', the general interrupted him, sighing and gazing about him in obvious distress, 'I haven't been feeling too good ... a slight attack of.. . er . .. and I'm going home now. Will you please take over?'
'Yes, sir,' replied the skunk, staring curiously at the general. 'But what am I to do?
The Fourth Detachment and the engineers are asking for felt boots.
Did you just give an order to issue two hundred pairs?'
'Yes.
Yes, I did,' replied the general in his piercing voice. 'Yes, I gave the order.
I personally allowed it.
Theirs is an exceptional case!
They are just going into combat.