Denisov clapped him on the shoulder, and started pacing rapidly up and down the room without looking at Rostov, something he often did at times of high emotion. 'Oh weally,' she said, 'you Wostovs are such a cwazy bweed,' and Rostov could see that Denisov had tears in his eyes.
CHAPTER 16
In April the army was roused by the news that the Tsar was on his way. Rostov had no chance of taking part in the review conducted by him at Bartenstein; the Pavlograd hussars were posted well forward, a long way out of Bartenstein.
They were still encamped. Denisov and Rostov were living in a mud-hut dug out by soldiers and roofed over with branches and turf. The hut was built to a plan that had recently become very popular with the soldiers. A trench was dug just over three feet wide, nearly five feet deep and eight feet long. At one end of the trench steps were scooped out to form an entrance. The trench itself was the room, and in it the lucky officers, such as the squadron commander, had the benefit of a board mounted on four stakes at the opposite end to the steps - this was the table. Both sides of the trench were cut down a couple of feet to provide a surface usable as beds and couches. The roof was constructed so that a man could stand upright in the middle, and you could sit on the beds if you moved up close to the table. Denisov, who always lived well because his men liked him so much, even had a board let into the front part of the roof with a broken but glued up window-pane in it. When it was very cold they used to bring red-hot embers over from the soldiers' camp-fires on a bent sheet of iron and put them near the steps (in the 'ante-room', as Denisov called that part of the hut), and this made it so warm that any visiting officers - and Denisov and Rostov were never short of visitors - could sit there in their shirtsleeves.
One April morning Rostov returned from a spell on duty. Arriving home just before eight o'clock after a sleepless night, he sent for some heat, changed his rainsoaked clothes, said his prayers, drank some tea, warmed himself, tidied things away in his corner and on the table, and with his face red from the wind outside and the warmth within, he lay down on his back with nothing on but his shirt and folded his hands behind his head. He was enjoying the pleasant thought that promotion ought to be his any day now following the last reconnaissance mission, while he waited for Denisov, who had gone off somewhere. He wanted to talk.
Suddenly he heard a thunderous voice outside the hut - unmistakably Denisov's. Rostov went to the window to find out who he was speaking to and saw that it was the quartermaster, Topcheyenko.
'I told you not to let them stuff themselves with that Mawy woot thing!' Denisov was roaring. 'I saw Lazarchuk with my own eyes bwinging it back fwom the field.'
'I did tell them, sir, lots of times, but they don't listen,' answered the quartermaster.
Rostov lay back down on his bed and thought with some pleasure. 'Let him sort it out. He's got his hands full now. I've done my day's work and I can have a lie-down. Marvellous!' Through the wall he could hear someone else speaking. It was Denisov's valet, Lavrushka, a clever rogue if ever there was one, and he was going on about some wagons and biscuits and oxen he'd seen while he'd been out scouting for provisions.
Then he heard Denisov's voice outside disappearing into the distance as he shouted, 'Second twoop! To horse!'
'I wonder where they're off to,' thought Rostov.
Five minutes later Denisov came into the hut, clambered on to his bed still wearing his muddy boots, lit his pipe angrily, rummaged through his things to find his riding-whip and sabre, and turned to leave the hut. When Rostov wanted to know where he was going he said vaguely and angrily that he had something to do.
'Let God be my judge in this - and our gweat Empewor!' said Denisov as he went out. Outside, Rostov could hear the hoofs of several horses splashing through the mud. He didn't even bother to find out where Denisov was going. Warm and cosy in his corner, he soon fell asleep, and it was early evening before he emerged from the hut. Denisov was still out. The weather had cleared. Near the next hut two officers and a cadet were playing a form of quoits, with much laughter as they drove big radishes for pegs into the soft muddy ground. Rostov joined in. In the middle of a game the officers suddenly saw some wagons driving up, followed by more than a dozen hussars riding their skinny horses. The wagons trundled up with their hussar escort and stopped at the tethering rails, where they were immediately surrounded by more hussars.
'Hey, look! Denisov needn't have worried,' said Rostov. 'Fodder at last!'
'I'll say!' said the officers. 'The boys are going to like this!' Just behind the hussars came Denisov, still on horseback and accompanied by two infantry officers, all of them busy talking. Rostov went forward to meet Denisov.
'I'm warning you, Captain,' one of the officers was saying, a thin little man, visibly angry.
'Well, I've told you - I'm not giving them up,' answered Denisov.
'You'll answer for this, Captain. It's outrageous - stealing vehicles from your own side! Our men haven't eaten for two days.'
'Mine haven't eaten for two weeks,' countered Denisov.
'It's daylight robbery! You'll answer for it, sir!' repeated the infantry officer, raising his voice.
'Will you stop pestewing me? Eh?' roared Denisov, roused to fury. 'I'm wesponsible, not you. And buzz off you lot while you'we in a fit state to do so!' he shouted at the officers.
'All right then,' cried the little officer, refusing to be intimidated or to ride away. 'This is thieving, and I'm telling you . . .'
'Go away, damn you, move, at the double, while you'we in a fit state to do so!' And Denisov turned his horse towards the officer.
'All right, all right,' said the officer ominously. He turned his own horse away and trotted off, jolting in the saddle.
'Dog on a fence! You'we a weal dog on a fence!' Denisov called after him, this being the most insulting thing a cavalryman can say to an infantryman on horseback. He rode over to Rostov and roared with laughter.
'Gwabbed all this fwom the infantwy! Supewior stwength!' he said. 'Can't let the men die of starvation!'
The wagons that had just rolled up had been intended for an infantry regiment, but when he found out from Lavrushka that the wagon-train was unescorted, Denisov and his hussars had seized everything by brute force. Plenty of biscuits were issued to the men, and they even shared them with other squadrons.
The next day the colonel sent for Denisov, and, covering his eyes with open fingers, he said to him, 'This is how I see it. I know nothing, and I don't propose to take any action. But I advise you to ride over to HQ and sort things out with the provisions people. If possible say what stores you've had and sign for them. If you don't and they're put down against the infantry, it's bound to come out, and it could have a nasty outcome.'
Denisov left the colonel and went straight to HQ, genuinely keen to follow his advice.
That evening he came back to his hut in a terrible state; Rostov had never seen his friend like this. He was gasping and speechless. When Rostov asked him what was wrong, all he could do was whisper and croak, mouthing incoherent expletives and threats.
Alarmed at the state he was in, Rostov told him to get undressed, have a drink of water and send for the doctor.
'Me! Court-martialled for wobbewy! Give me a dwink of water. Well, let them twy me! I'll win! I'll get them, wotten swine! I'll tell the Empewor! Get me some ice,' he kept saying.
When the regimental doctor arrived he said it was essential to bleed him. A deep saucerful of black blood was extracted from Denisov's hairy arm, and only then was he in any state to tell them what had happened.
'I got there,' said Denisov. ' "Now then, where can I find your chief?" ' They showed me. "I twust you don't mind waiting?" "I'm hewe on business, I've widden twenty miles and I haven't time to wait. Announce me." Vewy good, but out comes the thief-in-chief and he wants to upbwaid me too. "This is wobbewy!" says he. "A wobber," I say, "is not someone who gwabs some wations to feed his men, it is someone who gwabs things to fill his own pockets." "Will you please
be silent?" Vewy good. "Go and wite a weceipt," says he, "for the commissioner, but this will have to be weported." Off to the commissioner. In I go, and guess who's sitting at the table . . . No, guess! . . . Guess who's starving us all to death!' roared Denisov, banging the table with the fist of his recently bled arm so violently that it almost collapsed, and the glasses jumped. 'Telyanin! "What?" I shouted. "So it's you that's starving us all to death?" and I smashed his face in, gave him a wight one, I did. I called him every name under the sun and I laid into him. It was great fun, I can tell you,' cried Denisov, his white teeth gleaming under his black moustache in a smile of malicious glee. 'I'd have killed him if they hadn't pulled me off.' 'Don't shout. Calm down,' said Rostov. 'You've made it bleed again. Keep still. You need a bandage.'
Denisov was bandaged and put to bed. Next morning he woke up calm and cheerful.
But at midday the regimental adjutant called on Denisov and Rostov at their hut. His face was grave and full of regret as he painfully showed them the official form served on Major Denisov by the colonel in charge of the regiment, raising questions about the incidents of the previous day. The adjutant warned them that the affair seemed likely to take a very bad turn. There would be a court martial, and in view of current strictures against looting and insubordination the best he could hope for would be reduction to the ranks.
The case presented by the injured parties was that Major Denisov, after seizing the wagons, had come to the Chief Commissioner for Procurement on his own initiative and in a drunken state had called him a thief, issued physical threats and on being led out had rushed into the office and attacked two officials, one of whom ended up with a dislocated arm.
Rostov persisted with his questions and in response Denisov accepted that some other fellow did seem to have got involved, but anyway it was all complete rubbish, he wouldn't dream of worrying about any court, and that if those swine dared to pick on him he'd give them an answer they wouldn't soon forget.
This offhand manner was typical of Denisov's attitude to the whole affair, but Rostov knew him too well not to notice that deep down (though he hid it from everyone else) he was dreading the court martial and was desperately worried about the whole affair, which was clearly going to have terrible consequences. Documents began arriving daily, forms to be filled in and summonses, and Denisov was instructed to appear before the divisional staff on the 1st of May, having placed his squadron under the command of the officer next in seniority, for an inquiry into the fracas that had occurred in the commissioner's office. But on the day before the hearing Denisov was out on a reconnaissance mission organized by Platov and involving two Cossack regiments and two squadrons of hussars, as always well out in front, flaunting his courage, when a French marksman shot him in the fleshy part of his upper leg. At any other time, perhaps, Denisov wouldn't have left the regiment for a scratch like that, but on this occasion he took full advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing at Staff HQ, and went into hospital.
CHAPTER 17
The month of June saw the battle of Friedland,13 in which the Pavlograd hussars did not take part. It was followed by a truce. Rostov, who was badly missing his friend and had had no news of him since he had left, was worried about the charge against him and his wound, so he took advantage of the truce and got permission to visit Denisov in hospital.
The hospital was located in a small Prussian town which had been ravaged twice by Russian and French troops. With the countryside around looking so pleasant in the early summer weather this little place looked particularly dismal, nothing but shattered roofs and fences, filthy streets and ragged inhabitants, and sick and drunken soldiers wandering about everywhere.
The hospital itself consisted of a stone house with bits of old fencing all over the yard, and many shattered window-frames and broken panes. Several soldiers swathed in bandages, with faces pale and swollen, were walking about or sitting around in the yard enjoying the sunshine.
The moment Rostov walked through the door he was assailed by the stench of hospital disinfectant and putrefying flesh. On the stairs he met a Russian army doctor with a cigar in his mouth. He was followed by a Russian medical assistant.
'I can't be everywhere at once,' the doctor was saying. 'Come and see me tonight. I'll be at Makar Alexeich's.' The assistant wanted to ask more questions. 'Oh, just do the best you can! What difference will it make?'
The doctor caught sight of Rostov coming up the stairs.
'What are you doing here, sir?' asked the doctor. 'What are you doing here? If you've missed all the bullets why would you want to catch typhus? This, sir, is a leper colony.'
'What do you mean?' asked Rostov.
'Typhus, sir. Go in there and you're a dead man. There's only the two of us still on our feet, Makeyev and me.' (He pointed to the assistant.) 'Five or six of us doctors have gone down. A new one comes in, give him a week and he's had it,' said the doctor with evident satisfaction. 'We've sent for some Prussian doctors, but our allies don't seem too keen to come.'
Rostov explained that he wanted to see one of the patients, Major Denisov of the hussars.
'I can't help you, my good sir. I don't know who's who. Listen, I'm on my own, looking after three hospitals, well over four hundred patients. It's a good job the Prussian charitable ladies send us a couple of pounds of coffee and some lint every month or we'd be lost.' He laughed. 'Four hundred, sir, and new ones every day. It is four hundred, isn't it?' He turned to the assistant.
The assistant looked worn out. It was all too obvious that he was squirming with irritation, just wanting the garrulous doctor to go away.
'Major Denisov,' repeated Rostov. 'He was wounded at Moliten.'
'Oh, I think he's dead. That's right, isn't it, Makeyev?' the doctor asked casually.
But the assistant did not confirm what the doctor had said.
'Long sort of fellow. Red-haired,' suggested the doctor.
Rostov described Denisov's appearance.
'Yes, there was someone like that,' the doctor declared with some delight. 'Must be dead by now, but I'll have a look. I used to have some lists. Have you got them, Makeyev?'
'They've gone to Makar Alexeich,' said the assistant. 'But if you'd like to go along to the officers' wards you can see for yourself,' he added, turning to Rostov.
'Ah, better not, sir!' said the doctor. 'You might end up staying here yourself.' But Rostov said goodbye to the doctor with a polite bow and asked the assistant to show him the way.
'Don't blame me!' the doctor shouted up the stairwell.
Rostov and the assistant turned into a dark corridor. The hospital stench was so strong there that Rostov held his nose and had to stop and pull himself together before going on. A door opened on the right, and out came a sallow, emaciated man limping along on crutches, dressed in his underclothes and with nothing on his feet. He leant against the door jamb and watched them as they approached, his eyes gleaming with envy. Rostov glanced in through the door and saw sick and wounded men lying about everywhere on the floor, on straw and greatcoats.
'What's in here?' asked Rostov.
'It's the privates' ward,' said the assistant. 'What can I do?' he added almost apologetically.
'Can I go in and have a look round?' asked Rostov.
'What is there to look at?' said the assistant. But the assistant's obvious desire to keep him out made Rostov all the more determined to go in, and he did so. Out in the corridor he had just about got used to the stench, but it was even stronger in here. It was different, more pungent, and you could tell that this was where it was coming from. In the long room, which was brilliantly lit by sunshine streaming in through big windows, lay two rows of sick and wounded men with their heads to the wall, leaving an aisle down the middle. Most of them were unconscious, oblivious to the arrival of any outsiders. The conscious ones perked up, or at least lifted their sallow, emaciated faces, and every one of them stared closely at Rostov, all with the same expression, a silent and hopeful call for help mi
ngled with resentment and envy of another man's health. Rostov went in as far as the middle of the room and then walked out, only to glance in through the open doors of the next two rooms, where he saw the same thing on both sides. He stood still, looking around. It was beyond words. He had never expected to see anything like this. Right in front of him sprawling across the empty central aisle on the bare floor was a sick man, probably a Cossack, to judge by the cut of his hair. He lay on his back, with his huge arms and legs outstretched. His face was a purply red, his eyes had rolled up leaving only the whites visible, and on his bare legs and arms, which were still red, the veins stood out like cords. He was banging his head on the floor, trying to say something in a hoarse whisper and repeating it over and over again. Rostov listened hard and at last he made out the one word that was being repeated. That word was, 'drink-a drink-drink!' Rostov looked round for anyone who might be able to move this sick man back into his place and give him water.