The Cossacks: A Tale of 1852 Page 7

  Chapter VII

  The sun had already set and the shades of night were rapidly spreadingfrom the edge of the wood. The Cossacks finished their task round thecordon and gathered in the hut for supper. Only the old man stillstayed under the plane tree watching for the vulture and pulling thestring tied to the falcon's leg, but though a vulture was reallyperching on the plane tree it declined to swoop down on the lure.Lukashka, singing one song after another, was leisurely placing netsamong the very thickest brambles to trap pheasants. In spite of histall stature and big hands every kind of work, both rough and delicate,prospered under Lukashka's fingers.

  'Hallo, Luke!' came Nazarka's shrill, sharp voice calling him from thethicket close by. 'The Cossacks have gone in to supper.'

  Nazarka, with a live pheasant under his arm, forced his way through thebrambles and emerged on the footpath.

  'Oh!' said Lukashka, breaking off in his song, 'where did you get thatcock pheasant? I suppose it was in my trap?'

  Nazarka was of the same age as Lukashka and had also only been at thefront since the previous spring.

  He was plain, thin and puny, with a shrill voice that rang in one'sears. They were neighbours and comrades. Lukashka was sitting on thegrass crosslegged like a Tartar, adjusting his nets.

  'I don't know whose it was--yours, I expect.'

  'Was it beyond the pit by the plane tree? Then it is mine! I set thenets last night.'

  Lukashka rose and examined the captured pheasant. After stroking thedark burnished head of the bird, which rolled its eyes and stretchedout its neck in terror, Lukashka took the pheasant in his hands.

  'We'll have it in a pilau tonight. You go and kill and pluck it.'

  'And shall we eat it ourselves or give it to the corporal?'

  'He has plenty!'

  'I don't like killing them,' said Nazarka.

  'Give it here!'

  Lukashka drew a little knife from under his dagger and gave it a swiftjerk. The bird fluttered, but before it could spread its wings thebleeding head bent and quivered.

  'That's how one should do it!' said Lukashka, throwing down thepheasant. 'It will make a fat pilau.'

  Nazarka shuddered as he looked at the bird.

  'I say, Lukashka, that fiend will be sending us to the ambush againtonight,' he said, taking up the bird. (He was alluding to thecorporal.) 'He has sent Fomushkin to get wine, and it ought to be histurn. He always puts it on us.'

  Lukashka went whistling along the cordon.

  'Take the string with you,' he shouted.

  Nazirka obeyed.

  'I'll give him a bit of my mind today, I really will,' continuedNazarka. 'Let's say we won't go; we're tired out and there's an end ofit! No, really, you tell him, he'll listen to you. It's too bad!'

  'Get along with you! What a thing to make a fuss about!' said Lukashka,evidently thinking of something else. 'What bosh! If he made us turnout of the village at night now, that would be annoying: there one canhave some fun, but here what is there? It's all one whether we're inthe cordon or in ambush. What a fellow you are!'

  'And are you going to the village?'

  'I'll go for the holidays.'

  'Gurka says your Dunayka is carrying on with Fomushkin,' said Nazarkasuddenly.

  'Well, let her go to the devil,' said Lukashka, showing his regularwhite teeth, though he did not laugh. 'As if I couldn't find another!'

  'Gurka says he went to her house. Her husband was out and there wasFomushkin sitting and eating pie. Gurka stopped awhile and then wentaway, and passing by the window he heard her say, "He's gone, thefiend.... Why don't you eat your pie, my own? You needn't go home forthe night," she says. And Gurka under the window says to himself,"That's fine!"'

  'You're making it up.'

  'No, quite true, by Heaven!'

  'Well, if she's found another let her go to the devil,' said Lukashka,after a pause. 'There's no lack of girls and I was sick of her anyway.'

  'Well, see what a devil you are!' said Nazarka. 'You should make up tothe cornet's girl, Maryanka. Why doesn't she walk out with any one?'

  Lukashka frowned. 'What of Maryanka? They're all alike,' said he.

  'Well, you just try...'

  'What do you think? Are girls so scarce in the village?'

  And Lukashka recommenced whistling, and went along the cordon pullingleaves and branches from the bushes as he went. Suddenly, catchingsight of a smooth sapling, he drew the knife from the handle of hisdagger and cut it down. 'What a ramrod it will make,' he said, swingingthe sapling till it whistled through the air.

  The Cossacks were sitting round a low Tartar table on the earthen floorof the clay-plastered outer room of the hut, when the question of whoseturn it was to lie in ambush was raised. 'Who is to go tonight?'shouted one of the Cossacks through the open door to the corporal inthe next room.

  'Who is to go?' the corporal shouted back. 'Uncle Burlak has been andFomushkin too,' said he, not quite confidently. 'You two had better go,you and Nazarka,' he went on, addressing Lukashka. 'And Ergushov mustgo too; surely he has slept it off?'

  'You don't sleep it off yourself so why should he?' said Nazarka in asubdued voice.

  The Cossacks laughed.

  Ergushov was the Cossack who had been lying drunk and asleep near thehut. He had only that moment staggered into the room rubbing his eyes.

  Lukashka had already risen and was getting his gun ready.

  'Be quick and go! Finish your supper and go!' said the corporal; andwithout waiting for an expression of consent he shut the door,evidently not expecting the Cossack to obey. 'Of course,' thought he,'if I hadn't been ordered to I wouldn't send anyone, but an officermight turn up at any moment. As it is, they say eight abreks havecrossed over.'

  'Well, I suppose I must go,' remarked Ergushov, 'it's the regulation.Can't be helped! The times are such. I say, we must go.'

  Meanwhile Lukashka, holding a big piece of pheasant to his mouth withboth hands and glancing now at Nazarka, now at Ergushov, seemed quiteindifferent to what passed and only laughed at them both. Before theCossacks were ready to go into ambush. Uncle Eroshka, who had beenvainly waiting under the plane tree till night fell, entered the darkouter room.

  'Well, lads,' his loud bass resounded through the low-roofed roomdrowning all the other voices, 'I'm going with you. You'll watch forChechens and I for boars!'