OCR Text |
Show 1‘32 'l‘ll I". DA m< lt‘t )IIICS'I‘ ONE NIGII'I‘ 1. I} book with gilt elasps. the picture ol' "( 'hrist being Seourged" muIIlod round a. corner of the hill. above the fireplace. and the green silk screen that stood under the picture in the summer. A soldier stopped and spoke to me: "Your llonour, it‘s on the right-the next gate." I followed him without attention. having no doubt but that this was one ol' our own sanitars. and accompanied a group ol' soldiers that surrounded a bobbing kitchen on wheels. I was puzzled by the kitehen because I knew that one had not been brought, by our Otriad, but I thought that the doctors of the llivision had perhaps begged our men to aid the army sanitara. We hurried through a gate to the right, where in what appeared to be a yard of some kind. the kitehen was estab- silence, broken only by soldiers who hurried up the road or went in and out at the villa. gates. I felt abandoned. How lished and then. from out of the very earth as it seemed, soldiers appeared, clustering around it with their tin cans. The soldier who was in charge of the party said to me in a confidential whisper: "There's plenty of Iv'ashu, your Honour, and the soup will last us, too." "Very good," said I in a bewildered voice. At the strange accent the soldier looked at me, and then I looked at the soldier. Here there was now was I to discover Nikitin again? Before what gate had I stood ? I did not. know; I seemed to know nothing. I moved down the road, very miserable and very cold. I had stupidly left my coat in one of the wagons. I walked on, my boots knocking against one a nother, thinking to myself: "If I'm not given something to do very soon I shall be just as I was the other night, at Nijniell¥~aml then I shall suddenly take to my heels down this road as hard as I can go!" It was then. that I tumbled straight into the arms of N iki« tin, who was standing at the edge ol the, Iorest, watehing for me. I was so happy that I 't'elt now afraid of nothing. I held Nikitin's arin, babbling something about kitehens and Germans. "Well, I don't understand what you. say." I remember Nikitin replied; "but you must come and work. There‘s plenty of it." The soldier was a stranger to me (a pleasant "'0 moved to a cottage on the very boundary ol' the t'or~ round man with a huge smiling mouth and two chins) and I was a stranger to the soldier. est, where a little common ran down to the moonlight. "Well," said the soldier, looking, "I thought . . ." Passing through a narrow passage, I entered into a little room with a large white stove. ()n the top ol' the stove. "I thought-" said I, most uncomfortable. under the root, crouched a boy or a young man with long The soldiers vanished back into the darknesses round the black hair and a white face. This youth wore what re- sembled a white shirt over baggy white trousers. llis l'eet were bare and very dirty. Nothing moved except, his eyes. lle sat there, in exactly that; position, all night. kitchen. Voices, whispering, could be heard. "Now, that's the end," thought I. "I'm shot as a GCT‘ man spy." The room was small but, was the best that could ho UII' .I looked at the soldiers, clustered like bees round the kitchen, then I slipped through the gate into the dark road. tained. I stood there listening. I'eet, shambles. The battle seemed to have drawn away, because I could hear rifles, machine-guns, cannon Within the space ol‘ ten minntes it became a per The, wounded were brought. in \\ ithont pause and under the candlelight; Nikitin, two samtars; "I"! I |