“Velenchuk is missing. He was there all the time they were harnessing—I saw him myself—but now he’s gone.”
As the column could not be expected to start at once, we decided to send Corporal Antonov to look for Velenchuk. Directly after that, several horsemen trotted past us in the dark. They were the commander and his suite; and immediately the head of the column moved and started, and so at last did we also, but Antonov and Velenchuk were still absent. We had, however, hardly gone a hundred yards before they both overtook us.
“Where was he?” I asked Antonov.
“Asleep in the ‘park.’ ”
“Why, has he had a drop too much?”
“Oh, no.”
“Then how is it he fell asleep?”
“I can’t make out.”
For about three hours we moved slowly on in silence and darkness, over some unploughed fields bare of snow, and over low bushes that crackled under the wheels of the gun-carriages.
At last, after we had crossed a shallow but extremely rapid stream, we were stopped, and we heard the abrupt reports of vintovkas in the direction of the vanguard.
These sounds, as usual, had a most exhilarating effect on everyone. The detachment seemed to wake up: sounds of talking, movement, and laughter were heard in the ranks. Here a soldier wrestled with a comrade, there another hopped from foot to foot. Here was one chewing hardtack, or, to while away the time, shouldering and grounding arms.