The third soldier, who sat on his heels smoking a clay pipe, was the artillery driver Chikin. He had an earring in one of his ears, bristling little moustaches, and the physiognomy of a bird. “Dear old Chikin,” as the soldiers called him, was a wit. During the bitterest frost, or up to his knees in mud, or after going two days without food, on the march, on parade, or at drill, the “dear fellow” was always and everywhere making faces, twisting his legs about, or cracking jokes that convulsed the whole platoon with laughter. At every halting-place, and in the camp, there was always a circle of young soldiers collected round Chikin, who played Filka with them, told them stories about the cunning soldier and the English milord , personated a Tartar or a German, or simply made remarks of his own at which everyone roared with laughter. It is true that his reputation as a wit was so well established in the battery that it was sufficient for him to open his mouth and wink in order to produce a general guffaw, but really there was much in him that was truly humorous and surprising. He saw something special, something that never entered anybody else’s head, in everything, and, above all, this capacity for seeing the funny side of things was proof against any and every trial.
The fourth soldier was an insignificant-looking boy recruited the year before, and this was his first campaign. He stood surrounded by the smoke, and so near the flames that his threadbare cloak seemed in danger of catching fire, yet, judging by the way he extended the skirts of his cloak and bent out his calves, and by his quiet, self-satisfied pose, he was feeling highly contented.
The fifth and last of the soldiers was Daddy Zhdanov. He sat a little way off, cutting a stick. Zhdanov had been serving in the battery longer than anyone else, had known all the others as recruits, and they were all in the habit of calling him “daddy.” It was said of him that he never drank, smoked, or played cards (not even “noses”), and never used bad language. He spent all his spare time boot-making, went to church on holidays