“Why, can’t you hear? They’re firing from all sides today, there’s not a place left whole. As for the likes of us as has been killed⁠—there’s no counting ’em!” And making an expressive gesture with his hand the speaker put his cap straight.

The soldier who had stopped shook his head meditatively and clicked his tongue, then he took a pipe out of his bootleg, and, without filling it, merely loosened the scorched tobacco in it, and lit a bit of tinder at the pipe of one of the soldiers. Then he raised his cap and said⁠—

“One can’t get away from God, good people! Forgive me.” And straightening his bag with a jerk he went his way.

“Ah, it would be far better to wait!” said with conviction he who was digging into the watermelon.

“It all comes to the same!” muttered the soldier, squeezing between the wheels of the crowded carts.