Near the threshold sat two old soldiers and one young, curly-haired one, a Jew transferred to the battery from an infantry regiment. This soldier had picked up one of the bullets that were lying about, and after flattening it out on a stone with the fragment of a bomb, was now carving out a cross like the Order of St. George; the others sat talking and watching his work. The cross was really turning out very handsome.

“I say,” said one of them, “if we remain here much longer, then, when there’s peace, we shall all have served our time and get discharged.”

“Sure enough! Why, I had only four years left to serve, and here I am five months at Sevastopol.”

“That’s not counted specially to the discharge, you know,” said another.

At this moment a cannonball flew over the heads of the speakers and fell a couple of feet from Mélnikof, who was approaching them through the trench.