Leo Tolstoy - Sevastopol

“So this is it, the fourth bastion, this is it – that terrible, really frightful place!” you think to yourself, and you experience a little sensation of pride, and a very large sensation of suppressed terror. But you are mistaken, this is not the fourth bastion. It is the Yazonovsky redoubt – a place which is comparatively safe; and not at all dreadful.

In order to reach the fourth bastion, you turn to the right, through this narrow trench, through which the foot-soldier has gone. In this trench you will perhaps meet stretchers again, sailors and soldiers with shovels; you will see the superintendent of the mines, mud huts, into which only two men can crawl by bending down, and there you will see sharpshooters of the Black Sea battalions, who are changing their shoes, eating, smoking their pipes, and living; and you will still see everywhere that same stinking mud, traces of a camp, and cast-off iron débris in every possible form. Proceeding yet three hundred paces, you will emerge again upon a battery, – on an open space, all cut up into holes and surrounded by gabions, covered with earth, cannon, and earthworks. Here you will perhaps see five sailors playing cards under the shelter of the breastworks, and a naval officer who, perceiving that you are a new-comer, and curious, will with pleasure show his household arrangements, and everything which may be of interest to you.

This officer rolls himself a cigarette of yellow paper, with so much composure as he sits on a gun, walks so calmly from one embrasure to another, converses with you so quietly, without the slightest affectation, that, in spite of the bullets which hum above you even more thickly than before, you become cool yourself, question attentively, and listen to the officer's replies.

This officer will tell you, but only if you ask him, about the bombardment on the 5th, he will tell you how only one gun in his battery could be used, and out of all the gunners who served it only eight remained, and how, nevertheless, on the next morning, the 6th, he fired all the guns; he will tell you how a bomb fell upon a sailor's earth hut on the 5th, and laid low eleven men; he will point out to you, from the embrasures, the enemy's batteries and entrenchments, which are not more than thirty or forty fathoms distant from this point. I fear, however, that, under the influence of the whizzing bullets, you may thrust yourself out of the embrasure in order to view the enemy; you will see nothing, and, if you do see anything, you will be very much surprised that that white stone wall, which is so near you and from which white smoke rises in puffs, – that that white wall is the enemy — he , as the soldiers and sailors say.

It is even quite possible that the naval officer will want to discharge a shot or two in your presence, out of vanity or simply for his own pleasure. “Send the captain and his crew to the cannon;” and fourteen sailors step up briskly and merrily to the gun and load it – one thrusting his pipe into his pocket, another one chewing a biscuit, still another clattering his heels on the platform.

Observe the faces, the bearing, the movements of these men. In every wrinkle of that sunburned face, with its high cheek-bones, in every muscle, in the breadth of those shoulders, in the stoutness of those legs shod in huge boots, in every calm, firm, deliberate gesture, these chief traits which constitute the power of Russia – simplicity and straightforwardness – are visible; but here, on every face, it seems to you that the danger, misery, and the sufferings of war have, in addition to these principal characteristics, left traces of consciousness of personal worth, emotion, and exalted thought.

All at once a frightful roar, which shakes not your organs of hearing alone but your whole being, startles you so that you tremble all over. Then you hear the distant shriek of the shot as it pursues its course, and the dense smoke of the powder conceals from you the platform and the black figures of the sailors who are moving about upon it. You hear various remarks of the sailors in reference to this shot, and you see their animation, and an exhibition of a feeling which you had not expected to behold perhaps – a feeling of malice, of revenge against the enemy, which lies hidden in the soul of each man. “It struck the embrasure itself; it seems to have killed two men – see, they've carried them off!” you hear in joyful exclamation. “And now they are angry; they'll fire at us directly,” says some one; and, in fact, shortly after you see a flash in front and smoke; the sentry, who is standing on the breastwork, shouts “Can-non!” And then the ball shrieks past you, strikes the earth, and scatters a shower of dirt and stones about it.

This ball enrages the commander of the battery; he orders a second and a third gun to be loaded, the enemy also begins to reply to us, and you experience a sensation of interest, you hear and see interesting things. Again the sentry shouts, “Can-non!” and you hear the same report and blow, the same shower, or he shouts “Mortar!” and you hear the monotonous, even rather pleasant whistle of the bomb, with which it is difficult to connect the thought of horror; you hear this whistle approaching you, and increasing in swiftness, then you see the black sphere, the impact on the ground, the resounding explosion of the bomb which can be felt. With the whistle and shriek, splinters fly again, stones whiz through the air, and mud showers over you. At these sounds you experience a strange feeling of enjoyment, and, at the same time, of terror. At the moment when you know that the projectile is flying towards you, it will infallibly occur to you that this shot will kill you; but the feeling of self-love upholds you, and no one perceives the knife which is cutting your heart. But when the shot has flown past without touching you, you grow animated, and a certain cheerful, inexpressibly pleasant feeling overpowers you, but only for a moment, so that you discover a peculiar sort of charm in danger, in this game of life and death, you want cannon-balls or bombs to strike nearer to you.

But again the sentry has shouted in his loud, thick voice, “Mortar!” again there is a shriek, and a bomb bursts, but with this noise comes the groan of a man. You approach the wounded man, at the same moment with the bearers; he has a strange, inhuman aspect, covered as he is with blood and mud. A part of the sailor's breast has been torn away. During the first moments, there is visible on his mud-stained face only fear and a certain simulated, premature expression of suffering, peculiar to men in that condition; but, at the same time, as the stretcher is brought to him and he is laid upon it on his sound side, you observe that this expression is replaced by an expression of a sort of exaltation and lofty, inexpressible thought. His eyes shine more brilliantly, his teeth are clenched, his head is held higher with difficulty, and, as they lift him up, he stops the bearers and says to his comrades, with difficulty and in a trembling voice: “Farewell, brothers!” He tries to say something more, and it is plain that he wants to say something touching, but he repeats once more: “Farewell, brothers!”

At that moment, one of his fellow-sailors steps up to him, puts the cap on the head which the wounded man holds towards him, and, waving his hand indifferently, returns calmly to his gun. “That's the way with seven or eight men every day,” says the naval officer to you, in reply to the expression of horror which has appeared upon your countenance, as he yawns and rolls a cigarette of yellow paper.

Thus you have seen the defenders of Sevastopol, on the very scene of the defence, and you go back paying no attention, for some reason or other, to the cannon-balls and bullets, which continue to shriek the whole way until you reach the ruined theatre, – you proceed with composure, and with your soul in a state of exaltation.