f carts crossed the great river I could hear
the muffled "brum-brum" of the cannons and "tap-tap-tap" of
the machine-guns now so conventionally familiar. Nikitin was
lying in silence at my side. Behind us came twenty wagons
with the sanitars; the evening was very still, plum-colour
in the woods, misty over the river; the creaking of our
carts was the only sound, save the "brum-brum" and the
"tap-tap-tap"....

I lay on my back and thought of Semyonov and myself. I had
in my mind two pictures. One was of Semyonov sitting on the
stone under the cross, looking up at me with comfortable and
ironical insolence, Semyonov so strong and resolute and
successful. Semyonov who got what he wanted, did what he
wanted, said what he wanted.

The other picture was of myself, as I had been the other
night when I had gone with the wagons to Nijnieff to fetch
the wounded. I saw myself standing in a muddy little lane
just outside the town, under pouring rain. The wagons waited
there, the horses stamping now and then, and the wounded men
on the only wagon that was filled, moaned and cried.
Shrapnel whizzed overhead--sometimes crying, like an echo,
in the far distance, sometimes screaming with the rage of a
hurt animal close at hand. Groups of soldiers ran swiftly
past me, quite silent, their heads bent. Somewhere on the
high road I could hear motor-cars spluttering and humming.
At irregular intervals Red Cross men would arrive with
wounded, would ask in a whisper that was inhuman and
isolating whether there were room on my carts. Then the
body would be lifted up; there would be muttered directions,
the wounded man would cry, then the other wounded would also
cry--after that, there would be the dismal silence again,
silence broken only by the shrapnel and the heavy plopping
smothers of the rain. But it was myself upon whom my eyes
were fixed, myself, a miserable figure, the rain dripping
from me, slipping down my neck, squelching under my boots.
And as I stood there I was afraid. That was what I now saw.
I had been terribly afraid for the first time since I had
come to the war. I had worked all day in the bandaging room,
and perhaps my physical weariness was responsible; but
whatever it might be there I was, a coward. At the threat of
every