nd choppers were plied all around. Everything was done without any
orders being given. Stores of wood were brought for the night, shelters
were rigged up for the officers, caldrons were being boiled, and muskets
and accouterments put in order.

The wattle wall the men had brought was set up in a semicircle by the
Eighth Company as a shelter from the north, propped up by musket rests,
and a campfire was built before it. They beat the tattoo, called the
roll, had supper, and settled down round the fires for the night--some
repairing their footgear, some smoking pipes, and some stripping
themselves naked to steam the lice out of their shirts.

CHAPTER VIII

One would have thought that under the almost incredibly wretched
conditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time--lacking warm boots
and sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, in the snow
with eighteen degrees of frost, and without even full rations (the
commissariat did not always keep up with the troops)--they would have
presented a very sad and depressing spectacle.

On the contrary, the army had never under the best material conditions
presented a more cheerful and animated aspect. This was because all who
began to grow depressed or who lost strength were sifted out of the army
day by day. All the physically or morally weak had long since been
left behind and only the flower of the army--physically and
mentally--remained.

More men collected behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company than
anywhere else. Two sergeants major were sitting with them and their
campfire blazed brighter than others. For leave to sit by their wattle
they demanded contributions of fuel.

"Eh, Makeev! What has become of you, you son of a bitch? Are you lost or
have the wolves eaten you? Fetch some more wood!" shouted a red-haired
and red-faced man, screwing up his eyes and blinking because of the
smoke but not moving back from the fire. "And you, Jackdaw, go and fetch
some wood!" said he to another soldier.

This red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being
robust he ordered about those weaker than himself. The soldier
they called "Jackdaw," a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose
obediently and was about to go but at that instant there came into
the light of the fire the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier
carrying a load of wood.

"Bring it here--that's fine!"

They split up the wood, pressed it down on the fire, blew a