looked out of the window too. His face was white when, turning away
from the window, we looked into each other's eyes.
"We must get out!"
"I suppose so," I said. "All you need for that is a pair of legs."
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Nevertheless, we managed somehow to crawl out of our berths and
the rush of wounded men swept us out onto the platform at the end of
the carriage.
I shall never forget the feeling that gripped me with such scorching
intensity when, stifling the agonising pain, I descended the steps and
crawled under the carriage. It was a feeling of contempt and even hatred
for myself such as I had never experienced in my life before. Men lay all
round me with arms thrown out in queer attitudes. They were corpses.
Others ran and dropped with a cry, while I was sitting under the
carriage, helpless, tormented with fury and pain.
I drew my pistol, but not to shoot myself, though the idea may have
flitted through my mind together with the thousands of thoughts that
swilled back and forth in it. Someone grasped my wrist.
It was one of the nurses. Her name was Katya. I pointed to Simakov,
who was lying a little way off, his cheek pressed to the ground. She
glanced at him and shook her head.
He was dead.
"Hell, I'm not going anywhere!" I said to the second girl, who had
suddenly appeared from nowhere. She was remarkably unhurried amid
the din and turmoil. "Leave me alone! I've got a pistol, they won't take
me alive."
But the girls grabbed me and the three of us rolled down the
embankment. I caught a momentary glimpse of Romashov ahead of me,
crawling along on his belly, yellow, looking like a Chinese. He was
crawling along the same ditch as we were; a muddy, clayey ditch
running parallel with the track. The embankment ran into a marsh.
It was hard on the girls, and I asked them several times to leave me.
Katya, I believe, shouted to Romashov, asking him to stop and help us,
but he just looked back and went on crawling forward on all fours like a
monkey.
That's how it was, except that it happened a thousand times more
slowly than I am telling it.
We managed with difficulty to get across the marsh and lay down in a
small aspen wood. "We" were the girls, myself, Romashov and two
soldiers who had joined us on the way. They were slightly wounded, one
in the right arm, the other in the left.
I sent the two soldiers out to reconnoitre and they came back
reporting that there were as many as forty vehicles in various directions
and some field-kitchens had even appeared. Apparently the tanks which
had gunned our train were part of a large force that had broken through.
"We can get away, of course. But since the captain can't walk, we'd
better make use of the railcar."
They had found a railcar under the embankment by a switch-track.
I remember it was while discussing whether the railcar could be raised
and placed on the track that Romashov lay down on his back, groaning
and complaining of the bad pain. He may really have had an attack,
because when the girls undid his tunic we saw that the left side of his
body was all red. Until then I had never heard of such contusions.
Anyway, in such a state he obviously couldn't go to the switch-track with
the soldiers. The girls went instead, just as unhurried and resolute,
carrying on a leisurely conversation in their low, melodious Ukrainian
voices.
Romashov and I were left alone in the little, wet aspen wood.
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Was he feigning or was he really feeling bad? I wasn't quite sure.
Several times he twitched like an epileptic, then bleated and fell silent.
"Romashov!" I said.
He lay on his back, his chest arched high, with a perfectly white, dead-
looking nose. I called him again, and he answered in such a feeble voice
as though he had already departed this life and was now returning with
great reluctance to this aspen wood in an area where a German tank
force was operating.
"Pretty bad this time!" he muttered, attempting a smile.
He raised his eyelids and stood up with difficulty, mechanically
removing the aspen leaves that had stuck to his face.
I find it hard to give an account of that day, possibly because, despite
the predicament we were in, it was rather dull, especially compared with
the events of next morning. We waited and waited without an end. I lay
on a heap of last year's leaves beside a scattered wood-stack. Romashov
sat Turkish-fashion, with his legs tucked under him, and who knows
what he was thinking, with those bird-like eyes half-closed and his
hands resting on his bony knees.
The wood was damp and a recent rain had left large drops on the
branches and spiders' webs, which quivered under the weight. The
glittering raindrops fell to the ground with a plop. At least, we did not
suffer from thirst.
Once or twice the sun peeped out at us. At first it was on our right,
then, having described a semi-circle, it appeared on our left. That meant
that three hours had gone since the girls and the soldiers went off to fix
up the railcar.
Before going away the one called Katya had put her knapsack under
my head. Judging by the sound it gave off when I punched it up it must
have contained rusks. Romashov started to whine that he was dying of
hunger, but I silenced him sharply.
"They won't come back," he said nervously after a while. "They've
deserted us."
He had recovered from his attack and started to saunter around at the
risk of betraying our whereabouts, since the wood was a sparse one and
all was open terrain as far as the track.
"It's your fault," he said, coming back and squatting down beside me.
"You sent them all away. One of the girls should have stayed behind."
"As a hostage?"
"Yes, as a hostage. And now you can whistle for them. Catch them
coming back for us! That railcar is worked by hand and it can only take
four people in any case."
I must have been in a bad temper, for I drew my pistol and told
Romashov I'd kill him if he didn't stop whining. He shut up. His ugly
face twisted and it was all he could do to keep from blubbering.
The outlook was pretty blue. Dusk was beginning to creep through the
wood, but there was no sign of the girls. Of course, I never for a moment
believed that they could go away in the railcar without us, as Romashov
suspected.
Lying on my back, I looked up at the sky, which was darkening and
receding from me among the thin, trembling aspens. I was not thinking
of Katya, but something light and tender went through me. I felt:
"Katya." It was half-dream, half-sleep, and but for Katya I would have
driven it away, because I dare not sleep, I felt that I dare not, though I
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couldn't yet say why. I dreamt of Spain or of the letter I had written
from Spain-something very youthful and muddled, not about the
fighting, but about the tiny orchards near Valencia, where the old
women, when they learnt that we were Russians, did not know where to
seat us, how to regale us. "Whatever happens," I had written to Katya,
though I had felt her beside me, "remember that you are free, without