“Do you remember, Athanasi Kirillich, what cramming and theorizing—‘range,’ elevation, etc.—went on from morning to night? If you gave the soldier a rifle and said to him: ‘Look down the barrel. What do you see there?’ you got for an answer: ‘I see a tense line which is the gun’s axis,’ etc. And what practice in shooting there was in those days, you remember, Athanasi Kirillich!”
“Do I remember! The shooting in our division was the talk of the whole country, ah, even the foreign newspapers had stories about it. At the shooting competitions regiments borrowed ‘crack’ shots from each other. Down at the butts stood young officers hidden behind a screen, who helped the scoring by their revolvers. On another occasion it so happened that a certain company made more hits in the target than could be accounted for by the shots fired, whereupon the ensign who was marking got severely ‘called over the coals.’”
“Do you recollect the Schreiberovsky gymnastics in Slesarev’s time?”
“Rather! It was like a ballet. Ah, may the devil take all those old Generals with their hobbies and eccentricities. And yet, gentlemen, all that sort of thing—all the old-time absurdities, were as nothing compared with what is done in our days. It might be well said that discipline has received its quietus. The soldier, if you please, is now to be treated ‘humanely.’ He is our ‘fellow-creature,’ our ‘brother’; his ‘mind is to be developed,’ he is to be taught ‘to think,’ etc., etc. What absolute madness! No, he shall have a thrashing, the scoundrel. And oh, my saintly Suvorov, tell me if a single individual nowadays knows how a soldier ought to be treated, and what one should teach him. Nothing but new-fangled arts and rubbish. That invention in regard to cavalry charges, for instance.”
“Yes, one might have something more amusing,” Viätkin chimed in.
“There you stand,” continued Sliva, “in the middle of the field, like a decoy-bird, and the Cossacks rush at you in full pelt. Naturally, like a sensible man, you make room for them in good time. Directly after comes: ‘You have bad nerves, Captain; one should not behave in that way in the army. Be good enough to recollect that,’ etc., etc., in the same style.”
“The General in command of the K—— Regiment,” interrupted Viätkin, “once had a brilliant idea. He had a company marched to the edge of an awful cesspool, and then ordered the Captain to order the men to lie down. The latter hesitated for an instant, but obeyed the command. The soldiers were chapfallen, gazing at one another in a questioning way. All thought they had heard incorrectly; but they got their information right enough. The General thundered away at the poor Captain in the presence of all. ‘What training do you give your company? Miserable lot of weaklings. Pretty heroes to take into the field. No, you are cravens, every one of you, and you, Captain, not the least among them. March to arrest.’”
“That ‘takes the cake,’” laughed Lbov.
“And what’s the use of it? First one insults the officers in the presence of the men, and then complaints are made of lack of discipline. But to give a scamp his deserts is a thing one dare not do. He is, if you please, a ‘human being,’ a ‘personage’; but in the good old times there were no ‘personages’ in the army. Then the cattle got what they needed, and then there was the Italian Campaign, Sebastopol, and several other trifles. Well, all the same thing, so far as I am concerned. I’ll do my duty even if it costs me my commission, and as far as my arm reaches every scoundrel shall get his deserts.”
“There’s no honour in striking a soldier,” exclaimed Romashov, in a muffled voice. Up to this he had been merely a silent listener. “One can’t hit a man who is not allowed to raise a hand in self-defence. It is as cowardly as it is cruel.”