“Killed or wounded? Why, don’t you know? He was marching with us. Why didn’t you bring him off?”
“It wasn’t possible in that furnace.”
“Oh! why did you abandon a living man, Mikhaïl Ivanitch?” said Mikhaïloff, with a vexed tone. “If he is dead, we must bring off his body.”
“How can he be alive? Indeed I tell you I went up to him, and I saw—What would you have? We scarcely had time to bring off our own men. Ah! the devils, how they are firing shell now!”
Mikhaïloff sat down, and held his head in his hands. The walk had increased the violence of the pain.
“No,” said he, “we must certainly go and get him. Perhaps he is alive. It is our duty, Mikhaïl Ivanitch.”
Mikhaïl Ivanitch did not reply.
“He didn’t think of bringing him off at the time, and now I must detail men for it. Why send them into this hell-fire, which will kill them, for nothing?” thought Mikhaïloff.
“Children, we must go back to get that officer who is wounded yonder in the ditch,” he said, without raising his voice, and in a tone which had no authority, for he guessed how disagreeable the execution of this order would be to the men.
But since he addressed himself to no one in particular, not one of them came forward at this call.