“Semyon Neferdoff, lieutenant-colonel of the N—— regiment of infantry. Have a little patience, colonel: you can only be attended to this way; I will let you alone,” said a third, picking away at the head of the unfortunate colonel, with some sort of a hook.
“Ai! stop! Oi! for God's sake, quick, quick, for the sake a-a-a-a!...”
“Perforatio pectoris ... Sevastyan Sereda, common soldier ... of what regiment? however, you need not write that: moritur. Carry him away,” said the doctor, abandoning the soldier, who was rolling his eyes, and already emitting the death-rattle.
Forty stretcher-bearers stood at the door, awaiting the task of transporting to the hospital the men who had been attended to, and the dead to the chapel, and gazed at this picture in silence, only uttering a heavy sigh from time to time....
IX.
On his way to the bastion, Kalugin met numerous wounded men; but, knowing from experience that such a spectacle has a bad effect on the spirits of a man on the verge of an action, he not only did not pause to interrogate them, but, on the contrary, he tried not to pay any heed to them. At the foot of the hill he encountered an orderly, who was galloping from the bastion at full speed.
“Zobkin! Zobkin! Stop a minute!”
“Well, what is it?”
“Where are you from?”