“They have already been asking for you on the hill. All is not well up there, and the commandant seems very anxious. Please go as soon as ever you can, Nikolai Alexandrovitch.”
I at once ordered my horse and rode off.
* * * * *
Apparently everything was quiet on the hill, and there were no signs of disorder. When I had reached the foot of the hill, I found a crowd of men of various units and corps, which Captain Prince Nikoladtse had collected and was trying to organize. Having wished the men “Good morning,”[113] I began to climb the hill.
The firing was very desultory, and I reached the road in rear without mishap. The commandant met me with undisguised pleasure and reported that everything was all right.
“Why have you been so alarmed?” I asked.
“I feel as if I were lost in a forest, sir: I don’t know the officers, or the men, or the place. Nobody slept last night,” answered the young commandant, evidently very much concerned at his helpless plight.
As a matter of fact, things could not have been better. Every one was at his post. Several detachments of sailors had arrived, that under Lieutenant Lavrov being composed of a really splendid lot of men. All the sailors were in the very best of spirits, like Lavrov himself. He at once came and reported to me that his men were ready for anything. These men, who had originally constituted a balloon section, had made a balloon, but, as there was no means of producing hydrogen, it could not be made to rise. How useful it might have been to us!
“If you call for volunteers,” said the Lieutenant, “my fellows will respond to a man.” And he spoke the truth.
Late in the evening, wishing to reconnoitre the empty lower trench and the Japanese trenches in front of the hill, I called for volunteers, whereupon every man in the detachment stepped forward. Then they drew lots, and three men, delighted with their good fortune, came into the commandant’s bomb-proof; they were Quarter-Master (artificer) Yakov Artouk, and two 1st class A.B.’s—Ivan Nefedov and Theodore Pilshchikov. One of them especially, a beardless boy, impressed me by his obvious joyousness. I explained to them what they had to do and sent them off.