"Halt!"
Each man stopped by stumbling abruptly against the one before him. They asked no questions. They remained standing, as they had moved, by sheer inertia, letting the butts of their muskets rest on the ice.
The column had halted by a rest-house, marking half-way across the lake. A few officials of highest rank, a newspaper man or two, half a dozen merchant travellers with special passes, refreshed themselves with soup and steaming tea. A steady stream of open sleighs passed slowly by the silent, immovable column. The troops were fed where they stood, without shelter from the fierce blast and whirling snow.
Soon the order came down the line, "Forward!"
Once more the fearful march across the ice was resumed. At long intervals there were more halts, when tea was served; but the cold increased. The men now began to suffer less. Some of them hoarsely roared out a snatch of song; these soon dropped or wandered away. When the winter storm of Siberia first assaults it is brutal in its blows, its piercing thrusts, its agonising rack-torment of cold. Gradually it becomes less rude and more dangerous. Its wild shriek of rage becomes a crooning cradle-song; it strokes away the anguish from the knotted joints of hand and foot and limb. It no longer repels, it invites.
When the long column of staggering, ice-covered forms reached the eastern shore of the lake its numbers had lessened by five hundred, who would never face the unknown enemies of the Far East. Ivan was among the survivors. His huge frame, his iron constitution, his allegiance to the Czar, had carried him through.
He found his company half a verst ahead, and as night fell he joined a group of grim figures around a blazing camp-fire. Tea was made and served out, with regular army rations. The men's drawn faces relaxed. They warmed their half-frozen limbs. Rough jokes passed. The terrors of the lake-crossing were forgotten. "On to Harbin!" they roared out in chorus, as their colonel passed. "Long live the Czar!"