He had no
romantic illusions about the business; he had not been a
Feldscher during twenty years for nothing and knew that a
wound was a wound; when a man was dead he was _dead_.
However.... "Truly it's not far?" he asked the soldier.
"_Tak totchno_," the man answered, his face quite without
expression.
We crossed the moonlit field and for a brief moment silence
fell, as though an audience were holding its breath watching
us. On the other side were cottages, the outskirts of a tiny
village. Here beside these cottages we fell into a fantastic
world. That small village must in other times have been a
pretty place, nestling with its gardens by the river under
the hill. It seemed now to rock and rattle under the noise
of the cannon. All the open spaces were like white marble in
the moonlight and in these open spaces there was utter
silence and emptiness. The place seemed deserted--and yet,
in every shadow, in long lines under the cottage wells, in
little clumps and clusters round trees or ruins there were
eyes staring, the gleam of muskets shone, little specks of
light, dancing from wall to wall.
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