The ravine was deep and had washed-out
clay slopes. High above it stretched a muddy, uneven strip of grey
sky, which poured an unceasing rain upon the soaked red clay, upon the
small wet birch trees, and the group of soldiers, who had lost their
way and driven by inertia were hurrying further downward.
The soldiers, all reservists, were thick-set, bearded and pock-marked
peasants from the governments of Kostroma and Novgorod and among them,
was a dark little Jew, Hershel Mak, who alone thought and planned for
the rest of them. All these country people taken right from the plough
were unable to grasp how it all happened, and were not even sure
whether anything had happened at all. They could not tell whether
there was a battle or not, whether it was good or bad to be left
without officers in this confounded ravine, and what would come of it
all. Only Hershel Mak understood that there was a battle, that the
front ranks came right under the crossfire of the machine-guns, that a
panic resulted and that the Ashkadar regiment was knocked off its
feet by a crowd of runaways.
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