Knight Without Armour

He went on to tell of his many experiences; he had been fighting, he said, for years—ever since he had been a young man. He had fought for the Serbs in the first Balkan War and against the Serbs in the second Balkan War, and in the Great War, of course, he had fought the Germans. But that war had not pleased him at all, and after a year of it he had allowed himself to be taken prisoner. Fie admitted it quite frankly; his view of war was a strictly professional and trade union one: if soldiers were not treated properly, why should they go on performing their job? Two years in a German prison-camp had not been pleasant, but they had been preferable, he believed, to what he might have had to endure otherwise. The return of the prisoners to Russia after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had brought him back again to normal life—that of ordinary, rational soldiering. “A soldier does not mind occasionally risking his life,” he explained, “nor does he object to a battle now and again or a few tiring marches across country. But to stand in a frozen trench for weeks on end is another matter—it isn’t fair to ask such a thing of any man.” The warfare between Reds and Whites was much more to his taste—the localness of it, its sudden bursts of activity, its continual changes of scene, and its almost limitless chances of loot and personal adventure—all agreed with him. He did not much care on which side he fought; lie had already fought on both and would doubtless do so again. “But personally,” he added, “I am a man of the people.”

His completely detached attitude towards life and affairs prompted A.J. to confide in him more than it was his habit to confide in acquaintances. He told him briefly about the ‘daughter’ with whom he had been wandering and from whom he had become separated during the excitements of the day before. What was really on his mind was whether she was likely to have been decently treated by the White soldiers before the proving of her identity. To Oblimov, of course, he merely expressed his anxieties as a father. Oblimov was sympathetic, but hardly reassuring. “What will happen to her depends on what sort of a girl she is,” he declared concisely. “If she is pretty and not pure she will have a very good time. If she is pure and not pretty she will be left alone. But if she is pretty and wishes to remain pure…” He left the sentence unfinished. “Women,” he added, “are really not worth worrying about, anyway, and evidently you think so too, else you would be searching Saratursk for your daughter at this present moment instead of enjoying the sunshine.” A.J. was a little startled by this acuteness. Oblimov laughed and went on: “Brother, you cannot deceive an old soldier. I believe she is not your daughter at all, but your wife or mistress, and you are more than half glad to be rid of her! Don’t be offended—I know you think you are very fond of her and are worried about her safety. But I can see that deep down in your heart you do not care.”

He went on talking about women in general, and A.J. went on listening until both occupations were suddenly interrupted by a sound that came to them very clearly across the valley. It was the sharp rattle of machine-gun fire. Oblimov, all his professional instincts aroused, scented the air like a startled hound. “It looks as if the battle’s moving back on the village,” he said. “Let’s go down a little and see if we can judge what’s happening.”