Red Cavalry and Other Stories (Penguin Classics) by Babel Isaac

Author:Babel, Isaac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2005-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

Kovel, 1920

Afonka Bida

We were fighting near Leszniów. The wall of the enemy cavalry was appearing everywhere. The spring of the Polish strategy now being established was uncoiling with an ominous whistle. We were being squeezed. For the first time in the whole campaign we could feel at our backs the devilish sharpness of breaches in the rear and of flank attacks – the merciless bites of the weapon which had served us so long and so happily.

The front at Leszniów was held by the infantry. Along crookedly dug trenches loafed Whitish, unshod Volhynian muzhiks. These men had been taken from the plough the day before in order to form foot reserves for the Cavalry Army. The peasants had come with a will. They fought with the greatest assiduity. Their puffing Cossack ferocity amazed even the Budyonny men. Their hatred for the Polish landowner was made of unassuming but durable material.

In the second period of the war, when whooping had ceased to have any effect on the imagination of the enemy and cavalry attacks on an entrenched adversary had become impossible, this homespun infantry would have brought the Cavalry Army great advantage. But our destitution got the upper hand. The muzhiks were given one rifle between three and cartridges of the wrong size. The undertaking had to be called off, and this authentic people’s volunteer corps was disbanded and sent home.

Now let us turn to the fighting at Leszniów. The foot soldiers had dug themselves in three versts from the town. In front of their front line a stoop-shouldered youth in spectacles was walking up and down. At his side dangled a sword. He was moving along in starts, with a discontented air, as though his boots were pinching him. This muzhik commander, who had been chosen by them and was loved by them, was a Jew, a weak-sighted Jewish youth, with the unhealthy-looking and studious face of a Talmudist. In battle he manifested the circumspect courage and cool-headedness of a distracted dreamer.

It was the third hour of a long July afternoon. In the air shone an iridescent gossamer of heat. Beyond the hills flashed a festive band of full-dress coats and horses’ manes braided with ribbons. The youth gave the signal to get ready. The muzhiks, slapping along in their bast sandals, ran to their posts and held their guns at the ready. But it proved to be a false alarm. Maslak’s flowery squadrons were coming out on to the Leszniów road. Their emaciated but cheerful horses were going at a round pace. On gilded poles weighed down by velvet tassels, in fiery pillars of dust, sumptuous standards swayed. The horsemen rode with a majestic and insolent coldness. Dishevelled foot soldiers crawled out of their trenches and, mouths agape, followed the resilient elegance of this unswift flood.

At the head of the regiment, on a bow-legged little horse, rode kombrig Maslak, full of drunken blood and the rottenness of his own fatty juices. His stomach, like a large tomcat, lay on the silver pommel.

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