in thought.

"What are we going to do when we meet the enemy? When we were with the
regiment, we knew what to do.... But we don't know the high military
rules! Maybe, we shouldn't fight at all,--maybe, according to the high
military rules it is necessary to retreat a bit?... How is one to tell
I'd like to know."

Just then on the opposite bank of the stream which in its overflowing
formed shallow muddy puddles something dark began to flicker among the
trees, and the enemy soldiers in light grey cloaks, and varnished
helmets protected with linen covers came forward. This was an enemy
detachment which had also strayed away from its regiment. A
non-commissioned officer, husky and red-bearded, was in charge of it.
The Germans' gait was also uncertain. They walked with rifles carried
at charge, timidly looking about and were just going to stop to talk
over their situation, when they noticed the reddish-grey cloaks and
the bayonets.

"Halt!" yelled out a flaxen-haired Kostroma peasant.

He did it so forcefully that two crows flew off in fright and rose
high above the ravine.

Hershel Mak nearly fell into the water. The red and the grey soldiers
separated by about fifty steps and a small, turbid, rain-beaten
rivulet were eyeing each other with amazement rather than with terror.
Thin scattered cries of terror and dismay were heard from the other
side, and all at once it grew still with an ominous strained
stillness.

"Listen ... eh," ... whispered Hershel Mak, touching the gun of the
Kostroma reservist. But at this very moment, the soldiers as if in
response to a command stepped back a pace or two, got down on their
knees and an uneven crackling of guns rent the damp air.

The flaxen-haired Kostroma peasant and another soldier, a father of a
large family, nick-named "uncle," threw up their arms and fell heavily
upon the soaked clay.

The first was killed on the spot, but as to the "uncle," he clutched
his abdomen, sat up and began to howl in a thin, piercing voice:
"Bro-o-thers!"

And the soldiers were seized with a savage anger, immense and
terrible, similar to the nervous fury with which one tramples upon a
snake. Scattered bullets began flying amidst the wet trees, and wild
outcries filled the air. The bullets hissed far over the forest and
sank with a swish into the clay; birch leaves, quietly circling, were
falling to the ground where three light-grey figures were writhing in
convulsions of pain and horror.