r regiment, and we ought not to have
moved from the spot. But there was no help for it then.

It was night. We had eaten nothing all day. The rain poured down, the
mud was ankle-deep, there was no straw on which to pitch our tents, but
we managed somehow. And so the days passed, each like the other. But I
got through the manoeuvres, and was none the worse.

Now I am already an old soldier; I have hardly another year and a half
to serve--about sixteen months. I only hope I shall not be ill. It seems
I got a bit of a chill at the manoeuvres, I cough every morning, and
sometimes I suffer with my feet. I shiver a little at night till I get
warm, and then I am very hot, and I feel very comfortable lying abed.
But I shall probably soon be all right again.

They say, one may take a rest in the hospital, but I haven't been there
yet, and don't want to go at all, especially now I am feeling better.
The soldiers are sorry for me, and sometimes they do my work, but not
just for love. I get three pounds of bread a day, and don't eat more
than one pound. The rest I give to my comrade Ossadtchok. He eats it
all, and his own as well, and then he could do with some more. In return
for this he often cleans my rifle, and sometimes does other work for me,
when he sees I have no strength left.

I am also teaching him and a few other soldiers to read and write, and
they are very pleased.

My corporal also comes to me to be taught, but he never gives me a word
of thanks.

The superior of the platoon, when he isn't drunk, and is in good humor,
says "you" to me instead of "thou," and sometimes invites me to share
his bed--I can breathe easier there, because there is more air, and I
don't cough so much, either.

Only it sometimes happens that he comes back from town tipsy, and makes
a great to-do: How do I, a common soldier, come to be sitting on his
bed?

He orders me to get up and stand before him "at attention," and declares
he will "have me up" for it.

When, however, he has sobered down, he turns kind again, and calls me to
him; he likes me to tell him "stories" out of books.

Sometimes the orderly calls me into the orderly-room, and gives me a
report to draw up, or else a list or a calculation to make. He himself
writes badly, and is very poor at figures.

I do everything he wants, and he is very glad of my help, only it
wouldn't do for him to confess to it, and when I have finished, he
always says to me:

"If the commandi