Turkish Gambit

Chapter Eight IN WHICH VARYA SEES THE ANGEL OF DEATH

What Erast Petrovich said was this: 'You took rather a long time getting back, Varvara Andreevna, and you have missed some very interesting developments. The moment I received your telegram I gave orders for a thorough search to be made of the dead man's tent and personal belongings, but nothing of any particular interest was found. The day before yesterday, however, the papers found on Lukan were delivered from Bucharest. And what d-do you think?'

Varya apprehensively raised her eyes to look the titular counsellor in the face for the first time, but she detected no pity or - which would have been even worse - scorn in Fandorin's expression, only concentration and something very like excitement. Her initial relief was immediately succeeded by a sense of shame: she had drawn things out because she dreaded coming back to the camp, snivelled and moped about her precious reputation and not given a single thought to the cause. What an appalling egotist!

'Tell me, then!' she urged Fandorin, who was observing with interest the tear slowly sliding down Varya's cheek.

'I beg your gracious forgiveness for involving you in such an unpleasant business,' Erast Petrovich said contritely. 'I expected almost anything, b-but not—'

'What have you discovered in Lukan's papers?' Varya interrupted him angrily, feeling that if the conversation did not change direction immediately she was certain to start blubbing.

Fandorin either guessed what might happen or simply decided that the subject was closed, but in any case he made no attempt to delve any further into the Bucharest episode. 'Some extremely interesting entries in his notebook. Here, take a look.'

He took a fancy little book bound in brocade out of his pocket and opened it at a page with a bookmark. Varya ran her eyes down the column of numbers and

letters:

19 — Z - 1500

20 — Z - 3400 - i

21 — J + 5000 Z - 800

22 — Z - 2900

23 — J + 5000 Z - 700

24 —Z - 1100

25 —J+ 5000 Z - 1000

26 — Z - 300

27 — J + 5000 Z - 2200

28 — Z - 1900

29 —J + 15000 Z + i

She read it through again more slowly, and then again. She wanted desperately to demonstrate her keen acumen.

'Is it a cipher? No, the numbers run consecutively ... A list? The numbers of regiments? Numbers of troops? Perhaps casualties and reinforcements?' Varya chattered, wrinkling up her forehead. 'So Lukan was a spy after all? But what do the letters mean -"Z", "J", "i"? Or perhaps they are formulas or equations?'

'You flatter the deceased, Varvara Andreevna. It is all much simpler than that. If these are equations, then they are extremely simple. But with one unknown.'

'Only one?' Varya asked, astonished.

'Take a closer look. The first c-column, of course, consists of dates. Lukan follows them with a long dash. From the nineteenth to the twenty-ninth of July in the Western style. How was the colonel occupied on those days?'

'How should I know? I didn't follow him around.' Varya thought for a moment. 'Well, he was probably in the staff building, and perhaps he visited the forward positions.'

'I never once saw Lukan visit the forward positions. In fact, I really only ever came across him in one place.'

'In the club?'

'Precisely. And what did he do there?'

'Nothing, he played cards.'

'B-Bravo, Varvara Andreevna.'

She glanced at the page again. 'So he kept notes of his gambling accounts! "Z" is always followed by a minus sign, and "J" always by a plus sign. So he marked his losses with the letter "Z" and his winnings with the letter "J"? Is that all?' Varya shrugged in disillusionment. 'What has that got to do with espionage?'

'There was no espionage. Espionage is a high art, but here we are dealing with elementary bribery and treason. The swashbuckling Zurov appeared in the club on the nineteenth of July, the day before the first assault on Plevna, and Lukan was drawn into the game.'

'That means "Z" is Zurov!' Varya exclaimed. 'Wait a moment . . .' She began whispering to herself, gazing at the figures. 'Forty-nine . . . carry seven ... A hundred and four . . .' She summed up: 'In all, he lost 15,800 roubles to Zurov. That seems about right: Hippolyte also said something about fifteen thousand. But then what is the "i"?'

'I p-presume that is the infamous diamond ring - inel in Roumanian. Lukan lost it on the twentieth of July and on the twenty-ninth he won it back again.'

'But then who is "J"?' Varya asked, rubbing her forehead. 'I don't think there was any "J" among the card-players. And Lukan won . . . mmm . . . oho! thirty-five thousand roubles from this man. I don't recall the colonel ever having such large winnings. He would have been certain to brag about it.'

'This was nothing to brag about. Those are not his winnings; they are his fee for treason. The first time the m-mysterious "J" paid the colonel was on the twenty-first of July, when Zurov completely cleaned Lukan out. After that the deceased received sums of f-five thousand from his unknown patron on the twenty-third, twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh - that is, every second day. That was how he was able to carry on playing with Hippolyte. On the twenty-ninth of July Lukan received fifteen thousand all at once. The question is, why so much, and why precisely on the twenty-ninth?'

'He sold the plan of battle for the second assault on Plevna!' Varya gasped. 'The disastrous attack took place the next day, on the thirtieth of July.'

'Bravo yet again. And there you have the secret of Lukan's much-vaunted perspicacity, and the incredible accuracy of the Turkish gunners, who shelled the coordinates of our columns while they were still making their approach.'

'But who is "J"? You must have some suspect in mind, surely?'

'Well, of course,' Fandorin muttered indistinctly. 'I, er . . . have my suspicions . . . but not all the pieces fit together as yet.'

'But doesn't it mean that all we have to do is find this "J" and then they'll let Petya go, take Plevna and the war will be over?'

Erast Petrovich thought for a moment, wrinkling up his smooth forehead, and said quite seriously: 'The sequence of your logic is not entirely beyond reproach, but in principle it is quite correct.'

Varya did not dare show up at the press club that evening. She was sure everyone there must blame her for Lukan's death (after all, they didn't know about his treason) and the banishment of the universal favourite, Paladin, who had not returned to the camp from Bucharest. According to Erast Petrovich, the duellist had been arrested and ordered to leave the territory of the principality of Roumania within twenty-four hours.

Hoping to run into Zurov, or at least McLaughlin, and find out from them just how censoriously public opinion was inclined to regard her criminal self, poor Varya strolled in circles around the marquee with its brightly coloured pennants, maintaining a distance of a hundred paces. She had absolutely nowhere else to go, and she certainly did not want to go back to her own tent. Those wonderful but limited creatures, the Sisters of Mercy, would start up their interminable discussions about which of the doctors was a sweetheart and which was a crosspatch, and whether the one-armed Lieutenant Strumpf from ward sixteen was being serious when he proposed to Nastya Pryanishnikova.

The flap of the marquee fluttered and Varya glimpsed a stocky figure in a blue gendarme's uniform. She hastily turned away, pretending to be admiring the quite horrid view of the village of Bogot, home to the commander-in-chief's headquarters. Where, she wondered was the justice in it all? That base schemer and oprichnik Kazanzaki could visit the club without the slightest fuss, while she - essentially an innocent victim of circumstances - was left loitering outside in the dust like some kind of homeless mongrel! Varya shook her head in violent indignation and had just made her mind up to drop the whole business and go home when she heard the odious Greek's unctuous voice call out behind her: 'Miss Suvorova! What a pleasant surprise.'

Varya swung round and put on a sour face, certain that the lieutenant-colonel's unusual politeness was merely the prelude to the venomous strike of the serpent.

Kazanzaki looked at her, stretching his thick lips into a smiling expression that was almost ingratiating. 'All the talk in the club is of nothing but you. Everyone is impatient to see you. After all, it's not every day that swords are crossed over a beautiful lady, and with fatal consequences too.'

Varya frowned suspiciously, anticipating some trick, but the gendarme only smiled all the more sweetly. 'Only yesterday Count Zurov gave us a quite brilliantly vivid account of the entire escapade and now this article today . . .'

'What article?' Varya asked, seriously alarmed.

'Have you not heard? Our disgraced Paladin has excelled himself - filled an entire page in the Revue Parisienne with a description of the duel. Very romantic it is too. You are referred to exclusively as "la belle Mademoiselle S".'

'Do you mean to say,' Varya asked in a voice that trembled slightly, 'that no one blames me?'

Kazanzaki raised his immensely thick eyebrows. 'Apart perhaps from McLaughlin and Eremei Perepyolkin. But everybody knows McLaughlin is an old grouch, and Perepyolkin is a rare visitor - he only comes with Sobolev. By the way, Perepyolkin was given a George Medal for the last battle. Now, what on earth did he do to deserve that? It just goes to show how important it is to be in the right place at the right time.'

The lieutenant-colonel smacked his lips enviously and cautiously broached the subject that interested him most: 'Everybody is wondering where the main heroine of the episode could have disappeared to, but it appears that our heroine is occupied with important state business. Well now, what does the subtle Mister Fandorin have in mind? What hypotheses does he have concerning Lukan's mysterious notes? Don't be surprised, Varvara Andreevna; after all, I am the head of the special section.'

So that's it, Varya thought to herself, looking at the lieutenant-colonel sullenly. J told you so. He likes to have his work done for him.

'Erast Petrovich tried to explain something to me, but I didn't really understand it,' she told him with a naive flutter of her eyelashes. 'Something to do with a "Z" and a "J". You really ought to ask the titular counsellor yourself. In any case, Pyotr Afanasievich is not guilty of anything; at least now that much is clear.'

'He may not be guilty of treason, but he is most certainly guilty of criminal negligence.' The gendarme's voice had assumed its familiar steely tone. 'It's best if your fiance stays in jail for the time being; no harm will come to him there.' But then Kazanzaki immediately changed his tone, evidently recalling that today he was playing a very different part. 'Everything will be all right, Varvara Andreevna. I am not proud and I am always willing to admit my mistakes. Take, for instance, the peerless Monsieur Paladin: I admit I interrogated him and I suspected him - there were good grounds for it. Because of his famous interview with the Turkish colonel our command made a mistake and people died. My hypothesis was that Colonel Ali-bei was a mythical character invented by the Frenchman, out of either journalistic vanity or other less innocent considerations. Now I see that I was unfair to him.' He lowered his voice confidentially. 'We have received information from agents in Plevna. Osman-pasha really does have a certain Ali-bei as either his deputy or his adviser. He almost never appears in public. Our man only saw him from a distance,- all he could make out was a bushy black beard and dark glasses. Paladin mentioned the beard too, by the way.'

'A beard and dark glasses?' Varya echoed, also lowering her voice. 'Could it possibly be that - what is his name now? - Anwar-effendi?'

'Shsh-sh,' said Kazanzaki, glancing around nervously and lowering his voice even further. 'I am certain that it is him. A very shrewd gentleman. Pulled the wool over our correspondent's eyes very smartly indeed. Only three tabors, he says, and the main forces will not get here soon. A simple enough ploy, but very elegant. And like dummies, we swallowed the bait.'

'But then if Paladin is not to blame for the failure of the first assault and Lukan is the traitor, surely it means they were wrong to banish Paladin for killing him?' Varya asked.

'Yes, it does. It's very tough luck on the poor fellow,' the lieutenant-colonel said casually, edging a bit closer. 'See how frank I am with you, Varvara Andreevna. And note that I've even shared some secret information. Perhaps you might be willing to let me have just a little tit-bit? I copied out that page from the notebook and I've been struggling with it for two days now, and all to no avail. First I thought it was a cipher, but it doesn't look like one. A list of army units or their movements? Casualties and reinforcements? Tell me now, what ideas has Fandorin come up with?'

'I will tell you only one thing: it is all much simpler than that,' Varya quipped condescendingly; then she adjusted her hat and set off with a sprightly stride towards the press club.

The preparations for the third and final assault on the fortress of Plevna continued throughout a sultry August. Although these preparations were shrouded in the strictest secrecy, everybody in the camp was saying that the battle would definitely take place on the thirtieth day of the month, the date of His Majesty the Emperor's name-day. From dawn until dusk the infantry and cavalry practised joint manoeuvres in the surrounding valleys and hills, by day and by night field-guns and siege-guns were moved up. The exhausted soldiers were a pitiful sight in their sweaty tunics and kepis grey with dust, but the general mood was one of vengeful glee: we've put up with enough of this, we Russians may be slow off the mark, but once we get moving we'll squash that pesky fly of Plevna with a single tap of our mighty bear's paw.

In the club and the officers' canteen, where Varya took her meals, everyone was suddenly transformed into military strategists - they drew diagrams, dropped the names of Turkish pashas in every sentence and tried to guess from which side the main blow would be struck. Sobolev visited the camp several times, but he maintained an enigmatic distance. He didn't play chess any more - only glanced occasionally at Varya in a dignified manner and no longer complained about his malicious fate. A staff officer whom Varya knew whispered to her that the major-general would be assigned, if not the key role in the forthcoming assault, then at least a highly important one, and he was now in command of two whole brigades and a regiment. Sobolev had at last earned the recognition that he deserved.

The entire camp was in a state of high animation, and Varya tried her very best to feel inspired by the universally optimistic mood, but somehow she couldn't. If the truth were told, she was bored to death by all this talk of reserves, troop positions and lines of communication. She was still not allowed to see Petya, Fandorin was walking around with a face as dark as thunder and answering questions in an incomprehensible mumble and Zurov only appeared in the company of his patron Sobolev. He cast sideways glances at Varya like a caged wolf and made pitiful faces at the bartender Semyon, but he didn't play cards or order any wine - Sobolev's detachment ran on iron discipline. The hussar complained in a whisper that 'Jerome' Perepyolkin had taken over 'the entire works' and wouldn't allow anyone space to draw breath; and his protector Sobolev wouldn't allow anyone to thrash some sense into him. The sooner the assault came, the better.

The only uplifting event of recent days had been the return of Paladin, who had apparently sat out the storm in Kishinev and then hurried back to the theatre of military operations as soon as he heard that he had been totally rehabilitated. Varya had been genuinely delighted to see the Frenchman, but even he seemed changed. He no longer entertained her with amusing little stories, avoided talking about the incident in Bucharest and spent all his time dashing about the camp, catching up on what he had missed during his month's absence and dashing off articles for his Revue. All in all, Varya felt much the same as she had in the restaurant of the Hotel Royale when the men had caught the scent of blood and run wild, entirely forgetting that she even existed - yet another proof that by his very nature man was closer to the animal world than woman, that the feral principle was more pronounced in man, and therefore the true variety of Homo sapiens was indeed woman, the more advanced, subtle and complex being. It was such a shame that she had no one with whom she could share her thoughts. Words like that only made the nurses giggle into their hands, and Fandorin merely nodded absent-mindedly, with his mind on something else.

In short, nothing was happening and she was absolutely bored stiff.

At dawn on the 30th of August Varya was woken by an appalling rumbling. The first cannonade had begun. The previous evening Erast Petrovich had explained to her that, in addition to the usual artillery preparation, the Turks would be subjected to psychological pressure - that was the very latest word in the art of war. At the first ray of sunlight, when Moslem true believers were supposed to perform their nimaz, three hundred Russian and Roumanian guns would start raining a hail of fire on the Turkish fortifications and then at precisely nine hundred hours the cannonade would cease. In anticipation of an attack, Osman-pasha would despatch fresh troops to his forward positions, but nothing would happen. The allies would stay put and silence would reign over the open expanses of Plevna. At precisely eleven hundred hours the bewildered Turks would be deluged by a second hail of fire that would continue until one in the afternoon. That would be followed by another lull. The enemy would be carrying away his wounded and dead, hastily patching up the damage, bringing up new guns to replace those that had been destroyed, but still the assault would not come. The Turks, who were not noted for their strong nerves and, as everybody knew, were capable of a brief impulsive effort but baulked at the prospect of any prolonged exertion, would naturally be thrown into confusion, and perhaps even panic. The entire Mohamedan command would probably ride down to the front line and gaze through their binoculars, wondering what was happening; and then, at fourteen hundred and thirty hours, the enemy would be hit with a third hail of fire, and half an hour later the assault columns would rush at the Turks, whose nerves by this time would be frayed to tatters from waiting.

Varya had squirmed, imagining herself in the place of the poor defenders of Plevna. It would be really terrible, waiting for the decisive events for an hour, two hours, three hours, and all in vain. She certainly wouldn't have been able to stand it. It was a cunningly conceived plan,- you had to give the geniuses at HQ their due.

'Ba-boom! Ba-boom!' rumbled the heavy siege-guns. 'Boom! Boom!' the field-guns echoed in thinner voices. This will go on for a long time, Varya thought; ‘ ought to have some breakfast.

Not having been informed beforehand of the artful plan of artillery preparation, the journalists had left to take up their position before it was light. The location of the correspondents' observation point had to be agreed in advance with the command and, following long discussions, it had been decided by a majority of votes to request a small hill located between Grivitsa, which was at the centre of the forward positions, and the Lovcha highway, beyond which lay the left flank. At first most of the journalists had wished to be sited closer to the right flank, since the main blow was obviously going to be struck from that side, but McLaughlin and Paladin had succeeded in changing their colleagues' minds, their main argument being that the left flank might well be of secondary importance, but Sobolev was there, which meant that there was bound to be a sensation of some kind.

After taking breakfast with the pale-faced nurses, who shuddered at every explosion, Varya set out to look for Erast Petrovich. She did not find the titular counsellor in the staff building, or in the special section. On the chance that he might be at home, Varya glanced into Fandorin's tent and saw him calmly seated in a folding chair, holding a book in his hand and dangling a Moroccan-leather slipper with a curled-up toe from his foot as he drank his coffee.

'When are you going to the observation point?' Varya asked, seating herself on the camp bed because there was nowhere else to sit.

Erast Petrovich shrugged. His fresh, rosy cheeks were positively glowing. The former volunteer was obviously thriving on camp life.

'Surely you are not going to sit here all day? Paladin told me that today's battle will be the largest assault on a fortified position in the whole of history - even more stupendous than the capture of Malakhov.'

'Your Paladin likes to exaggerate,' replied the titular counsellor. 'Waterloo and Borodino were on a larger scale, not to mention the Leipzig Battle of the Nations.'

'You are an absolute monster! The fate of Russia hangs in the balance, thousands of people are dying, and he just sits there reading his book! It's simply immoral!'

'And is it moral to sit and watch from a safe distance while people k-kill each other?' It was a miracle; there was actually a trace of human feeling - irritation - in Erast Petrovich's voice. 'Thank you very k-kindly, I have already observed this spectacle and even p-participated in it. I did not like it. I prefer the company of ‘T-Tacitus' - and he demonstratively stuck his nose back in his book.

Varya leapt up, stamped her foot and strode towards the door, but just as she was on the point of leaving Fandorin said: 'Take care out there, will you? Don't wander from the correspondents' viewing point. You never know.'

She halted and glanced back at Erast Petrovich in amazement. 'Are you showing concern?'

'B-But honestly, Varvara Andreevna, what business do you have up there? First they'll shoot their cannon for a long time, then they'll run forward and there'll be clouds of smoke so that you won't be able to see anything; you'll just hear some of them shouting "Hurrah!" and others screaming in agony. Very interesting, I'm sure. Our work is not up there, but here, in the rear.'

'A rear-line rat.' Varya uttered the phrase that suited the occasion and left the miserable misanthrope alone with his Tacitus.

The small hill occupied by the correspondents and military observers from neutral countries proved easy to find - Varya spotted the large white flag in the distance while she was still on the road that was choked solid with ammunition wagons. It was flapping feebly in the wind, and below it she could make out the dark mass of a fair-sized crowd, perhaps a hundred people, if not even more.

The controller of traffic, a captain wearing a red armband on his sleeve who was hoarse from shouting as he directed the shells to their initial destinations, smiled briefly at the pretty young lady in the lace hat and waved his hand: 'That way, that way, mademoiselle. But be sure not to turn off the track. The enemy artillery won't fire at a white flag, but a shell or two could land anywhere else once in a while. Just where do you think you're going, you stupid oaf? I told you, six-pound shells go to the sixth battery.'

Varya shook the reins of the meek little light-chestnut horse borrowed from the infirmary stables and set off towards the flag, gazing around her curiously.

The entire valley on this side of the range of low hills, beyond which lay the approaches to Plevna, was dotted with strange-looking islets. It was the infantry lying on the grass by companies, waiting for the order to attack. The soldiers were talking among themselves in low voices and every now and then she heard unnaturally loud laughter from one side or another. The officers were gathered together in small groups of several men, smoking papyrosas. They looked at Varya, riding past side-saddle, with surprise and mistrust, as if she were a creature from some other, unreal world. The sight of this stirring, droning valley made Varya feel a bit sick and she clearly glimpsed the Angel of Death circling above the dusty grass, gazing into the men's faces and marking them with his invisible sign. She struck the little horse with her heel in order to get through this ghastly waiting room as quickly as possible.

But then, at the observation point everybody was excited and full of gleeful anticipation. There was a picnic atmosphere, and some people had even made themselves comfortable beside white tablecloths spread out on the ground and were already tucking in.

'I didn't think you were coming,' said Paladin, greeting the new arrival. He was as agitated as all the others and Varya noted that he was wearing his famous old rust-coloured boots.

'We have been loitering here like idiots since the crack of dawn, and the Russian officers only began moving up at midday. Mr Kazanzaki paid us a visit a quarter of an hour ago and we learned from him that the assault will only begin at three o'clock,' the journalist prattled cheerfully. 'I see that you were also aware in advance of the plan of battle. It's too bad of you, Mademoiselle Barbara; you could have given us a friendly warning. I rose at four o'clock, and for me that is worse than death.'

The Frenchman helped the young lady to dismount, seated her on a folding chair and began to explain: 'Over there, on the hills opposite us, are the Turkish fortified positions. You see, where the shell-bursts fly up in the air like fountains? That is the very centre of their position. The Russo-Roumanian army extends in a parallel line about fifteen kilometres long, but from here we can only survey a part of that immense space.

Note that round hill. No, not that one, the other one, with the white tent. This is the command point, the temporary headquarters. The commander of the Western Division, Prince Karl of Roumania, is there, and so are the commander-in-chief Grand Duke Nicholas and the Emperor Alexander himself. Oh, the rockets, there go the rockets! A most picturesque spectacle, is it not?'

Lines of smoke were traced out in the air above the empty stretch of land that separated the opposing sides, as if someone had cut the realm of heaven into slices like a watermelon or a round loaf of bread. Lifting her head, Varya saw three coloured balls high above her -one close, the next a little further away, above the imperial headquarters, and the third right on the very horizon.

'Those, Varvara Andreevna, are balloons,' said Kazanzaki, who had appeared beside her. 'They correct the artillery fire from them using signalling flags.'

The gendarme looked even more repulsive than ever, cracking his knuckles in his excitement and flaring his nostrils nervously. He had caught the scent of human blood, the vampire. Varya demonstratively moved her chair further away, but he appeared not to notice the manoeuvre. He came up to her again and pointed off to one side beyond the low hills, where the rumbling sounded particularly loud.

'As always, our mutual friend Sobolev has sprung a surprise of his own. According to the plan of action, his role is to appear to threaten the Krishin redoubt, while the main forces strike their blow in the centre; but our ambitious little general couldn't wait, and this morning he launched a frontal attack. Not only has he broken away from the main forces and got himself cut off by the Turkish cavalry, he has put the entire operation in jeopardy! Well now, he'll catch it for that all right!'

Kazanzaki took a gold watch out of his pocket, tugged agitatedly on the peak of his kepi and crossed himself. 'Three o'clock! They'll go in now!'

Varya looked round and saw that the entire valley had begun to move: the islets of white tunics began heaving and fluttering, moving up quickly to the front line. There were pale-faced men running past the low hill, following an elderly officer with a long drooping moustache who was limping along nimbly at the front.

'Keep up, get those bayonets higher!' he shouted in a shrill, piercing voice, glancing round behind him. 'Sementsov, watch out! I'll rip your head off!'

Now there were other company columns running past, but Varya carried on gazing after that first one, with the elderly officer and the unknown Scmentsov.

The company spread out into a line and set off at a slow run towards the distant redoubt, where the fountains of earth began spurting up even more furiously.

'Right, now he'll give it to them,' someone said beside her.

In the distance the shells were already bursting fast and furiously and Varya could not see much under the smoke spreading across the ground, but her company was still running in neat formation and nobody seemed to be shelling it.

'Come on, Sementsov, come on,' Varya whispered, clenching her fist tight.

Soon 'her' men were completely hidden from sight by the backs of other columns that had spread out into lines to advance. When the open space in front of the redoubt was full to the halfway mark with white tunics, shell-bursts began springing up like neatly trimmed bushes in among the mass of men: a first, a second, a third, a fourth; and then again, a little bit closer: a first, a second, a third, a fourth. And again. And again.

'He's sweeping them fine, all right,' Varya heard someone say. 'So much for the artillery preparation. They shouldn't have wasted time showing off with their damned idiotic psychology. They should have just kept pounding them.'

'They've run! They're running!' Kazanzaki grabbed Varya's shoulder and squeezed it tightly.

She glanced up at him indignantly, but realised that the man was completely carried away. Somehow she managed to free herself and looked in the direction of the field.

It was hidden under a veil of smoke through which she caught brief glimpses of something white and black lumps of earth flying through the air.

All talk on the hill stopped. A crowd of silent men came running out of the blue-grey mist, skirting the observation point on both sides. Varya saw red blotches on the white tunics and cringed.

The smoke thinned a little and the valley was exposed, covered with the black rings of shell craters and white dots of soldiers' tunics. Varya noticed that the white dots were moving and she heard a dull howling sound that seemed to come from out of the earth itself - the cannon had just that moment stopped firing.

'The first trial of strength is over,' said a major she knew who had been attached to the journalists from central headquarters staff. 'Osman is well dug in; he'll take some shifting. First more artillery preparation then "hurrah-hurrah" again.' Varya felt sick.