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“We don’t do the French any harm,” said Tkhon, evidently frightened by Densov’s words. “We only fooled about with the lads for fun, you know! We killed a score or so of ‘more-orderers,’ but we did no harm else....”
Next day when Densov had left Pokrvsk, having quite forgotten about this peasant, it was reported to him that Tkhon had attached himself to their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it. Densov gave orders to let him do so.
Tkhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching water, flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and aptitude for partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and always brought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to would bring in French captives also. Densov then relieved him from drudgery and began taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him enrolled among the Cossacks.
Tkhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried rather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses its teeth, with equal ease picking fleas out of its fur or crunching thick bones. Tkhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at arm’s length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs or carve spoons. In Densov’s party he held a peculiar and exceptional position. When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be done—to push a cart out of the mud with one’s shoulders, pull a horse out of a swamp by its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk more than thirty miles in a day—everybody pointed laughingly at Tkhon.
“It won’t hurt that devil—he’s as strong as a horse!” they said of him.
Once a Frenchman Tkhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him and shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tkhon treated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the subject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment—jokes in which Tkhon readily joined.
“Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?” the Cossacks would banter him. And Tkhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretended to be angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The only effect of this incident on Tkhon was that after being wounded he seldom brought in prisoners.
He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found more opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen, and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars and willingly accepted that role. Now he had been sent by Densov overnight to Shmshevo to capture a “tongue.” But whether because he had not been content to take only one Frenchman or because he had slept through the night, he had crept by day into some bushes right among the French and, as Densov had witnessed from above, had been detected by them.
After talking for some time with the esaul about next day’s attack, which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to have definitely decided on, Densov turned his horse and rode back.
“Now, my lad, we’ll go and get dwy,” he said to Ptya.
As they approached the watchhouse Densov stopped, peering into the forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging arms, wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazn hat, was approaching with long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his shoulder and an ax stuck in his girdle. When he espied Densov he hastily threw something into the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its floppy brim, and approached his commander. It was Tkhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He lifted his head high and gazed at Densov as if repressing a laugh.
“Well, where did you disappear to?” inquired Densov.
“Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen,” answered Tkhon boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious bass voice.
“Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You ass! Well, why haven’t you taken one?”
“Oh, I took one all right,” said Tkhon.
“Where is he?”
“You see, I took him first thing at dawn,” Tkhon continued, spreading out his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. “I took him into the forest. Then I see he’s no good and think I’ll go and fetch a likelier one.”
“You see?... What a wogue—it’s just as I thought,” said Densov to the esaul. “Why didn’t you bwing that one?”
“What was the good of bringing him?” Tkhon interrupted hastily and angrily—“that one wouldn’t have done for you. As if I don’t know what sort you want!”
“What a bwute you are!... Well?”
“I went for another one,” Tkhon continued, “and I crept like this through the wood and lay down.” (He suddenly lay down on his stomach with a supple movement to show how he had done it.) “One turned up and I grabbed him, like this.” (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) “‘Come along to the colonel,’ I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there were four of them. They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went for them with my ax, this way: ‘What are you up to?’ says I. ‘Christ be with you!’” shouted Tkhon, waving his arms with an angry scowl and throwing out his chest.
“Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the puddles!” said the esaul, screwing up his glittering eyes.
Ptya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tkhon’s face to the esaul’s and Densov’s, unable to make out what it all meant.
“Don’t play the fool!” said Densov, coughing angrily. “Why didn’t you bwing the first one?”
Tkhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other, then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin, disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called Shcherbty—the gap-toothed). Densov smiled, and Ptya burst into a peal of merry laughter in which Tkhon himself joined.
“Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing,” said Tkhon. “The clothes on him—poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why, he says: ‘I’m a general’s son myself, I won’t go!’ he says.”
“You are a bwute!” said Densov. “I wanted to question...”
