Konstantin Simonov
The lieutenant

For a hundred days grenades have been piercing
The bloodstained Malakhov hill.¹
And the red-haired British soldiers
Are storming it, marching to a harsh drum’s beat.

And the fortress, Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka,
Is submerged in peaceful, normal sleep.
A lieutenant with a limp, his gloves pulled on,
Has been making the rounds of the garrison since morning.

A gray-haired soldier, saluting awkwardly,
Rubs his sleepy eyes upon his sleeve.
On the end of a rope, the garrison’s lean goat
Roams here and there beside the cannons.

No letters, nor news. It does not help to beg,
They have forgotten, over there, beyond the seven seas,
That here, on the very edge of Russia,
Lives a lieutenant with a company of chasseurs...

The lieutenant, squinting long into the light,
Looked south, out to sea, where far away —
Could it be, a boat race? —
Ships loomed in the fog.

He took his glass. Upon the swell, green at times,
Or white because of the choppiness,
Steaming ahead in columns straight,
A row of British vessels was approaching.

Why did they come from Albion?
What did they want? A distant thunder sounded,
And the waves below the bastion
Boiled high, singed by the cannonball.

For half a day they fired at random,
Threatening to make a bonfire of the city.
Holding a demand to surrender in his pocket,
An envoy climbed up to the bastion.

The lieutenant, worried that his limp
Might be a slur upon his country’s dignity,
Defiantly received the Britisher seated
Upon a bench beside the fortress wall.

What is there to defend? Some rusty cannon,
Two streets, either full of puddles or covered by dust,
Some garrison huts, all quite askew,
A patch of useless land.

Yet still there is a certain something,
That’s a pity to surrender to the Britisher from a ship?
With his hand he rubbed a handful of the soil;
Abandoned, it is true, but, notwithstanding, soil.

Flags all in holes, wind-torn and weathered,
Swish high above the roofs amidst the branches...
No, I’ll not sign the paper that you brought,
Tell that to your Victoria!

The British had been driven back long ago.
The roof iron had all been patched.
All the dead had long been buried,
The pinewood crosses had been put up.

When suddenly couriers from St. Petersburg,
Having lost a whole year getting there,
Delivered an order that drastic measures should be taken,
Making the garrison swear allegiance.

To carry out a military action
A new captain was dispatched to the fortress,
And as a reward the old lieutenant
Was to get full leave, and a pension too!

He roamed around the fortress, the poor fellow,
Kept putting off ascending the ship’s ramp...
The cold official sheet of paper,
The absurd beloved land...

____
1. The poem is based on an episode during the Crimean War (1853-1856) when the British and French sent ships to the Pacific shores of Kamchatka.

Translated by Lubov Yakovleva