Read "The Wood-Felling" by Leo Tolstoy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The enemy had really placed two guns where we had seen the Tartars riding, and they fired a shot every twenty or thirty minutes at our men who were felling the wood. My platoon was ordered forward to the plain to answer the enemy's fire. A puff of smoke appeared on the outskirts of the forest, then followed a report and a whistle, and a ball fell in front or behind us. The enemy's shots fell fortunately for us, and we sustained no losses.
The artillerymen behaved splendidly, as they always do; loaded quickly, pointed carefully at the spots where the puffs of smoke were, and quietly joked with one another.