Sevastopol by Leo Tolstoy

On the North Side of the Roadstead, at the Star Fort, near noon, two seamen stood on the "telegraph" mound; one of them, an officer, was looking at Sevastopol through the fixed telescope. Another officer, accompanied by a Cossack, had just ridden up to join him at the big Signal-post.

The sun stood high and bright above the Roadstead, which, in the glad, warm light, was playing with its ships at anchor, with their sails and with the boats. The light breeze softly rustled among the dying leaves of the oak bushes near the "telegraph," filled the sails of the boats and rocked the waves. Sevastopol -- still the same: with its unfinished church, its column, its quay, its green boulevard on the hill, its elegant library building, its azure creeks filled with masts, its picturesque aqueduct arches, and with blue clouds of powder-smoke now and then lit up by the blood-red flame of a cannon; the same beautiful, gay, proud Sevastopol, bounded on the one side by the yellow, smoking hills, on the other by the bright blue water of the sea, glittering in the sunlight -- lay on the other side of the Roadstead. Above the sea-line, along which the smoke of some passing steamer left a black trail, floated long white clouds which promised wind. Along the whole line of fortifications, but especially on the high ground on the left side, appeared, several at a time, with lightnings that at times flashed bright even in the noonday sun, puffs of thick, dense, white smoke, that grew, taking various shapes, and appearing darker against the sky. These clouds, showing now here, now there, appeared on the hills, on the enemy's batteries, in the town, and high up in the sky. The reports of explosions never ceased, but rolled together and rent the air.