Hadji Murád by Leo Tolstoy — Read

Early in the morning, while it was still dark, two companies carrying axes and commanded by Poltorátsky marched six miles beyond the Shagirínsk Gate, and having thrown out a line of sharpshooters, set to work to fell trees as soon as the day broke. Towards eight o'clock the mist which had mingled with the perfumed smoke of the hissing and crackling damp green branches on the bonfires began to rise, and the wood-fellers -- who till then had not seen five paces off, but had only heard one another -- began to see both the bonfires and the road through the forest, blocked with fallen trees. The sun now appeared like a bright spot in the fog and now again was hidden.

In the glade, some way from the road, Poltorátsky, his subaltern Tíkhonov, two officers of the Third Company, and Baron Freze, an ex-officer of the Guards and a fellow student of Poltorátsky at the Cadet College, who had been reduced to the ranks for fighting a duel, were sitting on drums. Bits of paper that had contained food, cigarette stumps, and empty bottles lay scattered round the drums. The officers had had some vodka, and were now eating, and drinking porter. A drummer was uncorking their third bottle.