Survival of the Strong — War and Peace

At eighteen degrees frost without boots or full rations the army looks strangely cheerful because the weak have been sifted out daily; only the hardiest remain. Around the Eighth Company's wattle fire soldiers demand fuel to sit, fetch wood, sing, and patch boots with French cloth. Jackdaw, thin and spent, asks the sergeant major to send him to hospital; That'll do, that'll do, quietly refuses. Talk turns to French prisoners' fake boots, white corpses near Mozhask, tall tales of Platon catching Napoleon, and stars like linen on a line. Humor and curiosity persist beside cruelty of selection. More men gather here than anywhere because shared fire and banter are the social infrastructure of endurance.