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Now the town was in the hands of Colonel Golub, the "hope and pride" of the Transdnieper Division.

His band of two thousand cutthroats had made a triumphal entry into the town the day before. Pan the Colonel had ridden at the head of the column on a splendid black stallion. In spite of the warm April sun he wore a Caucasian burka, a lambskin Zaporozhye Cossack cap with a raspberry-red crown, a cherkesska, and the weapons that went with the outfit: dagger and sabre with chased-silver hilts. Between his teeth he held a pipe with a curved stem.

A handsome fellow, Pan the Colonel Golub, with his black eyebrows and pallid complexion tinged slightly green from incessant carousals!

Before the revolution Pan the Colonel had been an agronomist at the beet plantations of a sugar refinery, but that was a dull life not to be compared with the position of an Ataman, and so on the crest of the murky waves that swept the land the agronomist emerged as Pan the Colonel Golub.

In the only theatre in town a gala affair was got up in honour of the new arrivals. The "flower" of the Petlyura intelligentsia was there in full force: Ukrainian teachers, the priest's two daughters, the beautiful Anya and her younger sister Dina, some ladies of lesser standing, former members of

the household of Count Potocki, a few members of the middle class, remnants of the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionaries, who called themselves "free Cossacks". The theatre was packed. Spur-clicking officers who might have been copied from old paintings of Zaporozhye Cossacks pranced around the teachers, the priest's daughters and the burghers' ladies who were decked out in Ukrainian national costumes ornamented with bright-coloured

embroidered flowers and multihued beads and ribbons.

The regimental band blared. On the stage feverish preparations were under way for the performance of Nazar Stodolya scheduled for the evening.

There was no electricity, however, and the fact was reported in due course to Pan the Colonel at headquarters by his adjutant, Sublieutenant Polyantsev, who had now Ukrainianised his name and rank and styled himself Khorunzhy Palyanytsya. The Colonel, who intended to grace the evening with his presence, heard out Palyanytsya and said casually but imperiously:

"See that there is light. Find an electrician and start the electric power plant if you have to break your neck doing it."

"Very good, Pan Colonel."

Khorunzhy Palyanytsya found electricians without breaking his neck. Within two hours Pavel and two other workers were brought to the power plant by armed guards.

"If you don't have the lights on by seven I'll have all three of you strung up," Palyanytsya told them curtly, pointing to an iron beam overhead.

This blunt exposition of the situation had its effect and the lights came on at the appointed time.

The evening was in full swing when Pan the Colonel arrived with his lady, the buxom yellow-haired daughter of the barkeeper in whose house he was staying. Her father being a man of means,she had been educated at the Gymnasium in the gubernia town.

When the two had taken the seats reserved for them as guests of honour in the front row, Pan the Colonel gave the signal and the curtain rose so suddenly that the audience had a glimpse of the stage director's back as he hurried off the stage.

During the play the officers and their ladies whiled away the time at the refreshment counter,filling up on raw homebrew supplied by the ubiquitous Palyanytsya and delicacies acquired by requisitioning. By the end of the performance they were all well under the weather.

After the final curtain Palyanytsya leaped on the stage "Ladies and gentlemen, the dancing is about to begin," he announced with a theatrical sweep of

his arm.

There was general applause and the audience emptied out into the yard to give the Petlyura soldiers posted to guard the guests a chance to carry out the chairs and clear the dance floor.

A half an hour later the theatre was the scene of wild revelry.

The Petlyura officers, flinging all restraint to the winds, furiously danced the hopak with local belles flushed from the heat, and the pounding of heavy boots rocked the walls of the ramshackle theatre building.

In the meantime a troop of armed horsemen was approaching the town from the direction of the flour mill. A Petlyura sentry-post stationed at the town limits sprang in alarm to their machine guns and there was a clicking of breech-blocks in the night. Through the darkness came the sharp challenge:

"Halt! Who goes there?"

Two dark figures loomed out of the darkness. One of them stepped forward and roared out in a hoarse bass:

"Ataman Pavlyuk with his detachment. Who are you? Golub's men?"

"That's right," replied an officer who had also stepped forward.

"Where can I billet my men?" Pavlyuk asked.

"I'll phone headquarters at once," replied the officer and disappeared into a tiny hut on the roadside.

A minute later he came out and began issuing orders:

"Clear the machine gun off the road, men! Let the Pan Ataman pass."

Pavlyuk reined in his horse in front of the brightly illuminated theatre where a great many people were strolling out in the open air.

"Some fun going on here by the look of it," he said, turning to the captain riding beside him. "Let's dismount, Gukmach, and join the merrymaking. We'll pick ourselves a couple of women—I see the place is thick with them. Hey, Stalezhko," he shouted. "You billet the lads with the townsfolk.

We'll stop here. Escort, follow me." And he heaved himself heavily from his staggering mount.

At the entrance to the theatre Pavlyuk was stopped by two armed Petlyura men.

"Tickets?"

Pavlyuk gave them a derisive look and pushed one of them aside with his shoulder. The dozen men with him followed suit. Their horses were outside, tethered to the fence.

The newcomers were noticed at once. Particularly conspicuous was the huge frame of Pavlyuk; he was wearing an officer's coat of good cloth, blue breeches of the kind worn in the guards, and a shaggy fur cap. A Mauser hung from a strap slung over his shoulder and a hand grenade stuck out

of his pocket.

"Who's that?" the whisper passed through the crowd around the dance floor where Golub's second in command was executing a wild dance.

His partner was the priest's elder daughter, ^ who was whirling round with such abandon that her skirts flared out high enough to give the delighted men a good view of her silk petticoats.

Forcing his way through the crowd, Pavlyuk went right out onto the dance floor.

Pavlyuk stared with glazed eyes at the priest's daughter's legs, passed his tongue over his dry lips,then strode across the dance floor to the orchestra platform, stopped, and flicked his plaited ridingwhip.

"Come on, give us the hopak!"

The conductor paid no attention to the order.

A sharp movement of Pavlyuk's hand and the whip cut down the conductor's back. The latter jumped as if stung and the music broke off, plunging the hall into silence.

"What insolence!" The barkeeper's daughter was furious. "You can't let him do that," she cried,clutching at the elbow of Golub seated at her side.

Golub heaved himself to his feet, kicked aside a chair, took three paces forward and stopped faceto face with Pavlyuk. He had recognised the newcomer at once, and he had scores to settle with this rival claimant for local power. Only a week ago Pavlyuk had played the most scurvy trick on Pan the Colonel. At the height of a battle with a Red regiment which had mauled Golub's detachment on more than one occasion, Pavlyuk, instead of striking at the Bolsheviks from the rear, had broken into a town, overcome the resistance of the small pickets the Reds had left there,and, leaving a screening force to protect himself, sacked the place in the most thorough fashion.

Of course, being a true Petlyura man, he saw to it that the Jewish population were the chief victims. In the meantime the Reds had smashed up Golub's right flank and moved on.

And now this arrogant cavalry Captain had burst in here and had the audacity to strike Pan the Colonel's own bandmaster under his very eyes. No, this was too much. Golub knew that if he did not put the conceited upstart in his place his prestige in the regiment would be gone.

For several seconds the two men stood there in silence glaring at each other.

Gripping the hilt of his sabre with one hand and feeling for the revolver in his pocket with the other, Golub rapped out:

"How dare you lay your hands on my men, you scoundrel!"

Pavlyuk's hand crept toward the grip of the Mauser.

"Easy there, Pan Golub, easy, or you may trip yourself up. Don't step on my pet corn. I'm liable to lose my temper."

This was more than Golub could stand.

"Throw them out and give them twenty-five lashes each!" he shouted.

The officers fell upon Pavlyuk and his men like a pack of hounds.

A shot crashed out with a report that sounded as if an electric bulb had been smashed against the floor, and the struggling men swirled and spun down the hall like two packs of fighting dogs. In the wild melee men slashed at each other with sabres and dug their fingers into hair and throats,while the women, squealing with terror like stuck pigs, scattered away from the contestants.

In a few minutes Pavlyuk and his followers, disarmed and beaten, were dragged out of the hall,and thrown out into the street.

Pavlyuk lost his fur hat in the scrimmage, his face was bruised and his weapons were gone and now he was beside himself with rage. He and his men leapt into the saddle and galloped down the street.

The evening was broken up. No one felt inclined to make merry after what had happened. The women refused to dance and insisted on being taken home, but Golub would not hear of it.

"Post sentries," he ordered. "Nobody is to leave the hall."

Palyanytsya hastened to carry out the orders.

"The dancing will continue until morning, ladies and gentlemen," Golub replied stubbornly to the protests that showered upon him. "I shall dance the first waltz myself."

The orchestra struck up again but there was to be no more frolicking that night nevertheless.

The Colonel had not circled the dance floor once with the priest's daughter when the sentries ran into the hall shouting:

"Pavlyuk's surrounding the theatre!"

At that moment a window facing the street crashed in and the snub-nosed muzzle of a machine gun was pushed in through the shattered window frame. It moved stupidly this way and that, as if picking out the figures scattering wildly away from it toward the centre of the hall as from the devil himself.

Palyanytsya fired at the thousand-candle-power lamp in the ceiling which exploded like a bomb,sending a shower of splintered glass down on everyone in the hall.

The hall was plunged in darkness. Someone shouted in the yard:

"Everybody get outside!" A stream of violent abuse followed.

The wild, hysterical screams of the women, the furious commands issued by Golub as he dashed about the hall trying to rally his officers who had completely lost their heads, the firing and shouting out in the yard all merged into an indescribable pandemonium. In the panic nobody noticed Palyanytsya slip through the back door into a deserted side street and run for all he was worth to Golub's headquarters.

A half an hour later a full-dress battle was raging in the town. The silence of the night wasshattered by the incessant cracking of rifle fire interspersed with the rattle of machine guns.

Completely stupefied, the townsfolk leapt up from warm beds and pressed against window panes.

At last the firing abated, and only one machine gun somewhere in the outskirts kept up a desultory shooting like the barking of a dog.

The fighting died down as the glimmer of dawn appeared on the horizon. . . .

Rumours that a pogrom was brewing crept through the town, finally reaching the tiny, low-roofedewish cottages with crooked windows that somehow managed to cling to the top of the filthy ravine leading down to the river. In these incredibly overcrowded hovels called houses lived the Jewish poor.

The compositors and other workers at the printshop where Sergei Bruzzhak had been working for more than a year were Jews. Strong bonds of friendship had sprung up between them and Sergei.

Like a closely knit family, they stood solid against their employer, the smug, well-fed Mr.Blumstein. An incessant struggle went on between the proprietor and the printers. Blumstein did his best to grab more and pay his workers less. The printers had gone on strike several times and the printshop had stood idle for two or three weeks running. There were fourteen of them. Sergei,the youngest, spent twelve hours a day turning the wheel of a hand press.

Today Sergei noticed an ominous uneasiness among the workers. For the past several troubledmonths the shop had had little to do apart from printing occasional proclamations issued by the "Chief Ataman".

A consumptive compositor named Mendel called Sergei into a corner.

"Do you know there's a pogrom coming?" he said, looking at the boy with his sad eyes.

Sergei looked up in surprise.

"No, I hadn't the slightest idea."

Mendel laid a withered, yellow hand on Sergei's shoulder and spoke in a confiding, paternal tone.

"There's going to be a pogrom—that's a fact. The Jews are going to be beaten up. What I want to know is this—will you help your comrades in their misfortune or not?"

"Of course I will, if I only can. What can I do, Mendel?"

The compositors were now listening to the conversation.

"You're a good boy, Seryozha, and we trust you. After all, your father's a worker like us. Now you run home and ask him whether he would agree to hide some old men and women at his place, and then we'll decide who they will be. Ask your people if there's anyone else they know willing to do

the same. The Russians will be safe from these bandits for the time being. Run along, Seryozha,there's no time to waste."

"You can count on me, Mendel. I'll see Pavka and Klimka right away—their folks are sure to take in somebody."

"Just a minute," Mendel anxiously halted Sergei who was about to leave. "Who are Pavka and Klimka? Do you know them well?"

Sergei nodded confidently.

"Of course. They're my pals. Pavka Korchagin's brother is a mechanic."