第 21 页

With a servile bow Bluvstein extended the tray to Petlyura. It was taken by an officer standing alongside.

"The Jewish population wishes to express its sincere gratitude and respect for you, the head of the state. Please accept this address of greeting."

"Good," muttered Petlyura, quickly scanning the sheet of paper.

Fuchs stepped forward.

"We most humbly beg you to allow us to open our enterprises and we ask for protection against pogroms." Fuchs stumbled over the last word.

An angry scowl darkened Petlyura's features.

"My army does not engage in pogroms. You had better remember that."

Fuchs spread out his arms in a gesture of resignation.

Petlyura's shoulder twitched nervously. The untimely appearance of the delegation irritated him.

He turned to Golub, who was standing behind chewing his black moustache.

"Here's a complaint against your Cossacks, Pan Colonel. Investigate the matter and take measures accordingly," said Petlyura. Then, addressing the Inspector, he said dryly:

"You may begin the parade."

The ill-starred delegation had not expected to run up against Golub and they hastened to withdraw.

The attention of the spectators was now wholly absorbed by the preparations for the ceremonial march-past. Sharp commands were rapped out.

Golub, his features outwardly calm, walked over to Bluvstein and said in a loud whisper:

"Get out of here, you rotten heathens, or I'll make mincemeat out of you!"

The band struck up and the first units marched through the square. As they drew alongside Petlyura, the troops bellowed a mechanical "Slava!" and then swung down the highway to disappear into the sidestreets. At the head of the companies, uniformed in brand-new khaki outfits,the officers marched at an easy gait as if they were simply taking a stroll, swinging their swagger sticks. The swagger stick mode, like cleaning rods for the soldiers, had just been introduced in the division.

The new recruits brought up the rear of the parade. They came in a disorderly mass, out of step and jostling one another.

There was a low rustle of bare feet as the mobilised men shuffled by, prodded on by the officers who worked hard but in vain to bring about some semblance of order. When the second company was passing a peasant lad in a linen shirt on the side nearest the reviewing stand gaped in such wide-eyed amazement at the "Chief" that he stepped into a hole in the road and fell flat on the ground. His rifle slid over the cobblestones with a loud clatter. He tried to get up but was knocked down again by the men behind him.

Some of the spectators burst out laughing. The company broke ranks and passed through the square in complete disorder. The luckless lad picked up his rifle and ran after the others.

Petlyura turned away from this sorry spectacle and walked over to the car without waiting for the end of the review. The Inspector, who followed him, asked diffidently:

"Pan the Ataman will not stay for dinner?"

"No," Petlyura flung back curtly.

Sergei Bruzzhak, Valya and Klimka were watching the parade in the crowd of spectators pressed against the high fence surrounding the church. Sergei, gripping the bars of the grill, looked at the faces of the people below him with hatred in his eyes.

"Let's go, Valya, they've shut up shop," he said in a deliberately loud defiant voice, and turned away from the fence. People stared at him in astonishment.

Ignoring everyone, he walked to the gate, followed by his sister and Klimka.

Colonel Chernyak and the Captain galloped up to the Commandant's office and dismounted.

Leaving the horses in the charge of a dispatch rider they strode rapidly into the guardhouse.

"Where's the Commandant?" Chernyak asked the dispatch rider sharply.

"Dunno," the man stammered. "Gone off somewhere.''

Chernyak looked around the filthy, untidy room, the unmade beds and the Cossacks of the Commandant's guard who sprawled on them and made no attempt to rise when the officers entered.

"What sort of a pigsty is this?" Chernyak roared. "And who gave you permission to wallow about like hogs?" he lashed at the men lying flat on their backs.

One of the Cossacks sat up, belched and growled:

"What're you squawking for? We've got our own squawker here."

"What!" Chernyak sprang toward the man. "Who do you think you're talking to, you bastard? I'm Colonel Chernyak. D'you hear, you swine! Up, all of you, or I'll have you flogged!" The enraged Colonel dashed about the guardhouse. "I'll give you one minute to sweep out the filth, straighten out the bedding and make your filthy mugs presentable. You look like a band of brigands, not Cossacks!"

Beside himself with rage, the Colonel violently kicked at a slop pail obstructing his path.

The Captain was no less violent, and, adding emphasis to his curses by wielding his three-thonged whip, drove the men out of their bunks.

"The Chief Ataman's reviewing the parade. He's liable to drop in here any minute. Get a move on there!"

Seeing that things were taking a serious turn and that they really might be in for a flogging—they knew Chernyak's reputation well enough—the Cossacks sprang into feverish activity.

In no time work was in full swing.

"We ought to have a look at the prisoners," the Captain suggested. "There's no telling whom they've got locked up here. Might be trouble if the Chief looks in."

"Who has the key?" Chernyak asked the sentry. "Open the door at once."

A Sergeant jumped up and opened the lock.

"Where's the Commandant? How long do you think I'm going to wait for him? Find him at once and send him in here," Chernyak ordered. "Muster the guard in the yard! Why are the rifles without bayonets?"

"We only took over yesterday," the Sergeant tried to explain, and hurried off in search of the Commandant.

The Captain kicked the storeroom door open. Several of the people inside got up from the floor,the others remained motionless.

"Open the door wider," Chernyak commanded. "Not enough light here."

He scrutinised the prisoners' faces.

"What are you in for?" he snapped at the old man sitting on the edge of the bunk.

The old man half rose, hitched up his trousers and, frightened by the sharp order, mumbled:

"Dunno myself. They just locked me up and here I am. There was a horse disappeared from the yard, but I've got nothing to do with it."

"Whose horse?" the Captain interrupted him.

"An army horse, of course. My billets sold him and drank the proceeds and now they're blaming me."

Chernyak ran his eye swiftly over the old man and with an impatient jerk of his shoulder shouted:

"Pick up your things and get out of here!" Then he turned to the samogon woman.

The old man could not believe his ears. Blinking his shortsighted eyes, he turned to the Captain:

"Does that mean I can go?"

The Cossack nodded as much as to say: the faster you get out the better.

Hurriedly the old man seized his bundle which hung over the edge of the bunk and dashed through the door.

"And what are you in for?" Chernyak was questioning the samogon woman.

Swallowing the mouthful of pie she had been chewing, the woman rattled off a ready answer:

"It's an injustice it is that I should be in here, Pan Chief. Just think of it, to drink a poor widow's samogon and then lock her up."

"You're not in the samogon business, are you?" Chernyak asked.

"Business? Nothing of the kind," said the woman with an injured air. "The Commandant came and took four bottles and didn't pay a kopek. That's how it is: they drink your booze and never pay.

You wouldn't call that business, would you?"

"Enough. Now go to the devil!"

The woman did not wait for the order to be repeated. She picked up her basket and backed to the door, bowing in gratitude.

"May God bless you with good health, your honours."

Dolinnik watched the comedy with frank amazement.

None of the prisoners could make out what it was all about. The only thing that was clear was that the arrivals were chiefs of some kind who had the power to dispose of them as they saw fit.

"And you there?" Chernyak spoke to Dolinnik.

"Stand up when Pan the Colonel speaks to you!" barked the Captain.

Slowly Dolinnik raised himself to his feet from the floor.

"What are you in for?" Chernyak repeated.

Dolinnik looked at the Colonel's neatly twirled moustache, at his clean-shaven face, looked at the peak of his new cap with the enamel cockade, and a wild thought flashed through his mind:

Maybe it'll work!

"I was arrested for being out on the streets after eight o'clock," he said, blurting out the first thing that came into his head.

He awaited the answer in an agony of suspense.

"What were you doing out at night?"

"It wasn't night, only about eleven o'clock."

He no longer believed that this shot in the dark would succeed.

His knees trembled when he heard the brief command:

"Get out."

Dolinnik walked hurriedly out of the door, forgetting his jacket; the Captain was already questioning the next prisoner.

Korchagin was the last to be interrogated. He sat on the floor' completely dumbfounded by the proceedings. At first he could not believe that Dolinnik had been released. Why were they letting everyone off like this? But Dolinnik . . . Dolinnik had said that he had been arrested for breaking the curfew. . . . Then it dawned upon him.

The Colonel began questioning the scraggy Zeltser with the usual "What are you in for?"

The barber, pale with nervousness, blurted out:

"They tell me I was agitating, but I don't know what they're talking about."

Chernyak pricked up his ears.

"What's that? Agitation? What were you agitating about?"

Zeltser spread out his arms in bewilderment.

"I don't know myself, I only said that they were collecting signatures to a petition to the Chief Ataman for the Jewish population."

"What sort of petition?" both Chernyak and the Captain moved menacingly toward Zeltser.

"A petition asking that pogroms be prohibited. You know, we had a terrible pogrom. The whole population's afraid.

"That's enough," Chernyak interrupted him. "We'll give you a petition you won't forget, you dirty Jew." Turning to the Captain, he snapped: "Put this one away properly. Have him taken to headquarters—I'll talk to him there personally. We'll see who's behind this petition business."

Zeltser tried to protest but the Captain struck him sharply across the back with his riding crop.

"Shut up, you bastard!"

His face twisted with pain, Zeltser staggered back into a corner. His lips trembled and he barely restrained his sobs.

While this was going on, Pavel rose to his feet. He was now the only prisoner besides Zeltser in the storeroom.

Chernyak stood in front of the boy and inspected him with his piercing black eyes.

"Well, what are you doing here?"

Pavel had his answer ready.

"I cut off a saddle skirt for soles," he said quickly.

("What saddle?" the Colonel asked.

"We've got two Cossacks billeted at our place and I cut off a bit of an old saddle to sole my boots with. So the Cossacks hauled me in here." Seized by a wild hope to regain his freedom, he added:

"I didn't know it wasn't allowed. . . ."

The Colonel eyed Pavel with disgust.

"Of all the things this Commandant thought of, blast him! Look at the prisoners he picked up!" As he turned to the door, he shouted: "You can go home, and tell your father to give you the thrashing you deserve. Out with you!"

Still unable to believe his ears, Pavel snatched up Dolinnik's jacket from the floor and rushed for the door, his heart pounding as if it would burst. He ran through the guardroom and slipped outside behind the Colonel who was walking out into the yard. In a moment Pavel was through the wicket gate and in the street.

The unlucky Zeltser remained alone in the storeroom. He looked round with harassed eyes,instinctively took a few steps towards the exit, but just then a sentry entered the guardhouse,closed the door, inserted the padlock, and sat down on a stool next to the door.

Out on the porch Chernyak, much pleased with himself, said to the Captain:

"It's a good thing we looked in. Think of the rubbish we found there—we'll have to lock up that Commandant for a couple of weeks. Well, it's time we were going."

The Sergeant had mustered his detail in the yard. When he saw the Colonel, he ran over and reported:

"Everything's in order, Pan Colonel."

Chernyak inserted a boot into a stirrup and sprang lightly into the saddle. The Captain was having some trouble with his restive horse. Reining in his mount, the Colonel said to the Sergeant:

"Tell the Commandant I cleared out all the rubbish he'd collected in there. And tell him I'll give him two weeks in the guardhouse for the way he ran things here. As for the fellow in there now,transfer him to headquarters at once. Let the guard be in readiness."

"Very good, Pan Colonel," said the Sergeant and saluted.

Spurring on their horses, the Colonel and the Captain galloped back to the square where the parade was already coming to an end.

Pavel swung himself over another fence and stopped exhausted. He could go no farther. Those days cooped up in the stifling storeroom without food had sapped his strength.

Where should he go? Home was out of the question, and to go to the Bruzzhaks might bring disaster upon the whole family if anyone discovered him there.

He did not know what to do, and ran on again blindly, leaving behind the vegetable patches and back gardens at the edge of the town. Colliding heavily with a fence, he came to himself with a start and looked about him in amazement: there behind the tall fence was the forest warden's garden. So this was where his weary legs had brought him! He could have sworn that he had had no thought of coming this way. How then did he happen to be here? For that he could find no answer.