第 27 页

"Dear Brother Artem," wrote Pavel. "This is to let you know that I am alive although not altogether well. I got a bullet in my hip but I am getting better now. The doctor says the bone is uninjured. So don't worry about me, I'll be all right. I may get leave after I'm discharged from hospital and I'll come home for a while. I didn't manage to get to mother's. I joined the cavalry brigade commanded by Comrade Kotovsky, whom I'm sure you've heard about because he's famous for his bravery. I have never seen anyone like him before and I have the greatest respect for him. Has mother come home yet? If she has, give her my best love. Forgive me for all the

trouble I have caused you. Your brother Pavel.

"Artem, please go to the forest warden's and tell them about this letter."

Maria Yakovlevna shed many tears over Pavel's letter. The scatterbrained lad had not even given the address of his hospital.

Sergei had become a frequent visitor at the green railway coach down at the station bearing the sign: "Agitprop Div. Pol. Dept." In one of the compartments of the Agitation and Propaganda Coach, Ustinovich and Ignatieva had their office. The latter, with the inevitable cigarette between her lips, smiled knowingly whenever he appeared.

The Secretary of the Komsomol District Committee had grown quite friendly with Rita Ustinovich, and besides the bundles of books and newspapers, he carried away with him from the station a vague sense of happiness after every brief encounter with her.

Every day the open-air theatre of the Division Political Department drew big audiences of workers and Red Army men. The agit train of the Twelfth Army, swathed in bright coloured posters, stood on a siding, seething with activity twenty-four hours a day. A printing plant had been installed inside and newspapers, leaflets and proclamations poured out in a steady stream. The front was near at hand.

One evening Sergei chanced to drop in at the theatre and found Rita there with a group of Red Army men. Late that night, as he was seeing her home to the station where the Political Department staff was quartered, he blurted out: "Why do I always want to be seeing you, Comrade Rita?" And added: "It's so nice to be with you! After seeing you I always feel I could go on working without stopping."

Rita halted. "Now look here, Comrade Bruzzhak," she said, "let's agree here and now that you won't ever wax lyrical any more. I don't like it."

Sergei blushed like a reprimanded schoolboy.

"I didn't mean anything," he said, "I thought we were friends . . . I didn't say anything counter revolutionary, did I? Very well, Comrade Ustinovich, I shan't say another word!"

And leaving her with a hasty handshake he all but ran back to town.

Sergei did not go near the station for several days. When Ignatieva asked him to come he refused on the grounds that he was too busy. And indeed he had plenty to do.

One night someone fired at Comrade Shudik as he was going home through a street inhabited mainly by Poles who held managerial positions at the sugar refinery. The searches that followed brought to light weapons and documents belonging to a Pilsudski organisation known as the Strelets.

A meeting was held at the Revcom. Ustinovich, who was present, took Sergei aside and said in a calm voice: "So your philistine vanity was hurt, was it? You're letting personal matters interfere with your work? That won't do, Comrade."

And so Sergei resumed his visits to the green railway coach.

He attended a district conference and participated in the heated debates that lasted for two days.

On the third day he went off with the rest of the conference delegates to the forest beyond the river and spent a day and a night fighting bandits led by Zarudny, one of Petlyura's officers still at large.

On his return he went to see Ignatieva and found Ustinovich there. Afterwards he saw her home to the station and on parting held her hand tightly. She drew it away angrily. Again Sergei kept away from the agitprop coach for many days and avoided seeing Rita even on business. And when she would demand an explanation of his behaviour he would reply curtly: "What's the use of talking to you? You'll only accuse me of being a philistine or a traitor to the working class or something."

Trains carrying the Caucasian Red Banner Division pulled in at the station. Three swarthy-complexioned commanders came over to the Revcom. One of them, a tall slim man wearing a belt of chased silver, went straight up to Dolinnik and demanded one hundred cartloads of hay. "No argument now," he said shortly, "I've got to have that hay. My horses are dying."

And so Sergei was sent with two Red Army men to get hay. In one village they were attacked by a band of kulaks. The Red Army men were disarmed and beaten unmercifully.

Sergei got off lightly because of his youth. All three were carted back to town by people from the Poor Peasants'Committee.

An armed detachment was sent out to the village and the hay was delivered the following day.

Not wishing to alarm his family, Sergei stayed at Ignatieva's place until he recovered. Rita Ustinovich came to visit him there and for the first time she pressed Sergei's hand with a warmth and tenderness he himself would never have dared to show.

One hot afternoon Sergei dropped in at the agit coach to see Rita. He read her Pavel's letter and told her something about his friend. On his way out he threw over his shoulder: "I think I'll go to the woods and take a dip in the lake."

Rita looked up from her work. "Wait for me. I'll come with you."

The lake was as smooth and placid as a mirror. Its warm translucent water exuded an inviting freshness.

"Wait for me over by the road. I'm going in," Rita ordered him.

Sergei sat down on a boulder by the bridge and lifted his face to the sun. He could hear her splashing in the water behind him.

Presently through the trees he caught sight of Tonya Tumanova and Chuzhanin, the Military Commissar of the agit train, coming down the road arm-in-arm. Chuzhanin, in his well-made officer's uniform with its smart leather belt and numberless straps and leather shiny top-boots, cut a dashing figure. He was in earnest conversation with Tonya.

Sergei recognised Tonya as the girl who had brought him the note from Pavel. She too looked hard at him as they approached. She seemed to be trying to place him. When they came abreast of him Sergei took Pavel's last letter out of his pocket and went up to her.

"Just a moment, Comrade. I have a letter here which concerns you partly."

Pulling her hand free Tonya took the letter. The slip of paper trembled slightly in her hand as she read.

"Have you had any more news from him?" she asked, handing the letter back to Sergei.

"No," he replied.

At that moment the pebbles crunched under Rita's feet and Chuzhanin, who had been unaware of her presence, bent over and whispered to Tonya: "We'd better go."

But Rita's mocking, scornful voice stopped him.

"Comrade Chuzhanin! They've been looking for you over at the train all day."

Chuzhanin eyed her with dislike.

"Never mind," he said surlily. "They'll manage without me.

Rita watched Tonya and the Military Commissar go.

"It's high time that good-for-nothing was sent packing!" she observed dryly.

The forest murmured as the breeze stirred the mighty crowns of the oaks. A delicious freshness was wafted from the lake. Sergei decided to go in.

When he came back from his swim he found Rita sitting on a treetrunk not far from the road. They wandered, talking, into the depths of the woods. In a small glade with tall thick grass they paused to rest. It was very quiet in the forest. The oaks whispered to one another. Rita threw herself down on the soft grass and clasped her hands under her head. Her shapely legs in their old patched boots were hidden in the tall grass.

Sergei's eye chanced to fall on her feet. He noticed the neatly patched boots, then looked down at his own boot with the toe sticking out of a hole, and he laughed.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked.

Sergei pointed to his boot. "How are we going to fight in boots like these?"

Rita did not reply. She was chewing a blade of grass and her thoughts were obviously elsewhere.

"Chuzhanin is a poor Communist," she said at last. "All our political workers go about in rags but he thinks of nobody but himself. He does not belong in our Party. . .

. As for the front, the situation there is really very serious. Our country has a long and bitter fight before it." She paused,then added, "We shall have to fight with both words and rifles, Sergei. Have you heard about the Central Committee's decision to draft one-fourth of the Komsomol into the army? If you ask me,Sergei, we shan't be here long."

Listening to her, Sergei was surprised to detect a new note in her voice. With her black limpideyes upon him, he was ready to throw discretion to the winds and tell her that her eyes were like mirrors, but he checked himself in time.

Rita raised herself on her elbow. "Where's your revolver?"

Sergei fingered his belt ruefully. "That kulak band took it away from me."

Rita put her hand into the pocket of her tunic and brought out a gleaming automatic pistol.

"See that oak, Sergei?" she pointed the muzzle at a furrowed trunk about twenty-five paces from where they lay. And raising the weapon to the level of her eyes she fired almost without taking aim. The splintered bark showered down.

"See?" she said much pleased with herself and fired again. And again the bark splintered and fell in the grass.

"Here," she handed him the weapon with a mocking smile. "Now let's see what you can do."

Sergei muffed one out of three shots. Rita smiled condescendingly. "I thought you'd do worse."

She put down the pistol and lay down on the grass. Her tunic stretched tightly over her firm breasts.

"Sergei," she said softly. "Come here."

He moved closer.

"Look at the sky. See how blue it is. Your eyes are that colour. And that's bad. They ought to be grey, like steel. Blue is much too soft a colour."

And suddenly clasping his blond head, she kissed him passionately on the lips.

Two months passed. Autumn arrived.

Night crept up stealthily, enveloping the trees in its dark shroud. The telegraphist at Division Headquarters bent over his apparatus which was ticking out Morse and, gathering up the long narrow ribbon that wound itself snakily beneath his fingers, rapidly translated the dots and dashes into words and phrases:

"Chief of Staff First Division Copy to Chairman Revcom Shepetovka. Evacuate all official institutions in town within ten hours after receipt of this wire. Leave one battalion in town at disposal of commander of X. regiment in command sector of front. Division Headquarters,Political Department, all military institutions to be moved to Baranchev station. Report execution of order to Division Commander.

"(Signed)"

Ten minutes later a motorcycle was hurtling through the slumbering streets of the town, its headlight stabbing the darkness. It stopped, spluttering, outside the gates of the Revcom. The rider hurried inside and handed the telegram to the chairman Dolinnik. At once the place was seething with activity. The Special Duty Company lined up. An hour later carts loaded with Revcom property were rumbling through the town to the Podolsk Station where it was loaded into railway cars.

When he learned the contents of the telegram Sergei ran out after the motorcyclist.

"Can you give me a lift to the station, Comrade?" he asked the rider.

"Climb on behind, but mind you hold on fast."

A dozen paces from the agit coach which had already been attached to the train Sergei saw Rita.

He seized her by the shoulders and, conscious that he was about to lose something that had become very dear to him, he whispered: "Good-bye, Rita, dear comrade! We'll meet again sometime. Don't forget me."

To his horror he felt the tears choking him. He must go at once. Not trusting himself to speak, he wrung her hand until it hurt.

Morning found the town and station desolate and deserted. The last train had blown its whistle as if in farewell and pulled out, and now the rearguard battalion which had been left behind took up positions on either side of the tracks.

Yellow leaves fluttered down from the trees leaving the branches bare. The wind caught the fallen leaves and sent them rustling along the paths.

Sergei in a Red Army greatcoat, with canvas cartridge belts slung over his shoulders, occupied the crossing opposite the sugar refinery with a dozen Red Army men. The Poles were approaching.

Avtonom Petrovich knocked at the door of his neighbour Gerasim Leontievich. The latter, not yet dressed, poked his head out of the door.

"What's up?"

Avtonom Petrovich pointed to the Red Army men moving down the street, and winked: "They're

clearing out."

Gerasim Leontievich looked at him with a worried air: "What sort of emblem do the Poles have,do you know?"

"A single-headed eagle, I believe."

"Where the devil can you find one?"

Avtonom Petrovich scratched his head in consternation.

"It's all right for them," he said after a moment or two of reflection. "They just get up and go. But you have to worry your head about getting in right with the new authorities."

The rattle of a machine gun tore into the silence. An engine whistle sounded from the station and a gun boomed from the same quarter. A heavy shell bored its way high into the air with a loud whine and fell on the road beyond the refinery, enveloping the roadside shrubs in a cloud of bluesmoke. Silent and grim, the retreating Red Army troops marched through the street, turning frequently to look back as they went.

A tear rolled down Sergei's cheek. Quickly he wiped it away, glancing furtively at his comrades to make sure that no one had seen it. Beside Sergei marched Antek Klopotowski, a lanky sawmill worker. His finger rested on the trigger of his rifle. Antek was gloomy and preoccupied. His eyes met Sergei's, and he burst out:

"They'll come down hard on our folks, especially mine because we're Poles. You, a Pole, they'll say, opposing the Polish Legion. They're sure to kick my old man out of the sawmill and flog him.