第 30 页

Puzyrevsky puffed on his cigarette, waiting for the discussion to begin.

"A grim story that," said Sereda, breaking the silence. "I suppose there are people like that in the world. It's not many who could stand what he did. But when a man has an idea to fight for he can stand anything," Sereda was-visibly moved. The book had made a deep impression on him.

"If I could lay my hands on that priest who tried to shove a cross down his throat I'd finish the swine off on the spot!" Andryusha Fomichev, a shoemaker's apprentice from Belaya Tserkov, cried wrathfully.

"A man doesn't mind dying if he has something to die for," Androshchuk, pushing one of the messtins closer to the, fire with a stick, said in a tone of conviction.

"That's what gives a man strength. You can die without regrets if you know you're in the right. That's how heroes are made.

I knew a lad once, Poraika was his name. When the Whites cornered him in Odessa, he tackled a whole platoon singlehanded and before they could get at him with their bayonets he blew himself and the whole lot of them up with a grenade. And he wasn't anything much to look at. Not the kind of a fellow you read about in books, though he'd be well worth writing about. There's plenty of fine lads to be found among our kind."

He stirred the contents of the messtin with a spoon, tasted it with pursed-up lips and continued:

"There are some who die a dog's death, a mean, dishonourable death. I'll tell you something that happened during the fighting at Izyaslav. That's an old town on the Goryn River built back in the time of the princes. There was a Polish church there, built like a fortress. Well, we entered that town and advanced single file along the crooked alleys. A company of Letts were holding our right flank. When we get to the highway what do we see but three saddled horses tied to the fence of one of the houses. Aha, we think, here's where we bag some Poles! About ten of us rushed into the yard. In front of us ran the commander of that Lettish company, waving his Mauser.

"The front door was open and we ran in. But instead of Poles we found our own men in there. A mounted patrol it was. They'd got in ahead of us. It wasn't a pretty sight we laid eyes on there.

They were abusing a woman, the wife of the Polish officer who lived there. When the Lett saw what was going on he shouted something in his own language. His men grabbed the three and dragged them outside. There were only two of us Russians, the rest were Letts. Their commander was a man by the name of Bredis. I don't understand their language but I could see he'd given orders to finish those fellows off. They're a tough lot those Letts, unflinching. They dragged those three out to the stables. I could see their goose was cooked. One of them, a great hulking fellow with a mug that just asked for a brick, was kicking and struggling for all he was worth. They couldn't put him up against the wall just because of a wench, he yelped. The others were begging for mercy too.

"I broke out into a cold sweat. I ran over to Bredis and said: 'Comrade Company Commander,' I said, 'let the tribunal try them. What do you want to dirty your hands with their blood for? The fighting isn't over in the town and here we are wasting time with this here scum.' He turned on me with eyes blazing like a tiger's. Believe me, I was sorry I spoke. He points his gun at me. I've been fighting for seven years but I admit I was properly scared that minute. I see he's ready to shoot first and ask questions afterwards. He yells at me in bad Russian so I could hardly understand what he was saying: 'Our banner is dyed with our blood,' he says. 'These men are a disgrace to the whole army. The penalty for banditry is death.'

"I couldn't stand it any more and I ran out of that yard into the street as fast as I could and behind me I heard them shooting. I knew those three were done for. By the time we got back to the others the town was already ours.

"That's what I mean by a dog's death, the way those fellows died. The patrol was one of those that'd joined us at Melitopol. They'd been with Makhno at one time.

Riffraff, that's what they were."

Androshchuk drew his messtin toward him and proceeded to untie his bread bag.

"Yes, you find scum like that on our side too sometimes. You can't account for everyone. On the face of it they're all for the revolution. And through them we all get a bad name. But that was a nasty business, I tell you. I shan't forget it so soon," he wound up, sipping his tea.

Night was well advanced by the time the camp was asleep. Sereda's whistling snores could be heard in the silence. Puzyrevsky slept with his head resting on the saddle.

Kramer, the political instructor, sat scribbling in his notebook.

Returning the next day from a scouting detail, Pavel tethered his horse to a tree and called over Kramer, who had just finished drinking tea.

"Look, Kramer, what would you say if I switched over to the First Cavalry Army? There's going to be big doings there by the looks of it. They're not being massed in such numbers just for fun,are they? And we here won't be seeing much of it."

Kramer looked at him in surprise.

"Switch over? Do you think you can change units in the army the way you change seats in a cinema?"

"But what difference does it make where a man fights?" Pavel interposed. "I'm not deserting to the rear, am I?"

But Kramer was categorically opposed to the idea.

"What about discipline? You're not a bad youngster, Pavel, on the whole, but in some things you're a bit of an anarchist. You think you can do as you please? You forget, my lad, that the Party and the Komsomol are founded on iron discipline. The Party must come first. And each one of us must be where he is most needed and not where he wants to be. Puzyrevsky turned down your application for a transfer, didn't he? Well, there's your answer."

Kramer spoke with such agitation that he was seized with a fit of coughing. This tall, gaunt man was a printer by profession and the lead dust had lodged itself firmly in his lungs and often a hectic flush would appear on his waxen cheeks.

When he had calmed down, Pavel said in a low but firm voice:

"All that is quite correct but I'm going over to the Budyonny army just the same."

The next evening Pavel was missing at the campfire.

In the neighbouring village a group of Budyonny cavalrymen had formed a wide circle on a hill outside the schoolhouse. One giant of a fellow, seated on the back of a machine-gun carrier, his cap pushed to the back of his head, was playing an accordion. The instrument wailed and blared under his inept fingers like a thing in torment, confusing the dashing cavalryman in unbelievably wide red riding breeches who was dancing a mad hopak in the centre of the ring.

Eager-eyed village lads and lasses clambered onto the gun carrier and fences to watch the antics of these troopers whose brigade had just entered their village.

"Go it, Toptalo! Kick up the earth! Ekh, that's the stuff, brother! Come on there, you with the accordion, make it hot!"

But the player's huge fingers that could bend an iron horseshoe with the utmost ease sprawled clumsily over the keys.

"Too bad Makhno got Afanasi Kulyabko," remarked one bronzed cavalryman regretfully. "That lad was a first-class hand at the accordion. He rode on the right flank of our squadron. Too bad he was killed. A good soldier, and the best accordion player we ever had!"

Pavel, who was standing in the circle, overheard this last remark. He pushed his way over to the machine-gun carrier and laid his hand on the accordion bellows. The music subsided.

"What d'you want?" the accordionist demanded with a scowl.

Toptalo stopped short and an angry murmur rose from the crowd: "What's the trouble there?"

Pavel reached out for the instrument. "Let's have a try," he said.

The Budyonny cavalryman looked at the Red infantryman with some mistrust and reluctantly slipped the accordion strap off his shoulder.

With an accustomed gesture Pavel laid the instrument on his knee, spread the sinuous bellows out fanwise and let go with a rollicking melody that poured forth with all the lusty vigour of which the accordion is capable:

Ekh, little apple,

Whither away?

Get copped by the Cheka

And that's where you stay!

Toptalo caught up the familiar tune and swinging his arms like some great bird he swept into thering, executing the most incredible twists and turns, and slapping himself smartly on the thighs,knees, head, forehead, the shoe soles, and finally on the mouth in time with the music.

Faster and faster played the accordion in a mad intoxicating rhythm, and Toptalo, kicking his legs out wildly, spun around the circle like a top until he was quite out of breath.

On June 5, 1920, after a few brief but furious encounters Budyonny's First Cavalry Army broke through the Polish front between the Third and Fourth Polish armies, smashed a cavalry brigade under General Sawicki en route and swept on toward Ruzhiny.

The Polish command hastily formed a striking force and threw it into the breach. Five tanks were rushed from Pogrebishche Station to the scene of the fighting. But the Cavalry Army bypassed Zarudnitsy from where the Poles planned to strike and came out in the Polish rear.

General Kornicki's Cavalry Division was dispatched in pursuit of the First Cavalry Army with orders to strike at the rear of the force, which the Polish command believed to be headed for Kazatin, one of the most important strategic points in the Polish rear. This move, however, did not improve the position of the Poles.

Although they succeeded in closing the breach and cutting off the Cavalry Army, the presence of a strong mounted force behind their lines which threatened to destroy their rear bases and swoop down on their army group at Kiev, was far from reassuring. As they advanced, the Red cavalry divisions destroyed small railway bridges and tore up railway track to hamper the Polish retreat. On learning from prisoners that the Poles had an army headquarters in Zhitomir (actually the headquarters of the whole front was located there), the commander of the First Cavalry Army decided to take Zhitomir and Berdichev, both important railway junctions and administrative centres. At dawn on June 7 the Fourth Cavalry Division was already on its way at full speed to Zhitomir.

Korchagin now rode on the right flank of one of the squadrons in place of Kulyabko, the lamented accordionist. He had been enrolled in the squadron on the collective request of the men, who had refused to part with such an excellent accordion player.

Without checking their foam-flecked horses they fanned out at Zhitomir and bore down on the city with naked steel flashing in the sun.

The earth groaned under the pounding hoofs, the mounts breathed hoarsely, and the men rose in their stirrups.

Underfoot the ground sped past and ahead the large city with its gardens and parks hurried to meet the division. The mounted avalanche flashed by the gardens and poured into the centre of the city,and the air was rent by a fear-inspiring battle-cry as inexorable as death itself.

The Poles were so stunned that they offered little resistance. The local garrison was crushed.

Bending low over the neck of his mount, Pavel Korchagin sped along side by side with Toptalo astride his thin-shanked black. Pavel saw the dashing cavalryman cut down with an unerring blow a Polish legionary before the man had time to raise his rifle to his shoulder.

The iron-shod hoofs grated on the paving stones as they careered down the street. Then at an intersection they found themselves face to face with a machine gun planted in the very middle of the road and three men in blue uniforms and rectangular Polish caps bending over it. There was also a fourth, with coils of gold braid on his collar, who levelled a Mauser at the mounted men.

Neither Toptalo nor Pavel could check their horses and they galloped toward the machine gun,straight into the jaws of death. The officer fired at Korchagin, but missed.

The bullet whanged past Pavel's cheek, and the next moment the Lieutenant had struck his head against the paving stones and was lying limp on his back, thrown off his feet by the horse's onrush.

That very moment the machine gun spat out in savage frenzy, and stung by a dozen bullets,Toptalo and his black crumpled to the ground.

Pavel's mount reared up on its hind legs, snorting with terror, and leapt with its rider over the prone bodies to the men at the machine gun. His sabre described a flashing arc in the air and sank into the blue rectangle of one of the army caps.

Again the sabre flashed upwards ready to descend upon a second head, but the frantic horse leapt aside.

Like a mountain torrent the squadron poured into the streets and scores of sabres flashed in the air.

The long narrow corridors of the prison echoed with cries.

The cells packed with gaunt, hollow-eyed men and women were in a turmoil. They could hear the battle raging in the town—could this mean liberation? Could it be that this force that had swept suddenly into the town had come to set them free?

The shooting reached the prison yard. Men came running down the corridors. And then the cherished, long-awaited words: "You are free, Comrades!"

Pavel ran to a locked door with a tiny window, from which stared dozens of pairs of eyes, and brought his rifle butt down fiercely against the lock again and again.

"Wait, let me crack it with a bomb," cried Mironov. He pushed Pavel aside and produced a hand grenade from a pocket.

Platoon commander Tsygarchenko tore the grenade from his hands.

"Stop, you fool, are you mad! They'll bring the keys in a jiffy. What we can't break down we'll open with keys."

The prison guards were already being led down the corridor, prodded along with revolvers, when the ragged and unwashed prisoners, wild with joy, poured out of their cells.

Throwing a cell door wide open, Pavel ran inside.

"Comrades, you're free! We're Budyonny's men—our division's taken the town!"

A woman ran weeping to Pavel and throwing her arms around him broke into sobs.

The liberation of five thousand and seventy-one Bolsheviks and of two thousand Red Army political workers, whom the Polish Whites had driven into these stone dungeons to await shooting or the gallows, was more important to the division's fighting men than all the trophies they had captured, a greater reward than victory itself. For seven thousand revolutionaries the impenetrable gloom of night had been supplanted by the bright sun of a hot June day.