第 42 页

"The gruff simplicity of Zhukhrai is far more to my taste than all Olshinsky's polished European manners.

"News from Boyarka comes in the form of brief reports. Each day another two hundred yards laid.

They are laying the sleepers straight on the frozen earth, hewing out shallow beds for them. There are only two hundred and forty men on the job. Half of the replacements deserted. The conditions there are truly frightful. I can't imagine how they will be able to carry on in the frost. Dubava has been gone a week now. They were only able to repair five of the eight engines at Pushcha-Voditsa, there were not enough parts for the others.

"Dmitri has had criminal charges laid against him by the tramcar authorities. He and his brigade held up all the flatcars belonging to the tram system running to town from Pushcha-Voditsa, cleared off the passengers and loaded the cars with rails for the Boyarka line. They brought 19 carloads of rails along the tram tracks to the railway station in town. The tram crews were only too glad to help.

"The Solomenka Komsomols still in town worked all night loading the rails onto railway cars and Dmitri and his brigade went off with them to Boyarka.

"Akim refused to have Dubava's action taken up at the Komsomol Bureau. Dmitri has told us about the outrageous bureaucracy and red tape in the tramcar administration. They flatly refused to give more than two cars for the job.

"Tufta, however, privately reprimanded Dubava. 'It's time to drop these partisan tactics,' he said, 'or you'll find yourself in jail before you know it. Surely you could have come to some agreement without resorting to force of arms?'

"I had never seen Dubava so furious.

" 'Why didn't you try talking to them yourself, you rotten pen-pusher?' he stormed. 'All you can do is sit here warming your chair and wagging your tongue. How do you think I could go back to Boyarka without those rails? Instead of hanging around here and getting in everybody's hair you ought to be sent out there to do some useful work. Tokarev would knock some sense into you!'

Dmitri roared so loudly he could be heard all over the building.

"Tufta wrote a complaint against Dubava, but Akim asked me to leave the room and talked to him alone for about ten minutes, after which Tufta stamped out red and fuming."

December 3

"The Gubernia Committee has received another complaint, this time from the Transport Cheka. It appears that Pankratov, Okunev and several other comrades went to Motovilovka station and removed all the doors and window frames from the empty buildings. When they were loading all this onto a freight train the station Cheka man tried to arrest them. They disarmed him, emptied his revolver and returned it to him only after the train was in motion. They got away with the doors and window frames.

"Tokarev is charged by the supply department of the railway for taking twenty poods of nails from the Boyarka railway stocks. He gave the nails to the peasants in payment for their help in hauling the timber they are using for sleepers.

"I spoke to Comrade Zhukhrai about all these complaints. But he only laughed. 'We'll take care of all that,' he said.

"The situation at the railway job is very tense and now every day is precious. We have to bring pressure to bear here for every trifle. Every now and then we have to summon hinderers to the Gubernia Committee. And over at the job the boys are overriding all formalities more and more often.

"Olshinsky has brought me a little electric stove. Olga Yureneva and I warm our hands over it, but it doesn't make the room any warmer. I wonder how those men in the woods are faring this bitter cold night? Olga tells me that it is so cold in the hospital that the patients shiver under their blankets. The place is heated only once in two days.

"No, Comrade Olshinsky, a tragedy at the front is a tragedy in the rear too!"

December 4

"It snowed all night. From Boyarka they write that everything is snowbound and they have had to stop working to clear the track. Today the Gubernia Committee passed a decision that the first section of the railway, up to where the wood was being cut, is to be ready not later than January 1,1922. When this decision reached Boyarka, Tokarev is said to have remarked: 'We'll do it, if we don't croak by then.'

"I hear nothing at all about Korchagin. I'm rather surprised that he hasn't been mixed up in something like the Pankratov 'case'. I still don't understand why he avoids me."

December 5

"Yesterday there was a bandit raid on the railway job."

The horses trod warily in the soft, yielding snow. Now and then a twig hidden under the snow would snap under a hoof and the horse would snort and shy, but a sharp rap over its laid-back ears would send it galloping after the others.

Some dozen horsemen crossed the hilly ridge beyond which lay a strip of dark earth not yet blanketed with snow. Here the riders reined in their horses. There was a faint clink as stirrup met stirrup. The leader's stallion, its coat glossy with sweat after the long run, shook itself noisily.

"There's a hell of a lot of them here," said the head rider in Ukrainian. "But we'll soon put the fear of God into 'em. The ataman said the bastards were to be chased out of here by tomorrow. They're getting too damned close to the firewood."

They rode up to the station single file, hugging the sides of the narrow-gauge line. In sight of the clearing near the old school building they slowed down to a walking pace and came to a halt behind the trees, not venturing out into the open.

A volley rent the silence of the night. A layer of snow dropped squirrel-like off the branch of a birch that gleamed like silver in the light of the moon. Gunfire flashed among the trees, bullets bored into crumbling plaster and there was a tinkling of broken glass as Pan-kratov's window panes were smashed to smithereens.

The men on the concrete floor leapt up at the shooting only to drop back again on top of one another when the lethal insects began to fly about the room.

"Where you going?" Dubava seized Pavel by the coat tail.

"Outside."

"Get down, you idiot!" Dmitri hissed. "They'll get you the moment you stick your head out."

They lay side by side next to the door. Dubava was flattened against the floor, with his revolver pointing toward the door. Pavel sat on his haunches nervously fingering the drum of his revolver.

There were five rounds in it — one chamber was empty. He turned the cylinder another notch.

The shooting ceased suddenly. The silence that followed was weighted with tension.

"All those who have weapons come this way," Dubava commanded in a hoarse whisper.

Pavel opened the door cautiously. The clearing was deserted. Snowflakes were falling softly.

In the forest ten horsemen were whipping their mounts into a gallop.

The next day a trolley arrived from town. Zhukhrai and Akim alighted and were met by Tokarev and Kholyava. A machine-gun, several crates of cartridge belts and two dozen rifles were unloaded onto the platform.

They hurried over to the railway line. The tails of Fyodor's long greatcoat trailed a zigzag pattern in the snow behind him. He still walked with the clumsy rolling gait of the seaman, as if he were pacing the pitching deck of a destroyer. Long-legged Akim walked in step with Fyodor, but Tokarev had to break into a trot now and again to keep up with them.

"The bandit raid is not our worst trouble. There's a nasty rise in the ground right in the path of the line. Just our bad luck. It'll mean a lot of extra digging."

The old man stopped, turned his back to the wind and lit a cigarette, cupping his hand over the match. After blowing out a few puffs of smoke he hurried to catch up with the others. Akim had stopped to wait for him, but Zhukhrai strode on ahead.

"Do you think you'll be able to finish the line on time?" Akim asked Tokarev.

Tokarev paused a while before replying.

"Well, it's like this, son," he said at last. "Generally speaking it can't be done. But it's got to be done, so there you are."

They caught up with Fyodor and continued abreast.

"Here's how it is," Tokarev began earnestly. "Only two of us here, Patoshkin and I, know that it's impossible to build a line under these conditions, with the scanty equipment and labour power we have. But all the others, every last man of them, know that the line has got to be built at all costs.

So you see that's why I said if we don't freeze to death, it'll be done. Judge for yourselves: we've been digging here for over a month, the fourth batch of replacements are due for a rest, but the main body of workers have been on the job all the time. It's only their youth that keeps them going. But half of them are badly chilled. Makes your heart bleed to look at them. These lads are worth their weight in gold. But this cursed hole will be the death of more than one of them."

The ready narrow-gauge track came to an end a kilometre from the station. Beyond that, for a stretch of about one and a half kilometres, the levelled roadbed was covered by what looked like a log palisade blown down by wind — these were the sleepers, all firmly planted in place. And beyond them, all the way to the rise, there was only a level road.

Pankratov's building crew No. 1 was working at this section. Forty men were laying ties, while a carroty-bearded peasant wearing a new pair of bast shoes was unhurriedly emptying a load of logs on the roadbed. Several more sleds were being unloaded a little farther away. Two long iron bars lay on the ground — these were used to level up the sleepers properly. Axes, crowbars and shovels were all used to tamp down the ballast.

Laying railway sleepers is slow, laborious work. The sleepers must be firmly imbedded in the earth so that the rails press evenly on each of them.

Only one man in the group knew the technique of laying sleepers. That was Talya's father, the line foreman Lagutin, a man of 54 with a pitch-black beard parted in the middle and not a grey hair in his head. He had worked at Boyarka since the beginning of the job, sharing all the hardships with the younger men and had earned the respect of the whole detachment. Although he was not a Party member, Lagutin invariably held a place of honour at all Party conferences. He was very proud of this and had given his word not to leave until the job was finished.

"How can I leave you to carry on by yourselves? Something's bound to go wrong without an experienced man to keep an eye on things. When it comes to that, I've hammered in more of these here sleepers up and down the country in my time than I can remember," he would say goodhumouredly each time the question of replacements came up. And so he stayed.

Patoshkin saw that Lagutin knew his job and rarely inspected his sector. When Tokarev with Akim and Zhukhrai came over to where they were working, Pankratov, flushed and perspiring with exertion, was hewing out a hollow for a sleeper. Akim hardly recognised the young stevedore. Pankratov had lost much weight, his broad cheekbones protruded sharply in his grimy face which was sallow and sunken.

"Well, well," he said as he gave Akim a hot, damp hand, "the big chiefs have come!"

The ringing of spades ceased. Akim surveyed the pale worn faces of the men around him. Their coats and jackets lay in a careless heap on the snow.

After a brief talk with Lagutin, Tokarev took the party to the excavation site, inviting Pankratov to join them. The stevedore walked alongside Zhukhrai.

"Tell me, Pankratov, what happened at Motovilovka? Don't you think you overdid it disarming that Cheka man?" Fyodor asked the taciturn stevedore sternly.

Pankratov grinned sheepishly.

"It was all done by mutual consent," he explained. "He asked us to disarm him. He's a good lad.

When we explained what it was all about, he says: 'I see your difficulty, boys, but I haven't the right to let you take those windows and doors away. We have orders from Comrade Dzerzhinsky to put a stop to the plunder of railway property. The station master here has his knife in me. He's stealing stuff, the bastard, and I'm in his way. If I let you get away with it he's bound to report me and I'll be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal. But you can disarm me and clear off. And if the station master doesn't report the matter that will be the end of it.' So that's what we did. After all, we weren't taking those doors and windows for ourselves, were we?"

Noting the twinkle in Zhukhrai's eye, he went on: "You can punish us for it if you want to, but don't be hard on that lad, Comrade Zhukhrai."

"That's all over and done with. But see there's no more of that in the future, it's bad for discipline.

We are strong enough now to smash bureaucracy in an organised way. Now let's talk about something more important." And Fyodor proceeded to inquire about the details of the bandit raid.

About four and a half kilometres from Boyarka station a group of men were digging furiously into a rise in the ground that stood in the path of the line. Seven men armed with all the weapons the detachment possessed — Kholyava's rifle and the revolvers belonging to Korchagin, Pankratov, Dubava and Khomutov — stood on guard.

Patoshkin was sitting on top of the rise jotting down figures in his notebook. He was the only engineer on the job. Vakulenko, the technician, preferring to stand trial for desertion rather than death at a bandit's hand, had fled that morning.

"It will take two weeks to clear this hill out of the way. The ground's frozen hard," Patoshkin remarked in a low voice to the gloomy Khomutov standing beside him.

"We've been given twenty-five days to finish the whole line, and you're figuring fifteen for this,"

Khomutov growled, chewing the tip of his moustache.

"Can't be done, I'm afraid. Of course, I've never built anything before under such conditions and with workers like these. I may be mistaken. As a matter of fact I have been mistaken twice before."

At that moment Zhukhrai, Akim and Pankratov were seen approaching the slope.

"Look, who's that down there?" cried Pyotr Trofimov, a young mechanic from the railway workshops in an old sweater torn at the elbows. He nudged Korchagin and pointed to the newcomers. The next moment Korchagin, spade in hands, was dashing down the hill. His eyes under the peak of his helmet smiled a warm greeting and Fyodor lingered over their handshake.