第 5 页

Eagerly they drank in the new words: liberty, equality and fraternity.

Turbulent days followed, days full of excitement and jubilation. Then a lull set in, and the red flag flying over the town hall where the Mensheviks and adherents of the Bund had ensconced themselves was the sole reminder of the change that had taken place. Everything else remained as before.

Towards the end of the winter a regiment of the cavalry guards was billeted in the town. In the mornings they sallied out in squadrons to hunt for deserters from the South-Western Front at the railway station.

The troopers were great, beefy fellows with well-fed faces. Most of their officers were counts and princes; they wore golden shoulder straps and silver piping on their breeches, just as they had in the tsar's time—for all the world as if there had been no revolution.

For Pavel, Klimka and Sergei Bruzzhak nothing had changed. The bosses were still there. It was not until November that something out of the ordinary began to happen. People of a new kind had appeared at the station and were beginning to stir things up; a steadily increasing number of them were soldiers from the firing lines and they bore the strange name of "Bolsheviks".

Where that resounding, weighty name came from no one knew.

The guardsmen found it increasingly hard to detain the deserters. The crackle of rifles and the splintering of glass was heard more and more often down at the station. The men came from the front in groups and when stopped they fought back with bayonets. In the beginning of December they began pouring in by trainloads.

The guardsmen came down in force to the station with the intention of holding the soldiers, but they found themselves raked by machine-gun fire. The men who poured out of the railway carriages were inured to death.

The grey-coated frontliners drove the guards back into the town and then returned to the station to continue on their way, trainload after trainload.

One day in the spring of nineteen eighteen, three chums on their way from Sergei Bruzzhak's where they had been playing cards dropped into the Korchagins' garden and threw themselves on the grass. They were bored. All the customary occupations had begun to pall, and they were beginning to rack their brains for some more exciting way to spend the day when they heard the clatter of horses' hoofs behind them and saw a horseman come galloping down the road. With one bound the horse cleared the ditch between the road and the low garden fence and the rider waved his whip at Pavel and Klim. "Hi there, my lads, come over here!" Pavel and Klim sprang to their feet and ran to the fence. The rider was covered with dust; it had settled in a heavy grey Layer on the cap which he wore pushed to the back of his head, and on his khaki tunic and breeches. A revolver and two German grenades dangled from his heavy soldier's belt.

"Can you get me a drink of water, boys?" the horseman asked them. While Pavel dashed off into the house for the water, he turned to Sergei who was staring at him. "Tell me, boy, who's in authority in your town?"

Sergei breathlessly related all the local news to the newcomer.

"There's been nobody in authority for two weeks. The homeguard's the government now. All the inhabitants take turns patrolling the town at night. And who might you be?" Sergei asked in his turn.

"Now, now—if you know too much you'll get old too soon," the horseman smiled.

Pavel ran out of the house carrying a mug of water. The rider thirstily emptied the mug at one gulp and handed it back to Pavel. Then jerking the reins he started off at a gallop, heading for the pine woods. "Who was that?" Pavel asked Klim. "How do I know?" the latter replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"Looks like the authorities are going to be changed again. That's why the Leszczinskis left yesterday. And if the rich are on the run that means the partisans are coming," declared Sergei, settling the political question firmly and with an air of finality.

The logic of this was so convincing that both Pavel and Klim agreed with him at once.

Before the boys had finished discussing the question a clatter of hoofs from the highway sent all three rushing back to the fence.

Over by the forest warden's cottage, which was barely visible among the trees, they saw men and carts emerging from the woods, and nearer still on the highway a party of fifteen or so mounted men with rifles across their pommels. At the head of the horsemen rode an elderly man in khaki jacket and officer's belt with field glasses slung on his chest, and beside him the man the boys had just spoken to. The elderly man wore a red ribbon on his breast.

"What did I tell you?" Sergei nudged Pavel in the ribs. "See the red ribbon? Partisans. I'll be damned if they aren't partisans. . . ." And whooping with joy he leapt over the fence into the street.

The others followed suit and all three stood by the roadside gazing at the approaching horsemen.

When the riders were quite close the man whom the boys had met before nodded to them, and pointing to the Leszczinski house with his whip asked:

"Who lives over there?"

Pavel paced alongside trying to keep abreast the rider.

"Leszczinski the lawyer. He ran away yesterday. Scared of you most likely. . . ."

"How do you know who we are?" the elderly man asked, smiling.

"What about that?" Pavel pointed to the ribbon. "Anybody can tell. . . ."

People poured into the street to stare with curiosity at the detachment entering the town. Our three young friends too stood watching the dusty, exhausted Red Guards go by. And when the detachment's lone cannon and the carts with machine guns clattered over the cobblestones the boys trailed after the partisans, and did not go home until after the unit had halted in the centre of the town and the billeting began.

That evening four men sat around the massive carved-legged table in the spacious Leszczinski parlour: detachment commander Comrade Bulgakov, an elderly man whose hair was touched with grey, and three members of the unit's commanding personnel.

Bulgakov had spread out a map of the gubernia on the table and was now running his finger over it.

"You say we ought to put up a stand here, Comrade Yermachenko," he said, addressing a man with broad features and prominent teeth, "but I think we must move out in the morning. Better still if we could get going during the night, but the men are in need of a rest. Our task is to withdraw to Kazatin before the Germans get there. To resist with the strength we have would be ridiculous.

One gun with thirty rounds of ammunition, two hundred infantry and sixty cavalry. A formidable force, isn't it, when the Germans are advancing in an avalanche of steel. We cannot put up a fight until we join up with other withdrawing Red units. Besides, Comrades, we must remember that apart from the Germans there'll be numerous counter-revolutionary bands of all kinds to deal with en route. I propose that we withdraw in the morning after first blowing up the railway bridge beyond the station. It'll take the Germans two or three days to repair it and in the meantime their advance along the railway will be held up. What do you think, Comrades? We must decide. . ." he turned to the others around the table.

Struzhkov, who sat diagonally across from Bulgakov, sucked in his lips and looked first at the map and then at Bulgakov.

"I agree with Bulgakov," he said finally.

The youngest of the men, who was dressed in a worker's blouse, nodded.

"Bulgakov's right," he said.

But Yermachenko, the man who had spoken with the boys earlier in the day, shook his head.

"What the devil did we get the detachment together for? To retreat from the Germans without putting up a fight? As I see it, we've got to have it out with them here. I'm sick and tired of running. If it was up to me, I'd fight them here without fail. . . ." Pushing his chair back sharply, he rose and began pacing the room.

Bulgakov looked at him with disapproval.

"We must use our heads, Yermachenko. We can't throw our men into a battle that is bound to end in defeat and destruction Besides it's ridiculous. There's a whole division with heavy artillery and armoured cars just behind us. . . . This is no time for schoolboy heroics, Comrade Yermachenko. . . ." Turning to the others, he continued: "So it's decided, we evacuate tomorrow morning. . . . Now for the next question, liaison," Bulgakov proceeded. "Since we are the last to leave, it's our job to organise work in the German rear. This is a big railway junction and there are two stations in the town. We must see to it that there is a reliable comrade to carry on the work on the railway. We'll have to decide here whom to leave behind to get the work going. Have you anyone in mind?"

"I think the sailor Fyodor Zhukhrai ought to remain," Yermachenko said, moving up to the table.

"In the first place he's a local man. Secondly, he's a fitter and mechanic and can get himself a job at the station. Nobody's seen Fyodor with our etachment—he won't get here until tonight. He's got a good head on his shoulders and he'll get things going properly. I think he's the best man for the job."

Bulgakov nodded.

"I agree with you, Yermachenko. No objections, Comrades?" he turned to the others. "None. Then the matter is settled. We'll leave Zhukhrai some money and the credentials he'll need for his work. . . . Now for the third and last question, Comrades. About the arms stored here in the town.

There's quite a stock of rifles, twenty thousand of them, left over from the tsarist war and forgotten by everybody. They are piled up in a peasant's shed. I have this from the owner of the shed who happens to be anxious to get rid of them. We are not going to leave them to the Germans; in my opinion we ought to burn them, and at once, so as to have it over and done with by morning. The only trouble is that the fire might spread to the surrounding cottages. It's on the fringes of the town where the poor peasants live."

Struzhkov stirred in his chair. He was a solidly built man whose unshaven face had not seen a razor for some time.

"Why burn the rifles? Better distribute them among the population."

Bulgakov turned quickly to face him.

"Distribute them, you say?"

"A splendid idea!" Yermachenko responded enthusiastically. "Give them to the workers and anyone else who wants them. At least there will be something to hit back with when the Germans make life impossible. They're bound to do their worst. And when things come to a head, the men will be able to take up arms. Struzhkov's right: the rifles must be distributed. Wouldn't be a bad thing to take some to the villages too; the peasants will hide them away, and when the Germans begin to requisition everything the rifles are sure to come in handy."

Bulgakov laughed.

"That's all right, but the Germans are sure to order all arms turned in and everybody will obey."

"Not everybody," Yermachenko objected. "Some will but others won't."

Bulgakov looked questioningly at the men around the table.

"I'm for distributing the rifles," the young workers supported Yermachenko and Struzhkov.

"All right then, it's decided," Bulgakov agreed. "That's all for now," he said, rising from his chair.

"We can take a rest till morning. When Zhukhrai comes, send him in to me, I want to have a talk with him. Yermachenko, you'd better inspect the sentry posts."

When the others left, Bulgakov went into the bedroom next to the parlour, spread his greatcoat on the mattress and lay down.

The following morning Pavel, coming home from the electric power station where he had been working as a stoker's helper for a year now, felt that something unusual was afoot. The town seethed with excitement. As he went along he met people carrying one or two and sometimes even three rifles each. He could not understand what was happening and he hurried home as fast as he could. Outside the Leszczinski garden he saw his acquaintances of yesterday mounting their horses.

Pavel ran into the house, washed quickly and, learning from his mother that Artem had not come home yet, dashed out again and hurried over to see Sergei Bruzzhak, who lived on the other side of the town.

Sergei's father was an engine driver's helper and owned a tiny house and a small plot of land.

Sergei was out, and his mother, a stout, pale-faced woman, eyed Pavel sourly.

"The devil knows where he is! He rushed out first thing in the morning like one possessed. Said they were giving out rifles somewhere, so I suppose that's where he is. What you snotnosed warriors need is a good hiding—you've got out of hand completely. Hardly out of pinafores and already dashing off after firearms. You tell the scamp that if he brings a single cartridge into this house I'll skin him alive. Who knows what he'll be dragging in and then I'll have to answer for it.

You're not going there too, are you?"

But before Sergei's mother had finished scolding, Pavel was already racing down the street.

On the highway he met a man carrying a rifle on each shoulder. Pavel dashed up to him.

"Please, uncle, where did you get them?"

"Over at Verkhovina."

Pavel hurried off as fast as his legs could carry him. Two streets down he collided with a boy who was lugging a heavy infantry rifle with bayonet attached. Pavel stopped him.

"Where'd you get that?"

"The partisans were giving them away out there opposite the school, but there aren't any more. All gone. Handed them out all night and now only the empty cases are left. This is my second one,"

the boy declared proudly.

Pavel was utterly dismayed by the news.

"Damn it, I should've gone straight there," he thought bitterly. "Now it's too late!"

Suddenly an idea struck him. Spinning around, he overtook the boy in two or three bounds and snatched the rifle out of his hands.

"One's enough for you. This is going to be mine," he said in a tone that brooked no opposition.

Infuriated by this robbery in broad daylight, the boy flung himself at Pavel, but the latter leapt back and pointed the bayonet at his antagonist.

"Look out or you'll get hurt!" Pavel shouted.