第 9 页

Ten minutes after the arrest not a single man was working. The railway yard workers assembled in the station park where they were joined by the switchmen and the men employed at the supply warehouses. Feeling ran high and someone drafted a written demand for the release of Roman and

Ponomarenko.

Indignation rose higher still when the Assistant Commandant rushed into the park at the head of a group of guards brandishing a revolver and shouting:

"Back to work, or we'll arrest every last man of you on the spot! And put some of you up against the wall!"

The infuriated workers replied with a bellow that sent him running for cover to the station. In the meantime, however, the Station Commandant had summoned German troops from the town and truckloads of them were already careering down the road leading to the station.

The workers dispersed and hurried home. No one, not even the stationmaster, remained on the job.

Zhukhrai's work was beginning to make itself felt; this was the first time the workers at the station had taken mass action.

The Germans mounted a heavy machine gun on the platform; it stood there like a pointer that has spotted a quarry. Next to it squatted a German corporal, his hand resting on the trigger grip.

The station grew deserted.

At night the arrests began. Artem was among those taken. Zhukhrai escaped by not going home that night.

All the arrested men were herded together in a huge freight shed and given the alternative of either returning to work or being court-martialled.

Practically all the railwaymen were on strike all along the line. For a day and a night not a single train went through, and one hundred and twenty kilometres away a battle was being fought with a large partisan detachment which had cut the railway line and blown up the bridges.

During the night a German troop train pulled in but was held up because the engine driver, his helper and the fireman had deserted the locomotive. There were two more trains on the station sidings waiting to leave.

The heavy doors of the freight shed swung open and in walked the Station Commandant, a German lieutenant, his assistant, and a group of other Germans.

"Korchagin, Polentovsky, Bruzzhak," the Commandant's Assistant called out. "You will make up an engine crew and take a train out at once. If you refuse, you will be shot on the spot. What do you say?"

The three workers nodded sullen consent. They were escorted under guard to the locomotive while the Commandant's Assistant went on to call out the names of the driver, helper and fireman for the next train.

The locomotive snorted angrily, sending up geysers of sparks. Breathing heavily it breasted the gloom ahead as it pounded along the track into the depths of night. Artem, who had just shovelled coal into the firebox, kicked the door shut, took a gulp of water from the snubnosed teapot

standing on the toolbox, and turned to Polentovsky, the old engine driver.

"Well, pa, are we taking it through?"

Polentovsky's eyes blinked irritably under their overhanging eyebrows.

"You will when there's a bayonet at your back."

"We could chuck everything and make a dash for it," suggested Bruzzhak, watching the German soldier sitting on the tender from the corner of his eye.

"I think so too," muttered Artem, "if it wasn't for that bird behind our backs."

"That's right," Bruzzhak was noncommittal as he stuck his head out of the window.

Polentovsky moved closer to Artem.

"We can't take the train through, understand?" he whispered. "There's fighting going on ahead.

Our fellows have blown up the track. And here we are bringing these swine there so they can shoot them down. You know, son, even in the tsar's time I never drove an engine when there was a strike on, and I'm not going to do it now. We'd disgrace ourselves for life if we brought destruction down on our own kind. The other engine crew ran away, didn't they? They risked their

lives, but they did it. We just can't take the train through. What do you think?"

"You're right, pa, but what are you going to do about him?" and he indicated the soldier with a glance.

The engine driver scowled. He wiped his sweating forehead with a handful of waste and stared with bloodshot eyes at the pressure gauge as if seeking an answer there to the question tormenting him. Then he swore in fury and desperation.

Artem drank again from the teapot. The two men were thinking of one thing, but neither could bring himself to break the tense silence. Artem recalled Zhukhrai's question: "Well, brother, what do you think about the Bolshevik Party and the Gommunist idea?" and his own reply: "I am always ready to help, you can count on me. . . ."

"A fine way to help," he thought, "driving a punitive expedition. . . ."

Polentovsky was now bending over the toolbox next to Artem. Hoarsely he said:

"That fellow, we've got to do him in. Understand?"

Artem started. Polentovsky added through clenched teeth:

"There's no other way out. Got to knock him over the head and chuck the throttle and the levers into the firebox, cut off the steam and then run for it."

Feeling as if a heavy weight had dropped off his shoulders Artem said: "Right!" Leaning toward Bruzzhak, Artem told him of their decision.

Bruzzhak did not answer at once. They all were taking a very great risk. Each had a family at home to think of. Polentovsky's was the largest: he had nine mouths to feed. But all three knew that they could not take the train to its destination.

"Good, I'm with you," Bruzzhak said. "But what about him? Who's going to. . . ." He did not finish the sentence but his meaning was clear enough to Artem.

Artem turned to Polentovsky, who was now busy with the throttle, and nodded as if to say that Bruzzhak agreed with them, but then, tormented by a question still unsettled, he stepped closer to the old man.

"But how?"

Polentovsky looked at Artem.

"You begin, you're the strongest. We'll conk him with the crowbar and it'll be all over." The old man was violently agitated.

Artem frowned.

"I can't do it. I can't. After all, when you come to think of it, the man isn't to blame. He's also been forced into this at the point of the bayonet."

Polentovsky's eyes flashed.

"Not to blame, you say? Neither are we for being made to do this ]ob. But don't forget it's a punitive expedition we're hauling. These innocents are going out to shoot down partisans. Are the partisans to blame then? No, my lad, you've mighty little sense for all that you're strong as an ox. . . ."

"All right, all right," Artem's voice cracked. He picked up the crowbar, but Polentovsky whispered to him:

"I'll do it, be more certain that way. You take the shovel and climb up to pass down the coal from the tender. If necessary you give him one with the shovel. I'll pretend to be loosening up the coal."

Bruzzhak heard what was said, and nodded. "The old man's right," he said, and took his place at the throttle.

The German soldier in his forage cap with a red band around it was sitting at the edge of the tender holding his rifle between his feet and smoking a cigar. From time to time he threw a glance at the engine crew going about their work in the cab.

When Artem climbed up on top of the tender the sentry paid little attention to him. And when Polentovsky, who pretended he wanted to get at the larger chunks of coal next to the side of the tender, signed to him to move out of the way, the German readily slipped down in the direction of the door leading to the cab.

The sudden crunch of the German's skull as it caved in under the crowbar made Artem and Bruzzhak jump as if touched by red-hot iron. The body of the soldier rolled limply into the passage leading to the cab.

The blood seeped rapidly through the grey cloth forage cap and the rifle clattered against the iron side of the tender.

"That's that," Polentovsky whispered as he dropped the crowbar. "No turning back for us now," he added, his face twitching convulsively.

His voice broke, then rose to a shout to repel the silence that descended heavily on the three men.

"Unscrew the throttle, quick!" he shouted. In ten minutes the job was done. The locomotive, now out of control, was slowly losing speed.

The dark ponderous shapes of trees on the wayside lunged into the radius of light around the engine only to recede into the impenetrable gloom behind. In vain the engine's headlights sought to pierce the thick shroud of night for more than a dozen metres ahead, and gradually its stertorous breathing slowed down as if it had spent the last of its strength.

"Jump, son!" Artem heard Polentovsky's voice behind him and he let go of the handrail. The momentum of the train sent his powerful body hurtling forward until with a jolt his feet met the earth surging up from below. He ran for a pace or two and tumbled heavily head over heels.

Two other shadows left the engine simultaneously, one from each side of the cab.

Gloom had settled over the Bruzzhak house. Antonina Vasilievna, Sergei's mother, had eaten her heart out during the past four days. There had been no news from her husband; all she knew wasthat the Germans had forced him to man an engine together with Korchagin and Polentovsky. And yesterday three of the Hetman's guards had come around and questioned her in a rough, abusive manner.

From what they said she vaguely gathered that something had gone wrong and, gravely perturbed,she threw her kerchief over her head as soon as the men left and set out to see Maria Yakovlevna in the hope of learning some news of her husband.

Valya, her eldest daughter, who was tidying up the kitchen, noticed her slipping out of the house.

"Where're you off to, Mother?" the girl asked.

"To the Korchagins," Antonina Vasilievna replied, glancing at her daughter with eyes brimming with tears. "Perhaps they know something about father. If Sergei comes home tell him to go over to the station to see the Polentovskys."

Valya threw her arms around her mother's shoulders.

"Don't worry, Mum," she said as she saw her to the door.

As usual, Maria Yakovlevna gave Antonina Vasilievna a hearty welcome. Each had hoped that the other would have some news to tell, but the hope vanished as soon as they got talking.

The Korchagins' place had also been searched during the night. The soldiers had been looking for Artem, and had told Maria Yakovlevna on leaving to report to the Kommandantur as soon as her son returned.

The coming of the patrol had frightened Pavel's mother almost out of her wits. She had been homealone, for Pavel as usual was on the night shift at the power plant.

When Pavel returned from work early in the morning and heard from his mother about the search,he was much troubled. He feared for his brother's safety. Despite differences in character and Artem's seeming hardness, the two brothers were deeply attached to one another. It was a stern,undemonstrative affection, but Pavel knew that there was no sacrifice he would not make for his brother's sake,

Without stopping to rest, Pavel ran over to the station to look for Zhukhrai. He could not find him,and the other workers he knew could tell him nothing about the missing men. Engine driver Polentovsky's family too was completely in the dark; all he could learn from Polentovsky's youngest son, Boris, whom he met in the yard, was that their house too had been searched that night. The soldiers had been looking for his father.

Pavel came back to his mother with no news to report. Exhausted, he threw himself on the bed and dropped instantly into fitful slumber.

Valya looked up as the knock came at the door.

"Who's there?" she asked, unhooking the catch.

The dishevelled carroty head of Klimka Marchenko appeared in the open door. He had evidently been running, for he was out of breath and his face was red from exertion.

"Is your mother home?" he asked Valya.

"No, she's gone out."

"Where to?"

"To the Korchagins, I think." Valya seized hold of Klimka's sleeve as the boy was about to dash off.

Klimka looked up at the girl in hesitation.

"I've got to see her about something," he ventured.

"What is it?" Valya would not let him go. "Out with it, you red-headed bear you, and stop keeping me in suspense," she commanded.

Klimka forgot Zhukhrai's warnings and his strict instructions to deliver the note into Antonina Vasilievna's hands, and he pulled a soiled scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to the girl.

He could not refuse anything to Sergei's pretty fair-haired sister, for truth to tell he had a soft spot in his heart for her. He was far too timid, however, to admit it even to himself. The girl quickly read the slip of paper he had handed to her.

"Dear Tonya! Don't worry. All's well. They're safe and sound. Soon you will have more news. Let the others know that everything is all right so they needn't worry. Destroy this note. Zykhar"

Valya rushed over to Klimka.

"My dear little brown bear, where did you get this? Who gave it to you?" And she shook Klimka so violently that he quite lost his presence of mind and made his second blunder before he knew it.

"Zhukhrai gave it to me down at the station." Then, remembering that he should not have said it,

he added: "But he told me not to give it to anybody but your mother."

"That's all right," Valya laughed. "I won't tell anybody. Now you run along like a good little bear to Pavel's place and you'll find mother there." And she gave the lad a light push in the back.

A second later Klimka's red head disappeared through the garden gate.

None of the three railwaymen returned home. In the evening Zhukhrai came to the Korchagins and told Maria Yakovlevna what had happened on the train. He did his best to calm the fear-stricken mother, and assured her that all three were safe with Bruzzhak's uncle who lived in an out-of-theway village; they could not come back now, of course, but the Germans were in a tight fix and the situation was likely to change any day.

The disappearance of the three men brought their families closer together than ever. The rare notes that were received from them were read with rejoicing, but home seemed an empty and dreary place without them.