The White Guard

  'For the Edification of the Russian People'.

  'Oh God!' exclaimed Alexei involuntarily. 'The regiment has already left.'

  The mortars grinned silently at Alexei, standing idle and abandoned in the same place as they had been the day before.

  'I don't understand . . . what does this mean?'

  Without knowing why, Alexei ran across the parade-ground to the mortars. They grew larger as he moved towards the line of grim, gaping muzzles. As he reached the first mortar at the end of the row, Alexei stopped and froze: its breech mechanism was missing. At a fast trot he cut back across the parade ground and jumped over the railings into the street. Here the mob was even thicker, many voices were shouting at once, bayonets were bobbing up and down above the heads of the crowd.

  'We must wait for orders from General Kartuzov!' shouted a piercing, excited voice. A lieutenant crossed in front of Alexei, who noticed that he was carrying a saddle with dangling stirrups.

  'I'm supposed to hand this over to the Polish Legion.'

  'Where is the Polish Legion?'

  'God only knows!'

  'Everybody into the museum! Into the museum!'

  'To the Don!'

  The lieutenant suddenly stopped and threw his saddle down on to the sidewalk.

  'To hell with it! Who cares now, anyway - it's all over', he screamed furiously. 'Christ, those bastards at headquarters.'

  He turned aside, threatening someone with a raised fist.

  'Disaster ... I see now . . . But how awful - our mortar regi-ment must have gone into action as infantry. Yes, of course. Presumably Petlyura attacked unexpectedly. There were no horses, so they were deployed as riflemen, without the mortars . . . Oh my God. ... I must get back to Madame Anjou . . . Maybe I'll be able to find out there. . . . Surely someone will have stayed behind. . . .'

  Alexei forced his way out of the milling crowd and ran, oblivious to everything else, back to the opera house. A dry gust of wind was Mowing across the asphalted path around the opera house and Mapping the edge of a half-torn poster on the theatre wall beside a dim, unlit side entrance. Carmen. Carmen . . .

  At last, Madame Anjou. The artillery badges were gone from the window, the only light was the dull, flickering reflection of something burning. Was the shop on fire? The door rattled as Alexei pushed, but did not open. He knocked urgently. Knocked again. A gray figure emerged indistinctly on the far side of the glass doorway, opened it and Alexei tumbled into the shop and glanced hurriedly at the unknown figure. The person was wearing a black student's greatcoat, on his head was a moth-eaten civilian cap with ear-flaps, pulled down low over his forehead. The face was oddly familiar, but somehow altered and disfigured. The stove was roaring angrily, consuming sheets of some kind of paper. The entire floor was strewn with paper. Having let Alexei in, the figure left him without a word of explanation, walked away and squatted down on his haunches by the stove, which sent a livid red glow flickering over his face.

  'Malyshev? Yes, it's Colonel Malyshev.' Alexei at last recognised the man.

  The colonel no longer had a moustache. Instead, there was a bluish, clean-shaven strip across his upper lip.

  Spreading his arms wide, Malyshev gathered up sheets of paper from the floor and rammed them into the stove.

  'What's happened? Is it all over?' Alexei asked dully.

  'Yes', was the colonel's laconic reply. He jumped up, ran over to a desk, carefully looked it over, pulled out the drawers one by one and banged them shut, bent down again, picked up the last heap of documents from the floor and shoved them into the stove. Only then did he turn to Alexei Turbin and added in an ironically calm voice: 'We've done our bit - and now that's that!' He reached into an inside pocket, hurriedly pulled out a wallet, checked the documents in it, tore up a few of them criss-cross and threw them on the fire. As he did so Alexei stared at him. He no longer bore any resemblance to Colonel Malyshev. The man facing Alexei was simply a rather fat student, an amateur actor with slightly puffy red lips.

  'Doctor - you're not still wearing your shoulder-straps?' Malyshev pointed at Alexei's shoulders. 'Take them off at once. What are you doing here? Where have you come from? Don't you know what's happened?'

  'I'm late, sir, I'm afraid . . .' Alexei began.

  Malyshev gave a cheerful smile. Then the smile suddenly vanished from his face, he shook his head anxiously and apologetically and said:

  'Oh God, of course - it's my fault ... I told you to report at this time. . . . Obviously you stayed at home all day and haven't heard . . . Well, no time to go into all that. There's only one thing for you to do now - remove your shoulder-straps, get out of here and hide.'

  'What's happened? For God's sake tell me what's happened?'

  'What's happened?' Malyshev echoed his question with ironical jocularity. 'What's happened is that Petlyura's in the City. He's reached Pechorsk and may even be on the Kreshchatik now for all I know. The City's taken.' Suddenly Malyshev ground his teeth, squinted furiously and began unexpectedly to talk like the old Malyshev, not at all like an amateur actor. 'Headquarters betrayed us. We should have given up and run this morning. Fortunately I

  had some reliable friends at headquarters and I found out the true state of affairs last night, so was able to disband the mortar regiment in time. This is no time for reflection, doctor-take off your badges!'

  '. . . but over there, at the museum, they don't know all this and they still think. . . .'

  Malyshev's face darkened.

  'None of my business', he retorted bitterly. 'Not my affair. Nothing concerns me any longer. I was there a short while ago and I shouted myself hoarse warning them and begging them to disperse. I can't do any more. I've saved all my own men, and prevented them from being slaughtered. I saved them from a shameful end!' Malyshev suddenly began shouting hysterically. Obviously his control over some powerful and heavily-suppressed emotion had snapped and he could no longer restrain himself. 'Generals - huh!' He clenched his fists and made threatening gestures. His face had turned purple.

  Just then a machine-gun began to chatter at the end of the street and the bullets seemed to be hitting the large house next door.

  Malyshev stopped short, and was silent.

  'This is it, doctor. Goodbye. Run for your life! Only not out on to the street. Go out there, by the back door, and then through the back yards. That way's still safe. And hurry.'

  Malyshev shook the appalled Alexei Turbin by the hand, turned sharply about and ran off through the dark opening behind a partition. The machine-gun outside stopped firing and the shop was silent except for the crackling of paper in the stove. Although he suddenly felt very lonely, and despite Malyshev's urgent warnings, Alexei found himself walking slowly and with a curious languor towards the door. He rattled the handle, let fall the latch and returned to the stove. He acted slowly, his limbs oddly unwilling, his mind numb and muddled. The fire was dying down, the flames in the mouth of the stove sinking to a dull red glow and the shop suddenly grew much darker. In the graying, flickering shadows the shelves on the walls seemed to be gently moving up and down. As he stared around them Alexei noticed dully that

  Madame Anjou's establishment still smelled of perfume. Faintly and softly, but it could still be smelled.

  The thoughts in Alexei's mind fused into a formless jumble and for some time he gazed completely senselessly towards the place where the newly-shaven colonel had disappeared. Then, helped by the silence, his tangled thinking began slowly to unravel. The most important strand emerged clearly: Petlyura was here. 'Peturra, Peturra', Alexei repeated softly to himself and smiled, not knowing why. He walked over to a mirror on the wall, dimmed by a film of dust like a sheet of fine taffeta.

  The paper had all burned out and the last little red tongue of flame danced to and fro for a while, then expired at the bottom of the stove. It was now almost quite dark.

  'Petlyura, it's crazy. . . . Fact is, t
his country's completely ruined now', muttered Alexei in the twilit shop. Then, coming to his senses: 'Why am I standing around like this and dreaming? Suppose they start breaking into this place?'

  He jumped into action, as Malyshev had done before leaving and began tearing off his shoulder-straps. The threads gave a little crackling sound as they ripped away and he was left holding two silver-braided rectangles from his tunic and two green ones from his greatcoat. Alexei looked at them, turned them over in his hands, was about to stuff them into his pocket as souvenirs but thought better of it as being too dangerous, and decided to burn them. There was no lack of combustible material, even though Malyshev had burned all the documents. Alexei scooped up a whole sheaf of silk clippings from the floor, pushed them into the stove and lit them. Once more weird shapes began flickering around the walls and the floor, and for a while longer Madame Anjou's premises brightened fitfully. In the flames the silver rectangles curled, broke out in bubbles, scorched and then turned to ash . . .

  The next most urgent problem now arose in Alexei's mind -what should he do about the door? Should he leave the latch down, or should he open it? Suppose one of the volunteers, like Alexei himself, ran here and then found it shut and there was nowhere to

  shelter? He unfastened the latch. Then came another searing thought: his doctor's identity card. He searched one pocket, then another - no trace of it. Hell, of course. He had left it at home. What a disgrace. Suppose he were stopped and caught. He was wearing a gray army greatcoat. If they questioned him and he said he was a doctor, how could he prove it? Damn his own carelessness.

  'Hurry' whispered a voice inside him.

  Without stopping to reflect any longer Alexei rushed to the back of the shop by the way Malyshev had gone, through a narrow door into a dim passage, and from there out by the back door into a yard.

  Eleven

  Obedient to the voice on the telephone, Corporal Nikolka Turbin led his twenty-eight cadets across the City by the route laid down in his order, which ended at a completely deserted crossroads. Although it was lifeless, it was extremely noisy. All around-in the sky, echoing from roofs and walls - came the chatter of machine-gun fire.

  Obviously the enemy was supposed to be here because it was the final point on their route indicated by the voice on the telephone. But so far there was no enemy to be seen and Nikolka was slightly put out - what should he do next? His cadets, a little pale but as brave as their commander, lay down in a firing line on the snowy street and Ivashin the machine-gunner squatted down behind his machine-gun at the kerb of the sidewalk. Raising their heads, the cadets peered dutifully ahead, wondering what exactly was supposed to happen.

  Their leader was thinking so hard that his face grew pinched and turned slightly pale. He was worried, firstly, by the complete absence at the crossroads of what the voice on the telephone had led him to expect. Nikolka was supposed to have found here a company of the 3rd Detachment, which he was to 'reinforce'. Of the company there was not a trace. Secondly, Nikolka was worried

  by the fact that now and again the rattle of machine-gun fire could be heard not only ahead of him but also to his left and even, he noticed uneasily, slightly to his rear. Thirdly, he was afraid of showing fear and he constantly asked himself: 'Am I afraid?' 'No I'm not', replied a brave voice in his head, and Nikolka felt so proud that he was turning out to be quite brave that he went even paler. His pride led him on to the thought that if he were killed he would be buried to the strains of a military band. It would be a simple but moving funeral: the open white silk-lined coffin would move slowly through the streets and in the coffin would lie Corporal Turbin, with a noble expression on his wax-like features. It was a pity that they didn't give medals any longer, because then he would have worn the ribbon and cross of the St George's Cross around his neck. Old women would be standing at the cemetery gates. 'Who are they burying, my dear?' 'Young Corporal Turbin.' 'Ah, the poor, handsome lad . . .' And the music. It is good to die in battle, they say. He hoped he would feel no pain. Thoughts of military funerals, bands and medal ribbons proved a slight distraction from the uncomfortable business of waiting for an enemy who obviously had no intention of obeying the voice on the telephone and had no intention of appearing.

  'We shall wait here', Nikolka said to his cadets, trying to make his voice sound more confident, although without much success because the whole situation was somehow vaguely wrong, and stupidly so. Where was the other company? Where was the enemy? Wasn't it odd that sounds of firing should be coming from behind them?

  #

  So Nikolka and his little force waited. Suddenly, from the street that crossed theirs at the intersection, which led from Brest-Litovsk Street, came a burst of fire, and a detachment of gray-clad figures poured down the street at a furious pace. They were heading straight for Nikolka's cadets and were carrying rifles.

  'Surrounded?' flashed through Nikolka's mind, as he tried wildly to think what order he was supposed to give; but a moment

  later he caught sight of the gold-braided shoulder-straps on several of the running men and realised that they were friendly.

  Tall, well-built, sweating with exertion, the group of cadets from the Constantine Military Academy halted, turned around, dropped on one knee and fired two volleys down the street from whence they had come. Then they jumped up and ran across the intersection past Nikolka's detachment, throwing away their rifles as they went. On the way they tore off their shoulder-straps, cart ridge pouches and belts and threw them down on the wheel-rutted snow. As he drew level with Nikolka, one gray-coated, heavily-built cadet turned his head towards Nikolka's detachment and shouted, gasping for breath:

  'Come on, run for it! Every man for himself!'

  Uncertain and confused, Nikolka's cadets began to stand up. Nikolka was completely stupefied, but a moment later he pulled himself together, thinking in a flash: 'This is the moment to be a hero.' He shouted in his piercing voice:

  'Don't dare to stand up! Obey my orders!' At the same time he was wondering numbly: 'What are they doing?'

  Once over the intersection and rid of their weapons, the fleeing cadets - twenty of them - scattered down Fonarny Street, some of them taking hasty refuge behind the first big gateway. The great iron gates shut with a hideous crash and the sound of their boots could be heard ringing under the arch leading into the courtyard. A second bunch disappeared through the next gateway. The remaining five, quickening their pace, ran off down Fonarny Street and vanished into the distance.

  Finally the last runaway appeared at the crossroads, wearing faded gold shoulder-straps. Nikolka's keen eyes recognised him at a glance as the commanding officer of the second squad of the ist Detachment, Colonel Nai-Turs.

  'Colonel!' Nikolka called out to him, puzzled and at the same

  time relieved. 'Your cadets are running away in a panic'

  Then the most amazing thing happened. Nai-Turs ran across the

  trampled snow of the intersection. The skirts of his greatcoat were looped back on both sides, like the uniform of the French infantry;

  his battered cap had fallen back on the nape of his neck and was only held on by the chinstrap. In his right hand was a revolver, whose open holster flapped against his hip. Unshaven for several days, his bristly face looked grim and his eyes were set in a squint. He was now close enough for Nikolka to make out the zig-zag braid of a hussar regiment on his shoulder-straps. Nai-Turs ran right up to Nikolka and with a sweeping movement of his free left hand he tore off from Nikolka's shoulders first the left and then the right shoulder-strap. Most of the threads tore free, although the right strap pulled a lump of the greatcoat material with it. Nikolka felt such a pull that he was instantly aware of the remarkable strength of Nai-Turs' hands. The force of the movement made Nikolka lose his balance and he sat down on something that gave way beneath him with a shriek: it was Ivashin the machine-gunner. Confusion broke out and all that Nikolka could see were the astonishe
d faces of the cadets milling around above him. Nikolka was only saved from going out of his mind at that moment by the violence and urgency of Nai-Turs' behaviour. Turning to face the disorganised squad he roared an order in a strange, cracked voice. Nikolka had an irrational feeling that a voice like that must be audible for miles, if not over the whole City.

  'Cadets! Listen and do as I tell you: rip off your shoulder-straps, your cap-badges and cartridge pouches and throw your rifles away! Go through the backyards from Fonarny Street towards Razezhaya Street and make your way to Podol! To Podol, you hear? Tear up your identity papers as you go, hide, disperse and tell anyone you meet on the way to do the same!'

  Then, brandishing his revolver, Nai-Turs added in a voice like a cavalry trumpet:

  'Down Fonarny Street - don't go any other way! Get away home and lie low! The fight's over! On the double!'

  For a few seconds the squad could not take it in, then the cadets' faces turned absolutely white. In front of Nikolka, Ivashin ripped off his shoulder-straps, his cartridge pouches flew over the snow and his rifle crashed down against the kerbstone. Half a minute later the crossroads was littered with belts, cartridge

  pouches and someone's torn cap, and the cadets were disappearing into the gateways that would lead through backyards into Razyezhaya Street.

  With a flourish Nai-Turs thrust his revolver back into its holster, strode over to the machine-gun, squatted down behind it, swung its muzzle round in the direction from which he had come and adjusted the belt with his left hand. From his squatting position he turned, looked up at Nikolka and roared in fury:

  'Are you deaf? Run!'

  Nikolka felt a strange wave of drunken ecstasy surge up from his stomach and for a moment his mouth went dry.

  ' I don't want to, colonel', he replied in a blurred voice, squatted down, picked up the ammunition belt and began to feed it into the machine-gun.