The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “Don’t be dead!” he cried, his voice weak.

  Sergei shook his head and managed a weak smile. “Just stunned a bit.”

  “You’ve been shot . . . your leg.”

  “Yes,” Sergei replied, wincing. “It hurts more than I’d imagined.”

  “You saved my life,” said Grigorov.

  “I’m sure you would have done the same for me.”

  “If I’d had the chance.”

  “Besides,” added Sergei, “my friend really wants his money back.”

  “He shall have it all!” laughed the lieutenant, tears mixed with blood dripping from his eyes. “Let me get you out of here.”

  “No,” objected Sergei passionately. “The fort will be ours soon! I want to be with the general when he takes it.”

  “Can you make it?”

  “Yes, as long as I can stay away from any more Turks.”

  “They seem to be falling back. We shall go together!”

  The Cossack gained his feet, then gave Sergei a hand and pulled him up. Leaning on the lieutenant, Sergei hobbled forward.

  The fighting around them had begun to subside. Skobelev had just broken through the Turkish defense, and the Turks were retreating. A great cheer arose from the Cossack and Russian men as they ran forward toward the fort. It would be in their hands within the hour! Sergei and Mikhail Grigorov made it far enough with the advancing troops to see the Turks still holding Grivitsa surrender, but then Sergei collapsed in a faint.

  Grigorov picked the prince up in his arms, turned back down the hill, and carried him to the first medic unit he could find. As the medics were carrying Sergei to the makeshift hospital at the rear encampment, Grigorov rejoined the general at the fort.

  Floating in and out of consciousness as he was carried toward the hospital tent, Sergei’s eyes were open enough to make out the form of a horseman approaching. The horse and rider passed by the two medics, then stopped.

  At first glance, Viktor did not recognize his son disfigured by the blood and grime of battle. The moment their eyes met, however, he jumped out of his saddle and ran to Sergei’s side.

  “Sergei!” he cried, then he glanced up with a worried expression toward one of the medics.

  “Leg wound,” the man said. “Passed out from loss of blood.”

  “Father . . . Father, is that you?” mumbled Sergei.

  “Yes . . . yes! How do you feel?”

  “We took Grivitsa, Father.”

  “I heard. But your leg . . . is it bad?”

  “I don’t know. I feel nothing. It’s my shoulder that hurts, Father.”

  “I’m proud of you, son,” said Viktor. “You have brought honor to the Fedorcenko name.”

  As Sergei closed his eyes again and the medics continued on their way, his heart filled with a contentment greater than any thrill General Skobelev could have had for his hard-fought victory. His father had just said the words every son longs to hear.

  When he slept that night, Sergei saw visions of Anna’s smile and heard the faint words of his father echoing dimly through sounds of battle: “I am proud of you, son.” Yet always his fitful sleep was tormented by images of Turks without faces and the memory of his own saber, dripping red with the blood of strangers.

  64

  The tsar’s troops might have taken Plevna that day. Despite the fact that the White General’s victory was the only one that day, and that only two of the Turkish forts were taken, the days following could have turned the tide. Now that the Turks had left their fortifications to engage in field combat, the vastly superior numbers of the reinforced Russian army could not help but tell against them very quickly. Had the grand duke bolstered his flagging forces immediately and rallied his army together the following day, there was little doubt Skobelev and others of his caliber could have overrun the other Turkish forts one by one.

  But at the prospect of yet another defeat, Nicholas lost his nerve. The Turks took advantage of the moment and seized the initiative themselves. A quick counterattack forced Skobelev to retreat. When Viktor next came to visit Sergei where he lay on a bed in the crowded field hospital, he did not have the heart to tell him that Grivitsa had been lost again to the Turks and that the entire Cossack regiment had been forced to retreat to its original position. All the fighting, all the losses—eighteen thousand Russian and Romanian casualties—had been for nothing.

  The grand duke’s miscalculation resulted in another three months of weary vigil at the town of Plevna.

  ———

  The weeks passed, then months. Autumn came, and gradually the nights and mornings turned colder. Sporadic fighting accomplished nothing. So long as the Turks could keep the mighty Russian army at bay, imprisoned behind the mountains from Constantinople, the victory was theirs. While the world watched, the very word Plevna came to symbolize Russian helplessness, and the final valiant hour of the dying Ottoman Empire. Whatever the political ties of their various nations, in the newspapers of Europe, Osman Pasha was lauded as a cunning and resourceful general, while the Grand Duke Nicholas was ridiculed as an incompetent who could not turn what was now a four-to-one advantage into victory. Still unwilling to replace him, Tsar Alexander feared in his heart that his worst fears were coming to pass, and that he had unwittingly stumbled into another Crimean disaster which would end his reign in failure and ridicule.

  On the home front, eventually the rest of Russia stopped waiting daily for news of the war. The weary waiting seemed endless, and casualties had already been so heavy that many wives and mothers, sisters and lovers, wondered if they would ever see their young men again.

  As she had promised, Katrina wrote to Dmitri at the front, not once but three times. His single reply, however, had been brief and formal, expressing his thanks for her letters and her prayers, and sending regards to her mother. Anna dared not write to Sergei, though she yearned to. She had to settle instead for the words added to one of his letters to Katrina which had burned their way deep into her heart: “And greet your dear maid Anna for me, will you, Katitchka? Tell her the moment I am back she and I will get together to talk more about Lord Byron and the English poets.”

  “Who is he talking about, Anna?” Katrina had asked after finishing the letter.

  “He is an English poet,” replied Anna, making every effort to hide both her pleasure and her embarrassment.

  “And what does he have to do with you and Sergei?”

  “We both enjoy his poems, that’s all, Princess.”

  Katrina eyed Anna carefully. “Secrets with my brother, Anna?” she said mischievously.

  Anna looked down but did not reply. At first Katrina attempted to push the matter, prying at Anna for details. But the sensitivity which had begun to take root in the young princess bore its fruit, and when Katrina finally realized that Anna did not wish to talk about it, she let the matter drop.

  In mid-autumn, Viktor and three or four of the tsar’s generals met together in desperation to discuss what might be done. Their meeting resulted in an audience with their commander-in-chief, the Grand Duke Nicholas. As diplomatically as was possible, they suggested to the emperor’s brother that it might prove advantageous to call upon the services of General Eduard Totleben, the engineer famed for his work during the Crimean War. For the first time since the beginning of the engagement against the Turks, Nicholas showed the good sense to listen.

  Totleben was brought to the front, consulted, and under his direction a series of earthworks were immediately begun, protected under cover of Russian troops. Construction quickly was expanded to encircle all of Plevna, effectively sealing in Osman Pasha and, more importantly, cutting him off from receiving further supplies and reinforcements. What the Imperial Army had not been able to accomplish by military force began to be accomplished by engineering genius and backbreaking work.

  After the stalemate on the battlefield, the Turks were doomed to the fate of watching their rations dwindle. Osman saw that the end could not be forestalled, and final
ly surrendered on December the tenth. But even in defeat, his heroic defense of the town and its forts against overwhelming odds came to be applauded, even by the Russian troops, who saw in him the brilliant commander their own forces lacked.

  Free at last to cross the mountains, the Russian army continued its long-delayed advance on Constantinople. But in the dead of winter, with supply lines stretching further and further every day across snow-filled mountain passes, the march southward was arduous, and much hardship still faced the beleaguered army.

  65

  The tsar returned to St. Petersburg after the fall of Plevna. News of the great triumph had gone before him, and he was greeted with the accolades due a heroic commander. The discontented murmurings of autumn were replaced with cheers of joy, and popular support for the war gained renewed momentum among a fickle public eager to bask in the limelight of victory.

  Shouts of On to Constantinople! and Death to the Ottoman Empire forever! rang in the crisp winter’s air, and newspaper headlines and editorials featuring similar proclamations were resurrected from six months earlier. Suddenly great boasts of Russia’s preeminence among the nations of Europe pealed from Kiev and Moscow and St. Petersburg, sounding ominous echoes in distant London, where Queen Victoria, her Prime Minister Disraeli, and his advisor Lord Salisbury did not react with favor. The atmosphere between the eastern and western poles of Europe grew tense, as the righteous fervor of Russian nationalism demanded that the Holy City of Orthodoxy be returned to the custodianship of Holy Russia.

  The tsar had never wanted the war, and six months in the shadows of the mountains of Bulgaria had not changed his mind. Even Osman’s surrender at Plevna did not sway him. Yet it seemed that only Alexander understood that to attempt to conquer Constantinople by force, however pleasing to Russian pride, would mean not only incurring the wrath of the European powers and most certainly a declaration of war from England, but more importantly the spilling of still more precious Russian blood.

  He had seen enough blood at Plevna. The ordeal of that prolonged battle told seriously on his taut, pale visage, with lines etched deeper and eyes drooping more mournfully than ever. The months at the Plevna command base, and living in the damp, chilly cottage had noticeably deteriorated his health as well. His asthma grew worse and he tired easily, forcing him to a more sedentary life than usual.

  Conflicts with the tsarevich only exacerbated matters. Alexander had had to put up with his son’s criticism of his mistress, his criticism of his pre-war policy, the tension between him and Nicholas on matters of battle strategy in the south. And now the tsarevitch was at it again with public statements on the need for a massive strike against the Ottoman capital, come what may from England. The Tsarevitch Alexander made very clear his disagreement with his father’s war policies and his private affections. He would listen to no practical arguments but remained a firm, stubborn proponent of a bold, resolute, militarily superior Russia, unbending in the face of opposition. At every opportunity he spoke out for taking the helm of European power, by force if necessary, yielding nothing to those Western influences that would doom the Motherland forever to a role of an ineffectual, backward, minor player in the affairs of Europe.

  Thus, in spite of the bittersweet taste of victory, it was a dreary Christmas for Tsar Alexander Romonov, Emperor of all the Russias. His only comfort was the fact that after the long months of separation, he could again spend the cold nights with his Catherine. Yet even her presence could not lift the darkness from the holiday festivities. Alexander knew only too well that the war still raged on, that his soldiers still faced death and hardship and suffering in the mountains north of the Turkish capital.

  Many other households in the city found their Christmas celebrations marred by the same realization, including that of Prince Viktor Fedorcenko. Princess Natalia always loved to make a great show at Christmastime. It was one of the few times in the year she could feel genuinely useful and in charge of something that others of her family and household cared about. She spared no expense in the purchasing of decorations and gifts. Her tree in the main parlor was renown throughout the city for its elaborate artistry, with a distinctive theme and new adornments every year. Last December the fifteen-foot evergreen had featured two dozen live doves, housed in ornate silver cages. Jean Etepe, a French resident of St. Petersburg and a favorite society artist, had designed Natalia’s trees for the past five years. For this holiday he had planned a motif of bells, and had spent all year collecting unique bells from around the world.

  They had put finishing touches on their theme during the fall, when hopes of an early victory in the south were still alive. But when the yuletide season began with Plevna still untaken, she had waved aside the plan. “Let us save the bells for next year,” she said sadly, “when our men will be home from the war.”

  Instead, the tree was decorated with ribbons representing Sergei’s and Viktor’s regimental colors. Though purposefully simple, it still garnered lavish compliments from visitors. The tsar himself came one afternoon several days after Christmas to view it personally. If he could not bring himself to reestablish friendship with Viktor after their sharp misunderstanding, perhaps he could partially make up for it with the wife.

  “This does a great service to our valiant soldiers in the south, Princess Natalia,” he said, his haggard expression momentarily replaced with a look of pride. “Sometimes you who fight the battles at home have every bit as important a task.”

  “You have seen my husband recently,” asked Natalia, “and spoken with him? How is he, if I might ask, Your Excellency?”

  “I . . . that is . . . of course, we saw a great deal of our commanders,” replied the tsar, hesitating momentarily. “It was, you understand, a busy time, with the demands of the war. I had not so many opportunities as I would have wished to visit personally with Viktor.” Alexander did not have the heart to tell Natalia the truth, that he had not spoken once to her husband throughout the entire campaign.

  “But he is fine, Princess Natalia, and doing well, as is your son after his wound. I know they will be proud when they hear of what your Christmas tree has meant to me. I commend you again.”

  Knowing nothing of the growing seeds of strife between her husband and the tsar, nor of the discontent brewing in the soul of her son, the monarch’s praise carried a lonely, anxious Natalia through many a troubled day that winter.

  Victory at Plevna notwithstanding, and however brave a face her mother may have put on to the guests who came by to look at the ribbon-covered tree, Katrina did not share her mother’s sacrificially noble sentiments. She had sacrificed enough for this war and was ready for it to end. She longed to see Dmitri and she missed her father; he ought to have been able to spend Christmas with his family.

  “Why should we even bother to celebrate Christmas at all?” she exclaimed in frustration the morning of the day before Christmas.

  “I think I know a little how you feel, Princess,” said Anna. “I miss my family so much at this time. It must be even more difficult for you with your father and brother in danger.”

  “I’m sorry, Anna,” said Katrina. “I didn’t stop to think of you not being with your family either.”

  “It’s all right,” smiled Anna. “But perhaps your mother has the right idea, to use this time as a way to show that those who are gone are not forgotten. And don’t forget the wounded who are coming home. For their sakes we need to be tolerant and sympathetic.”

  Katrina gave a long, resigned sigh. “You know, Anna—and may God forgive me for saying this—but I have sometimes found myself wishing that Sergei and Dmitri had been wounded seriously enough to be sent home. At least then they would be safe from further harm.”

  “Oh no, Princess!” exclaimed Anna in horror. “I have been to one of the hospitals, and the sights are terrible.”

  “When, Anna?” asked Katrina curiously.

  “On the days when you do not need me. Polya and I go into the city to help when we can.”
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  “Help . . . in the hospitals?”

  “Only two or three times. But I have seen such terrible sights—men with shattered arms and legs, or with part of their body paralyzed; men blinded and disfigured, some without legs and arms. Princess, if you saw such things you would never wish them upon someone you loved!”

  “Why did you never tell me of this, Anna?” Her tone indicated more admiration than umbrage.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know if you would be interested.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I read to some of the men, and helped one or two write letters to their families. The nurses and sisters do the difficult work.”

  “Will you go today?”

  “It is Christmas Eve, and it is very busy here. I have much to do.”

  “I want to go, Anna. I want to go to the hospital. Can we go today?”

  “Of course, they are happy to see us any time. But—”

  “I want to go, Anna. I am ashamed of how I spoke a few minutes ago. I have done nothing to help anyone. Perhaps this is my chance.”

  “I feel that when I am with a soldier lying there hurt, it is a little like I’m doing something to help the men at the front, too.”

  “Oh, let’s do, Anna! I will talk to Mother right now. Whatever we have left to do before tomorrow can wait. The hospital is more important!”

  66

  Not only did Princess Natalia give her permission for Katrina to leave during the last day of Christmas preparations, she decided to accompany the girls herself.

  “I don’t want to be left out of your errand of mercy,” she said cheerily, but something in her tone indicated a melancholy mood not in keeping with the holiday spirit. Perhaps even Natalia, in her own way, was finding herself affected by Anna’s presence under their roof.

  It was indeed a day of healthy inward beginnings.

  Katrina was staggered by what first met her eyes. She had never set foot inside a hospital at all, and to see the wards of wounded and dying under wartime conditions only intensified the shock. Most of those present had already passed through field hospitals, and some had spent time in the facilities at Bucharest. Little blood was showing by this time, and the screams of the battlefield were now only silent memories running through the minds of those hundreds on the beds. The most ghastly appearances of raw flesh had been cleaned or cut away and were now dressed and bandaged. Yet it was obvious to all three women that these men were here because of wounds so serious they could not return to battle. Many would never return again to normal life.