The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “Do you really think that is possible?”

  “I do not know, Princess. But if the Savior could take the sufferings of the world onto himself, perhaps we can take each other’s sufferings on ourselves a little, too.”

  “I hope you are right, Anna. That would make it all worth it, to know that I may have helped ease his burden, even if just a tiny bit.”

  “Your Christmas gift to him,” smiled Anna.

  Katrina returned the smile. “You cause me to think of many things in a new way, Anna,” she said. “You are the best Christmas gift I have ever had.”

  “Thank you, Princess,” replied Anna shyly. “You are very kind.”

  “Oh, but I mustn’t forget,” Katrina went on. “I have something for you under the tree.”

  “But, Princess, I already have received my gift.” She held out the small vial of perfume that Princess Natalia had given her.

  “This is from me,” said Katrina. She walked over to the tree, stooped down, and took a small package from beneath its spreading branches.

  “Happy Christmas, Anna!” she said, handing it toward her.

  Anna took it from her and tore back the colored paper, then carefully opened the tiny box inside.

  “Oh, Princess!” she exclaimed, lifting out a fine gold chain, its links delicate as filigree. At its end dangled a solid gold cross, stunning in its simplicity.

  “I hope you don’t think it too plain,” said Katrina almost apologetically. “There were others, designed and ornate and very expensive. But I didn’t care about the price. This one just stood out from the others and seemed to tell me it was the one for you.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Princess,” said Anna. “I have never owned anything so beautiful in all my life.”

  “You deserve it, Anna. You have given me so much, and have helped me grow in so many ways. I sometimes think I have seen more of God by watching you than in all the icons in St. Isaac’s.”

  Anna could not speak. She could not even utter a simple thank you past all the emotions that surged through her heart. She just stood staring with glistening, tear-filled eyes.

  “I meant what I said a moment ago,” Katrina added. “You have been a gift to me, Anna. I thank you for that. You have become a dear friend.”

  She threw her arms around Anna in a loving embrace. Anna squeezed her tightly in return, weeping freely.

  At length the two girls separated, and laughed sheepishly, while Anna struggled to wipe her cheeks.

  “Let me help you put the necklace on,” said Katrina. “I want to see what it looks like.”

  Anna turned around and Katrina fit it around her neck, clasped the tiny ends of the chain together, then turned Anna by her shoulders around to face her.

  “It’s perfect, Anna!” she exclaimed. “It brings out your natural beauty!”

  “Thank you,” said Anna simply. “I will treasure it always. You have done more for me than I deserve,” she added, her eyes filling up again.

  “Enough of that! I have already said that you have given a great deal to me. So now perhaps we are even. Agreed?”

  “Agreed!” laughed Anna.

  68

  At the midnight Mass that Christmas Eve, Princess Natalia was solemn. As she prayed for her husband and son, she touched deep elemental emotions within her, feelings she had never been aware of before. The time at the hospital, Viktor’s absence, anxiety over his future in the war effort, and the personal closeness that evening with her servants had all combined to prick the heart of the superficial aristocratic lady. In truth, she had opened the eyes of her heart and begun to look about her. And she saw her fellow creatures, all hungry for something she could give them, something she never before knew she had!

  The awakening of the heart is one of the most wonderful, frightening, joyous experiences in human life. As she sat in St. Isaac’s, praying both for her husband and for the old man who had taken a cup of water from her hand, Natalia wept, but did not know why.

  Katrina’s heart, too, was full. As she had promised, she lit a candle for Sergei Ivanovich, then walked out into the night beside her mother.

  Christmas morning dawned quietly in the Fedorcenko household. Mother and daughter took breakfast alone. Yet neither felt comfortable in their abundance, now that their eyes had looked through a tiny window into the sufferings of their brothers and sisters.

  About mid-morning, Katrina suddenly burst out, “It’s all wrong, Mother!”

  “What’s wrong, dear?” asked Natalia, where she sat across the room.

  “Christmas without giving! There needs to be someone to give to, or it means nothing.”

  “But your father and brother are gone, dear,” replied Natalia. “What can we do but just enjoy the day ourselves?”

  “Well, it’s not enough,” Katrina said. “And I know what I’m going to do about it!” Her face suddenly brightened. She jumped from her seat and ran toward the door.

  “What, dear—what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going back to the hospital, Mother,” Katrina said, pausing long enough to answer. “I’m going to find something I can give Serge, something of my very own, some special gift. I’m going to wrap it up and take it over to him. There is no reason why I cannot help to make his Christmas a happy one!”

  “Serge?”

  “The boy I met yesterday. Oh, Mother, he was so sad and alone, and just look at all we have! Why shouldn’t we share it—especially on Christmas!”

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea, dear! May I come along with you?”

  “Of course, Mother.” Katrina’s eyes lit up. “I’ll get Anna, then I’ll find the perfect gift for Serge and wrap it up as prettily as I can!”

  She flew from the room, while Natalia glanced around, wondering what she might take to the old man she had met.

  An hour later, mother and daughter sat behind Leo and Anna, on their way again to the hospital. The mood in the carriage was buoyant and exhilarating, and the conversation flowed freely between princesses and servants. In the very anticipation of bringing happiness to others, hope had filled their hearts, and life seemed good again. Katrina held a brightly colored package in her lap between mittened hands.

  She was the first one out of the carriage as Moskalev drew the horses up and stopped in front of the hospital. She hastened on into the building, not waiting as Anna and Natalia got down and followed her a few moments later.

  Katrina fairly skipped through the first three wards without a pause. As she entered the last she made her way quickly down to the end, package in hand. Suddenly she stopped abruptly. The bed stood empty. The nurse she had spoken with yesterday had her back turned and was pulling back the blankets.

  “Where is Serge?” asked Katrina, somewhat out of breath.

  The sister turned slowly around to face her, but said nothing. Her eyes were red.

  “Serge . . . where is he?” repeated Katrina with an expectant expression. “I’ve brought him a Christmas gift.” She showed the nurse the package.

  For a moment the woman just stared blankly at Katrina, then her lip quivered slightly. “Princess, he’s . . . he’s not here—” she began, then turned her face away. She could not bring herself to say the words.

  Katrina’s smile faded instantly. She grabbed at the woman, almost frantically. “What is it? Tell me where you’ve taken him!”

  “I’m so sorry, Princess,” said the woman, crying in earnest now and looking back up into Katrina’s face. “Serge is gone . . . he died this morning.”

  The package clunked to the floor. Shocked, Katrina turned and staggered back the way she had come. She had only gone a short distance before she met the others coming in behind her.

  The stunned grief on her face told all. Anna guessed the truth in an instant. Even before the princess had reached her, Anna opened her arms and ran forward to meet her mistress. Katrina fell into her embrace.

  “Oh Anna!” she cried, then buried her face in the strong arms of her m
aid and wept without shame.

  69

  Plevna’s fall did not end the war against the Turks. Although it proved the most decisive battle, for much of Russia’s army the most grueling ordeals still lay ahead. The mountains had to be crossed; another contingent of Turks awaited them just beyond Shipka. And winter had come.

  General Radetsky’s Eighth Corps, the first to cross the Danube in the early summer, had been responsible in part for the capture of Plevna. Radetsky’s horsemen and infantrymen, ahead of the main force, swept past Plevna before Osman Pasha could fortify and reinforce the critical crossroads town. He thus reached the strategic Shipka Pass, which he held throughout the entirety of the Plevna assault.

  All throughout the months of September, October, and November, as the reserves and reinforcements continued to arrive from Russia, a second Turkish army under Suleiman Pasha attempted to cross the pass and come to the aid of his besieged troops. Holding the pass, however, Radetsky repulsed Suleiman’s army several times and maintained control of Shipka. Yet on the southern side of the pass, through which the Russians would have to go eventually, an obdurate barrier of Turkish troops proved equally unbreechable. Radetsky—a modest, good-natured leader, so much loved by his troops that they referred to him as “our Daddy”—held Shipka and the route north; Suleiman held the route south.

  The instant Plevna fell, the Grand Duke Nicholas looked south, intending to resume the stalled campaign against Constantinople. Ignoring the weather, ignoring the battle fatigue of his war-weary troops, ignoring their dwindling supplies and the miserable condition of their equipment, he issued the command to march southward into the mountains. At the same time he ordered Radetsky to take the offensive and make a frontal assault against the Turkish forces of Suleiman, in order that the way would be cleared for the huge army that was now trudging up the mountains from Plevna.

  Even though he was one of the more able Russian commanders, Radetsky was not a particularly skillful strategist. He lacked nerve and daring, and thus he argued against such a move. Not only was the weather against them, Radetsky knew the soldiers needed time to recuperate. Moreover, his own reconnaissance indicated that the Turks had had sufficient time during the siege of Plevna to fortify their forces around Shipka.

  The months at Plevna, however, had not made Nicholas into a commander eager to heed such cowardly notions. Especially with the tsar now on his way back to St. Petersburg, the grand duke was anxious to push ahead to a final victory, whatever the cost. He listened instead to the words of the bold, audacious Cossask Skobelev: “If we cannot conquer the mountains, at least we shall die in glory! If Radetsky cannot dislodge the Turks from the mountain passes, then I shall do it myself!” Nicholas was only too happy to give him the chance to prove the worth of his words. Before the sun had set on their victory at Plevna, the White General rode to the front and his thousands of haggard men began their advance up through the mountainous forests of the Balkans.

  Shipka Pass rose only four thousand feet above the Black Sea, yet the devastation of winter there could rival regions of Russia a thousand miles farther north. The conditions as Skobelev marched his men upward were surely as treacherous as Suvarov had encountered in crossing the Alps seventy-five years earlier during the wars that followed the French Revolution. Upon completing the arduous march into Switzerland, Suvarov found that the Russian forces he had been striving to join had already been defeated. Everyone hoped that the present army would fare better.

  Denied the savoring of their victory, the regiments from Plevna shouldered their way along in the weary march. What appetite Sergei may have had left for the soldier’s life vanished altogether in the white death through which they trudged. Day after day he gritted his teeth and forced himself to go on, unable to think, living only on his frayed nerves and fading hope.

  An early winter’s blizzard had blown in to greet them in their march—blinding snow borne on a bitter wind whistling down from the surrounding cliffs. Thousands marched ahead and behind and to his right and left, but Sergei could neither see his companions nor hear their voices. In the tormenting visions that haunted his imagination, he grew unable to distinguish cold from heat, suddenly thinking himself staggering through a Sahara of blinding sandstorms.

  He had long since dismounted and now led his horse by the reins. His feet were frozen; all sensation stopped between the knees and ankles, yet the cold sent icy fingers of pain shooting upward into his wounded thigh. The official report was that his leg had sufficiently healed in the three months since that September battle for him to carry on with his duties. He laughed bitterly at the thought as he took yet one more crippled step.

  Suddenly Dmitri was beside him, appearing like a snow-creature from amid the white wilderness.

  “Cursed wind!” he shouted in Sergei’s ear. “It’s the cursed wind!” Sergei could catch only snatches of his words as they were carried off in the howl of the blizard. “Camp . . . six or seven verst . . . if we can make it . . .”

  Sergei only nodded, making no attempt to yell a reply. What was the use? Even the prospect of camp held little promise. It carried a gloom all its own.

  Supply lines grew more difficult to maintain as the war lengthened into winter. Bureaucratic graft in the supply department was rampant, and the siege of Plevna had all but depleted remaining stores. Minimal rations were doled out, even to the Imperial Guard and officers who were accustomed to a more pampered existence. The uniforms, hopelessly battle-worn and ragged, offered little protection. Many uniforms showed signs of charring—their freezing owners had huddled too near bonfires for warmth. Shoes and boots had become nearly useless in protecting against frostbite, and replacements were unlikely. Most soldiers, like Sergei, had resorted to sewing together their own footwear, patching them from the hides of cattle they had been able to confiscate along the way. The only remedy from the cold was to keep moving.

  A night’s camp offered only freezing, comfortless hours under thin blankets, with thinner soup to fill their stomachs. To keep going would have been best, but that was impossible in the pitch blackness of the mountain nights.

  Shouts from somewhere up ahead filtered into Sergei’s ears. Whoever was yelling must be close for the sound to carry to him at all, yet the voice sounded as though it had traveled for miles. The voices sounded urgent. Had his comrades encountered enemy fire? He quickened his pace, but a sudden gust knocked him momentarily off his feet. He stumbled to one knee, recovered himself, and went on.

  A fleeting form ran through the company of marchers. “Beware the wind!” the man cried. “Beware the wind!”

  Inching their way along a narrow road jutting out from the face of the mountain, they had rounded a projection. Suddenly the force of the wind hit them with redoubled fury, lashing painfully at Sergei’s frozen skin. As it pounded against his chest and swirled about his ears like a thin whip, he tried to suck in air but found the breath squeezed out of him. What little air found its way into his lungs was frozen, like the snow it was blowing about, and his chest ached from within.

  “Keep your step . . . lean into the mountain!” shouted someone. “Can’t see . . . company blown off the ridge . . . save yourselves . . . !”

  Another fierce gust struck. Beside Sergei, Dmitri let out a shocked gasp as the force of the wind blew him from his feet.

  Sergei lunged toward him, hitting the frozen ground, but was unable to feel Dmitri anywhere. His friend disappeared in a blinding flurry of huge flakes.

  “Dmitri!” screamed Sergei. “Dmitri . . . where are you?”

  He heard Dmitri’s voice carried in the wind and crawled toward it. Dmitri was clinging to what was left of a bare mountain tree at the very edge of the precarious road up to the pass. Sergei reached forward and clutched one of his friend’s hands. But the ice under his own arms and legs offered him no traction and he was powerless to pull Dmitri up. If he slipped, Sergei would knock Dmitri off and both men would fall into the white oblivion below.

  “Hang
on!” Sergei shouted. He slid backwards away from the cliff and found his horse. Gripping the faithful beast’s legs, he pulled himself to his feet, then urged the poor creature toward the edge. With fingers numb from the cold, he struggled to release the rope tied to his saddle, then lowered one end of it down to Dmitri.

  “Circle it tight around your wrist!”

  Dmitri did so, while Sergei looped the rope around the horse’s neck. Slowly he encouraged the horse backward and Dmitri heaved himself up onto the icy road.

  Danger dogged Sergei and Dmitri throughout the remainder of the long afternoon, but with both of them grasping one of the horse’s reins they continued to plod forward. Sergei later learned that they had come through the pass only moments before a good portion of an entire company was blown off the slopes by the hurricane-force gales.

  An exhausted, frozen, dispirited army made camp that night on the leeward side of the Shipka Pass. Most were too tired to eat, even had there been adequate provisions.

  Tomorrow there would be more snow no doubt. There would also be the Turks.

  70

  Sergei lay on his thin makeshift bed after their harrowing climb up the pass. He pulled his single blanket tightly around him and huddled closer to Dmitri for warmth. The small tent-shelter was hardly of use against the cold, but it kept the wind and snow at bay.

  He listened to the storm rage, praying they would not have to face it again tomorrow.

  Frightening reports and rumors had reached their ears. They seemed to be losing as many men in the mountain crossing as they had in battle, only it was a slow, insidious, meaningless death. Each regiment reported hundreds of sick—from hunger, frostbite, exposure. Thousands of amputations had been performed on frozen, gangrenous limbs. Still more were dying every week from battle wounds suffered below, because there were not sufficient doctors and medical supplies to treat them.