by Tony Roberts
The interrogator chuckled. “This is so pleasurable, being able to blow your brains out.”
“At least tell me your name so I can find you later.”
The man paused, frowned, then giggled. “Of course! Yedanov. Comrade Yevgeny Yedanov. Now die, traitorous pig.”
Casca felt the cold muzzle of the Nagant pressing against his neck and he closed his eyes.
A brief searing pain, some kind of loud noise and then it was all black.
____
Pain. Agony. A knife-edged searing pain in fact. Casca’s head felt like exploding. Probably had in fact. He couldn’t move, he just lay there, wherever there was, and hurt. He couldn’t see anything. Maybe his eyes had been blasted out of his head? The fact he could remember being shot was good; it meant his brain was functioning.
Hearing, too, was alright. He could hear voices. Russians. Took a few minutes for his repairing mind to translate, but once he got his ear in, he was able to understand them.
Someone was giving orders, a lot of them. Cursing, cajoling, threatening. Now the sound of shovels digging into soil came to him, and the grunting and breathing of a number of men working hard.
Smell now impacted upon him. Blood, death, wet clothing. He was lying amongst a pile of other poor souls who’d met the same fate as he, including, no doubt, poor Raisa. An arm, cold and clammy, lay across his face. It wasn’t his. His legs were pinned under another corpse. He flexed his muscles and gradually all began to respond, some more reluctantly than others.
The pain was almost too much to bear. The back of his skull was tender as hell, and his throat felt like he had something stuck there. He retched and worked his jaw, trying to bring up whatever it was. He coughed and went very still. If any of those bastards heard him…
Nobody came to investigate. The Eternal Mercenary grimaced and spat out a lump from his mouth. It lay there before him and his free arm, the left, moved to it and his fingers worked the lump into a soggy puddle. Blood, saliva, flesh and a bullet.
He grimaced and picked up the bullet, pocketing it. Now he had to see what was going to happen.
The man shouting was now ordering the bodies to be picked up and thrown into the pit. Movement from close by so Casca kept his eyes mostly closed and willed the pain to subside, or he might have to scream and bang his head against the side of the truck he was in.
The canvas flap was thrown aside and men began dragging out the people who’d been shot. Casca tensed and then tried to relax. They would expect the dead, not the living. Bodies were thrown to the ground and Casca could now see that a number of civilians were doing the work, covered by rifle-armed Red Army soldiers, all aiming their guns at the poor prisoners.
They were in some kind of wood or forest. It was night time and a few torches were being held by a few soldiers, allowing the work that had to be done to be done. There were two trucks, piled with bodies. All those who had enraged the Communists or the Soviet or whatever they wanted to call themselves. There was no other fate than to be shot. From what Casca could see as he was roughly pulled out by two hard-breathing men, all those shot were civilians. Men, women, young, old.
Casca hit the muddy ground and shook with agony. He couldn’t blame them, but it hurt so much! Then another group of prisoners threw the bodies into a shallow pit they had dug. Casca was chucked into it and he rolled over the top to the far side and lay against the edge. Once all were in, the prisoners were ordered to stand by the edge next to the trucks, then turn and face the pit.
Casca knew what was coming. The men were forced to their knees, head bowed, and a soldier went up to each and pressed their rifle muzzles against their necks or backs. On an order, the air was shattered by a series of shots and the entire prisoner detachment toppled into the pit to join those they had thrown in.
Then the soldiers were ordered to throw the topsoil over the pit. Time to leave. Casca crawled out, making sure nobody was looking his way for the few seconds it took for him to get out and crawl into the trees and undergrowth. If it had been daylight he’d be spotted for sure, but in the dark of the woodland night it was so much easier. He sat with his back against a trunk for a few moments, then he gingerly rubbed his neck. He had to do something.
He got up and moved stealthily around the trees to the mud track that served as a road, and crossed it. Now he came from the other side and to a man leaning against a tree, smoking. A driver. The man was looking at the scene where the pit was being covered up. Casca crept up to the man from the other side of the tree, and snaked his arm around it over the man’s mouth, pulling him down and around so he was now out of sight of anyone.
Casca closed his hands around the driver’s throat and squeezed until the man stopped struggling. He stood up. Time to disguise himself. The driver was smaller so all he could take was the cap and the jacket, and the latter he couldn’t button up. No matter, it would do in the dark of the forest night.
He climbed into the cab of the second truck and waited.
It wasn’t long before the soldiers had finished and they were piled into the backs of the two vehicles. The officer of the detachment got into the front truck and they drove off. The sergeant got into the cab with Casca and waved peremptorily to Casca to follow.
When Casca sat there, the man turned to him. “Move, you whoreson...”
Casca’s hands clamped around the man’s throat. The sergeant was too stunned to fight back at first, and then when he did try, it was too late. His corpse sat in the cab, head bowed, and Casca set off after the front vehicle.
It didn’t take long to catch up with it and he trundled along behind it, keeping a safe distance, the lights shining on the occupants of the vehicle in front. His mind was bringing up and discounting all kinds of options open to him now. Mostly of how to get even with Yedanov and his two creatures. These people, too, were guilty of murder, all for a political cause. Casca just couldn’t abide regimes and causes that slaughtered people wholesale. He’d taken down Moctezuma in Tenochtitlan in 1519 purely because the Mexica had been bloodthirsty and sacrificed tens of thousands for nothing. He hadn’t liked the Conquistadores that much; they had been religious fanatics and greedy for gold, but they were preferable to a race who ripped people’s hearts out to guess the weather forecast.
These Reds were bloodthirsty, too. They were using terror to gain absolute obedience from an already downtrodden peasantry. These poor bastards deserved a better system of government. The Tsar had been bad enough but these people were worse.
The woods ended and they came out onto a main road running back into the town. Casca pushed the pedal down and the truck responded sluggishly. Trees ran to both sides but to the left the land sloped down towards the river, and there were some steep drops. Casca pulled out and raced alongside the other truck, the vehicle shaking having to run over the ruts and the grassy edge of the road.
He took the rifle the man next to him had brought into the truck and put it across his lap, then shoved the dead sergeant out of the cab. Gripping the wheel tightly, he pushed the protesting truck alongside the other and looked across at the surprised officer.
The Soviet captain looked down at the rifle pointing at him. “What in the name of…?”
A bullet tore through his ribs and he jerked upright. Casca swerved the truck into the other, pushing it over to the edge of the dirt road. The driver of the other truck fought to keep the vehicle on the road but Casca shot him through the head and then it was a case of how far the truck would fall.
As it went over the edge, Casca heard the men behind him shouting in confusion and alarm. Casca grinned, hauled on the wheel and threw himself out of the cab and rolled over onto the dirt and came up hard against a tree, winding him. The truck growled past him and dived over the edge of the drop, glancing off another tree with a sickening screech and then tipped onto its side, rolling over and over, spilling soldiers out in a whirlwind. The tank ruptured and the gas ignited, engulfing the wreckage in flames as it smashed into trees that li
ned the river.
Both trucks were totally wrecked; the first lay on its side, wheels spinning, highlighted by the burning second. Two men slowly fought to get upright from the first, so Casca aimed carefully and shot both dead.
That done, he walked down the road towards the town, thoughts of burning vengeance in his head.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Night was still cloaking the town as Casca entered it from the south-east. He noted the river off to his left where jetties stood and boats were moored. No simple rowboat for him this time. There were riverboats there, two of which were military in appearance, flying the red flag of Communism. Time for that later.
The road he was walking on became paved and he marched boldly down the streets towards the center, rifle over his shoulder, cap crammed on his head, jacket unbuttoned and flapping in the breeze. His wound was still tender and sore but it no longer gave him shooting shafts of agony.
The two guards at the Cheka building gave him a long look as he walked up the steps to the front door. “Comrade Yedanov is expecting me,” Casca announced. “He does not wish to be kept waiting.”
The two guards allowed him access, too indoctrinated in obeying orders to even challenge him, and fear of incurring Yedanov’s wrath overcoming any possible query such as would the Chekist be up awake at this early hour.
Casca passed into the large hall and the desk to the left. A man was sat there, the night shift murderer. Casca marched up to him. “I’m here to see Yedanov. Get him.”
The man stood up, outraged. “Comrade Yedanov is sleeping! Who are you?”
“His killer,” Casca said, closing his hands around the man. It was easy to crush his windpipe and the Chekist sank to the ground, blood vomiting out of his mouth.
The one guard on duty wrestled his rifle off his shoulder, his mouth twisted into a snarl of both anger and fear. The Eternal Mercenary grabbed the dying man’s Nagant from the desk and shot the guard through the chest.
As the guard slid to the ground the door behind Casca burst open, the two guards outside pulled in by the shot. Casca was calmness itself as he steadily aimed at the first one, drilling him through the sternum. The guard flung up both arms and brought his comrade down. As the second man struggled to regain his balance, Casca shot him dead.
Now he climbed the steps behind the desk, up to the next floor. The bedrooms would be there. Yedanov would be there. With rifle in his right hand and pistol in his left, he advanced down the corridor there. A door burst open to reveal a man in shirt and braces, holding a pistol. Casca shot him out of the way. More steps down the passageway.
Another door was hauled open. A Russian fired wildly, missing Casca by a foot. Casca swung the barrel of his rifle and centered it on the Chekist. He blew the man back into the room. Three more steps and he was at a room with a door that even had the name of the man on it. How vain. As if he needed to tell anyone that this was his own personal domain and more important than all the others. So much for the Communist manifesto that all were equal.
Mind you, Casca thought as he put his hand on the handle and pushed it down, and placed his right boot on the tarnished pine and kicked the door wide open, other societies had founded their world on something they said was much more than it was in reality. Revolutionary France professed fraternity, egalitarianism and so forth, but there were always those who ruled. The young America had declared everyone was equal, but Casca had been there and seen that the black slaves freed by the British to man the ramparts of Yorktown were re-enslaved once the town had fallen. No equality there.
And ancient Athens, that bastion of democracy. Democracy. Casca snorted with cynicism. Yeah, if you weren’t a woman, or poor, or a slave, or a foreigner. All very well declaring something noble, but for fuck’s sake, stick to it rather than being an out-and-out hypocrite. These Communists were just as bad, or maybe even worse.
Yedanov was armed and blasted at Casca, striking him in the shoulder. The Eternal Mercenary gritted his teeth and his rifle fired. The Chekist flung up both arms and was pitched against a rather beautifully ornate nineteenth century wardrobe. The thin wood splintered.
Yedanov’s face was twisted in pain and Casca shot him again, this time with the Nagant. The bullet smashed into the wounded man’s chest and he slid to the floor onto his ass.
Casca stepped around the obscenely huge four-poster bed and stood over the heavily panting Chekist. His pistol was aimed at Yedanov’s forehead. “Told you I’d kill you.”
“You – you’re dead,” Yedanov gasped.
“I can’t die. People have tried for nearly two thousand years now. You’re just one insignificant asshole who won’t even get a mention in history.”
“Neither will you, you traitor!”
“Ha. I am history, you shit. I’m not even a Russian,” Casca aimed right at Yedanov’s forehead. “A shame you used this room; this room had class. You wouldn’t know what that was.”
“A pox on you, whoreson! I’ve more class than you.”
Casca laughed. “Fuck you. You’ve as much class as a syphilitic beggar.” Casca shot Yedanov clean through the middle of the eyes.
He threw his rifle onto the bed; he wouldn’t need that anymore, but he took Yedanov’s pistol and as he made his way out of the building, he reloaded his own from the bullets in Yedanov’s, then tossed the empty pistol away as he went into the street. Dawn was beginning to touch the sky and he quickly made his way down to the river jetties. Nobody came to investigate the shots in the Chekist building; what with the executions carried out there on a daily basis, those kind of things were normal.
The first boat Casca approached was a river boat, a steamboat. A guard walked the deck, rifle slung, a bored look to his face. He saw Casca approach and turned with interest. Casca stepped up the narrow plank to the deck. “Where’s the captain?”
“Comrade Captain is below in his cabin, comrade…?”
“Go get him. This is an emergency. Someone has shot up the Cheka building and we believe the perpetrator is fleeing along the river bank. This vessel is commandeered in the name of the Soviet. I am assuming command. I am Commissar Kaskarov, with full authority of the committee.”
The soldier swallowed. He nodded and dashed below. Casca took the time to glance across at the other boat, a similar one to this, and capable of matching them. It would be important to get a good head’s start and then take the vessel over. It was short, squat and sturdy, with one central funnel with smoke rising lazily up out of it.
Two hatches, one fore and one aft, and a central cab for the wheel and captain. Not much, but then you didn’t need it with a pair of machine guns mounted on the deck. The red flag hung limply from the mast before the funnel.
A man with a bushy beard came up the ladder from the cabins below deck, still dressing. “Comrade Commissar?” he asked nervously.
Casca eyed him coldly. “You are not ready. A ship should be ready for immediate action at all times! I shall send a report to Comrade Lenin in Moscow, and if you do not wish me to include such sloppy status I suggest you get to it at once!”
Casca turned away from the sweating man. Probably had been sailing these waters for decades and now was caught up in the madness of the war, having to adopt a new flag and masters. Clearly he was no real Communist. Just another poor bastard stuck with the life he had.
The boat was ready to move in moments and the ropes cast off and the plank pulled aboard. The boat moved out into the river with the other ship’s crew pointing in wonder and shouting out as to what was going on. They would take some time to get ready and come after them, and they would only do that once orders came from higher up, and nobody would do that until they had fully investigated the Chekist building shooting and put two and two together. Casca reckoned he had thirty minutes at the most. If he was lucky.
He went to the cabin and studied the helmsman as he moved the wheel, and reckoned he could steer it downriver. He turned to the captain. “Tell me, Captain, how far do you think we
can go safely before we get too close to the Front?”
“Last I heard the fighting was going on near Rostov. We should be safe for a hundred kilometers.”
Casca was still trying to get used to the new metric system, adopted in more and more countries of Europe from the French since it had been created in 1793. The French, oddly, used the term Myriametre in everyday speech. How confusing. Still, the old Roman mille was being replaced with the revolutionary French system.
The Eternal Mercenary nodded mysteriously and walked to the front of the boat, peering at the river bank. He returned. “The fugitive is dressed in Soviet military attire and armed with a Nagant pistol, like this one,” he produced his pistol. “Jump overboard, gentlemen, or I’ll use this. Go!”
The two men gaped in shock, then at Casca’s urging did as bid, jumping into the river and were rapidly left behind. Casca took the wheel and steered down the center of the waterway. A hundred k’s, eh? With the flow of the river and the speed of this thing, he ought to get there in a day or so.
The other crewmen would come investigating soon enough, and he’d have to encourage them to jump overboard as well. Whether he could keep the boat going by himself he had no idea, but he was determined to get to the front line and beyond and get the hell out of Russia.
As to where he would go after that was anyone’s guess, but anywhere free from Communists and their murderous habits. He wouldn’t side with the Whites as they weren’t much better. No, he’d leave the whole sorry lot behind and be best rid of it. There were cleaner jobs for the likes of him.
The boat chugged on down the river, the scarred Eternal Mercenary at the wheel.
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