by Ken Follett
The speaker who made the greatest impression was Yakov, a tall man with shoulders like a bear. He stood on the table beside Grigori with tears in his eyes. "When they told us to fire, I didn't know what to do," he said. He seemed unable to raise his voice, and the room went quiet as the other men strained to hear him. "I said: 'God, please guide me now,' and I listened in my heart, but God sent me no answer." The men were silent. "I raised my rifle," Yakov said. "The captain was screaming: 'Shoot! Shoot!' But who should I shoot at? In Galicia we knew who our enemies were because they were firing at us. But today in the square no one was attacking us. The people were mostly women, some with children. Even the men had no weapons."
He fell silent. The men were as still as stones, as if they feared that any movement might break the spell. After a moment Isaak prompted him. "What happened next, Yakov Davidovich?"
"I pulled the trigger," Yakov said, and the tears ran from his eyes into his bushy black beard. "I didn't even aim the gun. The captain was screaming at me and I fired just to shut him up. But I hit a woman. A girl, really; about nineteen, I suppose. She had a green coat. I shot her in the chest, and the blood went all over the coat, red on green. Then she fell down." He was weeping openly now, speaking in gasps. "I dropped my gun and tried to go to her, to help her, but the crowd went for me, punching and kicking, though I hardly felt it." He wiped his face with his sleeve. "I'm in trouble, now, for losing my rifle." There was another long pause. "Nineteen," he said. "I think she must have been about nineteen."
Grigori had not noticed the door opening, but suddenly Lieutenant Kirillov was there. "Get off that damn table, Yakov," he shouted. He looked at Grigori. "You, too, Peshkov, you troublemaker." He turned and spoke to the men, sitting on benches at their trestle tables. "Return to your barracks, all of you," he said. "Anyone still in this room one minute from now gets a flogging."
No one moved. The men stared surlily at the lieutenant. Grigori wondered if this was how a mutiny started.
But Yakov was too lost in his misery to realize what a moment of drama he had created; he got down clumsily from the table, and the tension was released. Some of the men close to Kirillov stood up, looking sullen but scared. Grigori remained defiantly standing on the table a few moments longer, but he sensed that the men were not quite angry enough to turn on an officer, so in the end he got down. The men started to leave the room. Kirillov remained where he was, glaring at everyone.
Grigori returned to barracks and soon the bell rang for lights-out. As a sergeant, he had the privilege of a curtained niche at the end of his platoon's dormitory. He could hear the men speaking in low voices.
"I won't shoot women," said one.
"Me neither."
A third voice said: "If you don't, some of these bastard officers will shoot you for disobedience!"
"I'm going to aim to miss," said another voice.
"They might see."
"You only have to aim a bit above the heads of the crowd. No one can be sure what you're doing."
"That's what I'm going to do," said another voice.
"Me, too."
"Me, too."
We'll see, Grigori thought as he drifted off to sleep. Brave words came easily in the dark. Daylight might tell a different story.
{ III }
On Monday Grigori's platoon was marched the short distance along Samsonievsky Prospekt to the Liteiny Bridge and ordered to prevent demonstrators crossing the river to the city center. The bridge was four hundred yards long, and rested on massive stone piers set into the frozen river like stranded icebreakers.
This was the same job they had had on Friday, but the orders were different. Lieutenant Kirillov briefed Grigori. He spoke these days as if he was in a constant bad temper, and perhaps he was: officers probably disliked being lined up against their own countrymen just as much as the men did. "No marchers are to cross the river, either by the bridge or on the ice, do you understand? You will shoot people who flout your instructions."
Grigori hid his contempt. "Yes, Excellency!" he said smartly.
Kirillov repeated the orders, then disappeared. Grigori thought the lieutenant was scared. Doubtless he feared being held responsible for what happened, whether his orders were obeyed or defied.
Grigori had no intention of obeying. He would allow the leaders of the march to engage him in discussion while their followers crossed the ice, exactly as it had played out on Friday.
However, early in the morning his platoon was joined by a detachment of police. To his horror, he saw that they were led by his old enemy Mikhail Pinsky. The man did not appear to be suffering from the shortage of bread: his round face was fatter than ever, and his police uniform was tight around the middle. He was carrying a loud-hailer. His weasel-faced sidekick, Kozlov, was nowhere in sight.
"I know you," Pinsky said to Grigori. "You used to work at the Putilov factory."
"Until you had me conscripted," Grigori said.
"Your brother is a murderer, but he escaped to America."
"So you say."
"No one is going to cross the river here today."
"We shall see."
"I expect full cooperation from your men, is that understood?"
Grigori said: "Aren't you afraid?"
"Of the rabble? Don't be stupid."
"No, I mean of the future. Suppose the revolutionaries get their way. What do you think they will do to you? You've spent your life bullying the weak, beating people up, harassing women, and taking bribes. Don't you fear a day of retribution?"
Pinsky pointed a gloved finger at Grigori. "I'm reporting you as a damned subversive," he said, and he walked away.
Grigori shrugged. It was not as easy as it used to be for the police to arrest anyone they liked. Isaak and others might mutiny if Grigori was jailed, and the officers knew it.
The day started quietly, but Grigori noted that few workers were on the streets. Many factories were closed because they could not get fuel for their steam engines and furnaces. Other places were on strike, the employees demanding more money to pay inflated prices, or heating for ice-cold workshops, or safety rails around dangerous machinery. It looked as if almost no one was actually going to work today. But the sun rose cheerfully, and people were not going to stay indoors. Sure enough, at midmorning Grigori saw, coming along Samsonievsky Prospekt, a large crowd of men and women in the ragged clothes of industrial workers.
Grigori had thirty men and two corporals. He had stationed them in four lines of eight across the road, blocking the end of the bridge. Pinsky had about the same number of men, half on foot and half on horseback, and he placed them at the sides of the road.
Grigori peered anxiously at the oncoming march. He could not predict what would happen. On his own he could have prevented bloodshed, by offering only token resistance then letting the demonstrators pass. But he did not know what Pinsky was going to do.
The marchers came nearer. There were hundreds of people--no, thousands. They were men and women in the blue tunics and ragged coats of industrial workers. Most wore red armbands or red ribbons. Their banners read Down with the Tsar and Bread, Peace, and Land. This was no longer merely a protest, Grigori concluded: it had become a political movement.
As the leaders came nearer, he sensed the tightening anxiety among his waiting men.
He walked forward to meet the marchers. At their head, to his surprise, was Varya, the mother of Konstantin. Her gray hair was tied up in a red scarf, and she carried a red flag on a hefty stick. "Hello, Grigori Sergeivich," she said amiably. "Are you going to shoot me?"
"No, I'm not," he replied. "But I can't speak for the police."
Although Varya stopped, the others came on, pressed from behind by thousands more. Grigori heard Pinsky urge his mounted men forward. These horseback policemen, called Pharaohs, were the most hated section of the force. They were armed with whips and clubs.
Varya said: "All we want is to make a living and feed our families. Isn't that what you want too
, Grigori?"
The marchers were not confronting Grigori's soldiers, or attempting to get past them onto the bridge. Instead they were spreading out along the embankment on both sides. Pinsky's Pharaohs nervously walked their horses along the towpath, as if to bar the way to the ice, but there were not enough of them to form a continuous barrier. However, no marcher wanted to be the first to make a dash for it, and there was a moment of stalemate.
Lieutenant Pinsky put his megaphone to his mouth. "Go back!" he shouted. The instrument was no more than a piece of tin shaped like a cone, and made his voice only a little louder. "You may not enter the city center. Return to your workplaces in orderly fashion. This is a police command. Go back."
Nobody went back--most people could not even hear--but the marchers started to jeer and boo. Someone deep in the crowd threw a stone. It struck the rump of a horse, and the beast started. Its rider, taken by surprise, almost fell off. Furious, he pulled himself upright, sawed on the reins, and lashed the horse with his whip. The crowd laughed, which made him angrier, but he brought his horse under control.
A brave marcher took advantage of the diversion, dodged past a Pharaoh on the embankment, and ran onto the ice. Several more people on both sides of the bridge did the same. The Pharaohs deployed their whips and clubs, wheeling and rearing their horses as they lashed out. Some of the marchers fell to the ground, but more got through, and others were emboldened to try. In seconds, thirty or more people were running across the frozen river.
For Grigori, that was a happy outcome. He could say that he had attempted to enforce the ban, and he had in fact kept people off the bridge, but the number of demonstrators was too great and it had proved impossible to stop people crossing the ice.
Pinsky did not see it that way.
He turned his megaphone to the armed police and said: "Take aim!"
"No!" Grigori shouted, but it was too late. The police took up the firing position, on one knee, and raised their rifles. Marchers at the front of the crowd tried to go back, but they were pushed forward by the thousands behind them. Some ran for the river, braving the Pharaohs.
Pinsky shouted: "Fire!"
There was a crackle of shots like fireworks, followed by shouts of fear and screams of pain as marchers fell dead and wounded.
Grigori was taken back twelve years. He saw the square in front of the Winter Palace, the hundreds of men and women kneeling in prayer, the soldiers with their rifles, and his mother lying on the ground with her blood spreading on the snow. In his mind he heard eleven-year-old Lev scream: "She's dead! Ma's dead, my mother is dead!"
"No," Grigori said aloud. "I will not let them do this again." He turned the safety knob on his Mosin-Nagant rifle, unlocking the bolt, then he raised the gun to his shoulder.
The crowd was screaming and running in all directions, trampling the fallen. The Pharaohs were out of control, lashing out at random. The police fired indiscriminately into the crowd.
Grigori aimed carefully at Pinsky, targeting the middle of the body. He was not a very good shot, and Pinsky was sixty yards away, but he had a chance of hitting him. He pulled the trigger.
Pinsky continued to yell through his megaphone.
Grigori had missed. He lowered his sights--the rifle kicked up a little when fired--and squeezed the trigger again.
He missed again.
The carnage went on, police shooting wildly into the crowd of fleeing men and women.
There were five rounds in the magazine of Grigori's rifle. He could usually hit something with one of the five. He fired a third time.
Pinsky gave a shout of pain that was amplified by his megaphone. His right knee seemed to fold under him. He dropped the megaphone and fell to the ground.
Grigori's men followed his example. They attacked the police, some firing and some using their rifles as clubs. Others pulled the Pharaohs off their horses. The marchers drew courage and joined in. Some of those on the ice turned around and came back.
The fury of the mob was ugly. For as long as anyone could remember, the Petrograd police had been sneering brutes, undisciplined and uncontrolled, and now the people took their revenge. Policemen on the ground were kicked and trampled, those on their feet were knocked down, and the Pharaohs had their horses shot from under them. The police resisted for only a few moments, then those who could fled.
Grigori saw Pinsky struggle to his feet. Grigori took aim again, eager now to finish the bastard off, but a Pharaoh got in the way, heaved Pinsky up onto his horse's neck, and galloped off.
Grigori stood back, watching the police run away.
He was in the worst trouble of his life.
His platoon had mutinied. In direct contravention of their orders, they had attacked the police, not the marchers. And he had led them, by shooting Lieutenant Pinsky, who had survived to tell the tale. There was no way to cover this up, no excuse he could offer that would make any difference, and no escape from punishment. He was guilty of treason. He could be court-martialed and executed.
Despite that, he felt happy.
Varya pushed through the crowd. There was blood on her face, but she was smiling. "What now, Sergeant?"
Grigori was not going to resign himself to his punishment. The tsar was murdering his people. Well, his people would shoot back. "To the barracks," Grigori said. "Let's arm the working class!" He snatched her red flag. "Follow me!"
He strode back along Samsonievsky Prospekt. His men came after him, marshaled by Isaak, and the crowd fell in behind them. Grigori was not sure exactly what he was going to do, but he did not feel the need of a plan: as he marched at the head of the crowd he had the sense that he could do anything.
The sentry opened the barracks gates for the soldiers, then was unable to close them on the marchers. Feeling invincible, Grigori led the procession across the parade ground to the arsenal. Lieutenant Kirillov came out of the headquarters building, saw the crowd, and turned toward them, breaking into a run. "You men!" he shouted. "Halt! Stop right there!"
Grigori ignored him.
Kirillov came to a standstill and drew his revolver. "Halt!" he said. "Halt, or I shoot!"
Two or three of Grigori's platoon raised their rifles and fired at Kirillov. Several bullets struck him and he fell to the ground, bleeding.
Grigori went on.
The arsenal was guarded by two sentries. Neither of them tried to stop Grigori. He used the last two rounds in his magazine to shoot out the lock on the heavy wooden doors. The crowd burst into the arsenal, pushing and shoving to get at the weapons. Some of Grigori's men took charge, opening wooden cases of rifles and revolvers and passing them out along with boxes of ammunition.
This is it, Grigori thought. This is a revolution. He was exhilarated and terrified at the same time.
He armed himself with two of the Nagant revolvers that were issued to officers, reloaded his rifle, and filled his pockets with ammunition. He was not sure what he intended to do, but now that he was a criminal he needed weapons.
The rest of the soldiers in the barracks joined in the looting of the arsenal, and soon everyone was armed to the teeth.
Carrying Varya's red flag, Grigori led the crowd out of the barracks. Demonstrations always went toward the city center. With Isaak, Yakov, and Varya he marched across the bridge to Liteiny Prospekt, heading for the affluent heart of Petrograd. He felt as if he were flying, or dreaming, as if he had drunk a large mouthful of vodka. For years he had talked about defying the authority of the regime, but today he was doing it, and that made him feel like a new man, a different creature, a bird of the air. He remembered the words of the old man who had spoken to him after his mother was shot dead. "May you live long," the man had said, as Grigori walked away from Palace Square with his mother's body in his arms. "Long enough to take revenge on the bloodstained tsar for the evil he has done this day." Your wish may come true, old man, he thought exultantly.
The First Machine Guns were not the only regiment to have mutinied this morning.
When he reached the far side of the bridge he was even more elated to see that the streets were full of soldiers wearing their caps backward or their coats unbuttoned in merry defiance of regulations. Most sported red armbands or red lapel ribbons to show they were revolutionaries. Commandeered cars roared around, erratically driven, rifle barrels and bayonets sticking out of the windows, laughing girls sitting on the soldiers' knees inside. The pickets and checkpoints of yesterday had vanished. The streets had been taken over by the people.
Grigori saw a wine shop with its windows broken and its door battered down. A soldier and a girl came out, bottles in both hands, trampling over broken glass. Next door a cafe proprietor had put plates of smoked fish and sliced sausage on a table outside, and stood beside it with a red ribbon in his lapel, smiling nervously and inviting soldiers to help themselves. Grigori guessed he was trying to make sure his place was not broken into and looted like the wine shop.
The carnival atmosphere grew as they neared the center. Some people were already quite drunk, although it was only midday. Girls seemed happy to kiss anyone with a red armband, and Grigori saw a soldier openly fondling the large breasts of a smiling middle-aged woman. Some girls had dressed in soldiers' uniforms, and swaggered along the streets in caps and oversize boots, evidently feeling liberated.
A shiny Rolls-Royce car came along the street and the crowd tried to stop it. The chauffeur put his foot on the gas but someone opened the door and pulled him out. People shoved one another trying to get into the car. Grigori saw Count Maklakov, one of the directors of the Putilov works, scramble out of the backseat. Grigori recalled how Maklakov had been so entranced with Princess Bea the day she visited the factory. The crowd jeered but did not molest the count as he hurried away, pulling his fur collar up around his ears. Nine or ten people crammed into his car and someone drove it off, honking blithely.
At the next corner a handful of people were tormenting a tall man in the trilby hat and well-worn greatcoat of a middle-class professional. A soldier poked him with his rifle barrel, an old woman spat at him, and a young man in worker's overalls threw a handful of rubbish. "Let me pass!" the man said, trying to sound commanding, but they just laughed. Grigori recognized the thin figure of Kanin, supervisor of the casting section at the Putilov works. His hat fell off, and Grigori saw that he had gone bald.