Now no longer smiling, Eugene replied:
‘Menacing events … The soldiers are literally demoralized. They don’t want to go on fighting, they’re tired of it. To tell the truth, this year we simply haven’t had soldiers in the accepted meaning of the word. They have become bands of criminals, licentious and savage. Father simply cannot understand it. He cannot realize the extent to which our army has become demoralized. They arbitrarily abandon their positions, rob and kill the civilians, kill their officers, maraud … Refusal to carry out military orders is now an everyday occurrence.’
‘The fish rots from the head,’ old Listnitsky puffed out with a cloud of tobacco smoke.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Eugene frowned, one eyelid twitching nervously. ‘I wouldn’t say that. The army is rotting from below, disintegrated by the Bolsheviks. Even the cossack divisions, especially those which have been in close contact with the infantry, are morally unreliable. A terrible weariness and desire to get back home … And the Bolsheviks …’
‘What is it they want?’ Mokhov asked, unable to possess himself in patience.
‘Oh …’ Eugene laughed. ‘What do they want …! They’re worse than cholera germs. Worse in this sense, that they attach themselves more easily to a man, and penetrate right into the very midst of the soldiers. I mean their ideas, of course … there’s no quarantine that will save you from them. Undoubtedly there are some very clever men among the Bolsheviks. I’ve had to come into contact with some of them. There are simple fanatics among them, too, but the majority are licentious, immoral animals. These are not interested in the essence of the Bolshevik teaching, but only in the possibility of pillaging and getting away from the front. They want first of all to get power into their own hands, and on any conditions to end the “imperialist” war, as they call it, even by way of a separate peace, and then to hand the land over to the peasants and the factories to the workers. Of course this is as Utopian as it is silly, but it is by such primitive methods that they have succeeded in demoralizing the soldiers.’
Mokhov listened with his whole body leaning forward as though he were about to jump out of his chair. Old Listnitsky paced up and down the hall, biting at his black, shaggy cloak and chewing his greenish-grey whiskers.
Eugene went on to tell how even before the revolution broke out he had been forced to flee from his regiment, afraid of the vengeance of the cossacks, and related the story of the events in Petrograd of which he had been witness. For a moment the talk lapsed into silence. Then, staring at Mokhov’s nose, old Listnitsky abruptly asked:
‘Well, will you buy the grey horse that you looked over in the autumn?’
‘How can you talk about such matters at a time like this, Nikolai Alexievitch?’ Mokhov frowned miserably and waved his hand with a gesture of despair.
Meantime, Mokhov’s driver Yemelian was warming himself and drinking tea in the servants’ room, wiping the sweat from his beetroot cheeks with a red handkerchief, and telling the news of the village. Wrapped in a downy shawl Aksinia stood by the bed, her breast against its carved back.
‘I suppose our hut has fallen down by now?’ she asked.
‘No, why should it?’ Yemelian replied laconically.
‘And our neighbours, the Melekhovs, how are they getting on?’
‘They’re getting on all right.’
‘Piotra hasn’t returned on leave?’
‘I haven’t heard tell of it.’
‘And Gregor?’
‘Gregor came home after Christmas. His wife gave him twins last year. And Gregor was wounded.’
‘Wounded?’
‘Yes, in the arm. He was marked all over like a bitch after a fight. I don’t know whether he had more crosses or gashes.’
‘And how did he look … Grishka, I mean?’ Aksinia asked. Suppressing a dry sob, she coughed and wiped her nose.
‘Just the same as ever; hook-nosed and dark. A Turk of the Turks, as you’d expect.’
‘I didn’t mean that … But does he look any older?’
‘How should I know? Maybe he’s a little older. His wife gave birth to twins. So he can’t have aged very much.’
‘It’s cold in the house,’ Aksinia said with a shiver, and she went out.
‘A poisonous, stinking nit if ever there was one!’ Yemelian snorted. ‘Not so long ago she was running about the village in bast shoes, and now she’s quite the lady. “It’s cold in the house!” Pah, you lady from the lower end, your mother gave birth to a bitch, she did! Such women are dangerous. I’d show them, the carrion! … “Cold in the house!” The crawling serpent! The snotty mare! Pah!’
He was so offended that he could not finish his eighth cup of tea, but got up, crossed himself, and went out, staring arrogantly about him and deliberately soiling the clean floor with his boots. The whole of the journey back he was as gloomy as his master. He poured out the vials of his wrath on the horse, flicking its hind-quarters indecently with the end of the whip, and calling it names. Contrary to his wont, he did not exchange a single word with his master. And Sergei Platonovitch also maintained a frightened silence.
Chapter Two
Before the March revolution took place, the first brigade of one of the infantry divisions held in reserve on the South-West front, together with the 27th Don Cossack regiment attached to it, was withdrawn from the front, in order to be transferred to Petrograd to suppress the disorders which had broken out. The brigade was led to the rear, equipped with new winter outfits, fed well for some days, then was entrained and despatched. But events moved faster than the regiments, and on the very day of departure insistent rumours were circulating that the Emperor had signed a decree abdicating the throne, at the headquarters of the Commander-in-chief.
The brigade was turned back half-way. At the station of Razgon the 27th Cossack regiment was ordered to detrain. The lines were blocked with transports. Soldiers with red bands on their coats, well-made new rifles of Russian pattern but English manufacture on their shoulders, were scurrying about the platform. Many of them seemed to be excited, and stared anxiously at the cossacks being formed up in companies.
The day was rainy and exhausting. Water was rippling off the roofs of the station buildings. The oily puddles in the permanent ways reflected the grey, fleshy sheepskin of the sky. The roar of the shunting engines sounded muffled. Beyond the goods warehouse the regiment was met by the commander of the brigade on a raven horse. Accompanied by the regimental commander he rode up to the cossacks, reined in his horse, stared hard at the companies, and made a speech, stumbling and faltering in his choice of words:
‘Cossacks! By the will of the people the reign of the Emperor Nicholai the Second has been … er … overthrown. The government has passed into the hands of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. The army, and you among them, must take this … er … news calmly … The duty of the cossacks is to defend their native land from the attacks of external and … er … and, so to speak … from external enemies. We shall hold ourselves apart from the troubles now begun, and leave it to the civil population to choose a way of organizing a new government. We must stand apart! For the army, war and politics are … er … incompatible. In times when the foundations are being … er … shaken, we must be as hard …’ At this point the old, impotent brigadier-general, unused to speech-making, hesitated over the choice of a simile, while the regiment waited patiently. ‘… as hard as steel. It is your cossack, military duty to obey your officers. We shall struggle against the enemy as brilliantly as before, while back there’ (he made a vague, sweeping gesture behind him) ‘let the State Duma decide the fate of the country. When we have ended the war we shall take part in the internal life of the country, but for the present … we must not, we cannot betray the army … There must be no politics in the army.’
The cossacks remained at the station for some days, taking the oath of allegiance to the Provisional Government, attending meetings, gathering in large local groups, but keeping themselves apar
t from the soldiers swarming at the station. Among themselves they discussed the speeches they had heard at the meetings, distrustfully turning over every doubtful word, until all of them somehow or other reached the conclusion that if there was freedom now, that meant the end of the war. It became difficult for the officers to struggle with that conviction, and to maintain that Russia was bound to fight on to the end.
The bewilderment which took possession of the higher command of the army had a serious effect on the lower ranks. It was as though the brigade staff had completely forgotten the existence of the division stranded on the line half-way to Petrograd. The soldiers ate up the eight-days’ rations which had been issued, then crowded to the neighbouring villages. Spirits appeared miraculously for sale, and drunken soldiers and officers became a common sight.
Torn out of the normal round of duties, the cossacks crowded in their wagons, awaiting transport to the Don. For the rumour that the second reservists were to be demobilized was very persistent. They grew negligent in the care of their horses, and spent the day in the market squares, trading with German helmets, bayonets, overcoats and the tobacco they had brought back from the trenches.
When at last an order arrived for the regiment to return to the front it was received with open discontent. The second company at first flatly refused to go, and the cossacks would not allow the engine to be coupled to the transport wagons. But the regimental commander threatened to have them disarmed, and the agitation died away. The transport dragged slowly towards the front, whilst in every wagon the situation was excitedly discussed.
At a certain railway junction the cossacks poured out of the wagons as though by previous agreement, and taking no notice of the promises and threats of the commander, began a meeting. In vain did the ancient station-master mingle with the grey cossack greatcoats, imploring them to go back to their wagons and let the lines be cleared. The cossacks listened with unflagging attention to the speeches of a sergeant and a little rank and file cossack. The latter had difficulty in giving vent to his angry feelings:
‘Cossacks! This isn’t good enough! They’ve mucked everything up again! They’re trying to make fools of us! If there’s been a revolution and all the people have been given their freedom, they ought to stop the war. Do the people and us cossacks want war? Am I right?’
‘You’re right!’
‘We can’t keep our trousers up over our bottoms! And is that what they call war?’
‘Down with the war! Let’s go back home.’
‘Uncouple the engine! Come on, boys!’
‘Cossacks! Wait a bit! Cossacks! Brothers! You devils! Hold on! Brothers!’ The little cossack shouted away, attempting to raise his voice above the thousand. ‘Wait! Don’t touch the engine! We’re only out to stop this fooling. Let his Excellency the regimental commander show us the document, let us see whether they really want us at the front, or whether it is only another of their little games.’
After the regimental commander, almost beside himself, his lips trembling, had read aloud the telegram from the divisional staff ordering the regiment to the front, the cossacks consented again to entrain.
Six of the Tatarsk men were in one wagon. There were Piotra Melekhov, Nicholai Koshevoi (Misha’s uncle), Anikushka, Fiodot Bodovskov, Merkulov (a gypsy-looking cossack with black curly beard and blazing hazel eyes) and Maksim Griaznov, a dissolute and merry cossack known throughout the Don district as a fearless horse-stealer. A cross-wind pierced through the wagon, the horses stood with their horse-cloths over them at hastily built mangers, damp wood smoked on a mound of earth in the middle of the floor, and the pungent smoke was drawn towards the chinks of the door. The cossacks sat on their saddles around the fire, drying the smelly rags wound round their legs. Bodovskov was warming his bare feet at the fire, a contented smile lurking on his Kalmik, angular face. Griaznov was hurriedly sewing his gaping sole to the upper with a wax thread. In a husky voice he remarked to no one in particular:
‘When I was a lad I used to climb up on the stove in winter time, and my grandmother (she was a hundred years old then) would search for lice in my head with her fingers, and tell me: “My little Maksim, my darling! In the old days the people didn’t live like they do now; they lived well, lawfully, and nobody dared attack them. But you, my little child, will live to see a time when all the earth is covered with wire, and birds with iron noses will fly through the air and peck at the people like a rook pecks at a water-melon. And there will be hunger and plague among men, brother will rise against brother, and son against father. The people will be left like grass after a fire.”’ Griaznov paused a moment, then continued: ‘Well, it’s all come to pass as she said it would. They’ve invented the telegraph, and there’s your wire. And the iron birds are aeroplanes. And there’ll be a famine, all right. My own folk have only sown half their land during these years, and there’s little left of the reserve stocks. Everywhere it’s the same. And if the harvest fails you’ll have your hunger.’
‘But brother against brother … that’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it?’ Piotra Melekhov asked.
‘You wait a bit, and the people will come to that too!’
Anikushka wrinkled his hairless face into an expression of feigned terror, and exclaimed:
‘By our hairy-legged Tsaritsa, and how long yet shall we have to go on fighting?’
‘Until you grow a beard, you eunuch,’ Koshevoi mimicked him.
There was an outburst of laughter, and Anikushka was put to confusion. But in the middle Griaznov unexpectedly broke out:
‘No, we’ve had enough! We’ve had more than we can stand! Here we are in misery, perishing with lice, and our families at home are also feeling the pinch so much that if you cut them they wouldn’t bleed.’
‘What are you bellowing about?’ Piotra asked jokingly, chewing his whiskers.
‘You know what!’ Merkulov answered for Griaznov, burying his smile in his curly beard. ‘You know what the cossack needs, what he longs for … You know how it is; sometimes the shepherd drives the herd out to pasture, and as long as the sun hasn’t dried the dew off the grass the cattle are all right; but as soon as the sun gets overhead the gadflies begin to bite. And so it is here,’ he turned round to face Piotra. ‘Then, mister corporal, the cattle begin to bellow and kick. Yes, and you know it! You needn’t be uppish! You’ve driven bullocks yourself … You know how it happens. Some calf sends its tail swishing over its back and off it goes, scratching away like hell! And the whole herd after it! The shepherd runs to stop them, but they’re off like a flood, like we poured in a flood against the Germans. And then you try to stop them!’
‘What’s the point of all this?’
Merkulov did not reply at once. He wound a curl of his beard around his finger and tugged it cruelly, then said, now serious and unsmiling:
‘Four years we’ve been fighting … that’s right, isn’t it? We’re in the fourth year now since they drove us into the trenches. What for, and why? No one knows. But what I am saying is that sooner or later some Griaznov or Melekhov will break away from the front, and after him the regiment, and after the regiment the army … That’s what will happen.’
‘So that’s what you’re getting at!’
‘Yes, that! I’m not blind, and I see that everything hangs by a hair. Only let someone shout “Shooh!” and they’ll all slip off like an old coat from the shoulders.’
‘You should be more careful,’ Bodovskov advised him. ‘Remember Piotra’s a corporal.’
‘I’ve never brought trouble on any comrade of mine,’ Piotra exploded.
‘All right, don’t get angry. I was only joking.’
Bodovskov was put out of countenance by Piotra’s outburst, and he rose and pattered off to the horses. In another corner of the wagon cossacks from other villages were talking in whispers. After a time they struck up a tune. Koshevoi invited the group to join them at the fire, they threw the fragments of a fence broken away at the station on to it, and the song was raise
d again, now more joyously.
But above blood-soaked White Russia the stars wept mournfully. The nocturnal darkness yawned smokily and fluidly. The wind fawned on the earth, saturated with the scent of fallen leaves, of damp, clayey mouldiness, of March snows.
Within twenty-four hours the regiment was again close to the front. The transport train was halted at a railway junction. The corporals brought the order to detrain. The horses were hurriedly led down planks on to the line, there was a scurrying backward and forward after forgotten articles, ragged bundles of hay were flung straight on to the damp sand of the permanent ways.
An orderly from the regimental commander called out to Piotra Melekhov as he passed:
‘The commander wants you at the station.’
Adjusting a strap on his greatcoat, Piotra went slowly towards the platform. ‘Anikushka, give an eye to my horse,’ he asked as he went by.
Anikushka stared silently after him, anxiety mingling with the usual expression of boredom on his sullen face. As Piotra walked along, staring at his muddy boots and wondering why the regimental commander had sent for him, his attention was attracted by a small group gathered at the end of the platform by the hot-water shed. He went up and listened to the conversation. Some score of soldiers stood surrounding a tall, ruddy-faced cossack who was standing with his back to the shed in an awkward, hunted attitude. Piotra stared at his bearded face, at the figure 52 on his blue, sergeant’s epaulette, and felt sure he had seen the man before somewhere.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked inquisitively, touching the shoulder of a man standing in front of him.
The soldier turned his head and answered unwillingly:
‘Caught a deserter … one of your cossacks.’
Piotra tried to recall where he had seen the cossack before. The prisoner made no reply to the importunate questionings of the soldiers around him, but with great gulps drank hot water out of a copper mug made from a shell case, and chewed at a dry biscuit soaked in the water. His widely spaced, dilated eyes narrowed as he chewed and swallowed, and his eyebrows quivered as he glanced down and around. An elderly, thickset soldier stood on guard with rifle and fixed bayonet at his side. The cossack finished his drink, and passed his tired eyes over the soldiers unceremoniously examining him. His blue, childishly simple eyes suddenly hardened. Hurriedly swallowing, he licked his lips and shouted in a coarse, deep, inflexible voice:
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 39