Anna Pogoodko inquired about everything with keen curiosity. She attached herself importunately to Bunchuk, seized his sleeve, and could not be displaced from the side of the machine-gun.
‘And what would happen if the water were to freeze in the water-jacket?’ ‘What deviation has to be allowed for in a strong wind?’ she plied him with questions, expectantly raising her black eyes to his.
In her presence he felt awkward, and as though in revenge he grew more exacting in regard to her, and was exaggeratedly cool in his manner. But when each morning punctually at seven she entered the cellar, her hands thrust into the sleeves of her jacket, the soles of her great soldier’s boots shuffling, he was troubled with an unusual, agitating feeling. She was rather shorter than he, of a full, healthy figure, perhaps a little round-shouldered, and not particularly beautiful except for her great, strong eyes, which endowed all her face with a wild beauty.
During the first four days he hardly had an opportunity to look at her. The cellar was badly lighted, and even if he had had time to study her face he would have felt too uncomfortable to do so. On the evening of the fifth day they left together. She went in front, but as she stood on the topmost step she turned back to him with some query. She stood waiting for the answer, her head slightly tilted, her eyes bent on him, her hand brushing back her hair. But he did not catch her question. He slowly mounted the stairs, gripped by a pleasantly painful feeling. He knew it well: he had experienced its prick at all important turns in his life. Now he felt it again as he stared at the swarthily rosy cheeks of this girl, at the June azure in the whites of her eyes, and the bottomless depths of her black irises. She found it difficult to adjust her hair without removing her kerchief, and in her concentration her rosy nostrils quivered a little. The lines of her mouth were strong, yet childishly tender. On her raised upper lip there was a fine down, which showed dark against her skin. As simple as a fairy story she stood before him, holding her hairpins in her silvery-white teeth, her arched brow quivering; and it seemed that she would melt away like a sound at dawn in a pine wood.
A wave of rapture and heavy joy carried Bunchuk away. He bowed his head as though before a blow, and said half-seriously, half in jest:
‘Anna Pogoodko, you’re as good as someone’s happiness.’
‘Nonsense!’ she said firmly, and smiled. ‘Nonsense, comrade Bunchuk! I was asking at what time we go to shooting practice tomorrow.’
Her smile made her appear more simple, approachable and earthly. He stopped at her side, gazing abstractedly down the street to where the stranded sun was flooding everything with a livid hue. He quietly replied:
‘Tomorrow at eight. Which way do you go? Where do you live?’
She mentioned the name of some little street on the outskirts of the town. They went together, walking for some distance without speaking. At last she gave him a sidelong glance and asked:
‘Are you a cossack?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’ve been an officer?’
‘Me an officer!’
‘What is your native district?’
‘Novocherkass.’
‘Have you been long in Rostov?’
‘Several days.’
‘And before that?’
‘I was in Petrograd.’
‘When did you join the Party?’
‘In 1913.’
‘And where is your family?’
‘In Novocherkass,’ he said hurriedly, and imploringly stretched out his hand. ‘Stop a bit and let me do some questioning now. Were you born in Rostov?’
‘No. I was born in Yekaterinoslav province, but I have lived here for some time.’
‘Are you an Ukrainian?’
She hesitated for a moment, then firmly replied:
‘No.’
‘A Jewess?’
‘Yes. But how did you know? Do I talk like one?’
‘No.’
‘Then how did you guess I was a Jewess?’
He reduced the length of his stride in an attempt to fall into step with her, and answered:
‘Your ear – the shape of your ears, and your eyes. Otherwise you show little sign of your nationality.’ He thought for a moment, then added: ‘It’s good that you’re with us.’
‘Why?’ she asked inquisitively.
‘Well, the Jews have a certain reputation. And I know that many workers believe it to be true – you see I am a worker, too – that the Jews only do all the ordering and never go under fire themselves. That is not true, and you will prove splendidly that it isn’t true.’
They walked slowly. She deliberately took a longer way home, and after telling him a little more about herself, began to question him again about the Kornilov attack, the attitude of the Petrograd workers, and the November revolution. From somewhere on the quays came the sound of a rifle-shot, then a machine-gun disturbed the silence. She at once asked him:
‘What make is that?’
‘A Lewis.’
‘How much of the belt has been used?’
He did not reply. He was admiring the orange feeler of a searchlight stretching from an anchored trawler into the height of the flaming evening sky.
They wandered about the deserted town for some three hours, and separated at last at the gate of her dwelling.
He returned home glowing with an inward satisfaction.
‘She’s a fine comrade and an intelligent girl! It was good to have a talk with her. I’ve grown boorish during these last years, and friendly intercourse with people is necessary, otherwise one gets as wormeaten as soldiers’ biscuit,’ he thought, deliberately deceiving himself.
Abramson, just returned from a session of the Military-Revolutionary Committee, began to question him about the training of the machine-gun detachments, and asked about Anna.
‘How is she getting on? If she isn’t suitable we can easily put her on to other work,’ he said.
‘Oh no!’ Bunchuk took alarm. ‘She’s a very capable girl.’
He felt an almost irresistible desire to go on talking about her, and mastered his inclination only with a great effort of his will.
On December 8th Kaledin began to fling troops into an attack upon Rostov. Thin chains of Alexeev’s officers’ detachment moved along the railway line, supported on the right flank by a denser body of Junkers, and on the left by partisans of Popov’s detachment.
The line of Red Guards scattered around the outskirts of the town was possessed with restless anxiety. Some of the workers, many of whom had rifles in their hands for the first time in their lives, were terror-stricken, and pressed close to the muddy ground; whilst others raised their heads and stared at the distant, tiny figures of the oncoming Whites.
Unable to endure the tense silence, the Red Guards opened fire without waiting for the word of command. When the first shot rang out, Bunchuk, kneeling at the side of his machine-gun, cursed, jumped to his feet, and shouted:
‘Cease fire!’
His cry was lashed by the sputter of shots. He waved his hand, tried to out-shout the firing, and ordered Bogovoi to open fire with the machine-gun. Bogovoi set his smiling, muddy face close to the breech, and put his hand on the firing lever. The familiar sound of the spurting machine-gun bullets penetrated Bunchuk’s ears. He stared in the direction of the enemy, attempting to determine the accuracy of the range, then ran along the line towards the other machine-guns.
‘Fire!’ he shouted.
‘Right-ho! Ho-ho-ho-ho!’ Khvilichko howled, turning a frightened but happy face towards him.
The third machine-gun from the centre was manned by not altogether reliable elements. Bunchuk ran towards it. He stopped halfway, and bending, stared through his glasses. He could clearly see the spurting grey mounds cast up by the bullets in the distance. He lay down and assured himself that the range of the third machine-gun was hopelessly inaccurate.
‘Lower, you devils!’ he cried, crawling along the line. Bullets whistled close above him. The enemy was firing as perf
ectly as if at exercise.
The gun muzzle was tilted at a ridiculous angle; around it the gunners lay on top of one another. The Greek Mikhalidze was firing without pause, uselessly expending all his reserves of ammunition. Close to him was the terrified Stepanov, and behind, with head thrust into the ground and back humped like a tortoise, was one of the railwaymen.
Thrusting Mikhalidze aside, Bunchuk took long and careful sight. When the bullets began to spurt once more from the gun, they immediately had effect. A group of Junkers who had been coming on at a run turned and fled back down the slope, leaving one of their number on the clayey ground.
Handing the machine-gun over, Bunchuk returned to his own gun, and found Bogovoi lying on his side, cursing and binding up a wound in his leg. Rebinder had taken his place, and was firing intelligently and economically, without a trace of excitement.
From the left flank Gievorkiantz came leaping like a hare, dropping at every shot that passed over his head, groaning and shouting:
‘I can’t … I can’t … It won’t shoot! It’s jammed!’
Bunchuk ran along the line to the disabled gun. When still a little way off he saw Anna on her knees at its side, staring under her palm at the advancing enemy chain.
‘Lie down!’ he shouted, his face darkening with fear for her. ‘Lie down, I tell you!’
She glanced at him and continued to kneel. Curses as heavy as stones fell from his lips. He ran up to her and flung her forcibly to the ground.
Krutogorov was wheezing by the shield.
‘It’s had enough! It won’t work!’ he muttered to Bunchuk, and looking round for Gievorkiantz, burst into a shout. ‘He’s run away, damn him! Your antediluvian monster has run away … He’s completely upset me with his groans … He wouldn’t let a man work properly!’
Gievorkiantz crawled up, writhing like a serpent, mud clinging to the black scrub of his beard. Krutogorov stared at him for a moment, then howled above the roar of the firing:
‘What have you done with the ammunition belts? You animal! Bunchuk, take him away or I shall kill him!’
Bunchuk examined the machine-gun. A bullet struck hard against the shield, and he removed his hand as though burnt. He put the gun in order, and himself directed the firing, forcing the oncoming Alexeev men to lie down. Then he crawled away, looking for cover.
The chains of the enemy drew closer. Their fire grew heavier. In the Red Guard ranks three men were hit, and their comrades took their rifles and cartridges: dead men have no need of weapons. Right in the eyes of Anna and Bunchuk as they lay at the side of Krutogorov’s gun, a young Red Guard was struck by a bullet. He writhed and groaned, digging into the earth with his feet, and finally, raising himself on his hands, coughed and gasped in air for the last time. Bunchuk glanced sidelong at Anna. A fleeting terror lurked in her great, dilated eyes as she stared unwinkingly at the feet of the dead lad, not hearing Krutogorov’s shout:
‘A belt … a belt! Girl, give me a fresh belt!’
By a deep flanking movement the Kaledin troops pushed the Red Guard ranks back. The black greatcoats and tunics of the retreating workers began to dribble through the streets of the suburb. The machine-gun on the extreme right fell into the hands of the Whites. The Greek Mikhalidze was shot down by a Junker, a second gunner was transfixed with bayonets, and only the compositor Stepanov managed to escape.
The retreat was halted when the first shells began to fly from the Red trawlers in the port. The Red Guards hesitated and turned, then advanced into the attack. Bunchuk had gathered Anna, Krutogorov and Gievorkiantz around him. Suddenly Krutogorov pointed to a distant fence with little grey human figures assembled behind it.
‘There they are!’ he shouted.
Bunchuk swung the gun round in that direction. Anna sat down, and saw all movement die away behind the fence. After a moment the Whites opened a measured fire, and the bullets sped over them, tearing invisible holes in the misty canvas of the sky. The belt rattled like a kettle-drum as it ran through the machine-gun. The shells fired by the Black Sea Fleet sailors in the trawlers went screaming overhead. The sailors had now got the range, and were carrying on a concentrated fire. Isolated groups of the retreating Kaledin troops were covered by the bursting shrapnel. One of the shells burst right in the midst of one group, and the brown column of the explosion scattered the men in all directions. Anna dropped her field-glasses and groaned, covering her terror-stricken eyes with dirty palms.
‘What’s the matter?’ Bunchuk shouted, bending towards her.
She compressed her lips, and her dilated eyes glazed.
‘I can’t …’
‘Be brave! You … Anna, do you hear? Do you hear? You mustn’t do that! You mustn’t …’ the authoritative voice of command beat at her ear.
On the right flank some of the enemy had gathered in a valley and on the slopes of a rise. Bunchuk noticed them, ran with the machine-gun to a more convenient spot, and opened fire on the valley.
Towards evening a first fine snow began to whirl down over the harsh earth. Within an hour the wet, sticky snow had completely enveloped the field and the muddy-black bundles of the dead. The Kaledin troops withdrew.
Bunchuk spent the night in the machine-gun outpost. Krutogorov chewed away at some stringy meat, spitting and cursing. Huddled in the gateway of a yard, Gievorkiantz warmed his blue hands over a cigarette. Bunchuk sat on an ammunition case, wrapping the trembling Anna in his greatcoat, tearing her damp hands from her eyes and kissing them. The words of unaccustomed tenderness came with difficulty from his lips.
‘Now, now; how could you take on so …? You were hard … Anna, listen, take yourself in hand! Anna … dear … You’ll get used to it. If your pride will not allow you to go back, you must be different. You can’t look on the dead like that. Don’t let your thoughts turn that way! Take them in hand. You see now; although you said you were brave the woman in you has won.’
Anna was silent. Her hands smelt of the wintry earth and of womanly warmth.
The falling snow concealed the sky in a dense, gracious blanket. The yard, the fields, the town lurking like a beast in the darkness were wrapped in drowsy slumber.
Six days the struggle continued around and in Rostov. Fighting went on in the streets and at the crossroads. Twice the Red Guards surrendered the station, and twice they drove the enemy out again. During those six days there were no prisoners taken by either side.
Late one afternoon Bunchuk and Anna were passing the goods station, and saw two Red Guards shoot a captured officer. Bunchuk said almost challengingly to Anna, who had turned away:
‘That’s sensible! They must be killed, wiped out without mercy. They show us no mercy, and we don’t ask for it. So why should we show them mercy? This filth must be raked off the earth. There can be no sentimentality, once it is a question of the fate of the revolution. Those workers are right!’
On the third day of the struggle he was taken ill. But he kept on his feet for some days, feeling a continually increasing nausea and weakness in all his body. His head rang and was unbearably heavy.
The Red Guard detachments abandoned the town at dawn on December 15th. Bunchuk, supported by Anna and Krutogorov, walked behind a wagon containing wounded and a machine-gun. He bore his helpless body along with the utmost difficulty, put forward his iron-heavy feet as though asleep, and heard Anna say from a great distance off:
‘Get into the wagon, Ilia. Do you hear? Do you understand what I say? I ask you to get in; you’re ill.’
But he did not understand her words, nor did he understand that he was broken and in the grip of typhus. He clutched his head, and pressed his hairy hands to his burning, flaming face. He felt as though blood were dripping from his eyes, and all the world, boundless and unstable, cut off from him by an invisible curtain, were rearing and tearing under his feet. In his delirium his imagination began to conjure up incredible visions. He stopped again and again, struggling with Krutogorov, who was trying to put him into the wagon.
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‘No! Wait …! Who are you …? Where’s Anna? Give me a bit of earth … And destroy these … I order you to turn the machine-gun on them … Stop! It’s hot!’ he shouted hoarsely, tearing his hand from Anna’s grip.
They lifted him forcibly into the wagon. For a moment more he could smell a pungent mixture of various scents, he saw a chaotic confusion of colour effects, and struggled fearfully to retain command of himself. But he could not. A black, soundless emptiness closed over him; only somewhere in the height burned a point of opal and azure blue, and zigzags and fires of ruddy lightning intercrossed before his eyes.
Chapter Two
The icicles were falling from the cornices and shattering with a glassy tinkle. In the village the thaw blossomed into pools and denuded earth. The cattle went wandering with sniffing nostrils along the streets. The sparrows chattered as though it were springtime, as they pecked among the heaps of brushwood in the yards. Martin Shamil chased across the square after a sorrel horse that had escaped from his stable. Its stringy tail raised high, its unkempt mane tossing in the wind, it bucked and sent the clods of half-melted snow flying from its hoofs, circled round the square, halted by the church wall, and sniffed at the bricks. It allowed its master to get fairly close, glanced askance at the bridle in his hand, and broke again into a gallop.
January was caressing the earth with warm, cloudy days. The cossacks watched the Don in expectation of a premature flood. Miron Korshunov stood in his backyard staring at the snow deep on the fields, at the icy grey-green of the Don, and thought: ‘It’s piling up this year just like it did last. Snow, snow, nothing but snow! I fear the earth will be heavy underneath.’
Mitka, in a khaki tunic, was cleaning out the cattle-yard. His white fur cap stuck to the back of his head by a miracle. His straight hair, dank with sweat, fell over his brow, and he brushed it back with his dirty, smelly palm. A heap of frozen cattle-dung lay by the gate, and a fluffy goat was treading over it. The sheep were huddled against the fence. A lamb bigger than its mother tried to suck at her, but she put her head down and drove it off. A ring-horned black sheep was scratching itself against a plough.
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 49