‘There are horsemen riding on the hill,’ she informed him unconcernedly.
He ran into the yard and gazed: on the hill, beyond the pall of mist hanging over the village and the willows of the leas, large forces of cossacks were visible. They were riding at a fast trot, encircling the village and closing in an iron ring.
The cossacks from the other huts began to stream into the yard where Podtielkov was standing. One of them came up to him and called him aside:
‘Comrade Podtielkov … delegates arrived from them just now.’ He waved his hand towards the hill. ‘They told us to tell you that we are to lay down our arms and surrender at once. Otherwise they’ll attack.’
‘You … son of a swine! What are you daring to tell me?’ Podtielkov seized the man by his greatcoat collar, threw him aside and ran to the cart. He clutched his rifle by the barrel, and turned and shouted to the cossacks in a hoarse, rough voice:
‘Surrender? What talk can we have with the counter-revolution? We shall fight them! Follow me! To arms!’
A number of cossacks rushed out of the yard behind him, and ran in a bunch to the end of the village. As they reached the last huts Podtielkov was overtaken by Mrikhin.
‘For shame, Podtielkov!’ he cried. ‘Are we to shed the blood of our brothers? Come back!’
Seeing that only a small section of the expedition’s force had followed him, his sober reason foreseeing the inevitability of defeat in the event of a struggle, Podtielkov silently and limply waved his cap:
‘It’s no good, lads! Back to the village!’
They turned back. The entire expedition assembled in three adjacent yards. A few minutes later a group of forty cossack horsemen entered the village. The main forces of the enemy remained in their positions on the surrounding hills. Podtielkov went to the end of the village to discuss the terms of the surrender. As he walked along the road he was overtaken by Bunchuk, who ran after him and stopped him.
‘Are we surrendering?’ Bunchuk asked.
‘Force will break a straw. What else are we to do?’
‘Do you want to die?’ Bunchuk shuddered from head to foot. ‘Tell them we won’t surrender!’ he cried in a dull, toneless voice. ‘You’re no longer our leader. Who have you discussed the question with? By whose permission are you going to betray us?’
He turned on his heel and strode back, waving his revolver. On his return to the yards he tried to persuade the cossacks to attempt to break through and fight their way to the railway. But the majority were openly in favour of surrender. Some turned away, and others angrily declared:
‘You go and fight; we’re not going to shoot our own brothers!’
‘We’ll trust ourselves to them without our arms.’
‘Today’s Easter Sunday, and you want us to shed blood?’
Bunchuk turned and went to his cart, threw his greatcoat underneath it, and lay down, gripping his revolver butt tightly in his hand. At first he thought of trying to escape. But he could not reconcile himself to secret flight and desertion, and he waited for Podtielkov’s return.
Podtielkov came back some three hours later, bringing a great crowd of cossacks with him into the village. He strode along firmly with head high. At his side was the commander of the White cossack forces, Spiridonov, who happened to be a former artillery comrade of his. Behind him rode a cossack pressing the staff of a white flag to his chest.
The streets and the yards where the carts of the expedition were gathered were dammed up with the cossack newcomers. A roar of voices at once arose. Many of them were former comrades in arms of the Podtielkov cossacks, and as they recognized one another joyous exclamations and laughter broke out.
‘Hallo, is that you, Prokhor? What wind has brought you here?’
‘We came very near to fighting you,’ Prokhor replied. ‘And do you remember how we chased the Austrians under Lvov?’
‘Why, there’s cousin Danilo! Christ has risen, cousin.’
‘Truly he has risen!’ Danilo replied to the Easter greeting. There was the loud smack of kissing. Then the two cossacks stood stroking their whiskers and staring at each other, smiling and clapping each other on the back.
‘We haven’t broken our fast yet …’ one of the Red cossacks remarked.
‘But you’re Bolsheviks; what have you got to break your fast for?’
‘Hm! Bolsheviks we may be, but we believe in God all the same.’
‘Ho! You’re lying!’
‘It’s God’s truth!’
‘And do you wear a cross?’
‘Of course. Here it is.’ The Red Guard unbuttoned the collar of his tunic and pulled out a copper cross from his shirt.
The old men who had come out with pitchforks and axes to hunt the ‘rebel Podtielkov’ looked at one another in amazement. ‘Why, they told us you had given up the Christian faith!’ one of them declared. ‘We heard you were pillaging the churches and killing the priests.’
‘That’s all lies!’ the broadfaced Red Guard assured them confidently. ‘They’ve been telling you lies. Why, before I came away from Rostov I went to church and took the sacrament.’
A buzz of animated talk went on in the streets and the yards. But after half an hour several cossacks strode down the street, jostling aside the solid mass of men. ‘Those belonging to Podtielkov’s detachment, get ready to fall in,’ they shouted.
Behind them came lieutenant Spiridonov. He removed his officer’s cap, and called:
‘All those belonging to Podtielkov’s detachment step to the left towards the fences. The others to the right. Brothers, frontline men! Together with your leaders we have decided that you must surrender all your weapons, for the people are afraid of you while you are armed. Put your rifles and the rest of your arms on your carts. We shall guard them jointly. We are going to send you to Krasnokutsk, and there you will receive your arms back again.’
A deep growl of discontent arose among the Red Guard cossacks, and one of them shouted:
‘We won’t give up our arms!’
The cossacks under Spiridonov’s command moved over to the right, leaving the Red Guards in a disorderly and spiritless mob in the middle of the street. Krivoshlikov looked around him venomously, whilst Lagutin writhed his lips. Bunchuk, who was firmly resolved not to surrender his weapons, strode swiftly across to Podtielkov, carrying his rifle at the trail.
‘We mustn’t give up our arms! Do you hear?’ he muttered.
‘It’s too late now,’ Podtielkov whispered back.
He was the first to unfasten his revolver holster. As he gave it up he said huskily:
‘My sword and rifle are in the cart.’
The Red Guards languidly handed over their arms, some of them attempting to hide their revolvers in the fences and yards. Led by Bunchuk, a number refused to give up their rifles, and the weapons were taken from them by force. One machine-gunner tried to escape from the village, taking the gun trigger with him. In the general confusion several others hid themselves. Spiridonov at once set guards over Podtielkov and the rest, searched them, and attempted to call a roll. But the prisoners answered reluctantly, and called out:
‘What are you checking the list for? We’re all here.’
‘Drive us to Krasnokutsk.’
‘Put an end to this game.’
The money chest was sealed up and sent off under a strong guard. Then Spiridonov assembled the prisoners, and at once changing the tone of his voice and the expression on his face, gave the command:
‘In double file! By the left! Quick march! Silence in the ranks!’
A roar of voices rolled along the ranks of the Red Guards. They marched away unwillingly, quickly broke their ranks and walked along in a disorderly crowd.
When Podtielkov had called on his men to surrender their weapons, undoubtedly he still hoped for a favourable issue to the affair. But as soon as the prisoners were driven out of the village the cossacks escorting them began to press on the outside men with their horses. Bunchuk was striding a
long on the left, and an old cossack, with a flaming red beard and an ear-ring black with age in his ear, needlessly struck him with his whip. The end lashed Bunchuk’s cheek. He turned and clenched his fist, but a second, still stronger lash forced him to push his way into the crowd of prisoners. He did so involuntarily, driven by the elemental instinct for self-preservation; and for the first time since Anna’s death a wry smile twisted his lips, as he realized with astonishment how strong and vital in man is the desire to live.
The cossack escort began to beat up the prisoners. The old men, infuriated at the sight of their helpless enemies, rode their horses at them, and leaning out of their saddles, struck at them with their whips and the flat of their swords. Involuntarily the prisoners struggled to get into the middle, jostling one another and crying out. Shaking his arms above his head, a tall Red Guard shouted:
‘If you’re out to kill us, kill us off at once, damn you! What are you torturing us for?’
After a while the old men grew less truculent. In reply to a prisoner’s question, one of the escort muttered:
‘Our orders are to drive you to Ponamariov. Don’t be afraid, brothers; no worse will happen to you.’
When they arrived at the village of Ponamariov Spiridonov stood at the door of a little shop, and as the prisoners passed inside one by one, he asked:
‘Your surname? Christian name? Where were you born?’
It came to Bunchuk’s turn. ‘Your surname?’ Spiridonov asked, his pencil set expectantly to the paper. He glanced at the Red Guard’s moody face, and seeing the man’s lips pursed up ready to spit, he dodged swiftly and shouted:
‘Move on, you swine! You’ll die nameless.’
Inspired by Bunchuk’s example, others following him refused to give their names, preferring to die unknown. When the last man had passed into the shop Spiridonov locked it up and posted guards around it.
Whilst the spoils taken from the expedition’s carts were being shared out close by the shop, a hurriedly organized field court-martial, composed of representatives from all the villages participating in the capture, was sitting in a house close at hand. The chairman was a thickset, yellow-haired captain. He sat with elbows sprawled over the table, his cap pushed to the back of his head. His oily, pleasant eyes turned interrogatively from one to another of the members of the court, and he repeated his question:
‘What shall we do with them, elders?’ he asked. ‘What shall we do with these traitors to their country, who were coming to pillage our homes and destroy the cossacks?’
An old man jumped to his feet like a released jack-in-the-box:
‘Shoot them! Every one of them!’ He shook his head as though possessed, and glanced around with fanatical eyes. Spittle dribbling from his lips, he shouted: ‘No mercy for them, the Judases! Kill them! Smash them! Set them against a wall!’
‘Send them into exile?’ one of the members irresolutely proposed.
‘Shoot them!’
‘The death sentence!’
‘Public execution!’
‘Of course they must be shot. Why stop to discuss it?’ Spiridonov declared indignantly.
At the shouts the good-natured, self-satisfied expression faded from the chairman’s face. His lips set stonily.
‘To be shot! Write that down!’ he ordered the secretary.
‘And Podtielkov and Krivoshlikov? Are they to be shot too? That’s too good for them,’ a corpulent elderly cossack sitting by the window shouted fierily.
‘They, as the leaders, must be hanged!’ the chairman curtly replied. Turning to the secretary, he ordered: ‘Write this: “Decree. We, the undersigned …”’
The lamp began to gutter for want of oil, and the wick smoked. In the silence the buzzing of a fly caught in a spider-web on the ceiling, the scraping of the pen over the paper, and the heavy asthmatic breathing of one of the members of the court-martial were clearly to be heard.
The secretary finished writing out the list of those condemned, and thrust the pen into the hand of his neighbour.
‘Sign!’ he said.
The man took the pen in stiff fingers. ‘I’m not a good hand at writing,’ he said with a guilty smile. When all the members of the court had signed, the chairman rose to his feet, mopping his brow with his handkerchief.
‘Kaledin in the next world will thank us for this,’ one man smiled, watching as the secretary fixed the sheet of paper to the wall.
Nobody responded to the jest. They silently went out of the hut.
‘Lord Jesus …’ someone sighed in the darkness of the porch.
There was little sleep that night for any of the prisoners locked up in the hut. Conversation quickly tailed away. The lack of air and their own anxiety choked them. In the evening one of them had asked the guard:
‘Open the door, comrade. I want to go outside …’
‘None of your “comrade”,’ one of the guard replied at last.
‘Open, brother!’ the prisoner changed his style of address.
The guard set down his rifle, finished his cigarette, then put his lips to the door chink and called:
‘You can piss yourself, you swine? Your trousers won’t rot in the night, and at dawn we’ll be sending you in them wet to the heavenly kingdom …’
The prisoners sat shoulder to shoulder. In one corner Podtielkov turned out his pockets and tore up a heap of paper-money, muttering curses. Then he touched Krivoshlikov’s arm and whispered:
‘It’s clear now … they’ve tricked us. Tricked us, the scum! It’s insulting, Mikhael. When I was a boy I used to go hunting in the forest with my father’s flintlock. When I saw the ducks sitting I would mess up the shot, and I used to get so annoyed with myself. I could have cried for shame. And here I have messed things up badly. If we’d left Rostov three days earlier we shouldn’t have been facing our death here. We’d have turned everything upside down.’
Torturously baring his teeth, Krivoshlikov whispered back:
‘Damn them, let them kill us! I’m not afraid to die. The only thing I am afraid of is that in the next world we shan’t recognize each other. You and I will be there, Fiodor, and we’ll meet as strangers … It’s horrible …!’
‘Drop that!’ Podtielkov howled touchily. ‘That’s not the trouble!’
Bunchuk was against the door, eagerly gasping in the draught that came through the chink. As his mind dwelt on the past he momentarily thought of his mother. Pierced with a sharp prick of pain, he forced his thoughts in another direction, and turned to memories of Anna and more recent days. He found great relief and assuagement in this. He had none of the usual shiver down his spine or the accompanying yearning at the thought that they were about to deprive him of life. He looked forward to death as a cheerless rest after a bitter and painful road: when one’s weariness is so great and the body aches so much that it is impossible to feel any gladness at its end.
A little way off a group of prisoners was talking gaily and sadly of women, of love, of the great and petty joys which each had experienced. They talked of their families, their relations, their friends. They remarked on the good quality of the young grain: the crows could already get into the wheat and be hidden from sight. They longed for vodka and freedom, they cursed Podtielkov. But drowsiness covered many with its black wing: worn out physically and morally, they fell asleep lying, sitting, standing.
Even as dawn was breaking one of them, whether awake or asleep, broke into tears. It is terrible when rough, grown-up men, who have forgotten the taste of salty tears since childhood, begin to weep. At once several voices disturbed the drowsy silence:
‘Shut up, curse you!’
‘What a woman!’
‘Here are men asleep, and he’s lost all sense of conscience!’
The man snuffled, blew his nose, and lapsed into silence. Here and there the gleaming red points of cigarettes shone out, but nobody made a sound. The air was heavy with the scent of men’s sweat, of many healthy bodies pressed close together, of cigarette smo
ke and the dew which had fallen during the night.
In the village a cock heralded the sunrise. Outside the shop was the sound of footsteps and the clink of iron.
‘Who goes there?’ one of the guards called out.
‘Friends! We’re going to dig a grave for the Podtielkov men.’
In the hut everybody began at once to stir.
The detachment of Tatarsk cossacks led by Piotra Melekhov arrived in Ponamariov at dawn of the same day. They found the village alive with the clatter of cossack boots, with horses being led to drink. Crowds were pouring towards the far end of the village. Piotra halted his men in the centre of the village, and gave the order to dismount. Several cossacks came up to them.
‘Where are you from?’ one of them asked.
‘Tatarsk.’
‘You’re a bit too late. We’ve caught Podtielkov without your help. They’re shut up over there, like chickens in a coop.’ He laughed and waved his hands towards the shop.
Christonia, Gregor, and several others went closer to the man. ‘Where are they going to send them?’ Christonia inquired.
‘To join the dead.’
‘What? You’re lying!’ Gregor seized the man by his greatcoat.
‘Speak a little more civil, your Excellency!’ the man sharply retorted, pulling his coat away. ‘Look there; they’ve already built the gallows for them.’ He pointed to two ropes hanging from a crossbeam running between two stunted willows.
Clouds overcast the sky. A fine rain was falling. A dense mass of cossacks and women was gathered outside the village. Informed that the execution would take place at six o’clock, the inhabitants of Ponamariov went along willingly as though to a rare and merry spectacle. The women were dressed in holiday clothes; many of them had their children with them. The crowd swarmed over the pasture-land, crowded around the gallows and the six-foot-long pit. The children clambered over the raw clay of the mound thrown up on one side of the pit; the women whispered drearily among themselves.
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 62