Sweet Love, Survive (10 page)

“Christ, yes,” Peotr emphatically declared. “That’s what we should have done. Since there was nothing going on here you cared about, I could have dropped you off at the village and you could have entertained Kitty over Christmas. Could have picked you up again on my way back from Baku. Kitty wouldn’t have ever known I was anywhere in the vicinity.”

Apollo’s mollification changed instantly. Astonishment and anger at Peotr’s casual offer of his wife’s company mingled with seething rage at the opportunity missed.

Peotr’s mouth pursed under his black cavalry mustache. “How irritating not to have considered the possibility sooner. You would have been perfect company for Kitty.”

Apollo responded in a casual drawl tinged with disdain, “Aren’t you concerned about your wife alone with me—well schooled as I am in all manner of vice?”

“Kitty?” Peotr’s brows raised in surprise. “Are you serious?” Peotr now appeared as astonished as Apollo had been earlier. “She wouldn’t even know what you were after if you tried to make love to her.”

“So sure, Peotr?” The drawl was insolently bland.

Peotr’s image of his wife was quite fixed, and Apollo’s hidden sarcasm escaped him. He laughed a short, gruff bark. “Positive, mon ami, absolutely positive. Look, I’ve been married to her for three years. She has nothing but farm accounts and crop production on her mind. Passion, sensuality, romance?” He snorted in disbelief. “Not my Kitty. On second thought, you probably would have been quite as bored there as here. Just as well you didn’t go.”

And at that remark, if it was possible, Apollo sank even deeper into gloomy brooding. Contrary to her husband’s perception, Apollo knew very well exactly how damnably sensual Countess Kitty could be. A surge of desire burned through him at the memory. Damn and bloody blast! Not only could he have avoided this misery and spent Christmas with Kitty, he could have done so with her husband’s blessing. Fresh resentment and frustration swept through Apollo’s mind, his ready temper mounting dangerously. “Don’t say another word, Peotr,” he snapped, justifiably riled, feeling like the man bluffed out of straight flush by two pair. His deep, resonant voice was stripped—as was his whole bearing—of his customary pleasant negligence.

Peotr looked both pained and inexpressibly sympathetic. “Sacristi, mon ami. Has some woman put you out of sorts?” This behavior was quite unlike Apollo, who rarely indulged in fits of temper.

“You might say so,” Apollo answered tightly.

“My God, is it possible? Is there a woman you fancy whom you can’t have? I didn’t think I’d live to see the day.” After a moment of icy silence, he added, “Care to talk about—”

“No.”

Persevering, Peotr asked, “One of the Red Crosses?” and watched for some observable reaction. He was disappointed. Apollo simply shook his head. No impulse there for disclosures, Peotr decided. “Well, in that case, I’ll take myself out of your brooding presence”—Peotr’s good humor was still unimpaired, his mood quite unaffected by Apollo’s sulkiness—“and see if I can join the baccarat game in the lounge. We don’t move out ’til tomorrow morning.” With a casual
wave of his hand he walked out of the compartment and padded down the corridor in his stocking feet.

The vodka bottle Apollo had been nursing hit the wall.
Merde
, he thought morosely, focusing with a frown on the shattered glass and rapidly expanding stain on the royal-blue carpet. He could have had Kitty in his arms the last few days instead of … whatever her name was. The next time he was tempted to see Kitty, by God, he was going to go. He should have known better. What a fool to have equivocated at all. Damned shoddy thinking! Wasn’t the war all the more reason to seize whatever opportunities life presented? And hadn’t he lived well enough all these years disregarding damn near every social convention? It was a family trait, Apollo had discovered as he grew older, implicit in the Kuzan lineage. Beginning with the first Kuzan, who had aided Michael Romanov in wresting control of the Duchy of Moscow from a multitude of warring boyars, each subsequent Kuzan, in his privileged position as an intimate of the crown, had done exactly as he’d pleased.

Still, there was the matter of Kitty’s feelings—and then Peotr’s friendship, of course.…

With an exasperated sigh, Apollo rolled over restlessly. Lying quietly for a moment, his face on his wrists, he studied the damp carpet and, drunk and fatigued, made one of those irrational decisions that was to change the course of his life. He had denied himself Kitty, he who had never denied himself anything. He told himself it wouldn’t happen again: the next time he wanted her, he’d have her, by Christ.

Unfortunately, from that day on, there was no other opportunity to see Kitty, scarcely time to think of her; for the following morning their division was shipped out to Tsaritsyn in hopes of protecting the front, which was inching disastrously near the city. Hardly had their unit been deployed near the west bank of the Volga than the order to retreat was received. Tsaritsyn fell January 3. Taganrog, where Apollo had passed the holidays, fell January 6. In a matter of three days the Reds had marched into Novocherkassk and the capital of the Don Cossacks was in Bolshevik hands. By January 11,
Rostov was captured, forcing the White General Headquarters back to Ekaterinodar, where they had begun two long years ago.

Even in the midst of a massive retreat, Wrangel and Denikin were still carping at each other by letter and telegram like jealous prima donnas, the two generals symptomatic of the lack of entendre and common purpose that proved to be so debilitating throughout the war. Since Kornilov had been killed, no general had been charismatic or powerful enough to attach the loyalties of all the disparate elements making up the White Army.

The jealousies persisted, worsened. Denikin, an able administrator, was no tactician; Wrangel, though brilliant, offended many with his arrogance. Their subordinates often indulged excessively in heroin, cocaine, drinking, orgies, and plunder, and didn’t listen to either general. The White command was a hotbed of sedition, suspicion, and rivalry, with every regimental commander feeling the fewer wires between himself and divisional HQ the better.

The intercommand feuding wasn’t so different in the Red Army. Policy making and execution were unwieldingly undertaken by politbureau, and the bane of “discussion” was further muddied by Stalin and Trotsky jockeying for supreme control. Budenny and other field generals were forced to follow orders from HQ that were suicidal, and often only survived by “not receiving” them. Moreover, the Red Army command was no more immune to the indulgences of alcohol, women, and drugs than the Whites. The vast majority of participants saw this civil war in terms of personal survival, and an all-pervading sense of insecurity encouraged any means to alleviate the nervous tension and forget the slaughter for a moment.

Meanwhile Lenin was exhorting each and all “to win without fail and regardless of cost,” to “fight to the death.” By telephone, letter, telegram, the “inspiring” messages came.

In the midst of all this squabbling and histrionics, Apollo, Peotr, and the Savage Division were slogging through the bitter cold, trying to stay alive, trying to win battles without
supplies, munitions, or fodder, trying to keep Budenny and the Red Army at bay, and … losing.

In mid-January, some of Wrangel’s Caucasian Army cavalry units were transferred to General Pavlov. Apollo and Peotr spent the next month campaigning under Pavlov on the Manych front. The newly formed regiments—consisting of Don Cossacks, Kuban Cossacks, and mountain men—fought against Dumenko and won several victories. General Pavlov’s 12,000 men were horsemen, bred to the saddle and the soldier’s life. They functioned as shock troops and were disastrously effective against the Red Army.

As White victories escalated, Budenny’s Konarmia was quickly brought to the Manych area, and on February 16 Budenny and Pavlov confronted each other across ten miles of snowbound steppe. Pavlov, now commanding the IV Cavalry Corps, knew the coming battle would be decisive. Budenny also understood the significance of the engagement. A defeat for the Reds would effectively arrest the impetus of their advance, giving the White Army valuable time to rest and regroup. Lenin’s persistent telegrams to HQ at the front were screaming for victory “at all costs,” a dire, imperative necessity considering the waning vigor of the Red Army and their enormously long supply lines, which were beginning to break down. A Red loss could conceivably turn into a rout toward Moscow.

On February 25, Pavlov reached Torgovaia, but of the reinforced White cavalry of 20,000 beginning the march, only 11,000 were fit for combat after moving for three days through severe blizzards and the intense cold of the steppe. Food, fodder, and shelter were unavailable on the unpopulated left bank of the Manych; the toll in both casualties and diminished fighting strength of those remaining was enormous. Peotr and Apollo—stoically accompanied by Karaim and Sahin—had survived the death march by riding for a half hour and then walking for a half hour all the way to Torgovaia. They were near exhaustion, but alive. Budenny’s 20,000 men, although harassed by the weather conditions, were virtually intact, having had the advantage of hugging the railway lines and supply depots.

Pavlov and Budenny stood facing each other at a distance of only a few versts, neither trusting the ability of their forces and both afraid of tempting fortune in a decisive encounter. Pavlov knew he had to attack soon; his corps became weaker by the day.

It was below zero the next morning, and when Pavlov’s orders—“To horse!” and “Mount!”—were given, only slightly more than half the original corps was able to comply. Scouts cantered off but almost immediately turned back to the commander, who in turn rode up the gentle rise. Budenny’s army was poised for attack in the shallow valley below. Pavlov immediately shouted out the order, “Sabers—lances!” accompanied by his familiar battle cry of “Come on, boys, get those sons of bitches!”

The White cavalry set off in slightly loose order at a trot—most were unable to force their exhausted horses into a canter. As soon as they reached the top of the rise the first thick wave of Red cavalry was almost on them. Behind could be seen the broad valley and thousands more cavalrymen advancing in waves.

Raising their sabers, Pavlov’s men charged. The melee ebbed and flowed like a tide. Both sides advanced and retreated countless times, producing a constantly changing pattern.

They fought on the frosty gray steppe, in a strange silence only occasionally punctuated by a pistol shot or scream. Every time a squadron was thrown back, it would halt, about-turn, and then charge again. The waves swept backward and forward; no mercy was shown. Minds ceased to react to the danger, became oblivious to the moans of the dying and to the wounded being trampled under the hooves; soldiers just numbly continued spiking and hacking and occasionally firing their pistols.

By midday Pavlov, his men and animals suffering from fatigue and exhaustion, had lost the initiative. The situation was fast deteriorating. By afternoon, numbers alone determined the outcome.

Budenny’s Konarmia won. The Whites lost not only the battle but the war.

Now nothing could stop the Red drive to sweep into the sea the Whites and all they stood for. Denikin ordered all officers and their families to evacuate via Novorossiisk, leaving the Don Cossacks under General Kutepov to serve as rear guard.

Apollo and Peotr, fighting knee to knee with a kind of insane inspiration, somehow survived Pavlov’s defeat on February 26, battering and hacking their way to freedom late that afternoon through a screen put up by Kotovsky’s brigade. But more than half of their unit was lost in the tragic battle—dead of the cold, killed in the fighting, or captured and executed.

Peotr and Apollo stayed in Kutepov’s Cossack brigade, protecting the retreating column of the White Army until March 17, when Ekaterinodar fell. As of that day, there was no more South Russian Government. The fighting was over. Denikin was already on board an evacuation ship in Novorossiisk. There was not the scantest hope for a reversal of fortunes.

Mounted, their tired bodies propped on their pommels, Apollo and Peotr rested on a stark hillside overlooking Ekaterinodar, the first and now final capital of the South Russian Government. So far their small group had evaded Budenny’s scouts, but it was time to split up and go their separate ways. Apollo and Peotr were at a distance from the others as they surveyed the grim landscape.

Peotr was the first to speak. “It’s over,” he said in a low voice, hoarse with fatigue. “No more Allied aid. No more government. Christ, I’ve only a few score cartridges left. I hope it’s enough to get me to Baku.”

At the mention of Baku, Apollo turned from the view of Ekaterinodar below and cast cool golden eyes on his friend’s face.

“I know. I know,” Peotr expostulated wearily. “You think I’m a bastard about Kitty. But, God Almighty, I don’t have time to go to Aladino and Baku both. And they’re my children, Apollo. Am I supposed to abandon them to these bloody beasts?” His voice had risen. Peotr flicked his trouser leg nervously with his nagaiki. He’d witnessed too many scenes of
slaughter, torture, and unholy massacre in the last two years to expect any quarter from the victorious Red Army.

Neither spoke for a moment. They were both tired, their nerves lacerated from the strain of the last few weeks. Apollo’s gaze silently returned to the scene of defeat two short miles away. He ran a weary hand over the gold stubble of his beard.

He understood Peotr’s dilemma, but it didn’t change the shocking callousness of his decision. God knows Apollo himself had committed his share of crimes over the past few years, and nasty habits had become a way of life, but … to leave your own wife to the invading Red Army?

Peotr made a jerky, troubled movement. “If the Reds weren’t advancing so rapidly to Baku for those bloody oil fields,” he said hurriedly, “I might have had time to see Kitty to Novorossiisk on my way to Suata—but under the circumstances it’s impossible. Kutepov said yesterday the Eighth Army had reached Derbent already. If I don’t leave now, it’ll be too late. Suata and the children mean a great deal to me—and they’re totally dependent on me. You see, don’t you, Apollo?” Peotr’s tone desperately asked for understanding from his best friend.