The Accidental Anarchist (10 page)

I looked back uncertainly at our lines. None of my five “volunteers” had bothered to keep up with me. I could see our commander surveying the enemy positions. If I took a shot at Vasiliev now, no one could say it was not an enemy bullet.

I crawled around until I could aim my rifle. I had him in my sights, but couldn’t press the trigger. It wasn’t my conscience that stopped me; my hand was either cramped or frozen stiff. As I rubbed my hand against my tunic to restore circulation, I heard the scream of the first shell. I lay pressed against the icy mud, but shortly I could tell by the location of the flashes that we were being pounded by our own artillery.

It was only after several minutes that our artillery seemed to realize that their range was too short, and stopped firing. I found out later that it was our commander, the man I had been about to kill, who managed to signal to them to cease firing.

There was no further talk of a counterattack, because with the first beams of sunlight, hordes of Japanese rose out of the earth and, like a tidal wave, came rolling steadily toward us. Accompanied by queer blasts on a bugle, a roar of voices rose in a single word: “Banzai!”

Our company disintegrated before my eyes. We turned and ran, stumbling heedlessly over the dead and wounded, alike. From time to time, we heard far behind us a hideous shriek, which I assumed to be one of our soldiers being sliced to death.

After a furious, pistol-waving attempt to rally us, our commander was now running as fast as any man in the company. I had trouble catching up with him until suddenly he staggered. A bullet had torn through his neck. He tried to keep going, which was a mistake, because he ran right into an explosion that tore off part of his leg.

I was closest to him, and instinctively picked him up and slung him over my back. At once, two men behind me shouted, “The dog! Let him rot!”

As I stumbled forward, trying not to fall, he gasped, “God bless the Jews! Dear God, let me live, so that I may earn their forgiveness.”

He babbled on like this, while my comrades, Jew and gentile, muttered behind my back, “Throw him down, the filthy dog! Hasn’t he killed enough of us?”

They were absolutely right. Yet somehow, having done this much, I couldn’t just drop him. To a Jew, a baal teshuvah, a repentant one, is said to rank higher even than a man of lifelong piety. I didn’t know how literally one should take this, or even whether this only applied to Jews, and I was nagged by the suspicion that my commander’s repentance might not have been altogether sincere. But who was I to judge another human soul?

With each step, his weight seemed to double, like some demon out of an old wives’ tale testing a weak man’s resolve. Although it must have been agony for him to talk, he plainly felt his life depended on keeping me reassured of how much he now loved the Jews.

We stumbled past wounded men pleading with us either to take them along or to kill them. But none of us was able to think of anything beyond staying on his feet.

I suddenly felt a bullet barely miss my head. When I turned, I saw that the company commander was dead. I didn’t want to see whose gun was smoking. I merely hoped that whoever did it, Russian or Jew, hadn’t been trying to kill me, as well.

I let the commander’s body slide to the ground. His warm, sticky blood had soaked through my tunic. I tried to wipe it off the back of my neck before it froze.

For the rest of that day, I could not look anyone in the face. Not even Glasnik, whom I was sure was innocent. After all my loose talk about killing the commander, not to mention my own halfhearted attempt to do so, I felt like an accomplice to the murder.

Chapter 9. This Way to the Firing Squad

Our retreat from Mukden had finally lost some of its nightmarish quality of headlong flight. Mainly because, after weeks on the run with virtually no food or sleep, we were worn down to the point where we’d not only ceased to resemble an army but barely invited comparison with human beings.

Meanwhile, Kuropatkin had now taken personal charge of stemming the tide of losses in the Harbin-Mukden sector. As was typical when a new man took over, Kuropatkin felt obliged to produce some immediate victories, regardless of the cost. In fact, his first order of the day was, “We will spare neither blood, nor treasure. All must be sacrificed for Emperor and Vaterland.” But he took one look at the leftovers of our battalion and had us taken out of the line and quartered in an abandoned village.

That didn’t mean we were free to recuperate. Although we moved about like shadows, there were still enough officers around to see that outward appearances were maintained. This included guard duty.

A call went out for all non-coms to report to the commandant. I pretended that I hadn’t heard. For me, the final straw had been the week before when, under attack and almost out of ammunition, I’d been ordered to take a white flag and surrender the company to what turned out to be another Russian unit. But this recognition had not come until we had shelled each other enthusiastically for some hours and they, in their final blind charge, had been only inches from bayoneting me – white flag and all.

For my conduct in this lunatic affair, or maybe just to keep my mouth shut about it, the new commander personally assured me of a medal and a promotion. But I was finished with responsibility. Let them take my stripe. The pay, which we rarely received and had no place to spend, could never make up for all the terror, privation and exhaustion. I was ready to lie down and not get up for a month.

But before I had a chance to get myself demoted, one of the lieutenants tracked me down. I was told to take ten soldiers and mount guard. I told him I hadn’t slept in a week, and to please let me rest for at least one night. He was not unsympathetic, but explained that there was a shortage of non-coms; I must do my duty and fill the gap.

It was a beautiful clear night with no more than a mild breeze. Having deployed my ten men and sternly warned them not to close an eye, I was tempted to sit down for a moment. But that was strictly forbidden. Besides, I knew I would not remember to get up again. Nevertheless, my lids kept drooping. To hold them open, I pinched myself, kicked one foot against the other, and generally struggled like a man about to drown.

Near midnight, a strange officer and two armed men shook me roughly, waking me. The officer demanded to know where my gun was. My heart stopped. I was without a rifle, and there was no sign of it anywhere. As we were miles from any Japanese, one of our own men must have stolen it. Fifteen minutes later, the new commander who, only two days earlier, had lauded my coolness under fire, told me what I didn’t need to be told. The penalty for sleeping on guard duty was the same as that for losing one’s rifle: death. About my only comfort was that they couldn’t kill me twice.

The captain lectured me on what he thought of such undisciplined, irresponsible soldiers as me. But he allowed that, from a Jew, what else could you expect? I noticed that I was not a ‘Jew’ two days ago when he promised to recommend me for a medal.

I was put into an improvised jail cell under heavy guard. The survivors of my company were furious. From behind bars, I could hear snatches of their reassuring arguments, not only about the injustice being done, but also their sporting curiosity about whether I’d be shot or get away with twenty-five years at hard labor.

Despite such stimulating thoughts, I slept like a corpse until noon the following day. It was only once I was somewhat rested that I began to realize the depth of the trouble I was in. Three days ago, I hadn’t much cared if I lived or died, but having regained some of my strength, I also had gotten back my appetite to go on living. When they brought my ration of bread and water for lunch, I left it untouched. My heart was so bitter, I felt I would choke on a drop of water.

In the evening, Glasnik stopped at my window and consoled me with the news that I was the principal topic of conversation all over the camp. While most of the Russian boys were fairly nonchalant about my fate, the Jewish soldiers insisted, as a matter of principle, that I must not be executed. They’d circulated petitions asking men to sign a statement that they would refuse to shoot me. Those who wouldn’t sign their names were warned that whoever took part in my firing squad would live to regret it – but not for very long. Since we Jews were somewhat in the minority, I was not only impressed with their boldness, but also concerned that some of them might yet end up joining me against the wall.

But strangely enough, the officers began to get a little nervous. Accustomed for years to shooting deserters and other delinquents without hearing a word of complaint, they realized that mine was not going to be a routine case.

Their uneasiness was not the result of my popularity, or fear of the Jewish soldiers. Their confidence in themselves as a class had been shaken by the recent succession of military disasters. They also couldn’t help but be mindful of the current revolutionary ferment back home. (This had already led to hundreds of government-sanctioned pogroms, but at long last, it showed that Jews were capable of organized and effective self-defense.) The order was passed down that none of my guards were to be Jews.

There was one adjutant of whom, back in Petersburg, I had been clumsy enough to make an enemy while we were both somewhat drunk. (It was a little incident for which he couldn’t have had me court-martialed, because that would have required him to explain what he was doing with another officer’s wife.) Now it turned out that he had neither forgotten nor forgiven me for my unintentional rudeness. And with an efficiency that, if applied to his own duties, would quickly have made him a general, he rushed through the paperwork required to send me into the next world.

Glasnik, beside himself, raised his right hand and swore by Heaven and earth that if the adjutant signed the order for my execution, he, Glasnik, would personally kill him and then put a bullet through his own head. I begged him not to do anything that could not do me any good and might cause difficulties for other Jewish soldiers.

Meanwhile, five guards approached, leading a chained prisoner who was to share my hut. He was tall, taciturn, and eagle-nosed, but with some strange, livid marks on the tip of his nose.

“Where are you from, brother?” I asked him.

“Gruziya.”

“And what is it they want from you?”

He spit and shrugged. “Let them shoot me. I’ve done what I had to do.”

He was a mountain dweller, and his people were not noted for their patience. What was his crime? It seemed that one of his officers, when drunk, would amuse himself by stubbing out his lighted cigarette on this soldier’s nose, the size of which appeared to offend him. One day, after the officer had repeated this game two or three times, my fellow prisoner lunged for the man’s sword and lopped off his head.

I congratulated him on his quick reaction, but suspected that his chances of getting shot were even better than mine.

Like me, he had little appetite for his bread and water. But he slept soundly enough while I didn’t manage to doze off until long past midnight.

When I awoke the next morning, I found him wrapped in a
tallis
, saying his morning prayers. I jumped up, rinsed my hands, got my own
tallis
and
tefillin
, and tried to keep up with him. But his melodies and his pronunciation were so exotic that in the end I simply stood and listened to him until he was finished.

Now, for the first time, we shook hands. I addressed him in Yiddish. He looked at me blankly and replied in Hebrew. So we ended up speaking Russian to each other once more.

I spent the day “doctoring” him, that is, carefully enlarging the scorch marks on his nose until his whole face looked swollen and grotesque. That way, when he went to trial, perhaps the judge would recognize that, after such hideous abuse, even the mildest of men might reach for a sword. The Georgian doubted it would do the slightest bit of good. But he saw I was dying of boredom and anxiety, and so he good-naturedly allowed me to distract myself by disfiguring him further.

Early the next morning, both of us were taken in chains to a nearby town where a military court was to sit in judgment of us. Both of us were given defense attorneys. My friend’s lawyer seemed quite capable, and I was proud to see he made the most of his client’s now really dreadful-looking nose.

About my own attorney, I was less enthusiastic. The one thing he wouldn’t consider was letting me tell the truth – that a human being could go only so long without sleep. He probably knew his customers and what they would or wouldn’t believe. He seemed to feel my only possible defense was to claim that, owing to food poisoning or drinking polluted water, I suffered from a strange sickness that, without warning, could cause me to lose consciousness.

I was desperate enough to try anything. But where on this green earth would I find a Russian army doctor who would favor me with such an improbable diagnosis?

My counsel agreed it wouldn’t be easy. Especially since none of the doctors at this post were known to be Jews. But he was still making inquiries. So that was what my life depended on – a non-existent Jewish doctor.

After hearing my attorney’s preposterous defense, the court surprised me. They agreed to postpone my case until I’d had a thorough medical examination. I felt more hopeful when I saw that the Georgian got off with only five years of hard labor. He was ecstatic, and threw me a kiss as they led him out.