The White Guard (22 page)

   
Dent . .
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Surg . . .

   tattled and swung above his head a second time and somewhere another pane of glass broke. 'Perhaps he's just fainted?' thought Nikolka stupidly and started to drag the colonel away. But he could not lift him. 'Am I frightened?' Nikolka asked himself, and knew that he was terrified. 'Why? Why?' Nikolka wondered and realised at once that he was frightened because he was alone and helpless and that if Colonel Nai-Turs had been on his feet at that moment there would have been nothing to fear . . . But Colonel Nai-Turs was completely motionless, was no longer issuing orders, was oblivious to the fact that a large red puddle was spreading alongside his sleeve, that broken and pulverised stucco was lying scattered in a crazy pattern along the nearby wall. Nikolka was frightened because he was utterly alone. . . . And loneliness drove Nikolka from the crossroads. He crawled away on his stomach, pulling himself along first with his hands, then with his right elbow as his left hand was grasping Nai-Turs' revolver. Real fear overcame him when he was a mere two paces away from the street corner. If they hit me in the leg now, he thought, I won't be able to crawl any further, Petlyura's men will come riding up and hack me to bits with their sabres. How terrible to be lying helpless as they slash at you . . . I'll fire at them, provided there's any ammunition left in this revolver . . . Just another step away . . . pull myself, pull . . . again . . . and Nikolka was around the corner and in Fonarny Street.

   'How amazing, absolutely amazing, that I wasn't hit. A sheer miracle. God must have worked a miracle', thought Nikolka as he stood up. 'Now I've actually seen a miracle. Notre Dame de Paris. Victor Hugo. I wonder what's happened to Elena? And Alexei? Obviously the order to tear off our shoulder-straps means disaster.'

   Nikolka jumped up, smothered from head to foot in snow, thrust the revolver into his greatcoat pocket and ran off down the

   street. Finding the first pair of gates on his right hand still open, Nikolka ran through the echoing gateway and found himself in a dim, squalid courtyard with sheds of red brick along its right-hand side and a pile of firewood on the left. Assuming that the back door leading to the adjoining courtyard was in the middle, he ran towards it across the slippery snow and bumped heavily into a man in a sheepskin jerkin. The man had a red beard and little eyes that were quite plainly dripping with hatred. Snub-nosed, with a sheepskin hat on his head, he was a caricature of the Emperor Nero. As though playfully the man clasped Nikolka in a hug with his left arm and with his right seized Nikolka's left arm and started to twist it behind his back. For a few seconds Nikolka was completely dazed. 'God, he's caught me and he hates me . . . He's one of Petlyura's men . . .'

   'Ah, you swine!' croaked the red-bearded man, breathing hard. 'Where d'you think you're going, eh?' Then he suddenly howled: 'Got you, cadet! Think we wouldn't recognise you just because you've torn off your shoulder-straps? Now I've got you!'

   Nikolka was seized with fury. He sat down backwards so hard that the half-belt at the back of his greatcoat snapped, rolled over and freed himself from red-beard's grasp with a superhuman effort. For a second he lost sight of him as they were back to back, then he swung around and saw him. The man with the red beard was not only unarmed, he was not even a soldier, merely a janitor. A pall of rage like a red blanket floated across Nikolka's eyes and immediately gave way to a sensation of complete self-confidence. Cold frosty air was sucked into Nikolka's mouth as he bared his teeth like a wolf-cub. Determined to kill the beast if only the chamber were loaded, he wrenched the revolver out of his pocket. His voice, when he spoke, was so strange and terrible that he did not recognise it.

   'I'll kill you, you bastard!' Nikolka hissed as he fumbled with the Colt, realising as he did so that he had forgotten how to fire it. Seeing that Nikolka was armed the janitor fell to his knees in terror and despair and whined, changing miraculously from a Nero into a snake:

   'Ah, your honor! Oh sir . . .'

   Nikolka would still have fired, but the revolver refused to work. 'Hell! It's unloaded!' flashed through Nikolka's mind. Shaking and covering his face with his hand the janitor fell back from his knees on to his haunches and let out a sickening howl that infuriated Nikolka. At a loss how to close that gaping maw framed in its copper-red beard, and desperate because the revolver would not fire, Nikolka leaped upon the janitor like a fighting cock and smashed the butt into the man's teeth, running the risk of shooting himself as he did so. Nikolka's fury instantly drained away. The janitor leaped to his feet and ran away out of the gateway through which Nikolka had come. Crazed with fear, the janitor could no longer howl, and just ran, stumbling and slipping on the icy ground. Once he looked round and Nikolka saw that half his beard was stained dark red. Then he vanished. Nikolka turned and ran past the sheds to the end of the yard where the back gate should have opened onto Razezhaya Street, but as he reached it he was overcome with despair. 'Done for. I'm too late. Caught. God, even my revolver's useless.' In vain he shook the enormous padlocked bolt. There was nothing to be done. As soon as Nai-Turs' cadets had escaped through the courtyard the red-bearded janitor had obviously locked the gate giving on to Razezhaya Street and now Nikolka was faced by a completely insurmountable obstacle -an iron wall, smooth and solid from bottom to top. Nikolka lurned around, glanced up at the lowering, overcast sky, and noticed a black fire-escape leading all the way up to the roof of the four-storey house. 'Maybe I could climb up there?' he wondered, and at that moment he had a sudden foolish recollection of a colored illustration in a book: Nat Pinkerton in a yellow jacket and a red mask climbing up just the same sort of fire-escape. 'Maybe Nat Pinkerton can do that in America . . . but suppose I climb up - what then? I'll sit up there on the roof and by that time the janitor will have called Petlyura's troops. He's bound to give me away. He won't forgive me for knocking his teeth in.'

   And'so it was. Through the open gateway into Fonarny Street Nikolka could hear the janitor's desperate shouts for help: 'In

   here! In here!' - and the sound of horses' hoofs. Nikolka realised that Petlyura's cavalry must have penetrated the City by a surprise move from the flank, and by now they were as far as Fonarny Street. That's why Nai-Turs had shouted his warning . . . There was no going back along Fonarny Street now.

   All this flashed through his mind before he found himself, he knew not how, on top of the pile of firewood alongside a lean-to built against the wall of the neighbouring house. The ice-covered logs wobbled under his tread as Nikolka scrambled, fell down, tore his breeches, finally reached the top of the wall, looked over it and saw exactly the same kind of courtyard as the one he was in. It was so alike that he even expected to see another red-bearded janitor leap out at him in a sheepskin jerkin. But none did. Feeling a terrible wrench in the region of his stomach and kidneys, Nikolka dropped to the ground and at that very moment his revolver jerked in his hand and fired a deafening shot. After a moment's amazement Nikolka said to himself: 'Of course, the safety catch was on and the shock of my fall released it. I'm in luck.'

   Hell. The gate on to Razezhaya Street was shut here too, and locked. That meant climbing over the wall again, but alas there was no convenient pile of firewood in this courtyard. He climbed on to a heap of broken bricks and, like a fly on a wall, started clambering up by sticking the toes of his boots into cracks so small that under normal circumstances a kopeck piece would not have fitted into them. With torn nails and bleeding fingers he clawed his way up the wall. As he lay atop it on his stomach he heard the janitor's voice and the deafening crack of a rifle-shot from the first courtyard. In this, the third courtyard, he caught a glimpse of a woman's face distorted with fear, which for a moment stared at him from a second-floor window and then immediately disappeared. Dropping down from the wall he chose a better spot to fall, landing in a snowdrift, but even so the shock jolted his spine and a searing pain shot through his skull. With his head buzzing and spots dancing before his eyes Nikolka picked himself up and made for the gate.

   Oh joy! Although the gate was locked it presented no problem, being made of wrought iron open-work. Like a fireman Nikolka climbed up to the top, slid over, dropped down and found himself on Razezhaya Street. It was utterly deserted. 'Fifteen seconds' rest to get my breath back, no more, otherwise my heart will crack up', thought Nikolka, gulping down air into his burning lungs. 'Oh yes . . . my papers . . .' From his tunic pocket Nikolka pulled out a handful of grubby certificates and identity documents and tore them up, scattering the shreds like snowflakes. Behind him, from the direction of the crossroads where he had left Nai-Turs, he heard a burst of machine-gun fire, echoed by more machine-guns and rifle volleys from ahead, from the heart of the City. This is it. fighting in the City centre. The City's captured. Disaster. Still panting, Nikolka brushed the snow from his clothes with both hands. Should he throw away the revolver? Nai-Turs' revolver? No, never. He might well succeed in slipping through. After all, Petlyura's men couldn't be everywhere at once.

   Taking a deep breath, and aware that his legs were noticeably weaker and less able to obey him, Nikolka ran along the deserted Razezhaya Street and safely reached the next intersection, from which two streets branched off - Lubochitskaya Street leading to Podol and Lvovskaya Street which forked away to the right and to the centre of the City. Here he noticed a pool of blood alongside the kerbstone, an overturned cart, two abandoned rifles and a blue student's peaked cap. Nikolka threw away his own army-issue fur hat and put on the student's cap. It turned out to be too small and gave him the look of an untidy, raffish civilian - a high-school expellee with a limp. Nikolka peered cautiously around the corner and up Lvovskaya Street. At the far end of it he could just make out a scattering of mounted troops with blue badges on their fur hats. Petlyura. Some sort of a scuffle was in progress there, and stray shots were whistling through the air, so he turned and made off down Lubochitskaya Street. Here he saw his first sign of normal human life. A woman was running along the opposite sidewalk, her black feathered hat fallen to one side, holding a gray bag from which protruded an anguished rooster loudly squawking 'cock-a-

   doodle-doo', or as it seemed to Nikolka 'pet-a-luu-ra'! Some carrots were falling out of a hole in the basket on the woman's left arm. She was weeping and moaning as she staggered along, hugging the wall. A well-dressed man rushed out of a doorway, crossed himself feverishly and shouted:

   'Jesus Christ! Volodya, Volodya! Petlyura's coming!'

   At the end of Lubochitskaya Street there were signs of more life as people scurried to and fro and disappeared indoors. Crazed with fear, a man in a black overcoat hammered at a gateway, thrust his stick between the bars and broke it with a violent crack.

   Meanwhile time was flying by and twilight had already come. As Nikolka turned off Lubochitskaya Street and down Volsky Hill the electric street lamp on the corner was turned on and began to burn with a very faint hiss. The shutters clanged down on a shop-front, instantly hiding piles of gaily-colored cartons of soap powder. Turning the corner, a cabman overturned his sleigh into a snowdrift and lashed furiously at his miserable horse. Nikolka dashed past a four-storey apartment block with three walk-up entrances, in all three of which the doors were being constantly slammed as residents hustled inside. One of them, in a sealskin fur collar, ran out in front of Nikolka and yelled at the janitor:

   'Ivan! Have you gone crazy? Shut the doors! Shut the front doors, man!'

   One of the huge doors slammed shut and a piercing woman's voice could be heard on the darkened staircase shrieking:

   'Petlyura! Petlyura's coming!'

   The farther Nikolka ran towards the haven of Podol, as Nai-Turs had told him to, the greater became the bustle and confusion on the street, although there was less of a sense of fear and not everyone was going the same way as Nikolka. Some were even heading in the opposite direction.

   At the very top of the hill leading down to Podol, there stepped out of the doorway of a gray stone building a solemn-looking young cadet wearing an army greatcoat and white shoulder-straps embroidered with a gold badge. The cadet had a snub nose the size of a button. Glancing boldly around him, he gripped the sling

   of a huge rifle slung across his back. Passers-by scurried by glancing up in terror at this armed cadet, and hurried on. As he stepped down on to the sidewalk the cadet stopped, cocked an ear to listen to the firing with the knowing look as of a trained military man, stuck his nose in the air and was about to stride off. Nikolka swerved aside sharply, planted himself across the sidewalk, pressed close to the cadet and said in a whisper:

   'Get rid of that rifle and hide at once.'

   The little cadet shuddered with fright and took a step back, but then took a more threatening grip on his rifle. With the ease born of experience Nikolka gently but firmly edged the boy backward, pushed him into a doorway and went on urgently:

   'Hide, I tell you. I'm a cadet-officer. It's all up. Petlyura's taken the City.'

   'What d'you mean - how can he have taken the City?' asked the cadet. His mouth hung open, showing a gap where a tooth was missing on the left side of his lower jaw.

   'That's how', Nikolka answered, with a sweep of his arm in the direction of the Upper City, adding: 'D'you hear? Petlyura's cavalry are in the streets up there. I only just got away. Run home, hide that rifle and warn everybody.'

   Dumbstruck, the cadet froze to the spot. There Nikolka left him, having no time to waste on people who were so dense.

   In Podol there was less alarm, but considerable bustle and activity. Passers-by quickened their pace, often turning their heads to listen, whilst cooks and servant girls were frequently to be seen running indoors, hastily wrapping themselves in shawls. An unbroken drumming of machine-gun fire could now be heard coming from the Upper City, but on that twilit December 14th there was no more artillery fire to be heard from near or far.