The White Guard (3 page)

   Alexei and Nikolka watched the lieutenant's teeth chatter as he thawed out, making occasional sympathetic noises.

   'The Hetman? Mother-fucker!' Myshlaevsky snarled. 'Where were the Horse Guards, eh? Back in the palace! And
we
were sent out in what we stood up in . . . Days on end in the snow and frost . . . Christ! I thought we were all done for . . . Nothing but a row of officers strung out at intervals of two hundred yards - is that what you call a defensive line? It was only by the grace of God that we weren't slaughtered like chickens!'

   'Just a minute', Turbin interrupted, his head reeling under the flow of abuse. 'Who was with you at the Tavern?'

   'Huh!' Myshlaevsky gestured angrily. 'You've no idea what it was like! How many of us d'you think there were at the Tavern? For-ty men. Then that scoundrel Colonel Shchetkin drove up and said (here Myshlaevsky twisted his expression in an attempt to imitate the features of the detested Colonel Shchetkin and he began talking in a thin, grating lisp): "Gentlemen, you are the City's last hope. It is your duty to live up to the trust placed in you by the Mother of Russian Cities and if the enemy appears - attack, God is with us! I shall send a detachment to relieve you after six hours. But I beg you to conserve your ammunition . . ." (Myshlaevsky spoke in his ordinary voice again) - and then he and his aide vanished in their car. Dark - it was like being up the devil's arsehole! And the frost - needles all over your face.'

   'But why were you there, for God's sake? Surely Petlyura can't be at Red Tavern?'

   'Christ knows. By morning we were nearly out of our minds. By midnight we were still there, waiting for the relief. Not a sign of them. No relief. For obvious reasons we couldn't light fires, the nearest village was a mile and a half away, the Tavern half a mile. At night you start seeing things-the fields seem to be moving. You think it's the enemy crawling up on you . . . Well, I thought, what shall we do if they really do come? Would I throw down my rifle, I wondered - would I shoot or not? It was a temptation. We stood there, howling like wolves. When you shouted someone along the line would answer. Finally I burrowed in the snow with my rifle-butt and dug myself a hole, sat down and tried not to fall asleep: once you fall asleep in that temperature you're done for. Towards morning I couldn't hold out any longer - I was beginning to doze off. D'you know what saved me? Machine-gun fire. I heard it start up at dawn, about a mile or two away. And, believe it or not, I found I just didn't want to stand up. Then a field-gun started booming away. I got up, feeling as if each leg weighed a ton and I thought: "This is it, Petlyura's turned up." We closed in and shortened the line so that we were near enough to shout to each other, and we decided that if anything happened we would form up into a tight group, shoot our way out and withdraw back into town. If they overran us - too bad, they overran us. At least we'd be together. Then, imagine - the firing stopped. Later in the morning we took it in turns to go to the Tavern three at a time to warm up. When d'you think the relief finally turned up? At two o'clock this afternoon. Two hundred officer cadets from the ist Detachment. And believe it or not they were all properly dressed in fur hats and felt boots and they had a machine-gun squad. Colonel Nai-Turs was in command of them.'

   'Ah! He's one of ours!' cried Nikolka.

   'Wait a minute, isn't he in the Belgrade Hussars?' asked Alexei.

   'Yes, that's right, he's a hussar . . . well, you can imagine, they were appalled when they saw us: "We thought you were at least two companies with a machine-gun - how the hell did you stand it?" Apparently that machine-gun fire at dawn was an attack on Serebryanka by a horde of about a thousand men. It was lucky they didn't know that
our
sector was defended by that thin line, otherwise that mob might have broken into the City. It was lucky, too that our people at Serebryanka had a telephone line to Post-Volynsk. They signalled that they were under attack, so some battery was able to give the enemy a dose of shrapnel. Well, you can imagine that soon cooled their enthusiasm, they broke off the attack and vanished into thin air.'

   'But who were they? Surely they weren't Petlyura's men? It's impossible.'

   'God knows who they were. I think they were some local peasants - Dostoyevsky's "holy Russia" in revolt. Ugh - motherfuckers . . .'

   'God almighty!'

   'Well,' Myshlaevsky croaked, sucking at a cigarette, 'thank God we were relieved in the end. We counted up and there were thirty-eight of us left. We were lucky - only two of us had died of frostbite. Done for. And two more were carried away. They'll have to have their legs amputated . . .'

   'What - two were frozen to death?'

   'What d'you expect? One cadet and one officer. But the best part was what happened at Popelukho, that's the village near the Tavern. Lieutenant Krasin and I went there to try and find a sledge to carry away the men who'd been frostbitten. The village was completely dead - not a soul to be seen. We hunted around, then finally out crawled some old man in a sheepskin coat, walking with a crutch. He was overjoyed when he saw us, believe it or not. I felt at once that something was wrong. What's up, I wondered? Then that miserable old bastard started shouting: "Hullo there, lads . . ." So I put on an act and spoke to him in Ukrainian. "Give us a sledge, dad", I said. And he said: "Can't. Them officers have pinched all the sledges and taken them off to Post." I winked at Krasin and asked the old man: "God damn the officers. Where've all your lads disappeared to?" And what d'you think he said? "They've all run off to join Petlyura." How d'you like that, eh? He was so blind, he couldn't see that we had officers' shoulder-straps under our hoods and he took us for a couple of Petlyura's men. Well, I couldn't keep it up any longer . . . the cold ... I lost my temper ... I grabbed hold of the old man so hard he almost jumped out of his skin and I shouted-in Russian this time: "Run off to Petlyura, have they? I'm going to shoot you-then you'll learn how to run off to Petlyura! I'm going to make you run off to Kingdom Come, you old wretch!" Well, then of course this worthy old son of the soil (here Myshlaevsky let out a torrent of abuse like a shower of stones) saw what was up. He jumped up and screamed: "Oh, sir, oh sir, forgive an old man, I was joking, I can't see so well any more, I'll give you as many horses as you want, right away sir, only don't shoot me!" So we got our horses and sledge.'

   'Well, it was evening by the time we got to Post-Volynsk. The chaos there was indescribable. I counted four batteries just standing around still limbered up - no ammunition, apparently. Innumerable staff officers everywhere, but of course not one of them had the slightest idea of what was going on. The worst of it was, we couldn't find anywhere to unload our two dead men. In the end we found a first-aid wagon. If you can believe it they threw our corpses away by force, wouldn't take them. Told us to drive into the City and dispose of them there! That made us really mad. Krasin wanted to shoot one of the staff officers, who said: "You're behaving like Petlyura" and vanished. Finally at nightfall I found Shchetkin's headquarters car - first class, of course, electric light . . . And what d'you think happened? Some filthy little man, a sort of orderly, wouldn't let us in. Huh! "He's asleep," he said, "the colonel's given orders he's not to be disturbed." Well, I pinned him to the wall with my rifle-butt and all our men behind me started yelling. This brought them tumbling out of the railroad car. Out crawled Shchetkin and started trying to sweeten us. "Oh, my God", he said, "how terrible for you. Yes, of course, right away. Orderly - soup and brandy for these gentlemen. Three days' special furlough for all of you. Sheer heroism. It's terrible about your casualties, but they died in a noble cause. I was so worried about you . . ." And you could smell the brandy on his breath a mile away . . . Aaah!' Suddenly Myshlaevsky yawned and began to nod drowsily. As though asleep he muttered:

   'They gave our detachment a car to themselves and a stove . . . But I wasn't so lucky. He obviously wanted to get me out of the way after that scene. "I'm ordering you into town, lieutenant.

   Report to General Kartuzov's headquarters." Huh! Rode into town on a locomotive . . . freezing . . . Tamara's Castle . . . vodka ...'

   The cigarette dropped out of Myshlaevsky's mouth, he leaned hack in the chair and immediately started snoring.

   'God, what a story . . .' said Nikolka, in a bemused voice.

   'Where's Elena?' enquired the elder brother anxiously. 'Take him to get washed. He'll need a towel.'

   Elena was weeping in the bathroom, where beside the zinc bath dry birch logs were crackling in the boiler. The wheezy little kitchen clock struck eleven. She was convinced Talberg was dead. The train carrying money had obviously been attacked, the escort killed, and blood and brains were scattered all over the snow. Elena sat in the half-darkness, the firelight gleaming through her rumpled halo of hair, tears pouring down her cheeks. He's dead, dead . ..

   Then came the gentle, tremulous sound of the door bell, filling the whole apartment. Elena raced through the kitchen, through the dark library and into the brighter light of the dining-room. The black clock struck the hour and ticked slowly on again.

   But after their first outburst of joy the mood of Nikolka and his elder brother very quickly subsided. Their joy was in any case more for Elena's sake. The wedge-shaped badges of rank of the Hetman's War Ministry had a depressing effect on the Turbin brothers. Indeed dating from long before those badges, practically since the day Elena had married Talberg, it was as if some kind of crack had opened up in the bowl of the Turbins' life and imperceptibly the good water had drained away through it. The vessel was dry. The chief reason for this, it seems, lay in the double-layered eyes of Staff Captain Sergei Ivanovich Talberg . . .

   Be that as it may, the message in the uppermost layer of those eyes was now clearly detectable. It was one of simple human delight in warmth, light and safety. But deeper down was plain fear, which Talberg had brought with him on entering the house. As always, the deepest layer of all was, of course, hidden, although naturally nothing showed on Talberg's face. Broad, tightly-

   buckled belt; his two white graduation badges - the university and military academy - shining bravely on his tunic. Beneath the black clock on the wall his sunburned face turned from side to side like an automaton. Although Talberg was extremely cold, he smiled benevolently round at them all. But there was fear even in his benevolence. Nikolka, his long nose twitching, was the first to sense this. In a slow drawl Talberg gave an amusing description of how he had been in command of a train carrying money to the provinces, how it had been attacked by God knows who somewhere about thirty miles outside the City. Elena screwed up her eyes in horror and clutched at Talberg's badges, the brothers made suitable exclamations and Myshlaevsky snored on, dead to the world, showing three gold-capped teeth.

   'Who were they? Petlyura's?'

   'Well if they were,' said Talberg, smiling condescendingly yet nervously, 'it's unlikely that I would be . . . er . . . talking to you now. I don't know who they were. They may just have been a stray bunch of Nationalists. They climbed all over the train, waving their rifles and shouting "Whose train is this?" So I answered "Nationalist". Well, they hung around for a while longer, then I heard somebody order them off the train and they all vanished. I suppose they were looking for officers. They probably thought the escort wasn't Ukrainian at all but manned by loyalist Russian officers.' Talberg nodded meaningfully towards the chevron on Nikolka's sleeve, glanced at his watch and added unexpectedly: 'Elena, I must have a word with you in our room ...'

   Elena hastily followed him out into the bedroom in the Talbergs' half of the apartment, where above the bed a falcon sat perched on the Tsar's white sleeve, where a green-shaded lamp glowed softly on Elena's writing desk and on the mahogany bedside table a pair of bronze shepherds supported the clock which played a gavotte every three hours.

   With an incredible effort Nikolka succeeded in wakening Myshlaevsky, who staggered down the passage, twice crashing into doorways, and fell asleep again in the bath. Nikolka kept watch on him to make sure that he did not drown. Alexei Turbin, without conscious reason, paced up and down the dark living-room, pressed his face to the windowpane and listened: once again, from far away and muffled as though in cotton wool came the occasional distant harmless rumble of gunfire.

   Elena, auburn-haired, had aged and grown uglier in a moment. Eyes reddened, her arms dangling at her sides she listened miserably to what Talberg had to say. As stiff as though he were on parade he towered over her and said implacably:

   "There is no alternative, Elena.'

   Reconciled to the inevitable, Elena said:

   'Oh, I understand. You're right, of course. In five or six days, d'you think? Perhaps the situation may have changed for the better by then?'

   Here Talberg found himself in difficulty. Even his patient, everlasting smile disappeared from his face. His face, too, had aged; every line in it showed that his mind was made up. Elena's hope that they could leave together in five or six days was pathetically false and ill-founded . . .

   Talberg said: 'I must go at once. The train leaves at one o'clock tonight . . .'

   Half an hour later everything in the room with the falcon had been turned upside down. A trunk stood on the floor, its padded inner lid wide open. Elena, looking drawn and serious, wrinkles at the corners of her mouth, was silently packing the trunk with shirts, underclothes and towels. Kneeling down, Talberg was fumbling with his keys at the bottom drawer of the chest-of-drawers. Soon the room had that desolate look that comes from the chaos of packing up to go away and, worse, from removing the shade from the lamp. Never, never take the shade off a lamp. A lampshade is something sacred. Scuttle away like a rat from danger and into the unknown. Read or doze beside your lampshade; let the storm howl outside and wait until they come for you.