The White Guard Part 7

'Don't blow too hard . . . look - like this. Fill your cheeks with air and blow out. No, no, hopeless. Now try again-sound the "General Alarm".'

'Pa -pa-pah -pa-pah', -pa-pah -pa-pah', shrieked the bugle, reducing the school's rat population to terror. shrieked the bugle, reducing the school's rat population to terror.

Twilight was swiftly advancing over the a.s.sembly hall, where Malyshev and Turbin stood beside the ranks of piled rifles. Colonel Malyshev frowned slightly in Turbin's direction, but at once arranged his face into an affable smile.

'Well, doctor, how are things? Is all well in the medical section?'

'Yes, colonel.'

'You can go home now, doctor. And tell your orderlies they can go too, but they must report back here at seven o'clock with the others. And you . . . (Malyshev reflected, frowned) ... I should like you to report here tomorrow at two o'clock in the afternoon. Until then you're free. (Malyshev thought again) And there's one other thing: you'd better not wear your shoulder-straps. (Malyshev looked embarra.s.sed) It is not part of our plans to draw attention to ourselves. So, in a word, just be back here at two o'clock tomorrow.'

'Very good, sir.'

Turbin shuffled his feet. Malyshev took out a cigarette case and offered him a cigarette, for which Turbin lit a match. Two little red stars glowed, emphasising how much darker it had grown. Malyshev glanced awkwardly upward at the dim white globes of the hall's arc-lamps, then turned and went out into the pa.s.sage.

'Lieutenant Myshlaevsky, come here, please. I am putting you in full charge of the electric light in this building. Try and get the lights switched on as quickly as possible. Please have it organised so that at any moment you can not only put all the lights on, but also switch them off. Responsibility for the lighting is entirely yours.'

Myshlaevsky saluted and faced sharply about. The bugler gave a squeak and stopped. Spurs jingling - ca-link, ca-link, ca-link - Myshlaevsky ran down the main staircase so fast that he seemed to be skating down it. A minute later the sound of his hammering fists and barked commands could be heard from somewhere in the depths of the building. This was followed by a sudden blaze of light in the main downstairs lobby, which threw a faint reflected glow over the portrait of Alexander I. Malyshev was so delighted that his mouth even fell open slightly and he turned to Alexei Turbin: 'Well, I'm d.a.m.ned . . . Now there's an officer for you! Did you see that?'

A figure appeared at the bottom and began slowly climbing up the staircase. Malyshev and Turbin were able to make out who it was as he reached the first landing. The figure advanced on doddering, infirm legs, his white head shaking, and wore a broad double-breasted tunic with silver b.u.t.tons and bright green lapels. An enormous key dangled in his shaking hand. Myshlaevsky was following him up the staircase with occasional shouts of encouragement.

'Come on, old boy, speed it up! You're crawling along like a flea on a tightrope.'

'Your . . . your', mumbled the old man as he shuffled along. Karas emerged out of the gloom on the landing, followed by another, tall officer, then by two cadets and finally the pointed snout of a machine-gun. The white-haired figure stumbled, bent down and bowed to the waist in the direction of the machine-gun.

'Your . . . your honor', muttered the figure.

The figure arrived at the top of the stairs, and with shaking hands, fumbling in the dark, opened a long oblong box on the wall from which shone a white spot of light. The old man thrust his hand in, there was a click and instantly the upper landing, the corridor and the entrance to the a.s.sembly hall were flooded with light.

The darkness rolled away to the ends of the corridor. Mysh-laevsky immediately took possession of the key and thrust his hand inside the box where he began to try out the rows of black switches. Light, so blinding that it even seemed to be shot with pink, flared up and vanished again. The globes in the a.s.sembly hall were lit and then extinguished. Two globes at the far ends of the corridor suddenly blazed into life and the darkness somersaulted away altogether.

'How's that?' shouted Myshlaevsky.

'Out', several voices answered from downstairs.

'O.K.! On!' came a shout from the upper floor.

Satisfied, Myshlaevsky finally switched on the lights in the a.s.sembly hall, in the corridor and the spotlight over the Emperor Alexander, locked the switchbox and put the key in his pocket.

'All right, you can go back to bed now, old fellow,' he said rea.s.suringly, 'all's well now.'

The old man's near-sighted eyes blinked anxiously: 'But what about the key, your . . . your honor . . . Are you going to keep it?'

'That's right. I'm going to keep the key.'

The old man stood trembling for a few moments longer then began slowly going downstairs.

'Cadet!'

A stout, red-faced cadet snapped to attention beside the switch box.

'You are to allow only three people to have access to the box: the regimental commander, the executive officer and myself. And n.o.body else. In case of necessity, on the orders of one of those three officers, you are to break open the box, but carefully so as not to damage the switchboard.'

'Very good, sir.'

Myshlaevsky walked over to Alexei Turbin and whispered: 'Did you see him - old Maxim?'

'G.o.d, yes, I did . . .' whispered Turbin.

The battery commander was standing in the entrance to the a.s.sembly hall, thousands of candle-power sparkling on the engraved silver of his scabbard. He beckoned to Myshlaevsky and said: 'Lieutenant, I am very glad you were able to join our regiment. Well done.'

'Glad to do my duty, sir.'

'One more thing: I just want you to fix the heating in this hall so that the cadets on sentry-duty will be kept warm. I'll take care of everything else. I'll see you get your rations and some vodka -not much, but enough to keep the cold out.'

Myshlaevsky gave the colonel a charming smile and cleared his throat in a way that conveyed tactful appreciation.

Alexei Turbin heard no more of their conversation. Leaning over the bal.u.s.trade, he stared down at the little white-haired figure until it disappeared below. A feeling of hollow depression came over Turbin. Suddenly, leaning on the cold metal railings, a memory returned to him with extreme clarity.

... A crowd of high-school boys of all ages was rus.h.i.+ng along that same corridor in a state of high excitement. Maxim, the thickset school beadle, made a grab at two small dark figures at the head of the mob. 'Well, well, well', he muttered. 'The school inspector will be pleased to see Mr Turbin and Mr Myshlaevsky, today of all days, when the school governor is visiting. He will will be pleased!' Needless to say Maxim's remark was one of crus.h.i.+ng sarcasm. Only someone of perverted taste could have gained any pleasure from the contemplation of Mr Turbin and Mr Myshlaevsky, especially on the day of the school governor's visit. be pleased!' Needless to say Maxim's remark was one of crus.h.i.+ng sarcasm. Only someone of perverted taste could have gained any pleasure from the contemplation of Mr Turbin and Mr Myshlaevsky, especially on the day of the school governor's visit.

Mr Myshlaevsky, gripped in Maxim's left hand, had a split upper lip and his left sleeve was dangling by a thread. Mr Turbin, a prisoner of Maxim's right hand, had lost his belt and all his b.u.t.tons - not only on his tunic but his fly-b.u.t.tons as well, revealing a most indecent display of underwear.

'Please let us go, kind Maxim', begged Turbin and Mysh-laevsky gazing beseechingly at Maxim with bloodstained faces.

'Go on, Max, wallop him!' shouted the excited boys from behind. 'That'll teach him to beat up a junior!'

Oh G.o.d, the suns.h.i.+ne, noise and bustling of that day. And Maxim had been very different from this white-haired, hunched and famished old man. In those days Maxim's hair had been as thick and strong as a black boot-brush, scarcely touched with a few threads of grey, Maxim's hands had been as strong as a pair of steel pincers and round his neck he had worn a medallion the size of a wagon-wheel . . . Yes, the wheel, the wheel of fate had gone on rolling from village 'A', making 'x' number of turns on the way . . and it had never reached village 'B' but had landed up in a stony void. G.o.d, it was cold. Now they had to defend . . . But defend what? A void? The sound of footsteps? . . . Can you save this doomed building, Tsar Alexander, with all the regiments of Borodino? Why don't you come alive and lead them down from the canvas? They'd smash Petlyura all right.

Turbin's legs took him downstairs of their own volition. He wanted to shout 'Maxim!', but he hesitated and then finally stopped. He imagined Maxim down below in the janitors' quarters in the bas.e.m.e.nt, probably sitting huddled over his stove. Either he would have forgotten the old days, or he would burst into tears. And things were bad enough without that. To h.e.l.l with the idea -sentimental rubbish. They had all ruined their lives by being too sentimental. So forget it.

Yet when Turbin had dismissed his medical orderlies he found himself wandering around one of the empty, twilit cla.s.srooms. The blackboards looked down blankly from the walls, the benches still stood in their ranks. He could not resist lifting the lid of one of the desks and sitting down at it. It felt difficult, awkward and uncomfortable. How near the blackboard seemed. He could have sworn that this was his old cla.s.sroom, this or the next one, because there was that same familiar view of the City out of the window. Over there was the huge black, inert ma.s.s of the university buildings, there was the lamplit avenue running straight as an arrow, there were the same boxlike houses, the dark gaps in between them, walls, the vaulted sky. . . .

Outside it looked exactly like a stage set for The Night Before Christmas, The Night Before Christmas, snow and little flickering, twinkling lights ... 'I wonder why there is gunfire out at Svyatos.h.i.+no?' Harmless, far away, as though m.u.f.fled in cotton wool, came the dull boo-oom, boom . . . snow and little flickering, twinkling lights ... 'I wonder why there is gunfire out at Svyatos.h.i.+no?' Harmless, far away, as though m.u.f.fled in cotton wool, came the dull boo-oom, boom . . .

'Enough of this.'

Alexei Turbin lowered the desk-lid, walked out into the corridor and through the main lobby, past the sentries and out of doors. A machine-gun was posted at the main entrance. There were hardly any people out on the streets and it was snowing hard.

The colonel spent a busy night, making countless journeys back and forth between the school and Madame Anjou's shop nearby. By midnight the machinery of his command was working thoroughly and efficiently. Crackling faintly, the school arc-lights shone with their pinkish light. The a.s.sembly hall had grown noticeably warmer, thanks to the fires blazing all evening and all night in the old-fas.h.i.+oned stoves in the library bays of the hall.

Under Myshlaevsky's command several cadets had lit the white stoves with bound volumes of literary magazines of the 1860's, and then to a ceaseless clatter of axes had fed the flames by chopping up the old school benches. Having swallowed their ration of two gla.s.ses of vodka (the colonel had kept his promise and provided them with enough to keep the cold out - a gallon and a half), Studzinsky and Myshlaevsky took turns as officer of the guard. They slept for two hours, wrapped in their greatcoats, lying on the floor beside the stove with the cadets, the crimson flames and shadows playing on their faces. Then they got up, moving from sentry-post to sentry-post all through the night inspecting the guard. Relieved every hour, four cadets, m.u.f.fled in sheepskin jerkins, stood guard over the broad-muzzled six-inch mortars.

The stove at Madame Anjou's glowed infernally, the draught roaring and crackling up the flue. A cadet stood on guard at the door keeping constant watch on the motor-cycle and sidecar parked outside, while four others slept like logs inside the shop, wrapped in their greatcoats. Towards midnight the colonel was finally able to settle down at Madame Anjou's. He was yawning, but was still too busy on the telephone to go to sleep. Then at two o'clock in the morning a motor-cycle drove hooting up to the shop. A military man in a gray coat dismounted.

'Let him pa.s.s. It's for me.'

The man handed the colonel a bulky package wrapped in cloth, tied criss-cross with wire. The colonel personally deposited it in the little safe at the back of the shop and locked it. The gray man drove off again on his motor-cycle. The colonel mounted to the balcony, where he spread out his greatcoat and put a bundle of rags under his head. Having ordered the duty cadet to waken him at precisely 6.30 a.m., he lay down and went to sleep.

Seven.

The coal-black gloom of the darkest night had descended on the terraces of the most beautiful spot on earth, St Vladimir's Hill, whose brick-paved paths and avenues were hidden beneath a thick layer of virgin snow.

Not a soul in the City ever set foot on that great terraced mound in wintertime. Still less was anyone likely to climb the hill at night, especially at times like these, which were grim enough to deter the bravest man. There was no good reason for going there and only one place that was lit: for a hundred years the black, cast-iron St Vladimir has been standing on his fearful heavy plinth and holding, upright, a twenty-foot-high cross. Every evening, as soon as twilight begins to enfold the snowdrifts, the slopes and the terraces, the cross is lighted and it burns all night. From far away it can be seen; from thirty miles away in the black distance stretching away towards Moscow. But here on the hilltop it lights up only very little: the pale electric light falls, brus.h.i.+ng the greenish-black flanks of the plinth, picking out of the darkness the bal.u.s.trade and a stretch of the railings that surround the central terrace. And that is all. Beyond this - utter darkness. Out there stand strange trees capped with snow, looking like chandeliers wrapped in muslin, and neck-deep snowdrifts all around. Terrifying.

Obviously no one, however courageous, is going to come here. Chiefly because there is nothing to come for. The City, though, is another matter. A night of alarm, of military decision. Street-lamps s.h.i.+ning like strings of beads. The Germans asleep, but with half an eye open. A blue cone of light suddenly flashes into life in one of the City's darkest streets.

'Halt!'

Crunch . . . crunch . . . Helmeted soldiers, with black ear-m.u.f.fs, walking down the middle of the street. . . Crunch . . . Rifles not slung, but at the ready. The Germans are not in a joking mood for the moment. Whatever else may be in doubt, the Germans are to be taken seriously. They look like dung-beetles.

'Papiere!''

'Halt!'

A cone from the flashlight . . .

A big s.h.i.+ny black car with four headlamps. No ordinary car, because it is followed at a brisk canter by an escort of eight cavalrymen. The Germans are not impressed, and shout at the car: 'Halt!'

"Where to? Who? Why?'

'General Belorukov, commanding general.'

That is another matter. Proceed, general. Deep inside, behind the gla.s.s of the car's windows, a pale moustached face. Faint glimmer reflected from general's shoulder-straps. The German helmets saluted. Secretly they didn't care whether it was General Belorukov, or Petlyura, or a Zulu chief-it was a lousy country anyway. But when in Zululand, do as the Zulus do. So the helmets saluted. Courtesy is international, as the saying goes.

A night of martial deeds. Rays of light slanting out of Madame Anjou's windows, with their ladies' hats, corsets, underwear and crossed cannon. A cadet marched back and forth like a pendulum, freezing cold, tracing the tsarist cypher in the snow with the tip of his bayonet. Over in the Alexander I High School the arc-lights shone as though at a ball. Fortified by a sufficient quant.i.ty of vodka Myshlaevsky tramped around the corridors, glancing up at Tsar Alexander, keeping an eye on the switch-box. There at the school things might have been worse: the sentry-posts armed with eight machine-guns and manned by cadets - not mere students . . . and they would fight. Myshlaevsky's eyes were red as a rabbit's. He was unlikely to get much sleep that night, but there was plenty of vodka and just enough tension in the air for excitement.

Provided it got no worse life in the City was tolerable in this state. If you had nothing on your conscience you could keep out of trouble. True, you might be stopped four times, but if you had your papers on you there was nothing to hold you up. It might look odd that you were out so late at night, but still - pa.s.s, friend . . .

Crazy as it might seem, there were were people out on St Vladimir's people out on St Vladimir's Hill despite the icy wind whistling between the snowdrifts with a sound like the voice of the devil himself. If anyone were to climb up the Hill it could only be some complete outcast, a man who under no matter what government felt as much at home among his fellow men as a wolf in a pack of dogs - in a word, one of Victor Hugo's 'miserables'. The sort of man who had good reason not to show himself in the City, or if so then at his own risk. If he were in luck he might evade the patrols; if not, then it would be just too bad. If a man like that found his way up on to the Hill one could only feel sorry for him out of sheer human pity. The wind was so icy, one wouldn't send a dog out - after five minutes up there he would be back home and whining to be let in. But . . .

'Onlyfive o'clock. Christ, we'll freeze to death . . .'

The trouble was that there was no way into the Upper City past the Belvedere and the water-tower because Prince Belorukov's headquarters was installed in the monastery building on Mikhail-ovsky Street, and cars with cavalry outriders or mounted machine-guns were pa.s.sing by all the time . . .

'd.a.m.ned officers, we'll never get through that way!'

And patrols everywhere.

It was no good trying to creep down the hillside terraces to the Lower City either, firstly because Alexandrovsky Street, which wound its way around the foot of the hill, was lit by rows of street-lamps, and secondly because it was heavily patrolled by the Germans, d.a.m.n them. Maybe someone might be able to slip down that way toward dawn, but by then they would be frozen to death. As the icy wind whistled along the s...o...b..und avenues there seemed to be another sound too - the mutter of voices somewhere near the s...o...b..und railings.

'We can't stay here, Kirpaty, we'll freeze to death, I tell you.'

'Stick it out, Nemolyaka. The patrols will be out till morning, then they turn in and sleep. Once we can slip through to the Embankment we can hide at Sychukla's and warm ourselves up.'

There was a movement in the darkness along the railings as if three shadows blacker than the rest were huddling against the parapet and leaning over to look down at Alexandrovsky Street stretched out immediately below. It was silent and empty, but at any moment two bluish cones of light might appear and some German cars drive past or the dark blobs of steel-helmeted troops, casting their sharp, foreshortened shadows under the street-lamps . . . and so near, they might be within reach . . .

One shadow broke away from the group on the Hill and his wolfish voice grated: 'Come on, Nemolyaka, let's risk it. Maybe we can slip through . . .'

Something equally bad was afoot in the Hetman's palace, where the activity seemed oddly out of place at that hour of night. An elderly footman in sideburns scuttled like a mouse across the s.h.i.+ny parquet floor of a chamber lined with ugly gilt chairs. From somewhere in the distance came the jerky ringing of an electric bell, the clink of spurs. In the state bedroom the mirrors in their gloomy crowned frames reflected a strange, unnatural scene. A thin, graying man with narrow, clipped moustaches on his foxy, clean-shaven, parchment-like face was pacing in front of the mirrors; he was dressed in a fancy Circa.s.sian coat with ornamental silver cartridge-cases. Around him hovered three German officers and two Russian. One of the latter wore a Circa.s.sian coat like the central figure, the other was in service tunic and breeches whose cut betrayed their tsarist Chevalier Guards origin despite the officer's wedge-shaped Hetmanite shoulder-straps. They were helping the foxy man to change his clothes. Off came the Circa.s.sian coat, the wide baggy trousers, the patent-leather boots. In their place the man was encased in the uniform of a German major and he became no different from hundreds of other majors. Then the door opened, the dusty palace drapes were pulled aside and admitted another man in the uniform of a German army medical officer carrying a large quant.i.ty of packages. These he opened and with the contents skilfully bandaged the head of the newly-created German major until all that remained visible were one foxy eye and a thin mouth open just wide enough to show some of its gold and platinum bridgework.

The improper nocturnal activity in the palace continued for some time. A German came out of the bedroom and announced in German to some officers loafing around in the chamber with the giltchairs and in a nearby hall that Major von Schratt had accidentally wounded himself in the neck while unloading a revolver and must be taken urgently to the German military hospital. A telephone rang somewhere, followed by the shrill bird- like squeak of a field-telephone. Then a noiseless German ambulance with Red Cross markings drove through the wrought-iron gates of the palace to a side entrance and the mysterious Major von Schratt, swathed in bandages and wrapped in a greatcoat, was carried out on a stretcher and placed inside the ambulance. The ambulance drove away with a m.u.f.fled roar as it turned out of the gates.

The bustle continued in the palace until the morning, lights burned on in gilded halls lined with portraits, the telephone rang frequently; a look something like insolence came over the expressions of the palace servants and their eyes glinted cheerfully ...

In a cramped little room on the first floor of the palace a man in the uniform of an artillery colonel picked up the telephone after carefully closing the door of the little whitewashed room. He asked the unsleeping girl on the exchange for number 212. When she had connected him he said 'merci', frowned hard and asked in a low, confidential voice: 'Is that the headquarters of the Mortar Regiment?'

Alas, Colonel Malyshev was not fated to be able to sleep until half past six, as he had a.s.sumed. At four o'clock in the morning the telephone bell in Madame Anjou's shop squealed with extreme insistence and the cadet on duty was obliged to waken the colonel. The colonel woke up with remarkable speed. He grasped the situation as quickly and perceptively as though he had never been to sleep at all, and did not reproach the cadet for having interrupted his rest. Soon afterwards he drove away in the motorcycle and sidecar, and when the colonel returned to Madame Anjou at five o'clock his eyebrows were contracted in as deep a military frown as had crossed the forehead of the colonel at the palace who had called up the Mortar Regiment.

On the field of Borodino at seven o'clock that morning, lit by the great pink globes, hunched against the pre-dawn cold, buzzing with talk, stood the same extended string of young men which had marched up the staircase towards the portrait of Tsar Alexander. A little distance away, Staff Captain Studzinsky stood silent among a group of officers. Strangely enough his eyes had the same uneasy gleam of anxiety that Colonel Malyshev had shown since four o'clock that morning. But anyone who had seen both the staff captain and the colonel on that fateful night would have been able to say at once and with certainty where the difference lay: the anxiety in Studzinsky's eyes was one of foreboding, whereas Malyshev's was a certainty - the anxiety founded on a clear realisation that disaster was complete. A long list of the names of the regiment's complement was sticking out of the long turned-up cuff of the sleeve of Studzinsky's greatcoat. He had just finished calling the roll and had discovered that the unit was twenty men short. This was why the list was crumpled: it bore the traces of the staff captain's fingers.

Little bursts of smoke arose into the chilly air of the a.s.sembly hall as some of the officers smoked.

On the stroke of seven o'clock Colonel Malyshev appeared on parade to be greeted, as on the previous day, by a roar of greeting from the ranks in the hall. As on the previous day the colonel was wearing his sabre, but for some reason the chased silverwork of its scabbard no longer flashed with a thousand reflections. On the colonel's right hip his revolver lay in its holster, which with a carelessness quite untypical of Colonel Malyshev, was unb.u.t.toned.

The colonel took up his position in front of the regiment, put his gloved left hand on the hilt of his sword and with his ungloved right hand resting gently on his holster he spoke the following words: 'I want all officers and men of the Mortar Regiment to listen carefully to what I have to say to them! Last night a number of sudden and violent changes took place which affect us, which affect the army as a whole - and which, I venture to say, affect the entire political situation of the Ukraine. I therefore have to inform you that this Regiment is disbanded! I propose that each one of you should remove all insignia and badges of rank, take anything from the armory you may want and which you can carry away and go home, stay there without showing yourselves and wait there until you are recalled to duty by me.'

The colonel stopped, and his abrupt silence was emphasised even more by the absolute stillness in the hall. Even the arc-lights had ceased to hiss. Every man in the room was staring at one point - the colonel's clipped moustache.

He went on: 'I shall issue orders for your recall as soon as there is the slightest change in the situation. But I must tell you that the hopes of any such change are slim ... I can't predict how events will develop, but I think the best that every, . . . er . . . (the colonel suddenly yelled the next word) loyal loyal man among you can hope for is to be sent to join General Denikin's forces on the Don. So my orders to the whole regiment - with the exception of the officers and those who were on sentry-duty last night - are to dismiss and return immediately to your homes!' man among you can hope for is to be sent to join General Denikin's forces on the Don. So my orders to the whole regiment - with the exception of the officers and those who were on sentry-duty last night - are to dismiss and return immediately to your homes!'

'What? What?! . . .' The incredulous murmur ran down the ranks and the bayonets dipped and swayed. Bewildered faces gazed around them, some were plainly relieved, some even delighted . . .

Staff Captain Studzinsky stepped forward from the group of officers. Bluish-white in the face, squinting, he took a few paces towards Colonel Malyshev, then glanced round at the officers. Myshlaevsky was not looking at Studzinsky but was still staring at Colonel Malyshev's moustache. From his expression he looked exactly as if he was about to indulge in his usual habit of breaking out in obscene abuse. Karas stupidly put his arms akimbo and blinked. In the separate group of young ensigns there suddenly came the rustling sound of the rash, dangerous word 'arrest' . . .

'What was that?' muttered a deep voice from the ranks of the cadets.

'Arrest!'

'Treachery!'