Dan Smith - Red Winter

The procession of carriages continued past, sullen and brooding, out of place in this bleak and beautiful wilderness; a blunt sign of the war that was throttling our country.

Coupled behind the reinforced engine was a blinded wagon, plated with metal, riveted and welded and cut with slits for riflemen to fire at all angles from within. The open wagon directly behind that was small and provided a platform for a Maxim machine gun, which was unmanned but accessible from the armoured car. The following wagons were an assortment of passenger cars and red cattle-cars, at least ten, and they rattled and clattered past us as if limping back from battle. At the end of this war train was another blind wagon with firing slits, and the final carriage was open and mounted with a Putilov field gun, which was capable of firing a variety of shells over great distance.

Some of the passenger cars had glass windows steamed opaque, while others were shuttered or covered with metal mesh so it was impossible to see what or who was inside. There were holes punched into the woodwork, splintered boards in the wagon sides, blackened patches where it had been burned or caught with the blast of explosives. On the roof of each wagon, there was a multitude of boxes, bags and crates of ammunition, weapons and supplies and man piled upon man in chaotic disorder. The soldiers were sitting, standing, lying wherever they could find space. Some of them were wounded, some were dead, and some were dying.

There was an air of tiredness and defeat about this limping monster.

‘What is this?’ Lev asked. ‘Where are they coming from?’

I shook my head, still watching this ragged convoy limping past. It was not the monstrosity we had thought when we heard its approach. Now it seemed more tragic than terrible.

‘Looks like they’re retreating from something,’ I said.

‘I thought the fighting was further south,’ Lev replied. ‘They’re going in the wrong direction, heading right into it. That doesn’t make sense.’

The train was moving at just a crawl now, and we waited for it to pass before I told Lev, ‘Stay here.’

I mounted Kashtan and approached the railway line, watching the field gun retreat and then disappear into the mist, leaving a swirling vortex that shifted and twisted and then settled. The noise of the train continued, but it slowed further, as if the beast were dying.

‘It’s stopping,’ I said to Kashtan. ‘Maybe we should go and look.’

I turned her about and went back to Lev and Anna, telling them my intention.

‘Shouldn’t we just keep moving?’ Lev asked. ‘That train is loaded with soldiers.’

‘We’ll stay hidden,’ I said. ‘You can even stay here if you want, but I have to look.’

‘Why? Why can’t we just keep going? Those men are behind us and—’

‘Because I’m looking for my wife and sons, and this train is coming from the north. Some of those carriages might contain prisoners bound for labour camps, or someone aboard might be able to give me some information about Koschei. Maybe they heard something, saw something. Maybe they know who he is.’

‘But the men behind us…’ Lev looked over his shoulder, staring into the forest.

‘I have to look,’ I said. ‘Don’t you understand? If that train is carrying prisoners on their way to labour camps, then Marianna might be with them. My wife. My sons too. Misha and Pavel.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lev said. ‘I didn’t think. But this is a war train, isn’t it?’

‘Any one of those closed carriages might have my family inside it,’ I argued. ‘I have to know there are no prisoners. I have to.’

Lev looked as though he wanted to say something else, but he understood how desperate I was. I couldn’t leave this possibility uninvestigated.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘if you want to go on without me, I’ll catch you up.’

Lev thought about it, his agitation clear. He was afraid of the men following us, and he was afraid of the men on the train, but he didn’t want to be alone in the forest with his daughter. He was a teacher, not a soldier. It would be easy for him to lose his way.

‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘We’ll come.’

So we followed the iron track, moving off it when it became clear the train had stopped. If I were going to investigate, I would have to do it carefully. I was a deserter, a wanted man.

We trailed the noise of the idling train and the smell of burning coal left in its wake, keeping the track visible to one side, while listening to the shouts that came out of the mist. At first, they were intermittent, the occasional order snapped from the mouth of someone in charge, punctuated by the hiss of released steam from the engine.

‘Out!’ the voice was shouting. ‘Out!’

Then other voices joined it so that a chorus of them was yelling orders.

Nearer still, the train not yet visible in the mist, other sounds began to prevail. Many of these were quieter and lower, but they were infinitely more disturbing. An almost perpetual groaning hummed in the air, deadened by the stillness of the forest. A bustle of hushed voices.

Murmuring and whispering was coming from all sides, as if the spirits had risen and were closing in on us.

‘What is that?’ Anna asked.

Lev glanced at me, waiting for an answer.

‘Sounds like ghosts,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘It’s wounded men,’ I told them. ‘That’s what the battlefield sounds like after a fight.’

We kept on, moving closer until the shape of the train was just visible and the deep moaning had grown louder.

‘You two should stay here.’ I stopped and inspected our surroundings.

At some time, a path for the track had been cleared through the forest, but it had not been well maintained and already there were saplings, taller than a man, pushing from the earth close to the rails. Grass and thistles grew in the spaces between the sleepers, nature threatening to reclaim what had once been hers. A little further back, there was an area where the trees were thick and the brushwood and brambles were unruly.

‘Over here,’ I said, leading Kashtan away from the track.

I hitched her to a tree, Lev doing the same, asking, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’ll have a look around, come back as soon as I can.’

‘Are you sure it’s safe?’

‘It should be fine. I won’t be long, but don’t come near the train. If I’m longer than an hour, go on without me, covering your trail just like we’ve been doing. Keep going north to Dolinsk; you’ll be fine there.’ I gave him my best reassuring look and winked at Anna, crouching in front of her and pulling down my scarf so she could see my face. ‘Look after Kashtan for me.’

‘I will.’

‘Good girl.’

When I stood, Lev pointed to my rifle. ‘You can’t take that with you. We both know civilians are outlawed from carrying weapons.’

I looked at the rifle, reluctant to leave it behind, but knowing he was right. ‘You know how to use it?’ I asked him.

When he nodded, I handed it to him and he started to put it over his shoulder.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Keep it out of the way. Hide it somewhere you can get to if you need it, but don’t let anyone see you with it. And don’t make any noise.’ I started to walk away but stopped and lifted a finger. ‘Make sure you stay right here. Don’t go anywhere. And no—’

‘It’s all right,’ Lev said. ‘I understand. We’ll wait right here.’

‘Good. I’ll be back soon.’

And with that, I went on, enveloped by the sound of dying, as if I was walking into hell.

The train had not stopped at a station, but hunched in the shallow cutting through the forest as if it had paused for breath before continuing its journey. From all along its length, men spilled onto the trackside. The wounded stumbled from every door, like the walking dead. Comrade helped comrade as they fell and limped and crawled away from the train. Officers patrolled the length of the track shouting orders, telling the injured to stand clear, to get away from the train, and from the roofs of the carriages, soldiers passed down the corpses of the men who had perished during the journey.