John Schettler - 9 Days Falling, Volume I

He made one last inspection of the cars, still not satisfied. There were too many people crammed into too little space. So he took Surinov in tow and inspected the rest of the train. There were two coach cars, largely empty just like his own train.

“Who is riding in this coach?”

“My men, of course,” said Surinov.

“Five men in using all this space? There must be seats for thirty people here. And who is in the other coach?”

“That is my car.” Surinov raised his chin, looking at Fedorov through the bottom of his spectacles.

“Your car?” Fedorov’s disapproval was apparent.

He walked boldly up to the car and had a look inside. There were three young women there, obviously very frightened, and one had a thick lip where she had taken a blow recently. He pursed his lips, realizing what was going on here at once, and very upset.

“So you prefer the company of women, do you? Well it’s time you learned some military discipline, Lieutenant. You are an officer in the State Internal Security Division, and this train is being sent east for a purpose—it is not a brothel! You want to share your coach with women? So be it!”

He strode off and soon had his soldiers remove all the elderly women from the over cramped box cars, the old babushkas who might be the next to die on the long journey in the cold box cars. If there were married couples he let their husbands accompany them, and he soon had Troyak and Zykov supervise their placement in more comfortable seats and compartments in the two coach cars. Then he went back to the Lieutenant, removed the three young girls from his car and sent them back to the box cars, a much safer place for them now, or so he reasoned.

Lieutenant Surinov watched, a controlled rage plain to see on his face, though he could do nothing about the situation. Who was this new NKVD man? He had never seen him on the line before this, nor had he ever seen an NKVD colonel act this way.

When the resettlement was finished Fedorov went back to Surinov with one last threatening order. “I see there is no room left in your coach now. All the seats are taken, so you and your men will now ride in the engine or coal car. Understood? Don’t worry about these people, the provodnits will manage them. They are to remain here until you reach your final destination, and they are to be treated with dignity and respect!” His voice was loud now, and everyone in the two coach cars could hear what he was saying.

“Now… I will have my men return your weapons—but without the bayonets. These are people, not cattle to be poked and prodded by cold steel. Their fate in Khabarovsk is in the hands of the Camp Commandant, but their fate on this ride east is in your hands. I just counted a hundred and eighty-three souls here, and you are now responsible for their safe delivery. God help your soul should another one die before you get to Khabarovsk….And leave the young girls alone! Those are someone’s daughters, yes? What kind of man are you?”

Surinov was clearly unhappy with this but stood stolidly, his eyes narrowed, face red with outrage and humiliation. Fedorov could see that the man’s temper would not change easily, and feared that as soon as the train reached the next stop all his work here would be undone, and with considerable anger by this man. He decided he had better make his orders more pointed.

“I am not making suggestions here, Lieutenant. These are your orders now, and you had better be listening. When I return I will make inquiries about this train. I will come looking for you again, Lieutenant Mikael Surinov. I have written down your name. If I discover you have fallen back on your old ways and these people have been mistreated again, then I believe you and I will sit down with the Sergeant for a very long and uncomfortable discussion. If I hear that these orders were disobeyed…then I hope you enjoy this train ride, it will be your last, Lieutenant.”

He poked the Lieutenant firmly on the chest where he thought the man’s soul might reside if he had one, then turned and strode away, a small feeling of satisfaction growing in him as he returned to his freight train, now ready to leave the station.

As they moved west out of the yard Fedorov looked back one last time and saw the other train slowing moving east. He knew he could not right every wrong he would encounter on this journey, and that the days ahead for those poor people would still be harsh and cruel, but not on his watch, and not today. His intervention was one small drop of righteous compassion in a sea of sorrow and war, but for that day it was enough, and it was all that mattered.

He settled into the kupe compartment and the uniformed provodnits, made his coach check. The man had seen and heard the entire incident from a window in the forward coach, and when his eye met Fedorov’s there was a glint of a smile there, and a glimmer of respect where there had once been wary fear.

It will get worse, thought Fedorov. The train would slowly approach the war zone, and he expected to see much more military activity on the line, and much more human sorrow. Getting south to Kizlyar would not be easy once they left the main rail at Omsk. That is when he expected the most danger. It was not merely a question of miles now, but decades as well. To succeed he had to complete this perilous journey, find Orlov and get him safely to the Caspian coast, hoping that the rescue operation would appear to bring them all home. That failing… he could not go further into that darkness in his mind. They had to find them, Volsky’s team had to come. The world was depending on it.

Hewoke from a troubled sleep with that same thought in mind—the world was depending on him—but the sound he heard outside made his blood run cold. He sat up in the darkness, blinking, his awareness keenly focused on the sound, like distant artillery fire, a low threatening rumble of thunder, yet impossibly far away, a strange echo of something vast and terrible—but what was it? For a brief moment he struggled to remember where he was… the long rail journey through the wilderness of Siberia…Ilanskiy… the hotel….

After they left Irkutsk they had continued northwest towards Krasnoyarsk, another long day that covered nearly 600 kilometers. Near dusk they were several hours east of the city but the train needed to make a scheduled stop at a small town called Ilanskiy. The rail line moved through some heavily wooded terrain, then bent south of a river to enter the town, where they found several other trains parked in parallel lines on the marshalling yards. Three of their cargo cars would be off-loaded here before the train would continue west through Krasnoyarsk, Novorossiysk and eventually reach Omsk.

Fedorov had learned about the hotel from the railway workers. They called it the ‘Locomativnyh’ or ‘rail workers holiday house’ established at an old inn a few blocks from the marshalling yards. It was going to be six hours before the freight operation concluded, so Fedorov determined to rest there and see if they could get some decent food and a few hours sleep before the train was scheduled to depart just after midnight.

They entered the reception area of the old hotel and Fedorov saw the portrait of an elderly man behind the front desk, with a well oiled mustache and white hair, obviously the ancestor and founder of the establishment before the revolution. He spoke briefly with the receptionist, who also doubled as the serving lady in the dining room, a young woman named Ilanya after the town itself. She wore a plain white apron and red head scarf, and seemed very intimidated when Fedorov appeared with Troyak and Zykov. Seeing the apprehension in her eyes, Fedorov engaged her in a friendly voice to ally her fears.