Anatoly Rybakov - THE BRONZE BIRD

Igor, Seva and the militiaman were eating potatoes and pickled cucumbers as if they had not a care in the world. But Misha quickly realized that the boys were under arrest. And that explained the surprise of the cowherd and the fussy sternness of the watchman.

"Here, comrade," the watchman said to the militiaman, "I've brought you three more. They were looking for this pair."

A fair head, then another, showed from behind the curtain. In something like a minute, six children, all with fair, uncut hair, in long shirts, lined up in front of the curtain and stared at Misha, Genka and Slava.

At the sight of their friends, Igor and Seva stopped chewing and half-rose from their bench. But a warning gesture from the militiaman made them sit down again.

"Who are you?" the militiaman asked with an air of importance.

Misha told him who they were and why they had come.

"I see," the militiaman said, throwing a potato from one hand to the other and blowing on it. "Have you got any papers to show your identity?"

The boys had their Y.C.L. cards with them, while Genka, in addition, had cards showing that he was a member of the International Aid Organization for Revolutionary Fighters and of the Voluntary Society for the Promotion of the Air Force. All these they placed on the table in front of the militiaman. The latter squinted at the cards and then returned his attention to the potato. He ate it slowly and everybody silently watched him. Even the old watchman, who should have gone back to his post, gazed open-mouthed. Igor, a swarthy, nervous boy with a shock of wiry hair and a sharp nose, anxiously moved his eyes from the militiaman to his friends and back again. Seva, a fat, phlegmatic-looking boy, sat with his head bowed, then, without looking up, stretched out for a cucumber and began munching it so loudly that the sound filled the whole hut.

At last, the militiaman wiped his lips and hands and bent over the cards. He was so long examining them that Misha began to doubt his literacy. But the militiaman called out his name, then Genka's and Slava's and even noticed that Genka was behind with his membership dues at the International Aid Organization for Revolutionary Fighters and the Voluntary Society for the Promotion of the Air Force.

However, the cards did make some impression and the militiaman took a sheet of paper and a pencil from his satchel and began writing a protocol.

To the question whether he knew the boys he was "confronted with," Misha replied that he knew them and gave their surnames and their Moscow addresses. The militiaman checked that with the depositions given by Igor and Seva and found that it tallied. To the question when and why Igor and Seva left the camp, Misha replied that they left three days ago over some stupid joke as a note written by them showed. With a detached air, the militiaman pinned the note to the protocol.

When the militiaman finished writing the protocol, Misha signed it. Everything in it was correct, but there were quite a few spelling mistakes.

"Why have you detained them?" Misha asked.

"On suspicion," the militiaman replied, tightening his belt and adjusting the holster.

"On suspicion of what?"

"Complicity."

"In what?"

"In the murder of Citizen Kuzmin."

"What!" Misha cried. "There must be some mistake."

"We have evidence," the militiaman said, putting on his cap. He turned to the watchman. "Akim, I'll go and put a call through to the uyezd centre. You keep an eye here," he nodded significantly towards the boys.

The watchman closed the door behind the militiaman, moved up a stool and sat down with an air that showed he was firmly resolved not to let anyone out of the hut.

The boys now had an opportunity to talk.

"Satisfied?" Genka asked.

Igor and Seva hung their heads.

"Now tell us what happened," Misha said.

"We didn't do anything," Igor replied in a trembling voice.

Seva began to sniffle, but added nothing to what Igor said.

"Why were you detained?"

"Word of honour," Igor whimpered, "we did not do anything. Our raft broke. There was an empty boat on the river and we took it and came here. But nobody believes us."

"Did you find the boat at Peschanaya Kosa?" Misha asked. "Yes. But how did you know?"

"That's my business," Misha replied in a tone which implied, to Igor and Seva at least, that this was not the only thing he knew.

"It'll teach you how to run away from the camp!" Genka added.

"When did you meet the foreigners and when did you leave them?"

Amazed that he was so well-informed, Igor and Seva told Misha that they came across the foreigners on the very first day, that is, on Tuesday, and left them on the following day, that is, on Wednesday. They had found the boat shortly after that and had taken it. They were detained here.

"Did the soldiers feed you?"

"Yes."

"Aha! Then why did you say you came straight here? You've got to be exact, but you're confusing things. That's why they don't believe you."

Igor and Seva bowed their heads again.

"We'll help you out, of course," Misha continued, "even though you don't deserve it."

"This should be a lesson to you," Genka interposed.

Igor and Seva hung their heads still lower.

"Of course, you don't deserve to be helped," Misha continued, "and what we really ought to do is to let you try and get out of this by yourselves. But we'll help you only to save the honour and reputation of our troop. You, of course, don't give a hang for either."

Igor shook his head in protest. Seva considered that for a moment and reached out for another cucumber.

"There you are," Misha went on, "you don't give a hang. If you did you wouldn't have run away. All of Moscow is saying that we have no discipline or order in our troop. Of course, you don't care. What's the troop to you? But we care about the troop's reputation and that is the only reason why we'll help you. We'll get you clear of this, take you back to the camp and let the troop decide what to do with you. We'll see what you'll have to say..."

Misha would have gone on in this vein indefinitely had not the militiaman returned and announced that he had been ordered to take Igor and Seva to town, to the investigator.

"We'll also go along," Misha declared. "We'll not let you take them alone."

"Nobody is restricted in his movements," the militiaman replied.

Misha told Slava to go back to the camp with Longshanks and not breathe a word about Igor's and Seva's misadventures. If their parents came, he was to tell them that they had turned up and would soon be back in the camp.

Slava went back to the boat. The militiaman took Igor and Seva to the station. Misha and Genka followed them.

The investigator was not what Misha expected he would be like. Misha's idea of an investigator was a tall, sombre man with a concentrated, watchful and penetrating look, smart, taciturn and distrustful.

But before him sat a short man with the most ordinary kind of face, grey eyes, with an absent-minded and, as it seemed to Misha, inattentive look. The table, piled with folders, was covered with a torn piece of green cardboard stained with ink and filled with illegible handwriting and meaningless drawings.

The investigator walked out of the room a few times, leaving papers on the table. That surprised Misha, for so far as he was concerned these papers were confidential. On the whole, everything was done so openly here, men spoke loudly and people walked in and out. That greatly shook Misha's respect for this institution, where, in his mind, a secret, dangerous and selfless struggle was being waged against crime.

Misha's impression was that the investigator paid no attention at all to what Igor and Seva said. He was busy writing something that had nothing to do with the case. He gave what he wrote to a colleague with the words: "Put this in the Kochetkov file," and at once got down to writing on another sheet. When Misha began to tell him about the boatman attacking him and his friends and about the men in the woods, the investigator was so inattentive that Misha fell into a hurt silence.