David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

‘That’s all right,’ Paul said. ‘I’m expected back.’

‘I dare you know how they feel about the Legion,’ Valentine said, nodding up at the officers in his compartment, ‘and what with you being in Czech uniform…’

Paul glanced up at them. ‘One might have expected a little more gratitude. We’ve been the only thing standing between them and the Red Army.’

‘I know, old man, I know. But that’s Russian officers for you. The collapse of the front is always someone else’s fault and they have to have a scapegoat. Their refusal to shoulder responsibility has been the problem all along. I could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe.’

‘I’ve probably heard them,’ Paul said.

‘Your cousin’s on board, by the way.’

‘Sofya?’

‘Mikhail. What with the gold being on this train, I mean. I don’t believe he’s let the money out of his sight since we left Kazan.’

‘Sofya isn’t with him?’

‘Yes, she’s here too.’ Valentine grinned at him. ‘I’ll let her know I’ve seen you.’

‘Would you? Tell me, how is she?’

Paul’s eagerness seemed to amuse Valentine. ‘Obstinate. But I don’t have to tell you that. She could have left Omsk some time ago, of course. Her brother wanted her to go but she refused.’

‘Krasilnikov?’

Valentine knotted his brow. ‘The Cossack colonel? What about him?’

‘Is he still around? With Mikhail, I mean.’

‘Oh, you mean that business last year?’

‘What business?’

‘When I last saw you. You’d been stopped by some nasty-looking characters by the square. They had a list of names.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘I assumed yours was on it because C had sent you. Although why your cousin should have taken exception to that, I have no idea.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Paul said.

‘Water under the bridge now, anyway.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Your cousin… I mean, he’s got more on his mind just now than you, old man, what with the way things are going. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I heard Krasilnikov cleared out when he saw which way the wind was blowing.’

As if in sympathy with Valentine’s metaphorical wind a train whistle blew, prompting the crowd to renew their scurrying up and down the platform.

‘Surely we’re not leaving yet?’ Valentine said. ‘Perhaps someone’s spotted a Bolshevik.’ He laughed at his own joke but turned towards the train anyway. ‘Look, why don’t we catch up further down the line, old man? We’ll get together then.’

He gave Paul a cheery wave and climbed back onto the carriage step. The soldiers who had been standing around them shuffled back into position and Paul found himself outside the circle again. Valentine tipped a finger to his fur hat and disappeared into the train.

Paul watched him go then resumed his march along the line of waiting trains. He looked in at each window he passed, but he never saw Sofya.

He dreamed he was tumbling through space. A discordant clash of cymbals echoed in his ears as he spun, climaxing with a screeching howl of violins.

He landed violently, hitting his head against something unyielding. The violins faded beneath a timpani that filled his head with drums and bells. A male voice choir took up a descant of grunts and curses.

Dazed, he lifted himself briefly onto his knees until a man fell across him, knocking him sideways. He reached out a hand and grabbed the stove. He fell down again, screaming and holding his burned hand. By the time he had regained his wits someone had lit an oil lamp.

The train wasn’t moving. The teplushka looked as if the Red Army had just passed through it, a Babel of Czech and Russian filling the boxcar around him. And English. Someone was saying: ‘brakes, not violins’ and he listened to the voice until he realised it was his own. He shut his mouth and rubbed his forehead. It ached abominably. His hand came away wet with blood.

The boxcar door slid open and a blast of icy air hit him. Men were still lying all over the floor, nursing limbs and heads. Others were on their feet helping them up. Karel Romanek grabbed Paul and hauled him upright.

‘You’re bleeding, Pasha.’

‘I burnt my hand.’

‘Your head!’

‘No, my hand.’ He held it up in front of Romanek’s face. ‘What happened?’

‘The train braked.’

Paul began to say that was obvious but his voice was drowned out by a medic outside the door on the track waving an oil lamp and shouting something about the injured.

‘Go with him,’ said Karel.

‘I’m all right. Really. Why did we break?’

‘There’s been a smash ahead,’ someone said.

‘Reds?’ asked another.

‘Have they torn up the track?’

‘There’s no gunfire.’

All Paul could hear were shouts and screams. Something was burning. Smoke was in the frozen air.

‘We managed to stop,’ the medic said, still waving his lamp around, ‘or we would have hit them too.’

‘Hit who?’

‘One of the forward trains was stopped in the station. Kolchak’s train and another has smashed into it.’

‘The man can’t even retreat properly,’ someone muttered.

‘What station? Where are we?’

‘Tartarskaya.’

They were only 140 versts east of Omsk. It had been dark before they left the city and there were still hours until dawn. Paul began pulling on his boots, wincing at the pain in his blistering hand. Karel helped him into his coat.

‘I’ve got to look,’ he said. ‘She might have been on Kolchak’s train.’

‘I know,’ said Romanek. ‘I’ll come with you.’

They climbed out of the boxcar. Snow had piled in drifts under the trees by the side of the track and they sank up to their knees in it as they stepped away from the train. Around them men were clambering out and making their way along the track. Ahead, the sky was lit by flame, the air thick with smoke. The stationary train ahead of their broněviky stood silhouetted against an inferno. Beyond it, Tartaskaya station was ablaze. The track was littered with boxcars and carriages. Paul saw some on their sides; others were skewed off the track at odd angles, pointing crazily into the sky. Flames from the station buildings rose into the night, sending showers of sparks cascading like fireworks over the scene. Figures, lit by the blaze, were dancing around the tangled wreckage like besotted savages.

‘Jesus,’ Karel muttered.

Hampered by his heavy coat, Paul ran through the melting snow. Passing the rear of Kolchak’s train he saw the admiral standing by the track surrounded by his staff. Illuminated by the fire, his pale face wore an expression of horror, like a figure in a Hieronymus Bosch painting who was contemplating the flames of hell.

Beyond them, those who had managed to clamber out of the wreck of the gold train stood, stunned, by the track. Men from the Legion had started pulling the injured from the wreckage. Burned bodies lay in the snow like lumps of charred meat. The air was heavy with acrid smoke and the screams of the injured.

Paul clambered over the wreckage of a carriage to get closer. The hot metal seared his already blistered hand. Forced back by the heat, he fell against a pile of split wooden crates and, picking himself up saw gold bars littered amid the twisted metal. Others had already seen them and had begun gathering the scattered treasury, hauling what they could off into the darkness of the trees.

Paul edged as close as he could to the blazing station but the heat was too intense. He backed away to where a line of scorched bodies had been pulled clear and lay in the slushing snow beneath the trees. He walked among them. Most of the faces were unrecognisable, heads of charred flesh and singed hair, their clothes still smouldering. As he passed, one of the bodies raised a blackened arm and pointed at him with a raw finger. The features no longer looked human. The nose was a smudged hole; the lips burned away to the toothy rictus beneath. It opened its mouth, gasping air, then spilled a bubbling rasp from its throat.