David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

It was signed L. Trotsky.

‘Not the sort of thing they circulated on the western front,’ Paul said. ‘Czech mercenaries and officer-thugs? Drown them in the Volga…?’

‘Quite,’ said Valentine.

‘Not that many of those fellows we saw back in the restaurant will be able to read it. Their officer said most of them are illiterate.’

‘If Trotsky’s in the habit of shooting them if they don’t advance,’ Paul said. ‘I should imagine they’ll get the message even if they can’t read.’

‘It’s like his speeches.’

‘The point is,’ said Paul, ‘we’ve still got to get through this Fifth Army somehow. Did you find out if they’ve blockaded the Volga or not?’

‘Yes, they’ve got a flotilla of steamers on it under Raskolnikov.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘One of the Kronstadt sailors who helped the Bolsheviks seize power.’

‘Well if they’ve got the steamers, how are we going to find one to take us through their flotilla?’

‘Take one of theirs?’ Valentine suggested.

‘And how do you propose we do that? We’d have to get right up to the lines first.’

‘I assume the train will run to the lines.’

‘That will mean staying on it. How can we do that without raising suspicion?’

Valentine smiled at him in that smug way of his that Paul was beginning to find irritating.

‘I sort of gave the officer I was talking to the impression we’ve been sent by the Central Committee to rebuild the Party apparatus once Kazan has fallen. He swallowed it, so it might be enough to get us to the lines.’

‘But Trotsky’s there!’ Paul objected. ‘He’ll have people with him ready to do that, surely? They won’t believe us without specific orders… proper documentation…’

‘We’ve only to bluff our way as far as the lines,’ Valentine said. ‘I’m not planning on introducing myself to Trotsky. Once we’re off the train and find ourselves a steamer it won’t matter. And we’ll have the element of surprise.’

We’ll have bullets in the back our heads , Paul felt like saying. If they were caught, they’d be taken for the kind of officer-thugs Trotsky had written about. Or worse, agents of the Anglo-French invasion. They’d be shot out of hand. What they’d do to Sofya didn’t bear thinking about.

They were still some versts before the station at Sviyázhsk when the provodnik came through the carriages with a soldier telling anyone who wasn’t with the army that they would have to get off the train.

‘That’s the officer I spoke with,’ Valentine said, pulling out his Party Card. ‘He’s in charge of the unit.’

When they reached him Valentine waved his card at the officer and said they’d be staying on the train.

‘Military only,’ the officer said.

‘But Party workers…?’ Valentine protested.

‘You’ll have to talk to the political commissar, comrade. All I know is military personnel only. Anyone political is up to him.’

Valentine looked out of sorts. ‘What now?’ Paul asked. ‘Talk to the commissar?’

‘Not him,’ Valentine said vehemently. ‘He’d ask too many awkward questions. We don’t want to arouse suspicion. We’ll get off at the station at Sviyázhsk and see how the land lies.’

There was only a handful of passengers left to get off at Sviyázhsk and as soon as a detachment who had been waiting on the platform boarded, the train left the station again, running north briefly before crossing the Volga over the new Romanov Bridge.

Outside the station they found half-a-dozen droshkys waiting for passengers who wanted to go into the town, some distance east on the banks of the Sviyaga River, one of the Volga’s tributaries.

The nags in the shafts and the men driving them all looked to Paul like the rejects left after the Red Army had conscripted anything of possible use. Valentine walked along the line looking at the drivers and chose a particularly grizzled one. Valentine asked him how far it was to Sviyázhsk.

‘Eight versts. Where are you staying?’

‘We’ve not made arrangements yet.’

‘Pity,’ said the driver as they climbed up behind him.

‘Are there rooms to be had?’

‘Not unless you’re army.’ He snapped the reins and the horse reluctantly began to move.

‘Nothing?’ said Valentine. ‘Anything will do.’

‘Not unless you’re army,’ the driver repeated.

‘Weren’t there steamers on the river?’ Valentine said as if it had just occurred to him. ‘We could stay on one of them.’

‘All requisitioned by the army for their flotilla.’

‘All of them? There must be something, surely. If there are no rooms… Weren’t there any boats the army didn’t take?’

‘Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t,’ the driver said. ‘Nothing a lady would want to stay on.’

‘We don’t mind roughing it for a night or two, do we?’ Valentine said turning to Paul and Sofya.

‘No,’ said Paul automatically.

‘Where is the flotilla?’

The driver turned in his seat and sized them up while the horse plodded on. His eyes lingered on Sofya.

‘On the Sulitsa beyond the Sviyaga. The front line is just across river from there. You’re not army, then?’

‘Us?’ said Valentine as if the idea was ridiculous. ‘No, we’re in the grain business.’

‘Well, if you’re here to buy wheat then the army’s got all that, too.’ He spat to one side of the carriage.

‘The army’s in the town, you say?’

‘All over it,’ the driver replied, gazing steadily at Valentine. ‘It makes food difficult to find. Prices are high.’

‘That’s the way of it with the army,’ Valentine sympathised. ‘We’re happy to pay you for your trouble, if you can find us accommodation.’

‘It won’t be cheap.’

‘That’s no problem,’ Valentine assured him. ‘You see,’ he said slowly after a pause, ‘we were hoping to get to Kazan… But I suppose the army is on the left bank of the Volga, too?’

‘From Vasilyevo to north of Gruzinskoye. They say they’re going to retake Kazan.’

‘When?’

‘Any day.’

The droshky driver pulled the carriage to a halt. High on a bluff, Sviyázhsk’s towers and domes rose above its other buildings pointing heavenward. Beyond the town, two tributaries of the Volga flowed darkly to join it from the south. On the far bank of the furthest river Paul could make out the tents of the army camp and a line of steamers moored to the bank.

‘That’s the Sviyaga. The Sulitsa’s beyond it where the army’s camped with the flotilla.’ He stared at Valentine pointedly. ‘Did you still want to go into town?’

‘You mentioned there may be something if we didn’t mind roughing it? As I said, we’re happy to pay you for your trouble.’

‘Only a fool refuses money,’ the driver said.

‘Accounting tokens, Kerenski or roubles?’

‘No tokens or Kerenski.’

‘Roubles it is.’

‘Times were hard then,’ the driver ruminated, ‘but a man knew where he stood.’

Valentine turned to Paul. Paul sighed, remembering the Finns. He had little left except the gold imperials Sofya was still wearing. He handed over his remaining notes.

‘Here,’ said Valentine to the driver, counting out the money. Will this help?’

‘I know a man who has a boat. You said you wouldn’t mind a boat?’

‘Just what we’re looking for,’ said Valentine.

The driver spat again. He cracked the reins and turned the droshky off the main road onto a side track.

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Kazan? They say they will be there in a few days. Why not wait, go in after they’ve retaken the city?’