Евгений Водолазкин - Solovyov and Larionov

The general did not dismiss the idea that events could develop that way, though he considered it improbable. He surmised that the Reds would want to intercept him, but here he was counting on the Sivash, which did not usually freeze. His calculation did not hold true. He was left hoping that only the Reds’ vanguard had managed to cross.

The general could not imagine that the cavalry—particularly the artillery weapons—could have crossed the first thin ice. He could not imagine that much of any significant enemy force could have made its way here during the time the Whites were on their inhuman forced march. Even so—regardless of how many of them there were—the Reds had arrived on the isthmus first. Despite the cold. And the barely frozen Sivash. The general’s army was like a worn-out horse. He had worn it out in hopes of saving it. It was the first time in his life that the general had subjected soldiers to an ordeal like this. It was the first time in his life that he felt the inevitability of defeat.

He scrutinized the soldiers’ faces yet again, as if searching for clues. The cold had smoothed the features of those faces, depriving them of expression. Frost lay on their mustaches and eyebrows. There was nothing in his soldiers’ eyes but the campfires burning up ahead. Did they surmise what those campfires meant? Even if they did, the pull of that flame was so strong that it was already impossible to stop their motion toward it.

And the general did not even try. Stopping here would have been tantamount to death. On this bare and completely unprotected plain, his troops would be swept away by the Reds’ superior forces. Occupying positions on the well-fortified Perekop remained their only chance of salvation. For that, they now needed the impossible: an attack.

‘Prepare for battle,’ said the general, his words drowning in the beginnings of a blizzard.

The general said it loudly and nobody heard him. He knew it was useless to repeat. He spurred his horse and galloped off to the leading column.

Why had the Reds lit the campfires? Why did they not continue moving toward Perekop? Were they unable to? Had they made a quick stop to warm up? This will remain one of the war’s enigmas. In Solovyov’s opinion, the Reds also did not suppose the enemy was capable of ending up in this sector so early. According to all their mental calculations, the general and his army could not have turned up here until at least the next morning. It is possible the Reds did not expect the general to accomplish the unthinkable, so had calmly lit their campfires. Even if they had not lit them calmly, though, they simply could not have survived on a night like that without fires.

Solovyov attributed the Reds’ mind-boggling carelessness to their being completely frozen. To the narrowing of blood vessels in the brain as a result of hypothermia. This was how the historian explained the fact that the Reds did not even have an outpost. They glimpsed the White Army only when the figure of a horseman emerged in front of them, out of the blizzard, which was finally running wild.

‘Who goes there?’ they asked by a campfire.

‘Friend,’ answered the general.

He slowly rode up to the nearest campfire, where those sitting recognized him. It was impossible not to recognize him. Even in 1920, in the absence of television and glossy magazines, the general was one of several faces everyone knew. When seen from below, he seemed huge. He looked like a monument.

Nobody stirred by the fire. People hold their breath like this when lightning balls appear: they feign nonexistence, hoping it will disappear. But the general was not disappearing. He and his horse grew each time the fire blazed.

The Red commander emerged from the darkness. Stood still. His hand extended on its own to salute.

‘Your Excellency…’

‘At ease,’ said the general.

The general’s army was passing by behind his back but he was watching those seated at the campfires. For their part, they were still sitting motionlessly, watching the general. How his horse stamped its feet, how its flanks occasionally trembled. The bay horse was turning white before their eyes. The general was turning white: his military overcoat, his hood, and the reins in his hands. His face was also white. Never before had they seen such a white general. The cavalry was slowly floating past their very eyes in the drifting snow, as if it were surmounting sediment at the bottom of the sea. The infantry passed by. The heavy weaponry rode by. This went on for a long time, but nobody could grasp how long. Time had stopped. When the last infantryman had passed, the general nodded silently and vanished in the darkness.

They approached Perekop at dawn. The general ordered they demolish all remaining structures there and build campfires with them. A train with foodstuffs and firewood was already on its way from Dzhankoy. The general checked the condition of the fortifications and ordered they stretch barbed wire where there were breaks. At first he wanted to set up camp with tents but he knew that was already impossible. He commanded only that nobody lie in the snow. An instant later, everyone was sleeping but the posted sentinels.

The sentinels needed to be relieved every hour. People simply had no strength for more.

The foreign envoys awaited the general in Dzhankoy. The general felt nothing but contempt for the envoys. He placed no great hopes in his meeting with them but decided to go anyway. The thought of evacuating the army had made his decision. He headed for Dzhankoy after leaving General Shatalov in his place.

The general rode his armored train car along the tracks he had laid. The warmth in the car and the clacking of the wheels made his head spin. The general felt something he had felt only in childhood. This was a feeling of joy and immortality.

‘Joy and immortality,’ he uttered.

This feeling had come to him several times recently, so the general thought he would most likely die soon. That was the last thing he had time to think before falling asleep.

A locomotive’s drawn-out whistle awakened the general. It came from a passing train. They had stopped at a station.

‘Dzhankoy?’ the general asked the valet.

‘Dzhankoy,’ replied the valet.

He was holding a soap dish in one hand, a towel in the other.

The general went over to the washstand. For some reason, the water was cold even in the warm train car, and the general remembered how he had doused himself with water every morning in the cadet corps. How his body and his comrades’ bodies had been covered in goosebumps. He had a different body then. He took the towel from the valet and used it to rub his face until it was red. It was completely different.

The foreign diplomatic mission employees had gathered in a small chamber at the city council. They were sitting on bentwood chairs along both sides of a threadbare runner rug. The rug began at the doorway and led to a long oak table. Everyone rose when the general appeared, accompanied by an escort. The escort remained by the doorway and the general walked through the chamber, without glancing at anyone. He unbuttoned his military overcoat and half-sat on a chair.

‘We are leaving Crimea,’ the general said, in a silent whisper. ‘We will hold Perekop as long as required to evacuate everyone.’

The diplomatic mission employees looked at the general, expressionless.

‘I need to save my army,’ the general went on. ‘I need your help.’

‘How splendid that you take your decisions without consulting your allies,’ said the British envoy.

The general took a cigarette case from his pocket and opened it with a melodic sound.

‘I appealed to your king, asking how many people he would accept in the event of our evacuation.’