Евгений Водолазкин - Solovyov and Larionov

Everyone in the first wave fell in his own way. Some flapped their arms. Others grasped their bellies. Writhed on the ground with inhuman shouts. Some stopped moving then fell to the ground silently after standing in an already unearthly calm. Other people entered the gaping chasms that had formed. It had been a long time since this first wave had been the first. The machine guns became ever more precise as another wave approached, mowing down an entire wave at once. A new, live wave arrived where the first had perished; to the general’s mind this was a very strange celebration of life.

Some broke ranks and ran over to the barbed wire. They attempted to get their pliers so they could at least sever one strand of barbed wire before dying. They did not manage to do so. They were killed by shots aimed from several rifles at once. Those who shot nodded approvingly to one another. They understood these dead were heroes.

The machine gunners’ faces were sweaty and stern. Angels of death must have faces like that, thought the general. The machine gunners played first violin in this dreadful orchestra. They poured water into the cooling tanks of their Maxim guns, dipper after dipper, but the water was not fast enough to cool the metal. They could sense its temperature even through their gloves.

The Reds had many men—they did not need to count their losses. Never before had the general seen commanders sacrifice their own soldiers with such calm. The Reds had been carrying out a frontal attack for several hours already. From a military science perspective, the attack was pointless. What could they accomplish? Take all the bullets themselves? Cover all the barbed wire with their bodies? From the perspective of dreadful reality, this attack was indisputable. An attack like this could not be countered forever.

The Reds, who had set out for unprecedented sacrifices, knew this. The general, who would never allow himself to have victims of that sort, knew this. He saw that a new reality constructed on other fundamentals was arriving, along with the Reds. He already had trouble understanding it and thus rejected it with ever greater passion. And continued resisting it.

The Reds’ attack ceased with the early autumn twilight. It dissolved in the semi-darkness. It subsided like water during ebb tide. Unnoticed. Soundlessly. Revealing everything preserved on the ocean floor. Bodies lay everywhere the Red waves had been, as far as one could see in the approaching darkness. Each lay alone. They lay on top of one other. They hung on wires. Some were stirring. The general sent a medical team to gather the living. He left burying the dead to the Reds. The general was preparing to hand over Perekop.

Solovyov made a very detailed description of the general’s preparation for his final military operation. The operation consisted of securing the troops’ retreat to the port. In this case, the issue no longer concerned organizing a brilliant victory, as before. The general was working to save his soldiers’ lives. According to historian Solovyov, this was about organizing a defeat with the fewest losses: a defeat no less brilliant, in its own way, than the previous victories.

The general first dictated a special instruction turning over to the White Army the entire fleet of ships assigned to Crimean ports. He also designated five ports from which the evacuation would be implemented. They were Sevastopol, Yalta, Yevpatoria, Feodosia, and Kerch. But the main order, which stunned everyone, concerned the White Infantry’s southerly march.

They had to act rapidly, without making too much noise, without extinguishing the fires, and taking a minimum of uniforms. The main and less maneuverable part of the army headed toward the ports in secret and began loading onto transports. The cavalry, machine gun detachments, and some artillery remained. They covered the departure of the White Army’s infantry regiments. Perekop’s defenders would need to abandon their positions and rush off, at a trot, to the ports at the very moment the last regiment reached the port. That was the general’s plan. He set it out for those close to him and nobody objected. They never objected to what he said.

The general walked slowly along the line of defense and peered into the faces of those left hanging on the wires. Suffering was still present on those faces. The general knew this expression would leave them in a few days. Any expression would leave them. Especially if the weather warmed.

This was a strange inspection and a strange formation. The formation had been disrupted at each step. Those being inspected stood, their knees bent back, heels not aligned, and arms cast on the wire. They stood however they could and there was no reason to demand more from them. To the general, these people did not seem quite dead yet. Decomposition had not yet touched them. He still hoped to detect in their facial features at least a shadow of what separates life from death.

The general stopped next to a cadet who had been killed, a boy of around sixteen. The collar of his military overcoat had caught on the wire’s barb, not allowing him to fall. The general straightened the cadet’s collar as if this were a real inspection. The collar looked almost natural now: it was raised all around. The cadet’s cheek and chin had been torn off: he had fallen on the wire face-first before being suspended by his collar. He continued pressing the pliers in his right hand.

The general immediately recognized the person standing beside the cadet. He could not help but recognize him, despite not having seen him in decades. He remembered his voice as deliberately quiet and remembered his gaze as condescending. That gaze was now more likely one of surprise. It was a one-eyed gaze because this man had no second eye. A bloody hollow gaped in its place. The general remembered the winter Petersburg night, the vodka in the tavern. The sense of weightlessness, the coziness of people who had escaped everyone. The intense unity of co-conspirators. The unbearable shame of one who had neglected his duty. Before him stood Lanskoy.

Lanskoy stood, his head pressed to a post. Both his arms were cast upon the wire. The general thought they hung with genuine lifelessness. There was something reminiscent of a puppet theater. Of a puppet conversing with a spectator. The comparison appeared to the general to be improper but precise.

What could Lanskoy tell the public? That he was a hero? That he despised death and threw himself on the wire? But that would be an untruth… Lanskoy despised life and threw himself on the wire. That was probably the reason he had gone to the Reds. The general walked right up to Lanskoy and attempted to close his only eye. His eyelashes fell with a barely audible crunch but the eye would not close. The general embraced Lanskoy. He pressed himself to his intact cheek. A tear ran down Lanskoy’s cheek and froze in place. It was the general’s tear.

‘Bury him,’ ordered the general.

His troops left almost soundlessly. The squeak of boots, muffled by gusts of wind. A farewell symphony, it occurred to the general. The only difference being, he thought, that his people were not extinguishing the fires: the number of campfires needed to remain the same, unlike in Joseph Haydn’s version. A reduction in the number of performers should not be revealed to the viewer too early. That was the essence of the general’s composition.

He approached one of the fires. Kologrivov, a captain in the medical services, was maintaining the fire. The captain was one of those who was staying on Perekop until the end.

‘Good day, Your Excellency,’ said Kologrivov, standing at attention before the general.

‘At ease, Captain.’

He sat across from Kologrivov. He pushed a log that had burned through on one side closer to the center of the fire.