Miron went to the threshing-floor, and with professional eyes estimated the quantity of hay still left. He began to rake together some millet straw scattered about by the goats, but unfamiliar voices reached his ears. He threw the rake on to the pile and went into the yard.
His feet planted apart, Mitka was standing rolling a cigarette, holding his richly embroidered pouch, the gift of some village sweetheart, in two fingers. With him were Christonia and Ivan Alexievitch. Christonia was pulling some cigarette-paper out of his cap. Ivan Alexievitch was leaning against the fence, rummaging in his trouser pockets. His clean-shaven face wore a look of vexation: evidently he had forgotten something.
‘Had a good night, Miron Gregorievitch?’ Christonia greeted him.
‘Praise be!’
‘Come and join us in a smoke.’
‘No, I’ve just had one.’
Miron shook hands with the cossacks, removed his three-cornered cap from his head, stroked his bristly white hair, and smiled.
‘And what may you be wanting with us today, brothers?’ he asked.
Christonia looked him up and down, but did not reply at once. He spat on his paper, slowly drew his great rough tongue along it, and after rolling the cigarette, replied:
‘We’ve got business with Mitka.’
Grandad Grishaka passed by, carrying a fishing-net over his shoulder. Ivan and Christonia took off their caps and greeted him. He carried the net to the steps and then turned back.
‘Why are you stopping at home, soldiers? Having too good a time with your wives?’ he asked.
‘Why, what’s up?’ Christonia inquired.
‘Shut up, Christonia! Don’t tell me you don’t know!’
‘God’s truth, I don’t know!’ Christonia replied. ‘By the cross I don’t, old dad!’
‘A man arrived the other day from Voronezh, a merchant, a friend or relation or something of Sergei Mokhov: I don’t know exactly. Well, he comes and says that strange soldiers, the Bolshaks themselves, are at Chertkov. Russia is going to make war on us. And you’re staying at home! You scum … D’you hear, Mitka? Haven’t you anything to say? What do you think about it?’
‘We don’t think at all about it!’ Ivan Alexievitch smiled.
‘That’s the shame, that you don’t think!’ old Grishaka waxed indignant. ‘They’ll take you in a snare like partridges! The peasants will take you prisoners and smash your snouts!’
Miron Gregorievitch smiled discreetly. Christonia rasped his hand over his long unshaven cheeks. Ivan Alexievitch stood smoking and looking at Mitka, and little fires sparkled in Mitka’s eyes. It was impossible to judge whether he were laughing, or burning with repressed annoyance.
After a little more talk Ivan Alexievitch and Christonia took their leave of Miron, and called Mitka to the wicket gate.
‘Why didn’t you come to the meeting yesterday?’ Ivan sternly asked.
‘I hadn’t time.’
‘But you had time to go along to the Melekhovs!’
With a jerk of his head Mitka brought his cap down over his forehead, and said with restrained anger:
‘I didn’t come, and that’s all there is to it. Why should we waste time talking about it?’
‘All the men from the front in the village were there except you and Piotra Melekhov. We’ve decided to send delegates from the village to Kamenska. There is to be a congress of front-line men there on January 23rd. We cast dice and it was settled that I, Christonia and you should go.’
‘I’m not going,’ Mitka announced resolutely.
‘What’s your game?’ Christonia frowned and took him by the button of his tunic. ‘Are you breaking away from your own comrades?’
‘He’s hand in glove with Piotra Melekhov,’ Ivan Alexievitch said. He shook the sleeve of Christonia’s jacket and added, turning noticeably pale: ‘Come on. There’s nothing we can do here. So you won’t go, Mitry?’
‘No! I’ve said no, and I mean no.’
With eyes averted Mitka stretched out his hand and said goodbye, then turned and went to the kitchen.
‘The snake!’ Ivan Alexievitch muttered, and his nostrils quivered. ‘The snake!’ he said aloud, staring at Mitka’s back.
On their way home they informed some of the frontline men that Mitka had refused to go, and that the two of them would set out the following day for the congress.
They left Tatarsk at dawn on January 21st. Yakob Podkova had volunteered to drive them to Kamenska. His pair of good horses drew them swiftly out of the village and up the slope. The thaw had laid the road bare, and where the snow had melted, the sledge-runners stuck to the earth, the sledge jerked along, and the horses strained at the traces. The cossacks walked behind the sledge. Red with the light morning breeze, Podkova strode along, his boots scrunching the fine ice. Christonia panted up the hill over the granular snow at the roadside, gasping because of the German poison gas he had drawn into his lungs at Doobno in 1916.
At the hilltop the wind was stronger and the air keener. The cossacks were silent. Ivan Alexievitch wrapped his face in the collar of his sheepskin. They drew near to a wood, through which the road pierced to emerge on to a mounded ridge. The wind rippled in streams through the wood. The trunks of the sappy oaks were stained with scaly layers of gold-green rust. A magpie chattered in the distance, and it fluttered across the road. The wind was carrying it out of its course, and it flew violently, lopsidedly, its pied feathers ruffling.
Podkova, who had not said a word since leaving the village, turned to Ivan Alexievitch and remarked deliberately, evidently giving voice to thoughts long pondered:
‘At the congress work for things to be arranged without war. There’ll be no volunteers for a war.’
‘Of course,’ Christonia agreed, enviously staring after the magpie’s free flight, and mentally comparing the birds’ thoughtlessly happy life with human existence.
They arrived at Kamenska in the early evening of the 23rd. Crowds of cossacks were making their way through the streets towards the centre of the town. There was a noticeable animation everywhere. Ivan and Christonia sought out the quarters of Gregor Melekhov but learnt that he was not at home. The mistress of the house, an elderly, white-haired woman, informed them that he had gone to the congress.
When they arrived they found the congress in full swing. The great, many-windowed room could hardly hold all the delegates, and many of the cossacks were crowded on the stairs, in the corridors, and in adjacent rooms.
‘Hold on behind me!’ Christonia whispered to Ivan, working his elbows vigorously. Ivan followed in the narrow cleft he made. The cossacks smiled and stared with involuntary respect at Christonia, who was a good head taller than any of them. They found Gregor by the wall at the back. He was squatting, smoking and talking to another delegate. When he saw his fellow-villagers his raven whiskers quivered with his smile.
‘Why, what wind has blown you here? Hallo, Ivan Alexievitch! How are you, daddy Christonia?’ he exclaimed.
‘Not too bad,’ Christonia laughed back, gathering all Gregor’s hand in his own great fist.
‘And how is everybody in the village?’
‘All well. They sent their greetings. Your father has sent you orders to come and visit them.’
‘And how’s Piotra?’
‘Piotra …’ Ivan Alexievitch smiled awkwardly. ‘Piotra doesn’t mix with us.’
‘I know! And how’s Natalia? And the children? Did you happen to see them?’
‘All well, and they send their greetings …’
As he talked Christonia stared at the group sitting behind the table on the platform. Even from the back he could see better than anyone else. Gregor continued to ply them with questions, taking advantage of a momentary break in the session. Ivan Alexievitch gave him the news of the village, and briefly told him of the front-line men’s meeting which had sent them to Kamenska. He in turn began to inquire about events in Kamenska, but someone sitting at the table shouted:
‘Cossacks
, a delegate from the miners will now speak. I ask you to listen carefully to him, and to keep order.’
A thick-lipped man of average height stroked his fair hair back and began to speak. The hum of voices died away at once.
From the very first words of the miner’s burning, passionate speech Gregor and the other cossacks came under the spell of his convincing eloquence. He spoke of the treacherous policy of Kaledin, who was driving the cossacks into a war against the workers and peasants of Russia, of the common interests of the cossacks and the workers, of the aims of the Bolsheviks, who were carrying on a struggle against the cossack counter-revolutionaries.
‘We stretch out our brotherly hands to the toiling cossacks, and hope that in the struggle against the White Guard bands we shall find faithful allies among the front-line cossacks,’ his trumpet-voice thundered. ‘At the fronts of the Tsarist Russian-German war the workers and cossacks jointly poured out their blood; and in the war against the nests of the bourgeoisie we must stand together. And we shall stand together! Hand in hand we shall go into the struggle against those who have enslaved the toilers for many centuries.’
‘That’s right! Ay, that’s right!’ Ivan Alexievitch muttered again and again, as he listened with half-open mouth.
After other speakers, a delegate from the 44th regiment stood up. He was burdened with his own clumsy, involved phrases, and found it as difficult to make a speech as to set a mark on the air. But the cossacks listened to him with great sympathy, only rarely interrupting with approving cries. Evidently his words found a vivid response among them!
‘Brothers! We must take our congress to this serious business so that it should not be shameful to the people and so that everything should end quietly and well. What I mean is that we must find a way out without a bloody war. As it is we’ve had three and a half years of being buried in the trenches, and if we’ve got to go on fighting the cossacks will be worn to death …’
‘That’s true!’
‘We don’t want war.’
‘We must talk it over with the Bolsheviks and the Military Council.’
The chairman Podtielkov thundered on the table with his fist, and the roar died away. The delegate of the 44th regiment went on:
‘We must send delegates to Novocherkass and ask the Volunteers and the partisans to clear out of here. And the Bolsheviks also haven’t anything to do here either. We can settle with the enemies of the working people ourselves. We don’t need other people’s help from anyone, and if we do need it we’ll ask them to give us help.’
Lagutin, the cossack who had been in Listnitsky’s regiment, followed the delegate of the 44th regiment with a challengingly fiery speech. He was frequently interrupted with shouts. The proposal was made to suspend the meeting for ten minutes, but as soon as silence was established Podtielkov shouted to the excited crowd of cossacks:
‘Brother cossacks! Here we are arguing and discussing, but the enemy of the toiling people is not asleep. We would all like the wolves to be full and the sheep whole, but that isn’t what Kaledin thinks. We have captured a copy of an order signed by him for all those taking part in this congress to be arrested. I will read it aloud.’
As he read the order a wave of agitation ran through the delegates, and a tumult arose still greater than before. At last the roar of voices sank, and from the platform the cossack Krivoshlikov’s girlishly thin tones pierced through the growing lull:
‘Down with Kaledin! Hurrah for the Cossack Military Revolutionary Soviet!’
The crowd groaned. In the heavy, lashing braid of sound cries of approval were to be heard. Krivoshlikov remained standing with upraised hand. His fingers were trembling a little, like the leaves of an aspen. Hardly had the deafening roar subsided when he cried in the same thin, flowing voice:
‘I propose that we elect a Cossack Military Revolutionary Committee from among the delegates present, and that it be instructed to carry on the struggle against Kaledin and the organs of …’
‘Ha-a-a-ah!’ a shout like a bursting shell arose, sending flakes of whitewash from the ceiling.
The meeting at once began to elect the members of the committee. A small section of the cossacks, led by the delegate of the 44th regiment and others, continued to call for a peaceful settlement of the conflict with the Kaledin government. But the majority no longer supported them. The cossacks had been enraged by Kaledin’s order for their arrest, and demanded active resistance to him.
Gregor did not stay to the end of the election, as he was summoned urgently to the regimental staff. As he turned to go out he asked Christonia and Ivan:
‘When it’s over come along to my room. I shall be curious to know who is elected.’
Ivan Alexievitch turned up after nightfall.
‘Podtielkov is chairman, Krivoshlikov secretary,’ he informed Gregor as he stood on the threshold.
‘And the members?’
‘Ivan Lagutin and Golovachev, Minaev, Kudinov and some others.’
‘But where is Christonia?’ Gregor asked.
‘He went with several other cossacks to arrest the Kamenska authorities. He got all worked up and I couldn’t stop him.’
Christonia did not return till dawn. He stood in the room breathing heavily and mumbling something under his voice. Gregor lit the lamp, and noticed that his face was bloody and a gunshot scratch ran across his forehead.
‘Who did that to you? Shall I tie it up? Wait a moment, I’ll find a bandage.’ Gregor jumped up and turned out his first-aid kit.
‘It’ll heal quickly enough, like a dog does,’ Christonia rumbled. ‘The military commander fired at me with his pistol. We went along to him like guests, with all due respect, and he tried to defend himself. He wounded another cossack too. I wanted to drag the soul out of him to see what an officer’s soul is like, but the other cossacks wouldn’t let me, or I’d have given him a good time!’
Gregor’s friend lieutenant Izvarin fled from his regiment just before the congress of frontline cossacks was held at Kamenska. The night before he left he visited Gregor and hinted vaguely at the step he was about to take.
‘I find it difficult to serve in the regiment in the present situation,’ he said. ‘The cossacks are wavering between two extremes, the Bolsheviks and the former monarchic system. No one wishes to support Kaledin’s government, if only because he is behaving like a child with a new toy. What we want is a firm, resolute man who will put the foreigners in their proper place. But I think it is better to support Kaledin at the moment, otherwise we shall lose the game entirely.’ After a silence during which he lit a cigarette, he asked: ‘I gather you have accepted the Red faith?’
‘Almost,’ Gregor assented.
‘Sincerely? Or are you like Golubov, out to get popular with the cossacks?’
‘I am not in need of popularity. I am myself seeking a way out.’
‘You’re in a blind alley, and you haven’t found a way out.’
‘We shall see …’
‘I’m afraid we shall meet as enemies, Gregor.’
‘No enemies are friends on the field of battle,’ Gregor smiled.
Izvarin sat talking a little while longer, then departed. Next morning he had disappeared like a stone into water.
The next day the 10th Don Cossack regiment, sent by Kaledin to arrest all the members of the congress and to disarm the most revolutionary of the cossack divisions, arrived at Kamenska, detraining just as a meeting was being held at the station. The newly arrived cossacks crowded around the meeting, and mingled with the men of other regiments. The yeast of the vigorous agitation which the Bolshevik adherents at once began among them worked quickly, and when the regimental commander called on them to carry out Kaledin’s orders they refused.
Meantime Kamenska was feverish with activity; hurriedly assembled divisions of cossacks were being sent out to occupy stations; troop-trains were being despatched. Elections of officers were taking place in the detachments. The cossacks anxious to avoid war slippe
d quietly out of the town, while belated delegates from various villages were still arriving. Never before had the Kamenska streets been so animated.
On January 26th a delegation from the Don Military Government arrived in the town to open negotiations. A large crowd met it at the station. An escort of cossacks from the Ataman’s Lifeguard regiment conducted it to the post office building, where the Military Revolutionary Committee spent most of the night in session with the government delegation.
The conference failed to reach any settlement. About two o’clock in the morning, when it was evident that no agreement could be achieved, a member of the delegation proposed that the Military Revolutionary Committee should send a delegation to Novocherkass, in order to come to some final decision on the issue of the future government. The proposal was adopted.
The Don Government delegation departed, and the representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee set out immediately after it for Novocherkass. Podtielkov was at their head. The officers of the Ataman’s regiment, who had been arrested in Kamenska, were held as hostages.
A snowstorm was raging outside the carriage windows. Wind-driven snowdrifts were visible above the half-ruined snow-fences. The railway cabins, the telegraph poles and all the illimitable, dreary, snowy monotony of the steppe sped away to the north. The compartment was foggy with tobacco-smoke, and cold. The members of the delegation felt by no means confident of their mission to Novocherkass. They talked but little, and the silence was dreary. At last Podtielkov expressed the general conviction:
‘Nothing will come of it. We shan’t agree.’
Again they sat silent. They drew near to Novocherkass. Minaev began to relate:
‘When in the old days the cossacks of the Ataman regiment had served their time they were equipped to return home. They’d load their chests, their horses and goods into the train. The train would set out, and just by Voronezh, where the line crosses the Don for the first time, the engine-driver would go slowly, as slowly as possible … he knew what was coming. And as soon as the train got on to the bridge … my grandfathers! What a scene! The cossacks would go quite mad: “The Don! The Don! The gentle Don! Our father; giver of our food! Hurrah!” and through the window, over the bridge straight into the water would go caps, old tunics, trousers, shirts, and the Lord knows what else! They would give presents to the Don on their return from service. Sometimes as you looked at the water you would see blue ataman caps floating like swans or flowers … It was a very old custom.’