‘Maybe that will be the end of it? The Migulinsk people have broken up the Reds, and they won’t come farther …’
‘No!’ All Gregor’s body twitched. ‘They’ve started, and they’ll keep on. Well, shall we go to the square?’
Ivan Alexievitch reached for his cap, and resolving his doubts, asked:
‘Well, maybe we’ve got rusty after all? Mikhael’s hot-headed, but he’s an active lad. He’s a reproach to us.’
No-one answered. They went out silently, and turned towards the square.
Ivan Alexievitch walked along pensively staring at the ground. He was oppressed with the thought that he had taken the wrong path and had not followed the dictates of his conscience. Valet and Misha were right, they all ought to have gone without hesitating. His attempts to justify his conduct were fruitless, and a deliberate, sneering voice inside him shattered them as a horse’s hoof crushes the thin ice in the meadow. The one thing he firmly resolved upon was to desert to the Bolsheviks at the first opportunity. His resolve was definitely taken while he was walking to the square, but he told neither Gregor nor Christonia, mournfully realizing that they were passing through different struggles from his, and already in the depths of his heart afraid for them. They had all three jointly turned down Valet’s proposal, each giving his family as the excuse. But each of them knew that the excuse was inconclusive and did not justify their decision. Now each was feeling awkward in the others’ company, as though they had done something dirty, shameful. They were silent, but as they passed Mokhov’s house Ivan Alexievitch could endure the sickening silence no longer, and he said:
‘There’s no point in hiding it. We came back from the front Bolsheviks, and now we’re crawling into the bushes. Let others fight for us, but we’ll stay with our women!’
‘I’ve done my share of fighting, let others have a go,’ Gregor snarled and turned away.
‘And what are they?’ Christonia added. ‘A lot of robbers! Ought we to join such? What sort of Red Guards do they call that? Raping women, robbing the cossacks! We’ve got to see what we’re doing. The blind man always falls over the chair.’
‘And have you seen all this, Christonia?’ Ivan sternly asked.
‘The people are talking about it …’
‘Ah … the people …’
The square was a rich blossom of cossack striped trousers, caps, and here and there a shaggy black fur cap. All the men of the village were gathered. No women were there, only the old men, the cossacks who had been at the war, and still younger men. The very eldest stood in front, leaning on their sticks: honorary judges, the members of the church council, the school managers, and the churchwarden. Gregor’s eyes searched for his father’s black and silver beard, and found him standing at the side of Miron Gregorievitch. In front of them, in his grey, full-dress tunic and medals, old Grishaka was leaning on his knobbly stick. Together with Pantaleimon and Miron were all the elders of the village. Behind them stood the younger men, many of them comrades in arms with Gregor. On the other side of the ring he noticed his brother Piotra, his Russian shirt adorned with the orange and black ribbons of the Cross of St George. On his left was Mitka Korshunov, lighting a cigarette from that in the hand of Prokhor Zikov. Behind were crowded the youngest cossacks. In the centre of the ring, at a rickety table with all four legs pressed into the soft, still damp earth, sat the chairman of the village Revolutionary Committee. At his side stood a lieutenant unknown to Gregor, dressed in a khaki cap with a cockade, a leather jacket with epaulettes, and khaki breeches. The chairman of the Revolutionary Committee was talking agitatedly to him, and the officer stooped a little to listen with his ear close to the chairman’s beard. The meeting hummed like a beehive. The cossacks were talking and joking among themselves, but on all faces were looks of anxiety. Someone could wait no longer, and shouted:
‘Begin! What are you waiting for? Almost everybody’s here.’
The officer straightened up, removed his cap, and said, as simply as though in his own family circle:
‘Elders of the village, and you, frontline cossack brothers! You have all heard what has happened at the village of Sietrakov? A day or two ago a detachment of Red Guards arrived at the village. The Germans have occupied the Ukraine, and as they moved towards the Don province they threw the Red Guards back from the railway. The Reds entered Sietrakov and began to pillage the cossacks’ possessions, to ravish their women, to carry out illegal arrests and so on. When the neighbouring villages heard what had happened they fell on them with arms in hand. Half the detachment was destroyed, the remainder taken prisoner. The Migulinsk and Kazansk districts have flung the Bolshevik government out of their areas. From small to great the cossacks have risen in defence of the peaceable Don. In Vieshenska the Revolutionary Committee has been flung out neck and crop, and a district ataman has been elected; and the same in the majority of the villages.’
At this point in the speech the old men gave vent to a restrained mutter, and the chairman of the Revolutionary Committee fidgeted on his seat like a wolf caught in a trap.
‘Everywhere detachments are being formed. You also ought to form a detachment of frontline cossacks, in order to defend the district from the arrival of new savage robber hordes. We must set up our own administration. We don’t want the Red government, they bring only debauchery, and not liberty! And we shall not allow the peasants to violate our wives and sisters, to make a mockery of our Greek Church faith, to desecrate our holy temples, to plunder our possessions and property. Don’t you agree, elders?’
The meeting thundered with the sudden ‘agreed’. The officer began to read out a proclamation. Forgetting his papers, the chairman slipped away from the table. The crowd of elders listened without uttering a word. The frontline men behind whispered lifelessly among themselves.
As soon as the officer began to read Gregor slipped out of the crowd and turned to go home. Miron Gregorievitch noticed his departure, and nudged Pantaleimon with his elbow.
‘Your younger son – he’s slipping off!’ he whispered.
Pantaleimon limped out of the ring and shouted imperatively:
‘Gregor!’
His son turned half-round and halted without looking back.
‘Come back, my son!’
‘What are you going away for? Come back!’ came a roar of voices from the crowd, and a wall of faces turned in Gregor’s direction.
‘And he’s been an officer!’
‘He was among the Bolsheviks himself.’
‘He’s shed cossack blood!’
‘The Red devil!’
The shouts reached Gregor’s ears. He listened with grating teeth, evidently struggling with himself. It seemed as though in another minute he would go off without a look back. But Pantaleimon and Piotra gave sighs of relief as he wavered and then with downcast eyes returned to the crowd.
The old men overwhelmingly carried the day. With savage haste Miron Gregorievitch was elected ataman. His freckled face greying, he went into the middle of the ring and confusedly received the symbol of his authority, the ataman’s copper-headed staff, from his predecessor. He had never been ataman before, and when they called for him he hesitated and at first refused the position, saying that he had not deserved such an honour and that he was illiterate. But the old men insisted, and so unusual were the circumstances of the election and the state of semi-war in the district that at last he agreed. The election was not carried out as in former days, when the district ataman had arrived in the village, the cossack heads of families had been summoned to a meeting, and a ballot had been taken. Now it was simply: ‘Those for Korshunov, step to the right’, and the entire crowd had surged that way. Only the cobbler, who had a grudge against Korshunov, had remained standing alone in his place like a blasted oak in a meadow.
Miron had hardly had time to blink when the staff was thrust into his hand, and a roar went up:
‘Now how about treating us?’
‘Up into the air with the new ataman!?
??
But the officer intervened, and cleverly directed the meeting towards a businesslike settlement of the problems remaining. He raised the question of electing a commander for the village detachment, and must have heard about Gregor in Vieshenska, for he began by praising him, and through him the village.
‘It would be well,’ he said, ‘to have a commander who has been an officer. In the event of a fight it will be more successful, and there will be fewer losses. And you’ve got plenty of heroes in your village. I cannot impose my will upon you, but for my part I recommend you to elect cornet Melekhov.’
‘Which one? We’ve got two of them.’
The officer ran his eyes over the crowd, and shouted with a smile:
‘Gregor Melekhov! What do you think cossacks?’
‘A good man!’
‘Gregor Melekhov! He’s a tough nut!’
‘Come into the middle of the ring. The elders want to look at you.’
Thrust forward from behind, Gregor, his face crimson, emerged into the middle of the ring and looked around him venomously.
‘Lead our sons!’ Matvei Kashulin stamped his stick and crossed himself with a flourish of his arm. ‘Lead and guide them so that they will be with you like geese with a gander. As the gander defends its family and saves them from both man and beast, so you watch over them! Earn four more crosses, may God grant it!’
‘Pantaleimon Prokoffievitch, you’ve got a son!’
‘And a fine brain in his head!’
‘You lame devil, how about a drink?’
‘Elders! Silence! Shall we carry out a mobilization without calling for volunteers? Volunteers may go or they may not …’
‘No, let’s have volunteers!’
‘You go yourself, what’s holding you back?’
Meantime four elders from the upper part of the village were having a whispered consultation with the newly appointed ataman. They turned to the officer. One of them, a little, toothless old man, advanced from the group to speak to him, while the others hung back.
‘Your Excellency,’ the old man said. ‘It’s clear you don’t know very much about our village, or you wouldn’t have chosen Gregor Melekhov for a commander. We elders don’t agree with the selection. We’ve got a complaint to make against him.’
‘What complaint? What’s the matter?’
‘Well, how can we trust him when he’s been himself in the Red Guards, was a commander of them, and it’s only two months since he came back from them with a wound.’
The officer flushed a rosy red, and his ears seemed to swell with the influx of blood.
‘Is that really true? I hadn’t heard that. No-one said anything about it to me.’
‘It’s true, he’s been with the Bolsheviks,’ another elder harshly confirmed. ‘We can’t trust him!’
‘Change him! What are our young cossacks saying? They’re saying that in the first battle he’ll betray them.’
‘Elders!’ the officer shouted to the meeting, raising himself on his toes. ‘Elders! We’ve just elected Gregor Melekhov to be commander, but isn’t there a danger in that? I’ve just been told that during the winter he was himself with the Red Guards. Can you entrust your sons and grandsons to him? And you, frontline brothers, can you follow his lead with quiet hearts?’
The cossacks were silent for a moment, then a tumult of conflicting shouts arose, and it was impossible to understand a word. When it died away old Bogatiriev stepped into the middle, took off his cap, and looked around:
‘In my foolish mind I think this way. We can’t give Gregor Pantalievitch this position. He’s been on the wrong road, and we’ve all heard of that. Let him first earn our trust, atone for his guilt, and then we’ll see. He’s a good fighter, we know … But we can’t see the sun for mist; we can’t see his past services; his work for the Bolsheviks prevents us.’
‘Let him go in the ranks,’ young Andrei Kashulin shouted fierily.
‘Make Piotra Melekhov commander.’
‘Let Grishka go in the herd.’
‘Yes, and I don’t want the position! What the devil did you put me forward for?’ Gregor shouted, flushing with excitement. Waving his hand he repeated: ‘I won’t take the position if you want me to!’ He thrust his hands into the depths of his trouser pockets, and with bowed back stalked away. Shouts followed him:
‘Stinking filth! That’s his Turkish blood coming out!’
‘He won’t keep quiet! He wouldn’t keep his mouth shut even to the officers in the trenches.’
‘Come back!’
‘After him! Hooh! Boo!’
It was long before the meeting quietened down again. In the heat of argument someone jostled someone else, someone’s nose began to bleed, one of the youngsters was suddenly enriched with a swelling beneath his eye. When silence was at last restored they elected Piotra Melekhov commander, and he almost glowed with pride. But now, like a mettlesome horse confronted with too high a fence, the officer came up against an obstacle. When the next step of calling for volunteers was taken, no volunteers were forthcoming. The frontline men, who had been restrained in their attitude throughout the meeting, hesitated and were unwilling to enrol, although they urged others on:
‘Why don’t you go, Anikei?’
But Anikushka muttered:
‘I’m too young … I haven’t any whiskers yet.’
‘None of your jokes! Trying to make a laughing-stock of us?’ old Kashulin howled right into his ear.
‘You enrol your own son!’ Anikushka retorted.
‘Prokhor Zikov!’ came a shout from the table. ‘Shall we put your name down?’
‘I don’t know …’ he replied.
Mitka Korshunov went with a serious face to the table, and breathlessly ordered:
‘Write my name down.’
‘Well, who else? How about you, Fiodot Bodovskov?’
‘I’m ruptured,’ Fiodot muttered, modestly dropping his eyes. The frontline men roared with laughter, and chaffed him unmercifully:
‘Take your wife with you. Then if the rupture’s troublesome she’ll cure it!’
But the elders began to get annoyed, and swore:
‘Enough, enough! What are you so merry for?’
‘A good time for making jokes!’
‘Shame on you, boys!’ one of them shouted. ‘What of God? God won’t overlook it! There are people dying, and you … Think of God!’
‘Ivan Tomilin!’ the officer looked around.
‘I’m an artillery-man,’ Tomilin replied.
‘Shall we put you down? We need artillery-men.’
‘Oh, all right; write me down then.’
Anikushka and several others began to rally Tomilin. ‘We’ll carve you a gun out of a willow trunk. You’ll fire pumpkins and potatoes instead of grapeshot.’
With jesting and laughter sixty men enrolled. The last was Christonia. He went up to the table and said deliberately:
‘Write my name down. Only I warn you that I shan’t fight.’
‘Then why put yourself down?’ the officer asked irritatedly.
‘I’ll look on, officer. I want to have a look!’
‘Put him down!’ the officer shrugged his shoulders.
The meeting was not ended until nearly noonday. It was decided to despatch the detachment the very next day to the support of the Migulinsk villagers.
Next morning, out of the sixty volunteers only some forty turned up on the square. Piotra, elegantly dressed in a greatcoat and high legboots, reviewed the cossacks. Many of them had shoulder-straps with the numbers of their old regiments on them. Their saddles were loaded with saddle-bags containing victuals, linen, and cartridges brought back from the front. Not all of them had rifles, but the majority had cold steel.
A crowd of women, children and old men gathered on the square to see them off. Piotra, on his prancing horse, drew up his half-company in ranks, reviewed the vari-coloured horses, the riders in greatcoats, tunics, and sailcloth raincoats, and gave the ord
er for departure. He walked the detachment up the hill. The cossacks stared gloomily back at the village; someone in the last file fired a shot. At the top Piotra drew on his gloves, stroked his wheaten whiskers, and turning his horse so that it advanced sideways, holding his cap on with his left hand, he shouted:
‘Company, trot!’
Standing in their stirrups, waving their whips, the cossacks put their horses into a trot. The wind beat in their faces, shook the horses’ tails and manes, and scattered a fine rain. They began to talk and joke. Christonia’s raven horse stumbled, and he cursed and warmed it up with lashes of the whip. The horse arched its neck, broke into a gallop and burst out of the ranks. Their gay mood did not desert the cossacks until they reached Kargin. They rode in the full conviction that there wouldn’t be any war, that the Migulinsk affair was only a fortuitous irruption of the Bolsheviks into cossack territory.
They reached Kargin in the late afternoon. There were no frontline men left in the district: they had all gone to Migulinsk. Piotra dismounted his detachment on the square, and went to the district ataman to arrange for quarters. He found him smoking on the steps of his house. The man’s massive figure, the swelling, steely-strong chest and arm muscles showing beneath his shirt testified to his unusual strength.
‘Are you the district ataman?’ Piotra asked.
Puffing out a cloud of smoke from beneath his drooping whiskers, the man replied:
‘Yes, I’m the district ataman. Who do I have the honour of speaking to?’
Piotra gave his name. Squeezing his hand, the ataman slightly bowed his head:
‘My name is Fiodor Dmitrievitch Likhovidov.’
Likhovidov was elected district ataman in the Spring of 1918, immediately after the Sietrakov affair. Sternly the new ataman carried out his duties. His first step was to despatch every frontline man in the district to Sietrakov the very next day after the massacre of the Red Guards. The foreigners, who composed a third of the inhabitants of the district, at first did not wish to go, whilst the soldiers, ardent Bolsheviks many of them, protested. But Likhovidov insisted on having his way, and the elders signed the decree he proposed for all peasants who took no part in the defence of the Don to be ejected from the district. The following day dozens of carts filled with soldiers singing and playing accordeons were dragging along in the direction of Migulinsk. Of the foreigners only a few young soldiers fled to join the Red Guards.