“I’ll take care of it. For now, I think we should celebrate. Come, I’ve something to show you.”
She took his offered arm and allowed him to lead. “What will you do at the congress?”
“I’m not sure. Kral’s to be the delegate, not me.”
“He’s a lieutenant, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“He does a lot, for a lieutenant. And you seem to do a lot, for a corporal. Given your duties, I’d put Kral as a major and you as either a master sergeant or a lieutenant.”
Filip’s mouth pulled into a slight smile, a movement she found inexplicably appealing. “As a Slav, it was hard to advance very high in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Most of us are fairly low rank, no matter how high we scored on our exams or how well we fought. Some of the Russian officers with us have ranks more in line with their responsibilities.”
“Perhaps that is why the Austro-Hungarian Army has performed so poorly throughout this war.”
One side of his lips turned down in an equally appealing gesture. “They’ve had their setbacks, but they haven’t done so poorly, have they?”
“I suppose not, or the war would have ended by now. But they were kicked out of Serbia twice. And they haven’t made much progress in Italy. And the Russian Army pushed them out of Galicia a few times. I think the only reason they haven’t collapsed is because the German kaiser is propping them up.”
“But they did invade Serbia, eventually, and they stayed. And they’ve held most of their ground on the Isonzo. They lost at Zborov last summer, but the larger Russian offensive failed. I was there. Took a piece of shrapnel in the shoulder.”
She glanced at his shoulder. Was it better to express sympathy that he’d been wounded or gratitude that he was recovered? He was healed, wasn’t he? “Does the wound still trouble you?”
“Sometimes, when the weather changes. I might not be able to do much on the rings if I ever go back to a Sokol club, but I can still shoot and climb.” He led her between two boxcars and helped her over the coupling. “You know a lot about the war.”
“I read the papers, and my father spoke of it constantly. And my brothers . . .” She swallowed back the pain that still overwhelmed her at the loss of both parents and both siblings. “I suppose I wanted to know what was so important that they should die for it.”
“Did you figure it out? Why they died? Why the whole world went mad?” There was a tightness to his words.
Nadia shook her head. “I suppose it had something to do with honor and duty and defending their homeland.”
“Your family’s home, you call it Lavanda Selo?”
“Yes.”
Filip led her around a boxcar, and she stopped, frozen with surprise. When Filip had walked her to the hospital car that morning, he’d mentioned something about painting. And paint he had, covering the side of the women’s coach with spiky plants bursting with tiny purple blossoms. The side of the boxcar looked like a lavender field in the Crimea.
She’d seen a lot of things painted on the sides of the legion’s cars—forests, medieval knights, mountain streams, and flags—but this was, by far, her favorite.
Filip’s voice was hesitant. “I assumed with a name like Lavanda Selo there had to be fields of lavender nearby.”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the side of the boxcar. “Yes.”
“I’m probably supposed to buy you flowers, not paint them.”
She turned to him, noticing for the first time the splotches of purple paint along one knuckle and another fingernail. He’d made the train beautiful, and it suddenly felt a bit like home. And he’d done it all just to make her happy. “This will make me smile every time I step in or out of the boxcar. Thank you. It’s wonderful.”
Chapter Twelve
Filip, Dalek, and Kral rode west in a third-class carriage, going back to Chelyabinsk. It felt like a retreat, traveling west after all their efforts to move eastward. Dalek slept. Filip watched the mix of forests and cultivated fields passing by outside the window. They seemed endless.
Kral leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “I never expected to be a congressional delegate.”
“It’s fitting. You were with the Družina from the beginning, and if it weren’t for the Družina, it’s doubtful anyone would have paid attention to the Czechs or the Slovaks.”
“The Družina certainly helped. Tothova says it’s God’s hand.”
Of course Anton would say that. Most of Filip’s family too. Religion had always seemed to work for his grandparents. His mother had been religious, too, though Filip hadn’t seen her faith rewarded, despite all her prayers for Filip’s father. Nor had Eliška’s piety softened her husband’s temper. Filip had attended mass with his family, and he valued the memories, but the things he’d seen as a soldier had long ago convinced him that God, if He existed, was not actively involved in the lives of ordinary people. But that didn’t mean all hope was lost. The dream of Czechoslovakia was slowly growing tangible, and this congress would be an important step. “Regardless of how the congress was brought about, I hope they listen to you.”
Kral smiled. “And you hope I argue for more aggressive action?”
Filip looked out the window again. “We can’t trust the Bolsheviks. They want our weapons and our recruits. Where will that leave us?”
“Vulnerable. But if we provoke them, we’ll end up at war.”
Filip opened his mouth, but Kral held up a hand. “I know, I know. We’re going to war. But if we get into trouble with the Bolsheviks, how many of us won’t make it to France? A war in Russia brings us no benefits, only casualties.” Kral’s voice was calm and reassuring.
Filip still didn’t like what was happening to the legion—disarmament and dismemberment—but they’d come up with a solution in Chelyabinsk. Kral would figure out what to do, and he’d convince the others.
Filip remembered the first time he’d heard Kral’s voice while standing picket in a miserable, dark trench in Galicia.
“Why do you fight your brothers?” the voice had asked Filip.
Filip had huddled into the side of the trench because the Czech voice calling to him hadn’t been loud, so it had to have been close. Close enough to lob a grenade, and then Filip would never return home. “I fight because I’m ordered to war. Isn’t that why everyone fights?”
“The Russians are our brothers. The Germans and the Magyars are pestilent tyrants, grinding you into a slave.”
“I was born in Prague. It’s my lot to fight for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”
The voice hadn’t replied right away. The wind had whistled through the brush, and Filip had braced himself for an attack. He wouldn’t have a chance against a grenade, but he might be able to fend off a knife or a bayonet.
“Do you like the empire?” That voice again, unruffled and unhurried.
“No. I hate it. They destroy our culture, and they treat us like third-class subjects. But what am I to do?”
“You could join me. Join the Družina. Fight the government you despise.”
“Desertion?” The idea was appealing, but the consequences were far too high. “That’s insane.”
“Not as insane as fighting for an emperor you hate. You owe nothing to Franz Joseph.”
“But if Russia were to lose the war, I could never go home.” And he wanted to go home. He wanted to see his grandparents, his mother, and Eliška. He even wanted to see his father.
“But if Austria-Hungary were to lose the war, how much better would your home be?” The voice continued, calm and compelling. “Think on it, my brother. You’ll want your children to learn Czech in schools, won’t you? You’ll want them to learn our people’s history.”
“Of course, but—”
“Make it happen, my brother. Join us.”
Kral had fanned the flames of Filip’s discontent that night, urging action instead of servile obedience. He’d convinced him that his duty to his people outweighed his duty to an emperor he hadn’t chosen. When the conversation had ended, Filip had followed Kral back to the Russian lines. He’d never regretted it.