“Have you any food, sir?” The boy who spoke wore a tattered coat too large for him and shoes that were too small—the ends had been cut to give his toes more room. He held up a case. “I’ve this to barter with.”
Filip took the case and opened it to reveal an old violin. Scratches covered the body, but all four strings looked functional. “A loaf of bread in exchange for a song.”
The boy frowned. “I don’t play. I only have that because someone left it behind. Probably got sick of carrying it.”
Filip didn’t play either. But Dalek did, and Dalek had managed to get Orlov away from Nadia. Would Dalek scoff at an old violin? Filip smothered a laugh. Of course Dalek would scoff—he scoffed at everything. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t love it. Filip held out several bills. “For this? You can buy potatoes there.” Filip pointed out the legion’s dining car.
The boy’s grin stretched from ear to ear as he grabbed the rubles.
Filip watched the boy buy a bag of potatoes. Then Filip took the instrument to the boxcar where he and the others were sleeping and put it with Dalek’s things before heading back toward the telegraph office. He met a few eyes as he walked past the train of freed Hungarian prisoners again. They were hard, forged in war, toughened in the harsh lands of Siberia. They were going to war again, but Filip doubted he’d see them. In France, the legion would face Germans.
“Sedlák? Is that . . . is that you?”
Filip turned to see Miklos Vadas holding a loaf of bread in one hand and a blood sausage in the other. Filip hadn’t seen him since 1915.
“I thought you were killed,” Miklos said. “We never found a body, but that’s not so unusual. Were you taken prisoner?”
“Vadas, it’s good to see you.” Filip wasn’t ashamed of going over to the Russian side, but he didn’t think a train depot near a boxcar full of rowdy Hungarian war prisoners was the best place to mention it. “Heading home?”
Vadas nodded. “Our whole regiment was captured or killed not long after you disappeared.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down a few times as he studied Filip’s uniform. “You weren’t captured, were you?”
“No.”
The muscles of Vadas’s face tightened, turning fierce. “You’re a traitor.”
Desertion. Mutiny. Treason. Filip had been accused of all three, and each was true. But he felt no guilt about the decision he’d made to fight for a cause he believed in instead of for a decrepit, despotic monarchy. The world was changing, and the possibility of freedom was worth the risk. “No one asked me if I wanted to go to war for the Hapsburgs, struggle against my Slavic brothers, and risk my neck for an emperor who did everything he could to bury Czech culture. You’re Hungarian. You know what it’s like to be subjugated, to be looked down on by the ruling class. Haven’t you ever wanted to fight for something you believed in instead of for something you despised?”
Vadas kept his face hard. “I fought for my comrades in the trenches next to me. We depended on you to warn us of attack! We trusted you! What about loyalty to the men who were willing to bleed with you when the next assault came? Didn’t you owe us anything?”
“I didn’t tell them your positions.” Kral had asked, as had Kral’s superior, but Filip hadn’t been willing to give the Russian artillery the exact locations of the men he’d shivered and shared rations with. Letting down the men who’d stood beside him in the trenches was a crime, but Filip thought of it more as escaping from slavery and not being able to bring everyone with him.
Vadas huffed and glared at the legion train. “There’s talk of hanging the lot of you. It would serve you right. I’ve seen enough. I just want to go home. But don’t expect the men I travel with to be that reasonable.” He turned and stalked off.
“Vadas?”
He paused but didn’t turn.
“I hope you make it home. A village near Debrecen, wasn’t it?”
Vadas turned, and his face softened. They’d been comrades and friends back when the war had been young, and maybe some of that friendship had survived. “Yes. Good luck, Sedlák. Things were never the same after you disappeared.”
This time, as Vadas walked away, there wasn’t so much anger in his stride. Filip was glad for that. He’d not had anything against Vadas or the other enlisted men. His problems had been with the men at the top.
Filip wasn’t the only legionnaire to find an old comrade. Some of the ill-fed Hungarians were begging food from the Czechs . . . and getting it. Others were catching up on news. Filip hadn’t spent time in a prison camp, but he remembered Dalek and Anton saying how hard it was to be cut off from the world and ignorant of the war. The Hungarians looked worse for their time in Siberian prison camps. He wasn’t surprised, but he felt sorry for them. They’d been away from home just as long as him, and no doubt they wanted to return just as badly, but they had a different path to take.
Dalek joined him as the Hungarian train started to move.
“Any luck in the telegraph office?”
“Not enough to get our trains moving again.” Dalek shook his head at the Hungarian boxcars. “They seem to be moving quickly enough, but Moscow can’t decide what to do with us, so local officials all along the track are getting confused. Or getting greedy.”
The sneers from the Hungarian train picked up volume as the train picked up speed. Several of the Czechs and Slovaks standing to the side of the tracks gestured back rudely. Part of Filip’s responsibilities as a corporal was maintaining order, so he strode toward the legionnaires. Dalek followed.
One of the Hungarians threw something from a window. It connected with a Czech head. The sickening thud silenced the legionnaires.
The man slumped to the ground, rolled off the platform, and landed beside the tracks as the car full of Hungarians moved forward. Czech voices gasped and then shouted in anger.
“Ducháček?” someone called. The fallen man didn’t move.
“Stop the train!” someone said.
Filip jumped down to the tracks.
“Is he alive?” Dalek asked. In his hand, he held the object that had struck the man, an iron leg from a stove.
Filip pulled the man away from the tracks and felt for a pulse. Nothing. He tried a different position but had the same result. “Dead.”
Another Czech knelt over the body, his head on the dead man’s chest. “They won’t get away with this.” His face hardened in indignation.
“They will if we don’t stop the train,” someone else said.
Dalek helped Filip pull the dead man back onto the platform. “This could get ugly.”
Hungarian faces hung from the train windows. Some showed sympathy, but most laughed. Filip hadn’t been angry before; he’d been jealous that the Hungarian trains hadn’t been held up and worried about their role in the war. But rage and frustration built now to overflowing. A man had died, and they were laughing. Something had to be done.
Others had the same thought, only they’d had it sooner. Legionnaires crowded on the running boards of the steam engine, demanding the train be stopped, and already it was slowing. Soldiers poured off the legion trains to demand justice.
A Czech sergeant took charge. “Turn over the man responsible,” he demanded.
The Hungarians laughed. Again.
Legionnaires boarded the Hungarian trains and hauled the men off. There were more Czechs and Slovaks than Hungarians, and they finally seemed to realize that. A few armed legionnaires prodded the Hungarians with their rifles and murmurs went up and down the line. One of the Hungarians pointed to a comrade. “He did it.”
A group of Czechoslovaks rushed toward the guilty party, who disappeared behind the press of livid soldiers.
“They should string him up.” Dalek crossed his arms.