Filip nodded. If they lost control of the railroad, troop movements would slow to a crawl, and supplying the men at the front would become nearly impossible. All the weapons and equipment stockpiled in Vladivostok had to move thousands of miles west if it was to be turned against the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. If they lost control of the telegraph lines, they would lose their ability to communicate with each other. They held one long, thin section of Russia, and losing any part of it would doom them to failure.
Dalek prodded a tuft of grass with his scuffed boot. “I’m to be stationed at a teeny telegraph office in the middle of Siberia, somewhere to the east of Yekaterinburg. There’s a little village near the station. Uncivilized, isolated other than the rail. Not the best of assignments, but it has a few perks. Privacy, for one.”
“And no need to worry about the Red Army or the Germans. You’ll just have to watch out for partisans and bandits.”
“Yes. I can’t hold it by myself. Wild country, Siberia. Warlords and released prisoners everywhere. Criminals, too, with no one to keep order. I’ll need a group large enough for patrols. It’s not big enough to justify a doctor . . . but a nurse might come in handy. If you and your wife were to join me, you’d have a house of your own. A hut anyway. Or an old boxcar. It won’t be the Winter Palace or the Peter and Paul Cathedral, but for someone seeking a place of worship, it might do nicely.”
Strange how Filip could know a man for so long and still be surprised by him. Dalek was hauling him out of a blizzard and offering him springtime.
A home with Nadia. No matter how shabby, it would be an improvement over the tent they currently shared. And infinitely better than the dark threat of separation that loomed ahead of them. “I’ll talk to Nadia.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Anton kissed his wife and son goodbye and watched their train roll east toward Vladivostok. Veronika still seemed fragile. Did she regret marrying him? He never had regretted marrying her and was certain he never would, and that made it all the harder to watch them go. They’d already been apart more than he wanted, and now she had an infant to care for without his help.
After parting with his family, boarding a westbound train was like being punched in the gut after being shot there. It was the lesser of two pains, but it made the aching of the first more intense.
Petr, too, was sending a wife east while he headed west, and he seemed just as reluctant as Anton. “When we went to the front in 1914, we wrote a poem on our banner. ‘Red-colored handkerchief, wave through the sky. We fight the Russians, though we don’t know why.’ That’s what it feels like again, only it’s worse because it’s not the emperor sending us to war; it’s our own national council.”
“We scribbled ‘Export of Czech meat abroad’ on our boxcar,” Emil said from the bench behind them. The third- and second-class carriages were an improvement over the boxcars they’d traveled in when they’d come east, but better transport didn’t make the assignment any easier.
The train picked up so much speed that the sides shuddered and it felt as though the carriage would break apart. It traveled through the tunnels south of the lake to the rebuilt depot of Baikal Station, still surrounded by downed trees and scorched earth from the massive explosion Anton had detonated. Westward the train flew, past Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novonikolayevsk, Tatarsk, and Omsk. Stretches of Siberia that had taken them months to advance past now sped by in days. At Omsk, their train continued along the northern track rather than the southern track they’d taken on their way east.
When they reached their destination on the Ural Front, their new commander greeted them with joy. The legionnaires already there seemed too exhausted to show any emotion.
Anton helped load a wounded man onto the train they’d just disembarked from. The train would head east now, taking the wounded with it. “Looks like you’ve had a hot time here.”
The wounded man grunted as the angle of his litter shifted. “We’ve been fighting nonstop for five months, with no reserves to fill in our gaps, against an enemy who grows bigger every day. Wish we could have gone east instead of propping up the line here.”
Maybe the man didn’t know how hard the fighting along the railway had been, how many wounded they’d had, and how often the Bolsheviks had seemed close to cutting them off. And yet, as Anton gathered his equipment and followed Kral, he got the impression that the legionnaires along this front had fought a war just as intense.
They went into battle the next day. “We’ve been ordered to flank the enemy and take Shamary Station and a bridge on the River Sylva.” Kral stood before them. He’d received a promotion and was now a captain, a rank more in line with the responsibilities he’d shouldered all summer and into the autumn. “Take care. The Red Army here is more organized than the rabble we dealt with in the east. They’ll fight like a professional unit, not like a mob of zealots. They forced the legion in this sector back a few days ago—the first retreat for our brothers here. The Red Army is in high spirits. Our job is to humble them, show them that the Czechoslovak Legion is still strong.”
Anton and the others marched all morning through the thick Ural forest. The weather was growing cooler, and a thick tangle of branches blocked out the sunlight. He hoped Veronika and Marek were somewhere safe and warm by now. The legion had a mail service, but the troop trains had been sent west so quickly it was unlikely he’d have a letter anytime soon. He could only pray for his family’s safety, pray for a reunion sometime in the future.
“Tothova?” Kral called that afternoon.
“Yes, Brother Captain?”
Kral pointed through the thinning trees. “I want you to head straight for that bridge. We want it captured intact. They don’t expect us, so I doubt it’s wired for demolition, but it’s best to take proper precautions.”
“Yes, Brother.”
Kral gathered up a dozen legionnaires. “Go with Tothova to the bridge.”
“What are we doing with the bridge? Other than capturing it?” Emil whispered.
“Making sure it doesn’t explode.”
“I thought your talent was blowing things up. Now he wants you to do the opposite?” Emil shook his head. “I guess we’re soldiers of many talents. Not long ago, we were fighting for survival. Now I hear that we’re just pawns for imperialists and capitalists.”
“That sounds like Marxist propaganda.”
Emil shrugged. “Maybe. But that doesn’t make it feel any less true.”
Anton didn’t like the situation either, but letting their enemies define their plight would only make it worse. “The Czechs and the Slovaks are a small people. We need powerful friends.”
Emil grunted. “So if those powerful friends want us to fight the Russians, that’s what we do, and then we hope they give us a country?”
“Something like that.” Anton wasn’t good at boosting morale. That was Filip’s role. And while Anton didn’t begrudge Filip his lighter duty, he’d have liked something similar, especially if it had kept him closer to Veronika and Marek.
Anton checked his equipment and studied the bridge that was his next target. When Kral gave the order, the group rushed from the forest. Rifle fire filled the chill, humid air. Anton ran, Emil beside him, hoping speed would keep them safe. They reached the bridge with burning lungs and leaden legs. The handful of Red Army men stationed there dropped their rifles and raised their hands. Petr stepped toward them as guard while Anton checked the bridge supports. It wasn’t wired for demolition.
Surprise had kept the enemy off guard and given the legion another victory. When the day was done, they had captured the depot, the bridge, and three hundred prisoners.
***
The next morning brought a new target with another long march through thick, untamed forest. The undergrowth was so dense that they had to travel single file. An occasional bird called in alarm, but the march itself remained mostly quiet, with just the sounds of men breathing heavily at the strain and of twigs, leaves, and bushes crunching and swooshing as the men went past. The pace they kept would have been brisk on level ground, but the added obstacles of fallen branches and uneven ground cover turned it from brisk to grueling.