In the fading light of day, Anton helped the doctor with the wounded, starting with Emil. The bleeding wasn’t so bad now, so they could better see the injuries. His knee was destroyed. The doctor drew out the bullets and stitched up the gashes, but it seemed certain Emil would lose his leg. And if the wound grew infected, he’d die.
Anton followed the doctor to the other patients, helping where he could with washing and bandaging. The day’s battle had cost them dearly.
“No fires,” Kral ordered. “Least not until our armored train comes up from Shamary.”
They ate cold sausage and bread that night. Anton lay next to Emil in the station, knowing a wounded man could freeze more easily than a healthy man. It was only the first week of October, but winter came early in the mountains. A fire would have made them easy targets, and they were already vulnerable here, an isolated pocket of legionnaires connected to their brothers at Shamary by only a thin train track. Yet knowing the reasons behind the fire restriction didn’t prevent him from shivering.
Petr shook him awake sometime later.
“What time is it?” Anton yawned. The wind whistled through the station, and blackness hid the surrounding tracks and forest.
“About midnight.”
Anton listened for a moment, relaxing only when he heard Emil’s breathing. He’d survived the day, and that was something. “Am I to stand watch now?” They’d agreed to change at one, but maybe Petr needed relief earlier.
“No. We’re pulling back.”
“What? Why?”
“The Bolsheviks damaged the rails between here and Shamary. We can’t move our armored train forward, and without an armored train, it’s too easy for the Reds to cut us off.”
That meant the entire day’s work, all the day’s casualties, had been for land they were giving up. Anton didn’t say anything aloud, but his frustration grew as he searched the station for anything the legion could use. The Bolsheviks had taken most of the engines, boxcars, and coaches with them. They found a few flat cars designed to haul timber and put the legion’s wounded on one and the captured weapons on the other.
“What do we do with the wounded Bolsheviks?” Anton asked.
“Leave them. They’ll be in friendly hands again soon enough.”
Anton and a few of the prisoners placed bowls of water next to the enemy wounded who wouldn’t be able to fetch it for themselves. Then he and his brothers left them behind.
Kral ordered Anton and Petr to guard the weapons, then divided the rest of the men into an advance group and a rearguard. Anton climbed onto the car loaded with captured machine guns and rifles. They had no engines, so their Bolshevik prisoners pushed. The weapons remained unloaded, so even if one of the prisoners tried to steal one, they’d be shot before they could load it and turn it on their captors, but it was still a nerve-wracking task, guarding weapons that were so near the enemy.
“What a waste.” Petr kept his eyes moving, checking the prisoners. “All that work only to retreat.”
Petr spoke of the attack on Station 61, but the sentiment fit with the legion’s other experiences too. They’d finally taken the railway and secured the route all the way to Vladivostok only to turn back and get stuck in a war with the Russians.
Red-colored handkerchief, wave through the sky. We fight the Russians, though we don’t know why.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nadia laughed when Filip came into the boxcar they shared. “You look as though you’ve been playing in the mud. Are you finished?”
He’d been piling dirt around their boxcar for insulation. It was almost November, and they’d already had snow. The wooden box they lived in wasn’t on a track or wheels; it lay in the frozen dirt on the outskirts of the little village with a few huts, a small train depot, and a telegraph office. The grime covered him so completely that she could barely make out the newly awarded sergeant’s insignia on his sleeve, but she still took pleasure in the lines of Filip’s mouth and the sparkle in his brown eyes.
“Not quite. But I have something important to tell you.” His smile faded, and he suddenly looked very serious.
“Yes?” What would he say? An announcement like that suggested something significant, and seconds passed before he answered.
Finally, he broke into a grin. “I have a country, Nadia. We have a country!”
“We do? When?”
“Today. The news just came over the wire. Czechoslovakia. A new, independent country. No king, no emperor, no tsar, no Soviets. A republic, with Professor Masaryk as president.”
Nadia ignored the dirt and threw her arms around Filip. “That’s wonderful news. For you and for us.” He’d worked so hard for this, sacrificed so much for it. And Czechoslovakia would be her home too, her refuge with her husband.
Filip couldn’t stop smiling. “They must be going mad with jubilation in Prague. Three hundred years under the Hapsburgs. But no more. Today, we are free.”
“Do you wish you were there now? With your family?”
“I wish the whole legion were out of Russia. But there is no one I would rather celebrate this day with than you.” He kissed her thoroughly, and the elation, affection, and desire contained in his kiss left Nadia breathless. Then they went to join the others stationed at the outpost. The small garrison didn’t form a crowd, but she doubted even the masses of celebrants in Prague could beat them for jubilation and enthusiasm.
A few days later, Nadia saw a newspaper article about the new country and carefully clipped it. When she placed it in the leather attaché case Filip had bought her in Penza, she noticed another paper stored there. The affidavit from Filip allowing an annulment. She smiled to herself. That wasn’t going to happen anymore. She put the paper in the stove and used it for kindling the next time she lit a fire.
***
Dalek sat back in his seat. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Anyone could have seen it coming for at least a month, maybe longer. And yet, to have it become official . . .
He started laughing. It was loud, uncontrollable, and didn’t stop for a long time, not until Filip walked in and grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Dalek, what on earth’s going on?”
“The war’s over.”
“It is?”
“An armistice went into effect this morning.”
Filip sat on Dalek’s desk. “Does that mean we can go home now?”
That was the question that sounded throughout the village as every man in the legion considered the future. Two weeks ago, they’d received a country, and now they had peace as well. But the cease-fire between Germany and the Allied Powers didn’t end the mess between the Czechoslovak Legion and the Bolsheviks—a war the legion hadn’t asked for.
They waited days, and then they waited weeks. Dalek’s position in the telegraph office wasn’t a hardship. In fact, having access to a telegraph and a few trusted contacts throughout the legion meant he could have one friend buy thirty rubles’ worth of cigarettes in Harbin, ship them west, and have another friend sell them in Chelyabinsk for the equivalent of eight hundred rubles. They were making a tidy profit on cigarettes, sugar, and salt. But he’d rather be home.
For the men at the front, it was an entirely different story—a dire one. They weren’t just homesick. They were fighting for survival.
Dalek followed the orders that passed up and down the telegraph line. Legionnaires were rushed to the front and made to fight until they were so worn out that they had to be pulled back. But there were no replacements to fill the gaps in each unit. Most of the time, they barely had time to catch their breath and spend a night or two in teplushkas before they were rushed to the front again to keep the Red Army from breaking through their lines.
The legion was growing smaller. The Red Army was growing larger. And then winter tightened its grip on Siberia.
“Have you heard the news?” Filip asked Dalek the last day of November.