Yermeloff looked at the sky. It was grey as the snow. He cursed, ‘I left the vodka. Grishenko’s bound to drink the lot.’
‘I thought Cossacks never stole from each other.’
Yermeloff walked ahead. Again he was the bully-boy. He said in a harsh voice. ‘Grishenko’s my friend. What I have is his.’
‘And what he has?’
Yermeloff stopped, then he laughed. ‘His.’ He came back to put an arm round my shoulder. I remembered Mrs Cornelius and her fox-pelts. I longed to see her Mercedes. I longed for Odessa and my mother and Esmé. Yermeloff led me towards the water-tanker. ‘We’ll try some of the ordinary.’ Bandits took no notice of me. I had reduced my outer appearance to the level of their own. A tin cup was passed from the crowd around the wagon. The vodka was no worse than that I had had on the train. Potoaki would by now be in Odessa, enjoying the benefits of the Rule of Law while plotting its destruction. The Revolution had been a work of modern art; convulsive, undisciplined, emotional and formless. Lenin and Deniken were trying to repaint it to their own tastes. Trotsky had been the catalyst for this whole war and how he enjoyed himself, standing on the roofs of trains, making speeches to soldiers from motor-cars, stalking ahead of his generals. What a fool that Jew looked to anyone with half an eye. A goose in the heron-pond. He was ridiculous in his glasses, his beard, his uniform. An irritating, self-opinionated buffoon. I could not see why Mrs Cornelius found him attractive, unless it was his power. He was a bungler. Almost every disaster after 1918 can be blamed on him. They called him the greatest general since Joshua: it is an insult to Joshua. Lenin loved him. They were two of a kind. Antonov was an intellectual but he knew how to fight. Mrs Cornelius should have taken up with him. But perhaps Antonov was too strong. She liked men, in those days, she could manipulate. She had a weakness for a fool. She liked them safely married. I do not think Antonov was married. I know nothing about him. Stalin probably had him killed in one of those trials. I avoided Russians between the wars. I would sometimes even claim to be Polish or Czech. I could not stand the sympathy of those who took up with émigrés; they made me self-conscious. I want to be myself; not the representative of a culture.
We approached a railway siding where a proclamation had been pinned to a telegraph post. The vodka was affecting my stomach. I mentioned this to Yermeloff. ‘You’re hungry,’ he said. ‘We’ll get some food here.’
A carriage once belonging to a first-class train was being used as a canteen. From the galley came hideous smells. I felt far worse. Yermeloff swung up the steps. Not wishing to be left alone and yet terrified of what I should have to eat, I followed him. We seated ourselves amongst a group of Cossack officers who ate soup and complained about it. A boy brought us two bowls and a piece of bread each. The soup was dark yellow, containing pieces of pale meat. I tried to gather my courage. Yermeloff joined some of the others in laughing at me. ‘He’s new. An engineer. Major Pyatnitski.’ I grinned with dry lips. This caused them further amusement. I drank a little of the broth and felt no worse for it. The taste was loathsome. I nibbled the meat. It was oddly tender. I swallowed and hastily ate some bread. It was hard. It had the texture and flavour of cheap soap.
‘Where are you from, comrade?’ This from a burly Cossack wearing beard and moustachios in the old Tsarist style. He was handsomely uniformed, though with the inevitable red cockade in his cap and an armband on his sleeve.
‘From Kiev.’
‘They make young majors there.’
‘Without much effort,’ I told him. ‘I was a civilian engineer.’
‘Who did you work for?’ The question was not emphatic but I was unsure of its meaning. I looked to Yermeloff who rescued me with: ‘His father was an SR.’
‘Oho,’ said the Cossack, ‘so nepotism exists even in revolutionary circles. Where’s your dad now?’
‘He was killed in ‘06. My mother’s in Odessa.’
He looked at me sympathetically. ‘Don’t fret, little major. We’re on the way. Those niggers won’t get their hands on our women.’ French Zouaves were rumoured to be running amok, having formed an alliance with Odessa’s Jews. Asia and Africa, they said, were shitting on Russian soil. ‘Nikolaieff first, or Kherson, to get fresh supplies. Then we’ll be in Odessa. We’re the biggest army in Ukraine. They won’t stop us.’
I thought of my Esmé, my angel, in the grip of some grinning, befezzed negro. My stomach went sour. For some reason I was able to finish both soup and bread more easily. I felt as Yermeloff had predicted, much better for the heat. Yermeloff spoke to the man who had addressed me. ‘Did you read the proclamation, Stoichko? What did it say?’
‘The usual. How well we’re doing. How good we are. How we bring honour to Ataman and aid to Barotbist. How we’ve recruited Bolshevik help in sweeping Chaos from the land.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘The 4th and 15’th are to entrain for the “new front” at six-thirty tomorrow morning.’
‘Where are we going?’
Stoichko cleared his throat. He picked up a piece of bread I had abandoned. ‘South. There are forty rumours as usual.’ He munched. ‘How’s that bastard Grishenko?’
‘Relieving the pressures of manhood in the tent.’ Yermeloff wiped his lips. The others became silent.
I looked out of the grimy window. Two priests walked past, chatting together. They might have been in a tranquil country street. I was heartened to see them. They were of the Greek faith. Later I would notice them blessing some red flag or other. There are priests and priests, just as there are Cossacks and Cossacks. But a bad priest, in my own view, is bad indeed: he will use God’s word to utter the commands of the Devil. How cheerfully those priests accepted Bolshevism. The few who did not were liquidated or attacked by their fellows. I should love to hear Kiev monks singing the Dies irae again. Can anything match that combination of architecture and music celebrating so harmoniously the works of Man and God? Or Rachmaninov’s Vespers? Even an atheist, even a Jew, would be moved. I have heard some people call it extreme. They fail to understand there are no extremes in Russia. We must all control our minds, limit our perceptions, not broaden them. Islanders rarely understand this. Americans have maintained the island mentality. They build walls round everything. I know those estates where you cannot visit a friend without telling a guard, just as you must at a madhouse. Walls are madness. Madness is a wall. Life is too short.
Stoichko, still with a full mouth, said to Yermeloff, ‘Want to bunk in with us? We’ve some spare gear.’
Yermeloff shook his head, took off his cap and scratched. He also was running with lice. Lice are not so bad. Often they are the only company one can trust. They frighten people not used to them. But they are only uncomfortable in large numbers. You keep them down by catching and killing them. This relieves the boredom of a soldier’s or a prisoner’s life. Some members of a military band I knew would draw race-tracks on drumskins and race their crabs, as some race mice or frogs. Large amounts of money would change hands. The owners would claim to be able to recognise favourite runners. I do not believe that. To me, one louse is much like another. Cleanliness, according to the English, is next to Godliness. But there are sects in Russia who think exactly the opposite. There are very rich sects who cut off their private parts to be closer to God. The money they make goes to their families. I find that disgusting. But it is understandable.