Sirko speaks quietly and quickly to us. “Immediate orders from the general, I’m afraid. I’ll have to leave you, and go over there and listen to Aristarkhov. Stay well back here, in the shadows.”
Sirko rides over to join the group of Cossacks, and we see them all dismounting. The noise of the crowd is now deafening: I can’t hear what Aristarkhov is saying to the men. But then I see each Cossack standing to attention, saluting, then shouldering a rifle, and walking out to stand with the regular soldiers. I also see Sirko glance back at us. He casts his eyes skyward, as if warning us. I look up.
On the parapets of each building overlooking the Nevsky Prospect, I see sandbags, with the caps and faces of soldiers and police peering over them. Among the sandbags are the black muzzles of machine guns.
We stand at the corner, hesitant, watching. For some reason, the noise is dying away: the crowd becomes silent. A Cossack officer is putting some kind of box out in the road, just behind the barricade. It’s a large tea-chest. Then the Cossack helps Aristarkhov climb up and stand on top of it. The general shouts out.
“All of you! Strikers, protesters! You have no business to be here. I have here a personal order from Tsar Nicholas.” He holds up a tiny white scrap of paper: a telegram. “It states that these demonstrations are illegal. The Tsar has authorised the St Petersburg Garrison to clear this parade off the streets, by armed force if necessary.”
Several voices shout. I can make out only one question clearly. “We all know that the bread has run out. Are we supposed to quietly go home and starve?”
There are murmurs of agreement from the whole crowd. Aristarkhov answers, his voice shrill with tension.
“The bread rationing is a precaution, that is all. The stories about bread running out – they are lies, put about by revolutionary factions and other troublemakers. Now clear the streets. You have two minutes to start dispersing.”
Another voice, a woman, calls out. “What about the Duma? The Duma is our parliament. We were told it was going to hold a session today to debate our concerns.”
“The Tsar has suspended the Duma indefinitely. He is ruling directly. His personal orders have the full force of law. Any demonstrators who do not disperse will be regarded as rioters. The Tsar has authorised the use of weapons.”
I hear another woman’s voice.
“The Tsar’s orders – they prove that he can close the Duma whenever he likes. So the Duma has no power; it doesn’t matter. Parliament, government – they are all just a pretence, to keep us quiet.”
All eyes are now on the woman who spoke. She stands opposite the centre of the thin line of young soldiers, looking into their faces. Her white face under dark hair is steely and determined. Her voice rings out, clear as a bell.
“If that telegram is true, then Tsar Nicholas has given the order to shoot us, unless we go home quietly. He is not a leader; he is just a bully. A tyrant, like Ivan the Terrible. If that’s how he behaves, why should we respect him?”
Five seconds pass. Will Aristarkhov answer the woman’s question? No: the opportunity is gone. She’s speaking again.
“We all know that the Tsar gave orders to shoot demonstrators in the protests twelve years ago. ‘Bloody Nicholas’ – that’s what they called him in 1905.”
The general looks silently at the women’s resolute faces; the barrels of the rifles also point at the women. Several of the women start shouting at once.
“Bloody Nicholas! Bloody Nicholas!”
Aristarkhov glances along the line of his soldiers. Really, they are just boys in uniforms. Their faces are pale with fear; even from here I can see tears in their eyes. Behind the soldiers stand a few, just a few, policemen. Some of them, in plain clothes, must be senior members of the Okhrana hierarchy. If the soldiers disobey their orders, they face the horror of the notorious Okhrana prisons.
I hear the general’s voice once more. “All protesters! Move back. Now.”
Some faces in the crowd are glancing upwards, and they fill with alarm. They’ve seen the machine gun emplacements. One or two people try to take a step back, but behind them, the huge crowd is a solid, immovable mass. And the small knot of women at the front don’t move at all.
“Men, ready your rifles!” The soldiers grip their guns with sweaty, trembling hands. But Aristarkhov is looking up to the rooftops. The machine gun muzzles point down into the centre of the crowd.
With a strange, theatrical air, Aristarkhov holds the Tsar’s telegram high, for everyone to see. It’s a tiny, fluttering white shape. Then, as a signal, his fingers release it. For a moment it doesn’t move, as if the gentle breeze is holding it aloft. Then it drops.
The air is filled with the stutter of the machine guns; the crowd is a screaming mass of bodies. Some fall; I can’t tell whether they’ve been shot, or if they are trying to take cover. But the crowd is so dense that no-one can move to escape the gunfire.
After only five seconds, the noise of the guns stops, as abruptly as it started. I see three men’s bodies lying still as death in the road. Then one woman, standing alone on the sidewalk on our side of the street, falls flat to the ground just a few yards from me. Her head is a ragged mess of red.
The group of women facing the soldiers hasn’t moved. Aristarkhov is looking at them, and appears to have lost his voice. I hear the dark-haired woman speak.
“You’ve done your worst, and we’ve not moved. What are you going to do now? Kill more Russian citizens, just because we stand on our own streets and ask reasonable questions?”
Although the machine guns above us were firing, I’ve not heard a single rifle discharge. The young soldiers at the barricade are still levelling their guns at the crowd, but none of them has fired, and they are all shaking with shock. Each of them gazes at the unmoving bodies lying in the street, and I see the horror in their eyes. The soldier nearest us, a boy of perhaps eighteen, can do nothing except stare at the blood pooling around the dead woman’s head. Then he bends double and vomits on his boots.
Aristarkhov looks along the line of soldiers. Then he steps over to the boy. “Stand up. Be a man.” He hits the young soldier in the ribs.
“Look! He’s even attacking his own men now!” The women all start shouting at Aristarkhov. But the black-haired woman doesn’t shout. Instead, she takes a single step forward. She stretches out her hand, and slowly, so slowly, touches the rifle that points into her face. She grips the metal, gently. The soldier holding the gun is another mere boy. He looks at Aristarkhov, then at the woman. The woman pushes the barrel down, and the soldier co-operates with her. He lowers his rifle until it points at his own feet. There is now a dead silence.
From the far side of the street, Yuri appears. He runs over, mouthing his words quietly to Aristarkhov so the crowd don’t hear. But I can make out what he’s saying.
“Sir, I won’t carry out your orders. I will not order my troops to kill unarmed people. Instead, you need to talk to this crowd, sir. You must get a grip on this situation. Or I could speak to the protesters, if you will permit that.”
Several woman are now reaching out towards the soldiers. All along the line, the troops are lowering their rifles. But, as Aristarkhov and Yuri argue, I see one of the plain-clothes Okhrana officers step forward towards the general. Aristarkhov turns his face from Yuri, deliberately ignoring him. Instead, he’s listening to the Okhrana officer. I catch only fragments of the words the man is saying. “Sedition… mutiny… treason.” Aristarkhov nods in agreement.
Some of the soldiers hear the man’s words, too. They are turning to look at him, rage in their eyes. The boy who was sick is now standing again. His face is as white as a skull, and he stares wild-eyed at the general. Suddenly, louder than ever, the crowd shouts again. “Bloody Nicholas! Down with the war, down with the Tsar!”