The voices are cut off by a blast like thunder. The air is alive: filled with flying, shattering glass. All around the ward, windows explode. I shut my eyes, cover my face, and feel shards of glass hitting my hands.
The blast stops, as suddenly as it started. I drop my hands from my face; amazingly, I’m not bleeding. But I look around the room: our patients are showered in broken fragments from the windows. I see trails of blood from hands, faces and eyes.
One or two patients, the ones who suffer from bad nerves, start screaming. But strangely, there’s no other noise. Whatever destroyed the windows has now stopped. I look at Sister Kusnetsova; her face is covered in blood, but she speaks calmly.
“We are – under fire, it seems. Patients, please keep calm. We’ll move your beds away from the windows. Then, we’ll come round to look at each of you, and see who is hurt.”
All patients who can walk get up from their beds and help us push beds into the middle of the room. As she and I bend our backs to push a bed, Sister Kusnetsova dabs her face. “See – not so bad. Just a cut above my eyelid, that’s all.”
Soon, all the beds are clustered in the centre of the room. But the odd quiet goes on. I go to one of the broken windows and look out. I can see nothing, except the Neva River glittering in the sharp moonlight. The city is dark and silent. Across the river, the Peter and Paul Fortress is a squat, grim shape. The moon glints on the guns that line the parapets of its walls. I know that the soldiers garrisoned there now support Lenin and his Bolshevik party; many of them have joined the Red Guards. But would they actually open fire on a hospital? Time goes on, and no-one comes to the ward to tell us what is happening. In the tense, waiting silence, Sister Kusnetsova and I treat the wounds from the broken glass. Fortunately, no-one is seriously hurt: all the injuries are shallow cuts. We go round each patient in turn, dabbing the cuts with antiseptic. Then she speaks under her breath to me.
“Why has no-one come to explain what’s going on?”
“I have no idea, Sister. Shall I go to find someone?”
“Yes. Just get hold of anyone who can tell us what to do. After all, we might need to evacuate the hospital.”
I leave the ward and descend the stairs. The ground floor corridor is in darkness. My fingers find a light-switch, but it doesn’t work. The gunfire, if that is what it was, must have affected the ground floor electricity supply.
I walk along the corridor, hands outstretched, feeling my way in the dark. My fumbling hands touch the frame of a door. I realise that it leads into the ward where Yuri is, and I step inside.
It’s silent as the grave. There appear to be no staff in here, and it’s unlit, with just a faint light coming through draped windows. In the gloom I can make out the rows of beds, and the mounded shapes of resting patients. I remember that Yuri’s bed was the fifth on the left. I go over to him, and whisper.
“Yuri! Did you hear that gunfire?”
“I did, Agnes. I’m glad you’ve arrived: you can be my excuse to go and find out what on earth is going on.”
Other patients start calling out. Yuri answers “Don’t worry, and no-one try to move. I will go and find out what is happening.” His eyes look at me in the dim light. “Despite my arm, Agnes, I’ve already managed to change into my uniform. I decided that in this situation, it might be useful to look like a Cossack.”
We leave the ward, and return to the blackness of the corridor. We start walking: the passageway seems to go on for ever. Neither of us speak; we’re listening, and watching in the gloom for any hospital staff who might know what is happening. But everywhere is entirely deserted.
Finally, I hear Yuri’s quiet voice. “Here.” He pushes open a door, and we enter. I feel like a mouse, creeping silently into a giant’s chamber.
It must be one of the biggest state rooms of the Winter Palace. The room is unlit, but its undraped windows are so vast that the moon shines in like day. I see colossal curves and silhouettes of rococo decoration, and gigantic crystal chandeliers glitter in the moonlight. But oddly, I smell stale sweat, cigarette smoke and alcohol. I whisper.
“What’s that awful smell?”
“I think this room is occupied, Agnes.”
On the marble floor are rows of mattresses and blankets. On some of the mattresses, people are lying, smoking: I see the tiny red glows of their cigarette-butts. In the middle of the room is a ornately carved table, and on it are some half-eaten loaves of bread, and dozens of empty wine bottles.
A voice cries out. “Who goes there?”
Yuri answers gently. “You are an alert cadet! None of your comrades even noticed us.”
A pale-faced young man steps forward into a patch of moonlight: he reminds me of the young soldiers I saw on the Nevsky Prospect. Yuri is looking around the room, sizing up the situation. Then he turns again to the boy.
“What’s all this?” Yuri points to the window sills, where I see, in the moonlight, piled sandbags and the glinting barrels of machine guns.
“Ah – sir. We were told to defend the Winter Palace, sir.”
“Defend it against what?”
“I wasn’t told that, sir.”
“The rest of your platoon seems to have been helping itself to the Tsar’s wine-cellars rather than defending the Palace. I think you are the only sober cadet in this room – well done, young man. But what was that gunfire we heard? All the windows are shattered in one of the hospital wards.”
“Something is happening over there in the Provisional Government offices, sir. I tried to wake my commander, but…”
“I see. Your commander has fallen a victim to Moët and Bollinger. Don’t worry. This nurse and I will go and find out what is happening. You stay here with your troop. What other units are stationed in the Winter Palace to guard the Provisional Government?”
“There were some Cossacks, Sir, but they left this afternoon. And there is a women’s home defence battalion. And us cadets. That’s all.”
Yuri listens and nods; the boy carries on. “The Provisional Government ministers are in one of the upstairs state rooms, sir. But Mr Kerensky, their leader, has left. He came into this room this afternoon, and asked me to get some gasoline for his car. I brought a can for him. Then later, I saw him driving away with three armed guards.”
“Well done, young man. That’s very useful information.” Yuri and I leave the cadet, and walk across the cavernous space of the room into yet another corridor, where vast gilt-framed paintings of battle scenes alternate with equally huge windows.
“Look!” Yuri points out into the courtyard. The far side is in deep shadow, but I can dimly make out many figures, moving silently in the gloom. Yuri watches them for a moment, then turns to me.
“They’re Red Guards, Agnes. They are taking over the palace for Lenin and his Bolsheviks. This is the end of the Provisional Government.”
“My concern isn’t the government, it’s the hospital. Let’s go back to the wards and let everyone know.”
We go back to the door we came through; I reach out and take the handle.
“Yuri! The door’s been locked.”
He shouts fiercely through the door. “Unlock this, will you! We need to get back to the hospital! And by the way, there are about a hundred men of the Red Guards approaching across the palace courtyard. You may be under attack.”
A drunken voice answers. “I’m the commander of this cadet unit. Are you Red Guards?”
“No! The Red Guards are out there in the courtyard. Let us in!”
“You’re lying to me. Cadets – the Bolsheviks are breaking in! Prepare to shoot if anyone smashes down that door!”
“All right, all right. I can see that you won’t let us in. But I advise you against shooting anyone. Don’t inflame the situation. If anyone comes into the building, talk to them, rather than trying to use your guns.”