«Halt, or I'll shoot!» suddenly echoed a squeaky little voice. Their way was barred by a rifle — in the tiny, gaunt hands, all atremble, of a young soldier.
«Fire away!» Alex pulled down her T-shirt.
The little soldier flushed crimson and turned away. Mollie ran up to him, grabbed onto the rifle with her teeth and playfully started pulling on it like a toy. The little infantryman dropped his weapon and ran off:
«Ooh, that pooch's packin' heat now!»
Orest wrested the rifle from Mollie and handed it to the warrior.
The little soldier was guarding a train car platform, over which towered something big and sharp-cornered, concealed by a tarpaulin. A second soldier emerged from underneath the platform — a Tartar from the look of him, who commanded with rapid-fire diction:
«Go back, back, go around, you can't come throughhere!»
Another soldier popped out of the train car, which was coupled next to the platform. He was disheveled, dressed in rags, with a face so red it looked like it'd been ground down with abrasive powder. He started shouting:
«Aw, c'mon, let 'em through, Orlyankin! 'Ey, Kilmandeyev! What's with this, it's all a crock! Come on through here, you guys!»
Orlyankin and Kilmandeyev stood at attention, as if they'd received the command.
Their superior, meanwhile, was clearly drunk as a skunk.
Alex and Orest warily approached the car's footboard.
«Would you get us to Zaschekino?» asked Orest, politely.
«You'll 'get' something from me, awright!» hiccuped the soldier.
«As far as the station at Zaschekino,» Orest cleared his throat. «You're going that way, aren't you?»
«Not exactly,» craftily answered the soldier, snickering. «We're headed for Lysogonovo — by way of Zaschekino.»
«So, can you give us a ride?»
«Sure. I personally keep no secrets from the people. C'mon up!»
The circus folk climbed aboard.
«So, what are you transporting?» asked Alex, naively.
«Some crap or other. Hell if we know what they packed up here. I'd like to have a look-see m'self, sometime. Ugh! Is this brown bear with you, or has maestro Delirium Tremens honored us with a gift?»
«She's our doggie,» Alex scratched Mollie behind the ear.
«Right. It's usually on the fourth day that I start seein' things. Today's only the third,» said the soldier, loudly tapping on his throat.
It was a customized train car, with separate compartments. One of them held a kind of laboratory, where two women were agitating something in test tubes. They looked fearfully at Redface as he walked by. «Keep working!» he sternly commanded the ladies, and shut the door. He loudly added:
«Imbeciles! They wouldn't put out… They've got husbands, see… Well, so what? I'm a family man m'self, so what'd we come on this trip for?»
He waved his hand dismissively and, swaying heavily, bumping into the walls, he walked on, but suddenly fell. Alex and Orest were busy picking him up when he asked:
«Who're you? What're you doin' in a secret location?»
«You let us in yourself,» replied Alex, at a loss.
«Where's Vznuzdov?»
«We don't know,» they answered, with a sinking feeling.
The soldier stared at them with a dulled look and broke into a grin, catching sight of Alex's breasts under her T-shirt.
«T-t-t-t-titties… here comes the horned billy goat after the kiddies… butt-butt-butt…»
Alex pulled away from the soldier's eager claws. He snatched at the air, brought his fist up to his face, opened it, contemplated it, sighed in disappointment and walked on. He tumbled into somebody's compartment; the circus folk stopped short at the threshold. Stale, stuffy air slammed into their nostrils. The compartment was a complete disaster area. On the little table lay leftovers and stubs of things, filthy glasses, half-empty bottles. The floor was more of the same, with the addition of socks and boots thrown about. The bedding was all in a lump. On one of the bunks a soldier lay on his stomach; evidently this was Vznuzdov. His gray-haired crown, grown hoary with age, drooped down from the edge of the bed, over a vomit-splattered floor.
«Make yerselves at home!» Redface winked at them, after which his eye stuck closed. In case his guests wanted any, he poured vodka into some glasses straight off. «Drink yer fill!»
Alex and Orest sat together on the edge of a seat, but refused to drink.
«Great! That'll leave more for me. Otherwise, no way I'll ever whip myself into shape.»
He polished off a glass and gave the order:
«Let's go! Qui-i-ck, 'arch!»
Just then the train started. Redface knocked the back of his head on the wall, and it dawned on him all of a sudden:
«Hey, maybe we should blow 'er up, eh?»
«Who?» the circus folk looked over to Mollie, quietly lying in the corridor.
«You know, that secret thingamawhatzit under the tarp. Let's arrange for a conversion, eh? Generally speaking, I'm against war. Gimme disarmament! I want peace! Love! Broads!» He stared at Alex, eyes dull as glass. «Let's go. There's a free compartment next door here. While I still can…»
«She promised me the next dance,» Orest uttered gloomily.
«'Scuse me, buddy, I didn't see ya,» Redface bowed and scraped, and sat back down. «Where'd that Vznuzdov disappear to?»
«Well, there's somebody in bed over there,» Orest mentioned, good-naturedly.
«Is that 'somebody' Vznuzdov?!» Redface howled.
The gray-haired man started mumbling and smacking his lips in his sleep.
Redface put a finger to his large lips, and whispered:
«He and I'd be drinking together, back when we was cadets, wet 'hind the ears, hauling bombs along the Volga. Under the barges… If once in a while you saw barges going by real slow on the river, real careful-like, especially at night, and the barges themselves looked empty… That means they're transporting either a li'l ole submarine or a li'l ole bomb. But wait a mi… What're you asking so many questions for?!»
«We're not asking any questions,» answered a tired Alex. «You're going on and on all by yourself.»
«Well, I don't give a damn about that! 'Cuz I'm sick'a everything… What do we have wars for? Hah? Because they've got us, the military!» he slammed his fist to his chest — it rang like a bell. «I'm the military! Down with all the armies of the world, the planet, the universe!!!»
Suddenly he made out through the window, on the next track, an oncoming military transport train, with buck privates sitting and standing in the openings. Redface flung himself into the gangway. From the threshold he yelled out with all his might:
«Give us demobilization!»
And the conscripts all began roaring with laughter. They waved their hands and forage caps in the air: «Demobilize! Demobilize!»
Redface ecstatically tore off his shoulder straps and hurled them under the train wheels, to stormy applause.
The sleeping Vznuzdov came to, reluctantly tore his gray head from the trestle bed, screwed up his eyes, got up, stretched out towards a glass, drank and — only then — sat down with a grunt.
«What's your business here, comrades?» he asked, seeing Alex and Orest.
«Your colleague invited us aboard,» Alex elucidated. «The one you used to transport bombs with on the Volga…»
The gray-haired man opened his eyes wide at her.
«Beat the swords into ploughshares!» was heard coming from the gangway.
«Understood,» Gray Head heavily raised himself and strode off into the corridor.
Redface was swinging from the footboard somewhere, bawling out:
«Peace for the cottages, women for the soldiers! Hip-hip-hurray!!!»
But by now only empty fields, as far as the eye could see, were rolling by.