Solovyov felt a sudden awkwardness as he took the text of his prepared paper from the folder; this time, the feeling was not related to Taras. What Solovyov wanted to report could not appear either important or even worthy of attention for the group that had gathered. All his findings and corrections regarding the Crimean operations seemed like utter pointlessness by comparison with what they knew about the general. But it was too late to retreat. So Solovyov began his reading.
Strictly speaking, this was not even a reading. When he sensed that method of delivering the material was out of place here, the young historian switched to telling a story; this was close to the text of his paper but did not lack for improvisation. This was happening for the first time in his scholarly life. It was not that he could not render his previous papers without reading aloud—every phrase of what he had written was just right and he knew the texts by heart. The academic honor code mandated speaking from a prepared text. The folder of papers lying on a lectern was the first, albeit most approximate, attestation of a report’s scholarliness. It was as if all further qualities of what was pronounced did not exist without the written text. Solovyov knew of only one exception: a paper that Prof. Nikolsky had read at a conference lectern, in a monotone, sentence after sentence, from sheets containing nothing but caricatures sketched with a ballpoint pen. It was Prof. Nikolsky who had forbidden Solovyov from speaking without a written text.
Solovyov did not even glance down as he turned page after page of his paper. A feeling of flight had seized him, almost the same as that first ride on a bicycle. He recalled the dates of battles, the strength of subunits on both sides, and the military ranks of all the senior officers taking part in combat.
The topic of Solovyov’s paper was ‘General Larionov’s Rout of Zhloba’s Cavalry Corps.’ It concerned a key operation in 1920 that allowed the Whites to hold on to Crimea until late autumn. Solovyov began by briefly touching on the composition of the troops positioned on the front line in Northern Taurida. Here he could not help but speak of General Kalinin’s Second Cavalry Division (1,500 sabers + 1,000 bayonets) and about General Guselshchikov’s Third Cavalry Division (3,500 sabers + 400 bayonets from general Abramov’s Don Corps): these troops were positioned from the Azov Sea to the village of Chernigovka. Naturally, he did not forget about the Drozdov Division, either (it was located by the village of Mikhailovka) or about General Morozov’s Second Cavalry Division. In speaking about the line of the front to the west of Mikhailovka, Solovyov mentioned General Babiev’s Kuban Cavalry Division and the Native Division positioned to its left along the front. Finally, the Markov and Kornilov Divisions were located in the region of Kakhovka, while General Barbovich’s division was positioned closest to the Dnieper Estuary.
Opposing those forces were divisions of the Reds’ Thirteenth Army, including the First and Second Cavalry Divisions of Dmitry Zhloba’s Combined Corps. The numbers for just that one corps—including the troops attached to it—reached 7,500. After some wavering, Solovyov decided not to dwell on the numerical data of other divisions that supported Zhloba (for example the Latvian and the 52nd Rifle Division, which were in the area of Beryslav). After casting a glance at his listeners, the researcher felt that an overabundance of figures might dull their attention.
In speaking about the Reds’ plans, Solovyov began by limiting himself to pointing out Zhloba’s corps’ intention of attacking the Don Corps and taking Melitopol. After grasping, however, that this picture would be incomplete, the speaker nevertheless elaborated that four divisions were mobilized from Fedko’s group in the area from Zherebets to Pologi at the same time as the 52nd and Latvian Divisions were already moving out of the area from the region of Berislavl to Aleshki. Zhloba placed particular hopes on Fedko’s group, something that raised no doubts among the attendees. Fedko, however, did not warrant those hopes.
Did General Larionov know about the Reds’ plans? Sources available to researchers (Solovyov carefully evened out the file of papers lying in front of him) gave no answer to that question. The general acted as if he was familiar with the enemy’s plans in full detail. He had always been a half-step ahead of the Reds before, but those half-steps invariably determined the outcome of the fighting. Zhloba’s most cunning schemes broke down against the measures the White commander had taken, regardless of whether they were the result of reconnaissance activity or the general’s ingenious foresight. Solovyov preferred to think the latter.
After the general had studied his opponent’s way of thinking (this happened fairly quickly), he flawlessly guessed all the operations Zhloba had conceived. In Solovyov’s opinion, the general’s strength consisted of an absolutely precise assessment of Zhloba’s strategic potential. It was not overly high (which was natural) but was not lower than average, either. As General Larionov himself once said, flight school is capable of raising anyone—Dmitry Zhloba among them—to an average level. Then again, it was the hand of fate that threw Zhloba into the cavalry before he had the chance to take wing as he should have. This merging of the earthly and the heavenly in his fate (along with unfavorable genetics, according to some data) significantly twisted the Red commander’s brains. To General Larionov’s credit, he was able to sort through those intricacies.
Early in the morning, he ordered that strong coffee be served; he would drink it in small sips, sitting on the steps of his armored train car. After the coffee, he smoked his first cigarette. When the weather was not windy, he blew smoke rings, observing their melancholy motion toward the sky. When there was wind, the general released the smoke in a thin stream, unconcerned about its further fate. It is usually thought that it was during those moments that he formed the plans that ended up ruining Red commander Dmitry Petrovich Zhloba’s career.
The steppe’s drowsy breathing, which moved in barely perceptible waves, and the scent of grass that was still fresh, instilled calm and joy in the general. The sun rose quickly over the horizon, as if it were in a speeded-up film, and the steppe changed its colors. The steppe appeared to the general in the form of a kaleidoscope that had been hurriedly deployed around the armored train. It was unlimited in its capabilities, boundless, and strewn with the ash of his cigarette.
Sometimes General Larionov would lie down in the grass and observe the life of its inhabitants. In his eyes, this life appeared just as petty as human life. Perhaps not as brutal. The grass’s businesslike residents ate each other but they did so out of necessity, conforming to biology’s ancient laws. They did not experience mutual hatred. Encouraged by the general’s motionlessness, these creatures ran along his splayed fingers, between which something was already sprouting, springing up, and maturing. One could maintain that more than a dozen or two ants, grasshoppers, aphids, beetles, and numerous other creations he would have had difficulty giving names to had passed through his hands. Located in a region of embittered battles between the Red and White Armies, they maintained strict neutrality. Their ability not to notice social cataclysms achieved an absolute, evoking the general’s admiration.
There was something posthumous in the general’s fingers when they were plunged into the grass. If this was connected with life, then it was in some sort of broad, age-old sense of converting human bodies into grasses and trees. Pressing his face to the crushed stalks, the general imagined himself dead on that field. Arms outstretched. Head sprinkled with earth. This is how he saw his soldiers again and again after battle.
The general remembered how one time, when he was still a cadet, he had gone to military summer camp. During field exercises, he had to dig trenches while being timed. There was a hot spell. He was digging a trench for the first time and became horribly tired. Nausea rose in his throat and his legs began to shake. He was soaked in sweat. After digging the trench, cadet Larionov lay down in it and closed his eyes. A fabulous coolness replaced the scorching sun. The shouts of officers, clanging of shovels, and clatter of horses on the road still carried to Larionov, muted, as if from hundreds of versts away, but none of that was with him any longer. Maybe it was in another world.