Solovyov tensed up, anticipating something unpleasant.
He hoped the lying person would not allow things to develop under that scenario. In answer, though, the voice resounded just as loudly, ‘Good luck.’
It was Makhalov’s voice. There was not a speck of jealousy in it.
The aspiring journalist jumped noisily over to Solovyov’s bed. Solovyov squeezed his eyes shut with all his might.
Yekaterina shook him by the shoulder but he did not wake up. An instant later, he felt her fingers on the zipper of his jeans. Solovyov could pretend not to wake up but he had no prerogative to resist if he was asleep.
‘Objectively speaking,’ said Yekaterina, ‘he’s already prepared to make love to me and that’s despite being sound asleep. Unlike you, who’s awake.’
There were sounds of someone flushing in a bathroom and, flipflops tapping, returning to their room.
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Makhalov muttered. ‘That has nothing to do with you. He’s dreaming of another Larionova.’
17
Solovyov worked intensively in the archives throughout September and October. After finishing a section about events during the first half of 1920, he turned to the second half of that same year. On October 1, the young historian reached the October period of the Civil War; that seemed like a good sign to him. He and his material were beginning to resonate with one another.
October (one of Russia’s most unfortunate months) turned out to be unlucky for the White Movement in Crimea, too. The White Army was retreating. After suffering defeat near Kakhovka, the army left Northern Taurida, fighting. The army’s path lay toward Perekop, for which General Larionov had specific plans.
Solovyov estimated the White Army’s numbers taking part in defensive battles at approximately 25–27,000 (by comparison, Dupont’s The Enigma of the Russian General raises them for no reason, speaking of 33–35,000). In Solovyov’s opinion, the Reds’ forces totaled around 130,000 (Dupont writes of 135–140,000). These figures, however, did not fully take into account the losses the Whites incurred in defending Northern Taurida, something Solovyov particularly noted. He emphasized that only statistics for certain army units could be vouched for with any degree of certainty:
| Consolidated Guard Regiment | 400 bayonets and sabers, 3 heavy weapons |
| 13th Infantry Division | 1,530 bayonets and sabers, 20 heavy weapons |
| 34th Infantry Division | 750 bayonets and sabers, 25 heavy weapons |
| Kornilov Division | 1,860 bayonets and sabers, 23 heavy weapons |
| Drozdov Division | 3,260 bayonets and sabers, 36 heavy weapons |
| Markov Division | 100 bayonets and sabers, 21 heavy weapons |
Solovyov explained the Reds’ four- or five-fold superiority over the Whites by the separate peace treaty that the Reds and Poles had concluded behind the general’s back. The agreement untied the Reds’ hands: after withdrawing their large forces from the western front, they moved them south, against the White Army. The Whites’ position was becoming critical.
All that remained for the White Army of the entire, huge country was a patch of land surrounded by sea. It was connected to the mainland by the narrow isthmus for which the retreating army was striving. The White Army’s fate depended on who reached the isthmus first: if cut off from Crimea, the White Army would not have the slightest chance of being saved. This did not just affect the army, though. The downfall of the White troops would subject to mortal danger thousands of others who had retreated to Crimea with those troops. They would not have time to evacuate.
The general was in a hurry. He had a slight time advantage that he was afraid of losing. After the battles near Kakhovka, he moved his troops southeast through Northern Taurida without giving them respite. He was still not giving up. As he reviewed episodes of the Kakhovka combat in his mind, he was still relying on the power of his soldiers’ desperation and the special courage of the doomed. After that strange forced march began, however, the general sensed the beginning of the end for the first time.
This was not an army advancing toward Perekop, it was an unorganized column of sleepwalkers traveling along the ice-bound expanse of Northern Taurida. Leaning from his saddle, the general peered into his soldiers’ faces and saw an expression of mortal exhaustion on those faces. He knew this expression. He had seen it on the faces of those who froze in snow banks. Of those who stood up straight and walked into machine gun fire. But never before had he seen this expression on every face. The general was beginning to understand that he had lost more than just an individual, if very important, battle. It was becoming clearer to him with every minute that the war, as a whole, had been lost.
His army could no longer fight. The reason was not the poor uniforms (though they truly were poor) and not the lack of ammunition (which was, indeed, lacking). This was not even about the army’s demoralization: the general had managed to restore his soldiers’ fighting spirit even after worse defeats. The reason was that the army had depleted its entire reservoir. It was this very expression that the general used in the telegram he sent to foreign envoys when he was halfway to Perekop. In their response, the envoys requested an urgent meeting. They needed the general’s explanations. But what was the point of a meeting like that? What, in actuality, could he explain to them?
After dropping the reins, the general took a sheet of paper and a pencil from his map case. His horse slowed to a walk. He thought a bit and wrote to the envoys that there was no more rage in his soldiers’ eyes. There was no joy. There was no fear. There was not even suffering. There was nothing there but an endless wish for repose. How does it happen, the general asked, that an object suddenly loses its qualities? Why does a magnet demagnetize? Why does salt stop being saline? After reading what he had written, the general folded the sheet in neat quarters and ripped it to pieces. They fell behind his back like large snowflakes.
The soldiers could not warm up. They stuffed straw under the thin broadcloth of their military overcoats but it did not help. Sometimes the soldiers burned tumbleweeds so they could at least hold their numbed fingers over them for a minute. Gusts of wind carried off the tumbleweeds; small fiery balls scattered along the steppe when dusk was falling. That wind flung prickly bits of ice into the marchers’ faces and the wind got under their overcoats, removing the last bit of warmth radiated from the soldiers’ fatigued bodies.
The soldiers wanted to sleep. After two days of uninterrupted battle, some fell asleep on their feet. Lulled by the column’s even pace, they closed their eyes involuntarily and continued walking in their sleep. The artillerymen began sitting on the gun carriages but the general forbade that. As they drifted into sleep, they fell from the gun carriages and under the wheels.
The general did not allow them to lie down on the carts. He pulled from the carts those wounded but still capable of traveling and forced them to walk. Cursing the general and his orders, they walked. They held the sides of the carts and left a bloody trail in the snow, but they walked. Their bandages trailed behind them. And they remained alive. The gravely wounded, unable to move, could not warm up. They shouted that they were freezing. Someone covered them with coats, mattresses, and rags, but still they could not warm up. The majority of them had frozen by the end of the march.