He felt the defenders’ gazes and their expectation of his command. He even seemed to think his troops had perked up a little, in light of the mortal danger. The machine gunners had already sat down by their Maxim guns. They were straightening the ammunition belts and stroking the barrels. There was no tension in their movements: on the contrary, there was something proprietary, and that irritated the general. He looked at his watch but could not figure out what time it was. That was not actually important anyway.
The machine guns could hit from two thousand paces and the Reds were already much closer. They were walking with an uncoordinated, hobbled gait, staring at the frozen grass. The soldiers were trying to deceive death, which had already taken up its position beyond the barriers. So as not to attract its attention, they were not looking it in the eye, just as one does not look into the eyes of the possessed. Death awaited the young and, thus, seemed insane to those soldiers. They saw it and deflected their gazes. The barrels of their rifles were half-lowered. They were not fighting, they were here for something else. They simply walked, bobbing on the hillocks. From north to south.
The general knew this wave was doomed. He wanted to give these soldiers an extra minute. Wanted to see them alive one last time. Could not look at them enough. Or enjoy, enough, observing their awkward forward motion. Their motion was a sign of life. Even their wooden strides and even the spasmodic waving of their arms differentiated life from death. That would be taken away from them in a minute. Replaced with the full repose that differentiates death from life.
Everything would happen upon his order. Several dozen waves destined for the passage from life to death were following behind the first. The speed of their passage depended on the speed of the shooting from his Maxim guns. Which were stilled in readiness. Everything would happen even without his order. These armies could no longer exist without one another.
The general feverishly tried to remember which side he was fighting on. He knew this was a useless trick of the consciousness and a withdrawal from another question—the most important one—but he just could not remember. Those around him watched with surprise crossing into alarm. The cavalry and infantry were watching. The artillerymen were watching. Only the wind could be heard.
‘Fire,’ whispered the general.
His command was just a cloud of steam. It contained no voice. The next second, though, machine guns hit the Reds’ forward waves. The artillery began working on the rear guard. It seemed strange to the general that these consequences could be reached with one brief word. That they had not even heard. That they had uttered to themselves. He saw how deftly the machine gunners handled the ammunition belts. How the servicemen brought crates of ammunition with a calm, almost ant-like, focus. Volley followed volley. It was not uplifting for him. There was no more joy of battle in him. He knew (volley) that he already had another army now. Or maybe (volley) it was he who was different. Maybe his own (volley) sense of devastation had spread to the army and the army had ceased to exist. Died.
Everyone in the first wave fell in his own way. Some flapped their arms. Others grasped their bellies. Writhed on the ground with inhuman shouts. Some stopped moving then fell to the ground silently after standing in an already unearthly calm. Other people entered the gaping chasms that had formed. It had been a long time since this first wave had been the first. The machine guns became ever more precise as another wave approached, mowing down an entire wave at once. A new, live wave arrived where the first had perished; to the general’s mind this was a very strange celebration of life.
Some broke ranks and ran over to the barbed wire. They attempted to get their pliers so they could at least sever one strand of barbed wire before dying. They did not manage to do so. They were killed by shots aimed from several rifles at once. Those who shot nodded approvingly to one another. They understood these dead were heroes.
The machine gunners’ faces were sweaty and stern. Angels of death must have faces like that, thought the general. The machine gunners played first violin in this dreadful orchestra. They poured water into the cooling tanks of their Maxim guns, dipper after dipper, but the water was not fast enough to cool the metal. They could sense its temperature even through their gloves.
The Reds had many men—they did not need to count their losses. Never before had the general seen commanders sacrifice their own soldiers with such calm. The Reds had been carrying out a frontal attack for several hours already. From a military science perspective, the attack was pointless. What could they accomplish? Take all the bullets themselves? Cover all the barbed wire with their bodies? From the perspective of dreadful reality, this attack was indisputable. An attack like this could not be countered forever.
The Reds, who had set out for unprecedented sacrifices, knew this. The general, who would never allow himself to have victims of that sort, knew this. He saw that a new reality constructed on other fundamentals was arriving, along with the Reds. He already had trouble understanding it and thus rejected it with ever greater passion. And continued resisting it.
The Reds’ attack ceased with the early autumn twilight. It dissolved in the semi-darkness. It subsided like water during ebb tide. Unnoticed. Soundlessly. Revealing everything preserved on the ocean floor. Bodies lay everywhere the Red waves had been, as far as one could see in the approaching darkness. Each lay alone. They lay on top of one other. They hung on wires. Some were stirring. The general sent a medical team to gather the living. He left burying the dead to the Reds. The general was preparing to hand over Perekop.
Solovyov made a very detailed description of the general’s preparation for his final military operation. The operation consisted of securing the troops’ retreat to the port. In this case, the issue no longer concerned organizing a brilliant victory, as before. The general was working to save his soldiers’ lives. According to historian Solovyov, this was about organizing a defeat with the fewest losses: a defeat no less brilliant, in its own way, than the previous victories.
The general first dictated a special instruction turning over to the White Army the entire fleet of ships assigned to Crimean ports. He also designated five ports from which the evacuation would be implemented. They were Sevastopol, Yalta, Yevpatoria, Feodosia, and Kerch. But the main order, which stunned everyone, concerned the White Infantry’s southerly march.
They had to act rapidly, without making too much noise, without extinguishing the fires, and taking a minimum of uniforms. The main and less maneuverable part of the army headed toward the ports in secret and began loading onto transports. The cavalry, machine gun detachments, and some artillery remained. They covered the departure of the White Army’s infantry regiments. Perekop’s defenders would need to abandon their positions and rush off, at a trot, to the ports at the very moment the last regiment reached the port. That was the general’s plan. He set it out for those close to him and nobody objected. They never objected to what he said.
The general walked slowly along the line of defense and peered into the faces of those left hanging on the wires. Suffering was still present on those faces. The general knew this expression would leave them in a few days. Any expression would leave them. Especially if the weather warmed.
This was a strange inspection and a strange formation. The formation had been disrupted at each step. Those being inspected stood, their knees bent back, heels not aligned, and arms cast on the wire. They stood however they could and there was no reason to demand more from them. To the general, these people did not seem quite dead yet. Decomposition had not yet touched them. He still hoped to detect in their facial features at least a shadow of what separates life from death.