The central portion of their light wood-paneled car boasted a pair of wood-fired heaters, steel apparently, sitting on legs themselves atop tiled sections of the floor, with more tiles behind them, and with smokestacks running up through the roof of the car. They put out a rather pleasant smell but also tended to put people to sleep.
There was electric light in first class, but second had only kerosene-fired lanterns.
The car, which was right behind the dining car, had a dozen single seats, in six pairs, facing each other, on one side. On the other were a like number of benches, likewise in six facing pairs. The seats and benches were hard but, between the hour of the night, the heat, the steady clack-clack-clacking of the train on the tracks, and the fact that the eight men in them were used to discomfort, everyone but Mokrenko and Novarikasha were dead asleep, some with their heads resting on the half-tables jutting from the walls.
For that matter, both Mokrenko and Novarikasha, who had watch, found themselves nodding off and pulling themselves awake only by sheer acts of will.
The sergeant grabbed the junior man’s tunic and shook him awake by it. “Stay alert for a bit. Give me your cup; I’m going to go try to get us some hot tea from the dining car.”
Passage between cars promised to be bitterly, even finger threateningly, cold, so Mokrenko was careful to put on both his overcoat and his gloves. He left his sword behind, along with his rifle. His pistol was tucked into his belt, in front of his stomach, but under his tunic. However, Mokrenko being a good Cossack, his kindjal remained with him, hanging from his belt, and was plainly visible if his coat was open. Buttoning the coat hid it so that, when he entered the dining car, he appeared unarmed.
Moreover, as long as his coat was buttoned, he was unarmed; he couldn’t get to his dagger or pistol in a hurry if his life depended on it. As it turned out, what with a pistol pressed against his nose as soon as he entered the dining car, his life did depend on it.
Of course, he noticed the pistol first. The face that was covered below the eyes by a scarf and framed above by a large kubanka, he didn’t notice until a moment later.
“I just wanted to get some tea,” he said, helplessly. “I didn’t want to start a fight over it.”
“Get in and sit down,” snarled a voice full of desperate purpose.
“Can I get some tea on my way?”
“Just hurry.” Moving farther on, presumably covered by the gun, the Cossack saw two more seated passengers, by their dress from first class, cowering pressed against the side of the car while another robber, pistol held loosely in one hand, went through the contents of their bag and wallet with the other. These had been dumped out for inspection on a table.
It was then that Mokrenko realized that both were wearing standard Imperial Army overcoats, no different from his own, and both were open. Probably so they could get at their pistols. They’re likely soldiers, too, thrown on their own wits and having no more wit than needed to rob unarmed people.
The dining car attendant, standing behind a counter with his hands high overhead, said, “Be careful, sir; the tea is scalding hot.”
“Yes,” agreed Mokrenko, trying to keep his voice calm. He’s trying to tell me….ohhh… scalding hot, is it? Damn, though; one would be hard; two is four times harder. So how do I…?
The one robbing those two people has his concentration on them. I only have to deal with just one, at least initially. Can’t make a lot of noise. No pistol. My kindjal, then. Can I get to it in time? That’s a definite maybe. Is it worth the risk? Come on, be serious; they’re robbers; they’ll get the money we need to complete the mission. There’s no choice but to fight.
As calmly as possible, Mokrenko filled first his own army-issue cup, and then Novarikasha’s.
He started to go back to his own car, when the first robber he’d encountered motioned him to take a seat in this one. Mokrenko shrugged, as if indifferent, then began to turn away. He’d made a quarter turn, then lashed back around, launching two mugs of scalding hot tea at the face of the robber.
That one’s face was protected by his scarf, true, but his eyes were not. Those took the full measure of scalding tea, causing the robber to shriek, drop his pistol, and begin to claw at his eyes.
In that brief moment of respite, Mokrenko ripped his coat open, sending no less than three buttons flying across the car, one pinging off a window on the other side. In a half a second the dagger was out, just as the other thief began to turn.
Mokrenko knew he was too slow; the pistol was lining up on him before he’d been able to get a good throwing grip.
One of the passengers, a fat man with dark gray hair and beard, propelled himself at the gunman, tackling him around the midsection and driving him to his knees. The bandit’s pistol fired into the ceiling, punching a minute hole in the train car.
As the bandit clubbed the struggling old man with his pistol, Mokrenko lunged for him. Grabbing a hank of his greasy hair, Mokrenko yanked the bandit’s head back and plunged his razor-sharp kindjal into the man’s neck just below his ear, then he dragged it out and downward, severing the windpipe and the neck’s sinews and blood vessels in a visceral spray that left the bandit nearly decapitated.
Mokrenko then launched himself at the other one, still occupied with his own agony and in scratching his own eyes out. Two quick jabs and the robber’s heart, slashed through, gave out. Blood poured from chest and mouth. But didn’t yet stain the overcoat.
Only then did the Cossack turn his attention to his savior, the old man who’d launched himself at the second robber.
A woman, presumably his wife, was already on the floor, weeping and cradling her man’s head on her lap. He bled from some scalp wounds, but not so freely as to appear life-threatening.
“Will you be all right, sir?”
“Yes… yes, I think. Little dizzy now… not too bad.”
“Sir, how many people entered the first-class compartment that didn’t really look like they belonged there?”
“Not sure…”
“There were three,” said the woman, through her tears. “Only three. I think… maybe… one was the leader.”
“Did any of them go into the sleeper car?”
“Don’t think so, no.”
“Did they say anything besides some version of ‘your money or your lives’?”
“That they’d be getting off at the next stop,” she answered. “But why would they get off there? I’ve ridden this route several times, there’s nothing there to speak of.”
Mokrenko answered, “Horses; they’ll have their horses there.”
Now the question is, do I try to take the parlor car, with its three, or go back to my own car which has only two, I think, and where I can get reinforcements? Right, back it is.
Running his eyes over the two bodies, he decided that the first robber, the second he’d killed, was a closer match to him in size. He took from the corpse the kubanka and the scarf. Then he took that robber’s pistol as well as the other one’s.
“Sir,” he asked of the old man, “Do you think you can still shoot?”
“Poor excuse for an old soldier if I can’t.”
“Old soldier…?”
“Colonel, retired, artillery.”
“I should have known. Sir, there are two pistols. Can I leave you here, with the dining car attendant, to guard my back and keep the other robbers from passing through this car?”