Chapter 21 Chapter 21

Chapter 21 The team is retreating, and it is already the second day. The retreat is very slow, and it is fighting and retreating.The baggage convoys of the Russian and Romanian troops continued on the dirt road above the ground.The German-Austrian coalition forces have penetrated deep into the flanks, encircling and suppressing the retreating defeated troops, in an attempt to complete the encirclement. In the evening, it was discovered that the 12th Regiment and the Romanian Brigade adjacent to this regiment might be surrounded.By sunset the enemy had driven the Romanians out of the village of Hovnieska and had advanced to the "480" heights adjoining the Gorsh Pass.

During the night, the 12th Regiment, reinforced by the artillery battery of the Hillman Cavalry Battalion, received orders to take positions at the mouth of the Gorsh Valley.After the team sent out the picket, it began to prepare for the encounter. That night, Mishka Koshevoy and Alexei Beshnyak, the stupid villager, were on duty together as secret sentries.They hid on the edge of an earth cliff next to an abandoned and collapsed well, breathing in the cold air.Occasionally, flocks of geese who are late will fly across the vast night sky covered with white clouds, marking their whereabouts with vigilant and mournful cries.Koshevoy regretted that he could not smoke, and said in a low voice:

"It's so strange how people live, Alexey! . . . Everyone is groping like a blind man, gathering together, going his own way, sometimes even trampling on each other . . . , Turning around at the gate of hell, making you more and more confused: Why do you have to make such a fuss? In my opinion, there is nothing in the world that is more terrible than people's private thoughts, and you can't make people's private thoughts Find out... Like, we're lying here now, but I don't know what's going on in your mind, and I never will; I don't know how you lived, how I What happened, you also don't know... Maybe, I am trying to kill you now, but you are giving me dry food, not suspicious at all... People know very little about themselves, This summer, I lived in the rear hospital. In the bed next to me, there is an infantryman, a Muscovite. He is very curious and keeps asking you how Cossacks live, this and that. They think—the Cossacks only have a whip, they think — Cossacks are savages, Cossacks have no soul, only a thing like a glass bottle, but we are all like them: we brothers also like women, love girls, weep over our sorrows, and rejoice in seeing others Just jealous... What do you think, Alyoshka? But I, boy, have become so attached to life that it breaks my heart to think of all the beautiful women in the world! I can’t love them all, I’m so anxious that I want to yell! I’m so obsessed with pussies, I can’t wait to kiss them all until my heart hurts...I can love anyone: tall, short, Fat, thin, as long as you are beautiful... Also, our current life arrangements are too uneducated: if you force one, you will have to grow old with her-you will have to suck and suck for a lifetime... Are you disgusting? Disgusting? What else, now I came up with the thing of fighting, just like that..."

"Shocking your back too lightly! Stupid bull!" Beshnyak cursed without malice. Koshevoy lay face up on the ground, staring silently at the high sky for a long time, smiling dreamily, touching the cold, indifferent land excitedly and tenderly. An hour before the shift change, the Germans caught them.Beshnyak hastily fired a shot, then squatted down, his teeth creaking, his body curled up into a ball, and he was dying: the German bayonet pierced his internal organs, pierced his bladder, and forced him to With a stab, it went into the spine.Koshevoy was knocked down with the butt of a gun.A strong German militia carried him for half a mile.Mikhail came to his senses, felt himself swallowing blood in his stomach, panted, mustered his strength, and broke free from the German's back without much effort.The Germans fired a volley of bullets in his back, but the night and the bushes saved him - escaped.

After this the retreat also ceased, the Russian and Rumanian units had broken out of the encirclement, the 12th Regiment was withdrawn from the front and moved to the rear a few versts to the left of their original line of defense.An order was announced in the whole regiment: to take charge of the task of intercepting deserters, set up guard posts on all roads, strictly prevent deserters from flowing to the rear, stop them, shoot them if necessary, and send them to the division headquarters go.Mishka Koshevoi was one of the first people sent on this mission.He and three other Cossacks left the village early in the morning, and according to the instructions of the chief of staff, the post was set up on the corn field not far from the road.The road skirted a grove of trees and disappeared into a rolling plain dotted here and there with squares of cultivated land.The Cossacks took turns on watch.After noon, a group of infantrymen, about a dozen of them, was walking in their direction.The soldiers were obviously trying to bypass the small village below the hillside which was already visible.They stopped by the side of the grove, smoking, apparently discussing, then changed direction, made a straight turn, and walked to the left. "Stop them?" Koshevoy asked the rest, rising from the corn.

"Fire a shot in the sky." "Hey, you guys! Stop!" The infantry, who were only a few tens of sand ropes away from the Cossacks, stopped for a while when they heard the call, and then walked forward again as if reluctantly. "Stop-stop!" shouted a Cossack, firing several shots into the air.The Cossacks, with their rifles in hand, overtook a slow-moving infantryman. "Why don't you fucking stop? Which unit? Where are you going? Take out your ID!" Corporal Kolychev, the chief of the post, ran over and shouted. The infantry stood still.Three men unhurriedly took off their rifles.The one in the back is bent over, strapping a phone cord to his ripped boots.They were all very shabby and dirty.The coat of the army coat is covered with brown calendula shells—it seems that he must have slept in the grass in the woods last night.Two had summer service caps on, the rest wore dirty gray lambskin hats with their cuffs coming off and their straps hanging down.The last one, who seemed to be the leader, was tall, old-fashioned, stooped, with flabby wrinkled cheeks quivering, and shouted viciously:

"What are you doing? Have we messed with you? Why are you pestering me?" "Bring out your papers!" the corporal interrupted him with affected severity. An infantryman with blue eyes and a face as red as a freshly fired brick pulled out a bottle-shaped grenade from his waist—waving it in front of the corporal's eyes, looking back at his comrades from time to time, speaking in a sharp Yaroslav accent. Quickly said: "Here, boy, the ID! This is the ID! This ID is valid all year round! Watch out for your life, or I'll come here like this - tell you to separate your internal organs. Do you understand? Do you understand? ?understood?……"

"Don't act wild!" The corporal pushed his chest, frowning. "Don't act wild, and don't frighten us. We have frightened enough. But since you are deserting—then please go to the headquarters. They will clean up your waste there." The infantrymen exchanged glances and took their rifles from their shoulders.One of them, black-bearded and thin, like a miner, turned his angry eyes from Koshevoi to the rest of the Cossacks, and said in a low voice: "Now we have to use bayonets against you! . . . Well, get out! Get out of the way! Anyone who dares to go up, I will shoot, absolutely! . . . "

The blue-eyed infantryman shook his grenade above his head; the tall, hunchbacked infantryman in front scratched the corporal's overcoat with the rusty point of his bayonet; Koshevoi waved the butt of his rifle; Koshevoi's fingers trembled on the bolt, and the butt clamped in his ribs was also jumping; He fiddled with him with his hands, and turned his head to the rest of the people worriedly, afraid that they would hit him from behind. Dry leaves rustle on corn stalks.The rolling hills shone blue on the edge of the rolling fields.Red-haired cows roam the pastures outside the village.The autumn wind whipped up bursts of cold dust outside the grove.The gloomy October day is peaceful and drowsy; nature looks so peaceful and quiet in the dim sunlight.But on the side of the avenue not far away, people are chaotic in irrational hatred, and are preparing to use their blood to pollute the fertile land that has absorbed enough rainwater and has been planted.

The excitement had subsided a bit, and after the infantry and the Cossacks had yelled for a while, the tone of the conversation had softened a bit. "We have only been retreating from the front for three days! We did not go to the rear! But you are not ashamed to run to the rear! You leave your comrades behind! Who will guard the front? Oh, you people! . . . The Germans have pierced their ribs,—I was with him as an ambush sentry, but you said we didn't even smell gunpowder. The smell of gunpowder you smell is the same as the one we smelled So!" Koshevoy said viciously. "Stop talking nonsense here!" a Cossack interrupted him. "Go to the headquarters—you don't need to talk!"

"Get out of the way, Cossack! Otherwise, we will really shoot!" the miner-like infantry persuaded. The corporal spread his hands sadly and said: "We can't do that, brother! You'll kill us all—you can't get away: our company is stationed in this village..." The tall, hunchbacked infantryman was now threatening, now persuading, now entreating.Finally, hastily pulling out of his dirty knapsack a bottle wrapped in hay bales, he winked obsequiously at Koshevoy and whispered: "Dear Cossacks, we'll give you some money, and this ... German vodka ... we can scrape together something ... for Christ's sake, let us pass ... there are a lot of children in the house, you understand ...I'm exhausted, I'm homesick...When will it end?...My Lord!...Are you really not going to let us go?" He hurriedly took out a From the cigarette pouch, two crumpled "Klenkas" were shaken out, and they were desperately stuffed into Koshevoy's hands. "Take it, take it! Oh, my God! . . . You don't have to worry about us . . . we can get along without money! . . . ! Let's make some more..." Koshevoy, flushed with embarrassment, avoided him, put his hands behind his back, and shook his head.A rush of blood rushed to his face, tears welled up in his eyes, and he thought to himself: "It's all because of Beshnyak's death that I'm such a jerk... What am I doing... I'm against war, But to catch people who have escaped from the front—how can I do this? . He went up to the corporal, and called him aside; without looking in his face, he said: "Let them go! What do you say, Kolychev? Let them go, really! . . . " The corporal's eyes were also blurred, as if he was doing something shady, and he said casually: "Tell them to go... What the hell is there to do? We're going to go this way ourselves... There's nothing to hide!" Then he turned and shouted angrily at the infantry: "You bastards! We treat you like good people and treat you with courtesy, but you give us money, huh? Do you think we have little money, or something?" His face flushed, and he called Said: "Put away your wallets, or you will be sent to the headquarters!..." The Cossacks all stepped aside.Looking at the empty streets of the village in the distance, Koshevoy called to the departing infantry: "Hey! Little horse! What are you wandering in this clearing? Look, there is a small wood over there, hide there to rest your legs during the day, and go forward at night! Otherwise, you will encounter other sentry posts,—— I will arrest you!" The infantrymen looked around, hesitated for a moment, stretched into a dirty gray chain, and then, one by one, like wolves, slid into a hollow overgrown with boxwood. In early November, various news about the outbreak of the October Revolution in Petrograd began to reach the ears of the Cossacks.As usual, the regimental orderlies, who were more informed than anyone else, affirmed that the Provisional Government had fled to America, and that the sailors had captured Kerensky and shaved him bald, as if humiliating a crooked general. Like a girl, she put on pine tar and wandered the streets of Petrograd for two days. After a few more days, an official announcement was received that the provisional government had been overthrown and power had passed to the workers and peasants.The Cossacks fell silent vigilantly.Many people are very happy and hope that the war will stop immediately, but there are many rumors that are very disturbing. They say that the Third Cavalry Army has marched to Petrograd with Kerensky and General Krasnov, and that Kaledin, who transferred several Cossack regiments to the Don River, also pressed up from the south. The front line is broken.If in October the infantry deserted in scattered and unorganized groups, by the end of November entire companies, battalions, and regiments had withdrawn from their positions; They retreated lightly, but most of the troops took away the supplies of the team, robbed the warehouse, killed the officers, and robbed the civilians as well. They rushed to their hometown like a flood that broke the embankment. go. Under the new situation, it is meaningless for the twelfth regiment to carry out the task of intercepting deserters, so this regiment is being reassigned to the front line, trying to use them to block the wounded infantry left by the abandoned formation. Kong, who had failed to become a front line, also withdrew from the front line in December, marched to a nearby station, and loaded all the supplies, machine guns, ammunition reserves, and horses in the regiment onto the train. , Heading towards the hinterland of Russia where a fierce civil war has broken out... The chariots of the twelfth regiment passed through the Ukraine and headed for the Don.Near Znamenka, the Red Guards wanted to disarm the regiment.Negotiations went on for half an hour.Koshevoi and five other Cossacks, representatives of the revolutionary committees of the respective companies, demanded that they be let go with their weapons. "What do you want weapons for?" asked the members of the Station Soviet of Engineers' Deputies. "Go and fight our own bourgeoisie and generals! Go and cut off Kaledin's tail!" Koshevoy replied on behalf of all of them who had come to negotiate. "Our weapons belong to the army and cannot be handed over!" The Cossacks became excited. The troop was released.In Kremenchug they were to be disarmed again.It was only when the Cossack machine gunners set their machine guns on the open door of the carriage and aimed at the station, and a company dismounted and spread out, lying behind the embankment ready to fight, that they were allowed to pass.But when Ekaterinoslav was approaching, it was useless to shoot at each other with the Red Guard troops for a while-the regiment was still partially disarmed: the machine guns were handed over, and a hundred Boxes of ammunition, several military telephones, and spools of telephone wire.The Cossacks rejected the proposal to arrest the officers.Only one officer was lost along the way—Chilkovsky, the adjutant of the regimental headquarters. The Cossacks themselves sentenced him to death, and the "guoquaner" and a Red Guard sailor were responsible for carrying out the sentence.On the evening of December 17, at the Signernikovo station, the Cossacks dragged the adjutant out of the carriage. "Is he the one who betrayed the Cossacks?" the pockmarked black sea soldier with a Mauser in his hand and a Japanese-made rifle on his back asked happily. "Do you think——we will admit the wrong person? No, we will not be wrong, everyone has already beaten him up!" "Guoquaner" said out of breath.The adjutant was a young captain. He was looking around like a captured wild animal, rubbing his hair with his sweaty palms. He was completely indifferent to the severe cold piercing his face and the pain from the butt of his gun. "Guoquaner" and the sailors pushed him away from the carriage. "It's because of these bastards that people rose up to riot, to rise up to revolution... Hey-hey, my dear, don't move, or you will be broken," "Guoquaner" said muttered, took off his hat, and made the sign of the cross. "Be brave, sir Captain!" "Are you ready?" the sailor asked the "pot ring" with a smile while playing with his musket, showing his white teeth. "Ready!" "Pot Circle" made another sign of the cross, and squinting, the sailor spread his legs, raised his musket, narrowed his eyes intently, and—with a stern smile—shot first.Near Chaprino, the regiment inadvertently took part in the fighting between the Anarchists and the Ukrainians, sacrificed three Cossacks, and with great difficulty cleared the railway line occupied by the chariots of an infantry division, and broke out Encircled. After three days and nights, the vanguard of the team had unloaded at Millerovo Station.The rest are still stranded in Luhansk. By the time they reached Culkin Village, only half of the team was left (the rest went home from the station).The next day the spoils were auctioned: the horses taken from the Austrians brought back from the front, the regiment's public funds and clothing divided. In the evening, Koshevoi and several other Cossacks from the Tatar village set off for home.They climbed the hill.At the foot of the mountains lies the most beautiful village of Culkin on the upper Don, in the frozen, white bend of the Chill.Puffs of soft smoke rose from the chimneys of the steam mill; the square was darkly crowded; the bells for Vespers sounded.Beyond the Kalkin Hill, the tops of willow trees in the village of Klimovsky can be seen faintly; farther away, behind the wormwood-like blue-gray snowy horizon, the dazzling sunset reddened the smoky western half of the sky. After the eighteen riders passed the mound where three hoarfrost-covered wild apple trees stood, the horses trotted, their saddles creaking, and galloped northeast.Han Ye quietly hid behind the hills.Cossacks wrapped their long-eared hoods tightly, and sometimes galloped on horses.Horseshoes are crisp, piercing, and heartbreaking.The paved avenue was heading south under the horseshoes; on both sides of the avenue was a piece of thin ice formed by puddles of melted snow not long ago, and the frozen grass stalks on the ice flickered like white streams of fire under the moonlight. The Cossack silently urged the horse forward.The avenue stretches south.The woods of Oak Gutter swirled to the east.The strange pattern of the hare's footprints flashed beside the horse's hooves.The Milky Way is like a carved Cossack belt, gorgeously tied on the night sky of the grassland.