Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts

by Dennis Wheatley

  By this time Voroshilov had developed into an extremely capable fighting general. He knew nothing of strategy and tactics as laid down in military manuals, but he had enormous energy and was prodigiously brave. Even the Whites wrote of him in November: ‘One has to give credit where credit is due. Though the former mechanic Voroshilov is no strategist in the generally accepted meaning of the word, it cannot be denied that he has great ability for stubborn resistance and for shock tactics.’

  He showed his presence of mind in many a battle. Over and over again he led the attack on the enemy’s machine-guns himself or rushed in his car to a point in the line where danger threatened to take a hand personally in driving off the Cossacks.

  Nominally he was under the orders of the ex-Czarist General Sytin, and later the ex-Czarist General Vazetis, whom Trotsky had placed in command of the whole south revolutionary front, but he refused to obey their orders and went on fighting in his own inimitable way. Stalin supported him, telling him again and again: ‘You are the Red general for the men, Clim. They know you’re to be trusted and you’re worth a hundred of these treacherous ex-White officers.’

  Trotsky was not slow to see that an opposition of strong determined men was being forged against him in Tzaritsyn. Stalin, Voroshilov, Shchadenko and the rest were not of the Intelligentsia, neither were they international revolutionaries; they were Russian working men who had determined to build a new Russia from their own knowledge of how the Russian people could better work and live. They did not like scribblers and they did not like Jews. Tale bearers whispered that in the mustard manufacturer’s mansion talkers and theorists were despised, and that a real Russian spirit reigned there, including the enjoyment of drink and women. They would not listen to the advice of the ex-White military experts, but were determined to fight their own war in their own way.

  One night when the Tzaritsyn Army Council was in session, in the big ballroom, the Whites were pressing forward and the position was desperate. Instead of sending more shells Trotsky sent an angry telegram from Moscow that the ex-Czarist General Nossovitch was on his way to take over the command.

  Voroshilov was furious. ‘Of course,’ he shouted, ‘we are only partisans. We’ve had no training in military schools and academies, but that fool Trotsky will never learn his lesson and realise that we are more to be relied upon then these ex-Czarists who don’t give a damn for the Revolution and would betray us at the first opportunity.’

  The taciturn Stalin, ever sucking at his pipe, sat slouched over one corner of the table. He took the telegram and scribbled across it: ‘No notice to be taken.’* Voroshilov gave an order to Cherviakov of the Cheka that General Nossovitch was to be arrested immediately he arrived and confined on the black barge in the river. The Council continued its session.

  Autumn drew into winter. Voroshilov had succeeded in straightening one wing of his salient and cleared the railway, opening up communications by train with Moscow. The snow had come, the men were freezing in their trenches, and Mamontov’s Cossacks were still attacking doggedly. Urgent appeals were again made to Trotsky for reinforcements. He promised to send the Eleventh ‘Iron’ Division, but this also failed to arrive. When it reached Novakhopersk, the much praised ‘Iron’ Division with its two brigades of 35 guns and 100 machine-guns, under the command of officers just released by Trotsky’s express orders from the Nizhniy Novgorod Cheka, unfurled its banners and went straight over to the Whites.

  ‘We must send cavalry that we can trust against Mamontov,’ said Voroshilov, ‘but where the devil are we to get it? Doumenko is a good fighter, but he’s cunning and we can’t depend upon him. If he were to find Mamontov too hard a nut to crack he might quite well take his men over to the enemy. We know from the Cheka report that Krasnov wrote him a letter promising forgiveness if he would. You, Shchadenko, keep a sharp eye on Doumenko. Send him reinforcements, but see that there are plenty of trustworthy politicals among them. There’s one fellow called Budenny, a great big chap with an enormous moustache, an ex-sergeant of the dragoons. I noticed him the other day; he’s bold and reliable. Send him, and make him responsible for Doumenko’s good conduct.’

  It was in that way that Budenny, who afterwards became famous as the great cavalry leader and was christened ‘The Red Murat’, first came to prominence through that eagle-eyed picker of men, Voroshilov.

  In spite of the magnificent way in which he was conducting his operations Main Headquarters were constantly sending in complaints of him to Trotsky. ‘Voroshilov will not obey orders. Voroshilov does not reply to questions. Voroshilov has arrested General Nossovitch whom you sent to supersede him in his command.’ Trotsky sent frantic telegrams to Tzaritsyn but Stalin tore them up.

  In the Kremlin, however,s Lenin was growing anxious. Could Voroshilov’s ‘resistance of the people’ continue to withstand the strategy of the White generals? Had the ill-favoured‘Koba’ Stalin succeeded in giving this ‘resistance’ a renewed strength?

  From the Headquarters of Vazetis Trotsky sent telegram after telegram to the inscrutable Lenin who had not yet pronounced in favour of either party, and ended up with one which read: ‘Imperatively insist upon the recall of Stalin. Tzaritsyn is in a bad way although we have a preponderance of man-power there. Voroshilov is capable of commanding a regiment but not a force of 5,000 men. I have ordered him to send me reports of operations and reconnaissances twice daily. If this is not done tomorrow I shall have him court-martialled’

  It seemed as if Trotsky had won this internal war, for Lenin recalled Stalin to Moscow and Trotsky went down by train himself to Tzaritsyn to tackle Voroshilov.

  Trotsky’s train drew up in one of the stations beside that of Stalin who was proceeding in the opposite direction, to Moscow. Stalin got out of his train and slouched across to Trotsky’s carriage. The War Minister was there surrounded by his staff of commissars and ci-devant officers. Stalin stood in the doorway wearing a worn soldier’s coat, a dirty cap and unclean top-boots. The splenetic journalist rounded on him, crying: ‘I must have a Left Wing to the Southern Front that I can depend on. I must have it. I will have it. I will have it at all costs.’

  Stalin leaned against the door jamb, a faintly insolent smile in his lazy oriental eyes. He sucked at his pipe and spat: ‘But surely, Comrade Trotsky, you don’t intend to get rid of all the leaders at Tzaritsyn, do you? I shouldn’t try that if I were you. They’re good fellows.’

  ‘These “good” fellows will ruin the Revolution,’ raged Trotsky ‘and the Revolution can’t wait for them to grow up. I don’t know yet who I shall get rid of, but somebody’s got to go. There’s one thing I insist on, Comrade Stalin, and that is the inclusion of Tzaritsyn in Soviet Russia. Do you understand? Whoever is in command there must take his orders from me,’

  Stalin screwed up his yellow eyes, shrugged his sloping shoulders and left the carriage.

  When Trotsky’s train steamed into besieged Tzaritsyn a few hours later Voroshilov did not come to the station to meet him. He was busy and in his place he sent his reckless adherent, the artful, heavy-browed, squint-eyed Political Commissar Shchadenko, the ex-tailor. While Shchadenko was feeling out the lie of the land Voroshilov was raging up and down his room at Headquarters swearing in good Russian at Trotsky, the ex-Menshevik who had only come over to the party eighteen months before. He cursed him for a miserable cosmopolitan émigré who had not set eyes on Russia for years yet dared to come here and threaten to sweep out the real Russians who had made the Revolution; for a meddling Jew who had the insolence to talk of replacing them by treacherous Czarist generals.

  When Trotsky arrived Voroshilov received him in the room where the Army Council sittings were held. He had with him his chief of staff and Trotsky was accompanied by his secretary. Voroshilov had just returned from a visit to the northern sector of his front; he was clad in his usual leather jacket, girt round with a strap and had a Mauser pistol at his side. He had thrown his felt cloak over the back of a chair.

  The two men
differed in every way; in culture, in mind, in habit of thought, in temperament as well as in appearance. The one, a typical Jew with a sharp, rather cruel face and oriental head of black wavy hair over a big forehead; the other a typical broad-nosed, square-jawed Russian workman, with a cleft chin and blue eyes as hard as ice.

  When they were seated Trotsky took off his glasses, wiped them carefully and spoke: ‘In my quality of President of the Army Soviet, Comrade Voroshilov, I consider it my duty first of all to put one cardinal question to you. Do you consider it necessary for the victory of the Revolution to obey implicityly all the orders of the Commander in Chief?’

  Voroshilov drew his eyebrows together; ‘I consider it necessary to obey such orders as I recognise to be right.’ He stared with open hostility in front of him and his fingers drummed upon the butt of the automatic in his belt.

  This was something very different to the reception Trotsky had been used to from other revolutionary generals. ‘Comrade Voroshilov,’ he said, ‘in my quality of President of the Army Soviet responsible for all fronts of the Republic, I must bring to your notice that unless, here and now, you undertake in future unconditionally to obey all orders and carry out all operations as instructed, I shall send you under guard to Moscow to be tried by the revolutionary tribunal.’

  ‘What!’ shouted Voroshilov, springing up and kicking away his chair from under him. ‘I’m no diplomat,Comrade Trotsky. I go straight to the point. While I’m in command at Tzaritsyn I will obey all orders I consider suitable. I’m in a better position here on the spot to judge than either you or the C. in C. Vazetis at Headquarters. You sent me a White general and where is he now; this Nossovitch? I arrested him on his arrival as a suspect, instead of having him shot as I should have done. At your order I let him free and like the snake he is he has deserted to the Whites with all his staff and all the confidential papers of one of your armies. That’s the man you would have liked me to hand over my command to. As for the tribunal—all right. I’m a Bolshevik and a Bolshevik of older standing than you. I’ve no fear of any tribunal. I’ve worked in the Cheka myself. Let them judge me.’

  Trotsky’s sickly face went white with rage. ‘You fool,’ he sneered, ‘the time for guerilla warfare is over. If we keep on as we have in the past, the train of the Revolution is going to crash. As for the desertion of Nossovitch, are you sure he didn’t go over to the Whites because you put him in the hands of the Cheka instead of letting him do the work he was sent here to do? He didn’t desert while he was with Sytin. D’you know how many military specialists we’ve won over to our cause? Thirty thousand! Would you replace them all by untrained worker partisans?’

  Voroshilov banged the table with his clenched fist. ‘I know how many Don Basin workmen broke through the hornet’s nest of Cossack armies with me. I know how much real heroism was shown by these plain people uneducated in military finesse. They’ll fight like devils under me, but they won’t fight under your ex-Czarist generals and colonels whom they’ve every reason to distrust.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ sneered Trotsky, and he stamped from the room.

  That night Trotsky, stretched on a sofa in his room upstairs, said to his secretary: ‘I can see that Stalin has been very clever here in choosing all the people with corns that have been trodden on; but I know how to deal with them.’ He laughed, and went on to mention whom he would dismiss and whom he would replace by whom in Tzaritsyn. But Trotsky did not send Voroshilov under guard to Moscow, nor did Voroshilov submit to Trotsky.

  In the meantime Stalin had arrived in Moscow and seen Lenin. Next morning a telegram was handed to Trotsky from the master of them all which read, ‘Stalin has arrived today, bringing with him the news of three great victories to our arms at Tzaritsyn. He has persuaded Voroshilov and the rest of those whom he considers valuable and even irreplaceable to remain on and in future work with heaquarters. In Stalin’s view the sole reason for their dissatisfaction is the extreme delay in your delivery of munitions to them. That is also why the Caucasian army of 20,000 excellently disposed men is being destroyed. In bringing these statements of Stalin’s to your notice I ask you to think them over and reply, firstly, whether you are willing to have a heart-to-heart talk with him yourself, for which he is quite prepared to come to you, and secondly. whether you think it is possible under certain stated conditions to put aside all former misunderstanding and to arrange to work together, which is what Stalin so much desires. As for me, I am of the opinion that is it absolutely necessary to do all in your power to attain co-operation with Stalin.’

  Trotsky knew that Stalin had beaten him for the moment, but he was not resigned to accept total defeat, and without seeing Voroshilov again he wired to the Kremlin: ‘Agree to meet Stalin, but to leave Voroshilov here after the failure of all attempts at compromise is impossible. We must send a new staff and a new commander to Tzaritsyn. Moving Voroshilov to the Ukraine.

  Party discipline demanded that Voroshilov obey the order. Frowning and cursing, he penned a farewell order in his schoolboy hand to the army of the Red Verdun, calling upon the men to continue stubbornly and mercilessly in the fight to beat the enemy. Gloomily thumping his heavily iron-shod greased boots, he went downstairs to the staff offices and threw the order to a typist to copy. Immediately afterwards he set out for Moscow with his personal entourage and Caterina Davydovna.

  In Moscow he found that the representative of the Tazritsyn army, a sailor named Zhivoder, had already been ‘liquidated’ by Trotsky. In Moscow, too, on Voroshilov’s arrival Trotsky’s friend Sosnovsky, the editor of Pravda, published an article under the heading, ‘The Small Defects of our Machinery’. It was a detailed account of one of Voroshilov’s Tzaritsyn orgies when, after a victorious battle, the commander of the army, accompanied by his friends, had galloped madly about the town in three spanking troikas with women and, in one of the villages outside, had danced the trepak, made a row and finished up by smacking somebody’s face; which performance, so the article ran, brought grave discredit upon the Soviet State.

  Voroshilov was furious. ‘All right,’ he stormed, ‘I did smack somebody’s face. And drank. And kicked up the devil’s own row in the company of women! Well, and what then? Do I cease to be a man just because I command an army?’ But on the advice of his friends he wrote a refutation to Pravda, saying that nothing of the kind had ever happened, and that all this talk was sheer invention on the part of counter-revolutionaries.

  For the moment Trotsky, the scribbler and windbag, had bested him; but only for the moment. Lenin had known him and trusted him for many a year. ‘Koba’ Stalin, the round-shouldered, shrewd-brained Georgian who was the power behind the throne, had worked and fought with him for many months and realised his capabilities. The army that he had led out of the death-trap in the Ukraine to the shelter of Tzaritsyn would have died for him to a man. The soldiers who had defended the Red Verdun with him had adored him for his bravery. Even the ex-White officers who had come over to the Reds admired the splendid vigour of his tactics and to the fighting workers he was still one of themselves, yet gifted beyond them all. From June to December, unaided by experienced military commanders, he had held the Red Verdun against the Cossack hordes. Whatever might happen now, Voroshilov would go down to history as the man who had hung out in the ‘salient of death’ on the southern front, fed Moscow, and saved the Revolution.

  STORY XIX

  To close this series of tales and oddments I give the first of my stories ever to appear in print.

  In the autumn of 1932 my agent had been putting out a few of my earliest efforts for some weeks when, one day, he telephoned to me to say that the great George Doran would like to see me to discuss one of these stories if I was prepared to make certain alterations to it.

  George Doran was one of the mightiest powers in the American publishing world but he had been living over here for some time as the governing editor of Nash’s Magazine and numerous other productions.

  On arriving at the S
avoy I was shown up to his luxurious flat on the top floor of the hotel. He was in bed for he had not been very well, he said. I have rarely seen a more distinguished-looking man and he reminded me irresistibly of the old-world American diplomat one used sometimes to see in the early plays of this century.

  He scarcely mentioned my story. It was clear that he had only sent for me because he wished to see what I was like. For over an hour he talked, giving me many invaluable hints out of his vast experience in literary matters, then sent me away as happy as a sandboy (whatever that may be) in the knowledge that my first published work was to receive the double crown of appearing both in Nash’s here and in the Cosmopolitan in the States.

  Before closing this volume I would like to wish any of its readers who have literary ambitions as happy and fortunate an interview with the first editor who asks to meet them as I had with the great George Doran.

  The Snake

  I didn’t know Carstairs at all well, mind you, but he was our nearest neighbour and a stranger to the place. He’d asked me several times to drop in for a chat, and that week-end I’d been saddled with a fellow called Jackson.

  He was an engineer who had come over from South America to report on a mine my firm were interested in. We hadn’t got much in common and the talk was getting a bit thin, so on the Sunday evening I thought I’d vary the entertainment by looking up Carstairs and taking Jackson with me.

  Carstairs was pleased enough to see us; he lived all on his own but for the servants. What he wanted with a big place like that I couldn’t imagine, but that was his affair. He made us welcome and we settled down in comfortable arm-chairs to chat.