by Tony Roberts
Casca wasn’t convinced. “What of the Germans? They’re coming this way and there’s nothing to stop them.”
“They are being monitored, Comrade. Do not worry unduly about that. The orders are to drive the Cossacks into the hills.”
Casca sort of understood. The Germans would be present only insofar as long as the Great War was going on. The Cossacks, well this was their home. The Bolsheviks clearly wanted them gone. They were kitted up, assembled near the marshalling yard of the railway, just to the north of the station. The River Don was just on the other side of the station, tree-lined, with the railway crossing it on a bridge made of iron, a double-humped design construction.
On the other side of the river the land was flat and the horizon wide in that special way it was on the Steppes. A sea of green flowed before them, shrubs and trees. They walked along the rail lines, a long disorderly line of brown, wearing their regulation Russian army caps and their greatcoats rolled up and wrapped diagonally around their bodies from left shoulder to right hip.
The irony was, when the Russian army was disintegrating, it was better equipped than at any time in the war. Now the ordnance that had come to the city supply depots were in the hands of the Reds and so they were pretty well armed and with decent uniforms.
Casca noticed among the soldiers a growing prevalence of the ‘Tatar’ cap, a peaked cloth cap with side flaps. A big red star sat on the front just to remind everyone of their loyalty and who they belonged to.
They had machine guns which the Cossacks lacked, and artillery. Colonel Yegorov was in charge of the 1st Army, and they had a mixture of units under his command. Red Guards from Moscow, including some Latvians, the Donbas Red Guards, a mixture of Russians, Ukrainians and Jews, the Petrograd Red Guard, their elite hard core made up of Russians and Latvians, and some Red Cossacks, men who had thrown their lot in with the Bolsheviks. They also had the Bryansk battery and an armored train as support.
The land to the south of Rostov was flat and even, and much of it was farmland. Ahead was land occupied by the Cossacks and they were dug in, across a narrow winding stream. The artillery got into position to the rear while the infantry lay down behind rows of shrubs and hedges.
The prospect of attacking wasn’t good; open ground beyond the undergrowth to the watercourse, which looked a little too wide to jump. They would have to ford it, into the teeth of rifle fire. The men stared out across to the Cossack positions. They were hardy men, dressed in the green uniform they favored with dark blue trousers and long boots. Their horses would be to the rear, ready to mount up on.
“So what are they armed with?” Casca asked, turning to Kirilov who was hunkered down next to the eternal mercenary.
“Rifles. A couple of machine guns, but not enough to worry us.”
“Alright.” They watched as their own machine guns were unpacked, set up and prepared. The plan was to bombard the Cossack lines with artillery, spray the positions with machine gun fire, then order a grand charge. The Cossacks had to be thrown back and Rostov freed from their presence.
The eternal mercenary waited as the Reds got themselves organized, then the artillery opened up, ranging down shells initially too far, then they corrected themselves and began to hit the Cossack positions. The bombardment went on for ten minutes, then the machine-guns opened up with a short blast of bullets that peppered and sprayed the far bank, then the shout went up to attack.
Casca crammed his cap on his head, rose up, and yelled encouragement to the men around him, rifle in both hands, bayonet pointing wickedly ahead. The line of Bolsheviks burst out from cover and ran hard towards the twenty-foot wide river, plunging into the shallows by the reed-lined bank. Some Cossacks were shooting, having survived the barrage, but destruction was evident all along the other bank.
The river itself was discolored due to the disturbed earth and flora, and a few bodies floated downstream, their blood staining the water further. Men churned up the mud as they waded into the water, yelling and screaming, and Casca shook his head at the crazy head-on rush into rifle fire.
He grabbed a squad of men pushing at the men in front to get into the water. “Line up on the bank! Kneel. Shoot the Cossacks! Our comrades need covering fire!”
The men obeyed with alacrity, seeing a commissar organizing them with such force. Ten men lined up and began shooting at the Cossacks over the heads of the men struggling in the water. Casca joined them and sighted on an enemy soldier reloading, his beard big and black. Casca knew the sights on his rifle were accurate; a soldier worth it would have made sure of that before the battle. He fleetingly wondered how many others here had thought of that? He centered his sights on the man, guessed it was twenty yards, so almost point-blank range.
His shot smashed into the man’s head and blew it apart. Reload, working the bolt action. Five shot magazine. Four left. Swing left slightly. Another Cossack busy blasting at the Reds churning up the water. He hit two men while Casca steadied himself, then shot the man through the sternum. Casca was so close he even saw the impact on the shirt. The Cossack flung his arms up and fell backwards.
Bullets came spitting at them. Someone had seen the effect the men on the bank were having, and others on the Bolshevik side now began copying, seeing the slaughter in the river. The Cossacks shot back and for a while it was even, then the machine guns were brought up. Under covering fire they loaded and began spraying the bank, cutting the Cossacks down in swathes.
Casca got to his feet. “That’s it! Come on, while they’re disorganized!”
With a roar the Reds jumped into the water and plowed their way across, pulling corpses out of their way as they got to the far bank. Shedding water, they climbed up through the reeds and mud and onto the bank. Cossacks littered the ground and a few were running away, trying to get to their horses.
Two came for Casca, hatred etched on their faces. One shot took the right-hand man through the chest and then Casca was locked in a pushing match with a big Cossack who had lost his hat. Rifles before each other, pressed against each. Casca’s left leg was not secure and he felt it begin to slide, so he used one of Shiu Lao Tze’s moves on the man. He pushed hard with his left arm, then suddenly let go and half-turned.
The Cossack, who’d been pushing hard to counter Casca’s move, was suddenly pitched forward. Casca helped him on his way by letting go with one hand and grabbing his opponent by the collar and sending him up and over his left thigh.
The Cossack landed on his back on the bank. Before he could get to his feet Casca’s bayonet was through his ribs.
The eternal mercenary turned and got up away from the bank. The ground here was churned up from the shelling and pieces of human could be seen in and among the debris of smashed trees and foliage. With more Reds climbing up out of the water the Cossacks were being pushed back and suddenly they broke and fled.
Casca leveled his rifle at the back of a man running away, then lowered it. Not his style, shooting men that way. He looked around. The Bolshevik soldiers were screaming madly, jubilant they had forced the position, and pursued the beaten Cossacks.
Nakarov appeared, his coat undone, flapping in the breeze. “Ho, Comrade! Another glorious victory for the revolution, mm?”
Casca grinned. Nakarov’s ironic humor appealed to him. “Indeed. Just in time to retreat from Rostov before the Germans arrive, eh?”
“Ah, Comrade, you know it all too well. I have it on good authority we’re going to beat it out of there before long. The Cheka and the Soviet are already packing up their documents and have commandeered a train tomorrow morning for Voronezh.”
“About time. We’re stuck out on a limb here.”
The big Russian chuckled. “Ah, but there’s a shortage of trains. We’re going to have to march to Novocherkassk before we can get a train to Tsaritsyn. We’re in a squeeze, see,” he put both hands out and made claws out of them, coming together. “The Germans here, and the combined Cossack-Free Army of Deniken here.”
“The
Germans won’t push on much further from here,” Casca said. “They’re only here to secure a Ukraine free of Bolshevik forces. So what about elsewhere?”
Nakarov shrugged, putting an arm around Casca’s shoulders and walking off with him towards the river. “Well, things are not really settled yet with revolts springing up all over the place but the local Soviets are able to put them down without much trouble. No, our main problem comes from the Whites. If we can keep Deniken and his army from linking up with the others around the Urals then we’ll be fine. Once the Germans have gone we’ll have an easy advance back into the Ukraine.”
Casca could only agree with the commissar. The UPR was only able to keep going with German help. Once the Germans went then the fledgling Ukrainian state would collapse.
Kirilov appeared once the two men had re-crossed the river. “Orders are to return to Rostov,” he said, holding up a message. “We’re to oversee the retreat and make sure the Germans don’t overrun us.”
“Great,” Casca groaned. “A fighting withdrawal.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was typical of the war for Russia. Although able to defeat the local forces, the Bolsheviks were outmaneuvered by larger forces and had to retreat when threatened from the flank.
The Germans toppled the UPR and installed a Hetmanate under a more compliant leader who was to ensure supplies of wheat went to Germany. This though only served to foster resentment from the peasantry and the revolutionary movement was quashed under the gun barrels of the Germans. Ukrainian discontent simmered.
The retreat from Rostov was chaotic. With the flight of the Soviet and Cheka, the soldiers were left to organize their own retreat. News came that the Cossacks had beaten them to Novocherkassk and they were in danger of being cut off.
Casca used his position of influence to encourage the soldiers to back his calls for a quick march north out of the doomed city, and Muravyov had the same idea, not that there was much choice. The soldiers commandeered every truck in Rostov, no matter what state it was in, and piled in on a huge convoy, driving north towards Lugansk.
They rumbled north along the road, now hard enough not to be a sea of mud with the early May sun doing its work. It would have been a disaster if the roads had been impassable with the mud, the Rasputitsa, which would have isolated them and made them easy prey for the Germans to the west and the Cossacks to the east.
Even so, they had to move north quickly. They burned anything they thought would be of use to the enemy and piled out along the one road left free from the enemy. The main problem was that the direct route to Lugansk was through Novocherkassk which was now in Cossack hands.
Kirilov was a big help. He had a large, mud-splattered, dog-eared map, which dated to pre-war days, but the roads would be still the same. At a stop to allow the stragglers to catch up – some of the vehicles were in a poor state – he pressed the map over the hood of the truck and jabbed a stubby finger down on their road. “Here we are. Ahead,” and he nodded at the wide open terrain before them, a flat expanse of land punctuated by rows of trees in the distance, “are the Cossacks. We must then turn off left before we get to them. I think they would not eagerly press forward to intercept us, as we can easily beat them.”
“No, but they can block our way.” Casca looked at the thin squiggles that denoted roads. “So here? This little village?”
Kirilov nodded. “We turn left here, travel as fast as we can up this road – it’s a side road so it’ll be in far worse shape than the one we’re on now – up to Lugansk that way, and hope we haven’t been beaten to it.”
The word was passed down to all the drivers, fifteen of them, and they set off once more. They came to the village and the inhabitants ran indoors, shutting them and bolting them. Casca couldn’t blame them. After the shortages of the war, now to have fighting factions scrapping it out over their land wasn’t good. Cossacks, Bolsheviks, Ukrainians, and soon, probably, Germans. He pitied them.
They came to the turning and roared down this smaller route, bumping, shaking, rattling along. Casca thought his teeth were going to fall out. That was something. A few times in the past he’d had his teeth knocked out, yet the following morning new ones had grown in their place. The Curse kept him in one piece. He guessed that if it did that after being burned, then a little thing like teeth would be no bother to it.
They saw horsemen on the horizon to the right. Cossacks. They watched the convoy make its way north. Casca peered out of his cab in the passenger’s seat and surveyed them. Would they bring their comrades from the newly-captured city and try to cut them off? They could move faster across country for sure, and even on the roads they had the edge, but the trucks had staying power.
They left the horsemen behind but Casca saw one or two wheel about and go galloping off. Clearly going to report their presence.
The following day, after they had spent the night camped on the roadside, they were once again on the move towards their destination. It was reckoned they’d get there maybe the following morning. They had gone about twelve miles when shots rang out from the right. Casca peered back and saw Cossacks riding towards them, in a long wide arc, shooting at the trucks.
Casca swung to the driver. “Pull over, stop!” He banged on the partition behind him. “Out! Out! Ambush!”
He pushed the driver out and followed through his door, being away from the side the Cossacks were shooting from. “Get under cover!” he yelled to the men piling out of the back of the truck. The trucks in front and behind also stopped, in a line. Casca cursed. Too damned easy for the Cossacks to shoot at them all!
He scuttled to the next truck. Grabbing the driver he barked at the man to swing it to the left slightly. Giving him covering fire, he got the soldiers to lay down a barrage of shots, keeping the Cossacks away from them. The truck behind he then got to swing the other way, and waved the next truck to swing off onto the countryside and form protection to the soldier’s right.
With bullets striking the vehicles, Casca realized the Cossacks were trying to destroy the trucks. He yelled at the men to keep up the shooting. With the majority of the trucks now arranged in a large circle – a laager – he had recreated the experience he’d had at Blood River, less than a century before, when he and the Boer Kommandos had defended a similar position against the Zulus.
He also had a fleeting memory of Little Big Horn, when the Sioux and Cheyenne had overwhelmed the 7th Cavalry, and Casca had been amongst the last to fall there. Kirilov was organizing the men to the right while another captain was doing the same to the left. Casca wanted Nakarov to be there with him but he’d gone with the other company earlier. They were the rearguard and the ones that would get any grief that came their way, and here it was.
“They’re trying to destroy the trucks. Keep shooting at the bastards!”
The Cossacks had dismounted and were now creeping forward, rifles aimed for the tires and petrol tanks of the vehicles. Casca knelt by the front of one truck, feeling the heat emanating from the engine, and sighted along his barrel at one enemy who was drawing a bead on some target.
Casca’s shot took him through the head and the Cossack was flung backwards. He heard hissing and realized the engine cover had been hit and the radiator was damaged. Cursing the Cossacks he kept a steady stream of shots rattling out, sometimes getting near an enemy, but it was difficult to get an accurate aim unless he exposed himself.
Reload. He was behind the cab so he was not in danger of being hit. The liaison officer came over to him. “We’ve got trouble,” he said, “Comrade Commissar. Two trucks are already beyond repair.”
“What I feared. Alright, we have little choice but to attack.”
“Attack?” Kirilov said in surprise. “But we’ll be shot down!”
“We’ll be dead if we stay like this, Comrade Captain! Get the men arranged in three groups. One to the right, one to the left and the rest spread out in the center here. The center are to provide support fire, keeping those assholes’ he
ads down. The left and right will fan out to their side, then move in from the flanks. Between them they should crush the Cossacks.”
Kirilov shrugged. It was as good an idea as any. “But who will lead each unit?”
“I’ll take the right. You hold the center here, and make sure the soldiers shoot fast and accurately. The other captain takes the left. Go tell him.”
He shouldn’t really have been giving orders but his position as commissar gave him extra status and he’d already shown he was more than just an exceptional soldier. But then with two thousand years’ experience of fighting, that should be no surprise.
He moved at a crouching run to the right and formed his thirty men into a loose line. “Now comrades, our task is to outflank the enemy, and not to get caught. So you move in a long loose line with spaces in between. Run, drop. Run, drop. Got it?”
The soldiers nodded, eager to impress the commissar. After all, he represented the revolution, that which had freed them from tsarist tyranny. Casca’s lips twisted sardonically at his own sense of irony. Poor bastards. Cannon fodder to whoever runs the country.
He looked across to the other side and the captain there indicated he was ready. Casca glanced back along the line of shooting Cossacks, still trying to destroy the trucks. He nodded to Kirilov who got his men to start shooting like crazy at the Cossacks. On the opening of the barrage, both wings of Casca’s plan burst out from cover, racing in a long straggling line towards a ditch by the roadside he’d identified as their target.
Some bullets came their way and two men were hit but the rest made it and now took up positions at the lip of the ditch and began shooting into the left flank of the enemy. Over to the other side the same was happening and the Cossacks were suddenly being shot at from three directions.
Casca pushed his cap back from his forehead and squinted down the barrel of his rifle. Sighting on a Cossack frantically reloading, he shot him through the chest. The Cossack shuddered and flopped to the ground.
