Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  In July the Russian advance had slowed, dragged back as always by lack of supplies. But now the Guard Army had arrived as reinforcements. The Guards were an elite group, the tallest and fittest of Russian soldiers. Unlike the rest of the army they had fine uniforms—dark green with gold braid—and new boots. But they had a poor commander, General Bezobrazov, another courtier. Grigori felt that Bezobrazov would not take Kovel, no matter how tall the guards were.

  It was Major Azov who brought the orders at dawn. He was a tall, heavy man in a tight uniform, and as usual his eyes were red this early in the morning. With him was Lieutenant Kirillov. The lieutenant summoned the sergeants and Azov told them to ford the river and follow the footpaths through the swamp toward the west. The Austrians were emplaced in the swamp, though not entrenched: the ground was too soggy for trenches.

  Grigori could see a disaster in the making. The Austrians would be lying in wait, behind cover, in positions they had been able to choose with care. The Russians would be concentrated on the pathways and would not be able to move quickly on the boggy ground. They would be massacred.

  In addition, they were low on bullets.

  Grigori said: “Your Highness, we need an issue of ammunition.”

  Azov moved fast for a fat man. Without warning he punched Grigori in the mouth. Burning pain flared in Grigori’s lips and he fell back. “That will keep you quiet for a while,” Azov said. “You’ll get ammunition when your officers say you need it.” He turned to the others. “Form up in lines and advance when you hear the signal.”

  Grigori got to his feet, tasting blood. Touching his face gingerly, he found he had lost a front tooth. He cursed his carelessness. In an absentminded moment he had stood too close to an officer. He should have known better: they lashed out at the slightest provocation. He was lucky Azov had not been holding a rifle, or it would have been the butt that struck Grigori in the face.

  He called his platoon together and got them in a ragged line. He planned to hold back and let others get ahead, but to his disappointment, Azov sent his company off early, and Grigori’s platoon was among the leaders.

  He would have to think of something else.

  He waded into the river and the thirty-five men of his platoon followed. The water was cold but the weather was sunny and warm, so the men did not much mind getting wet. Grigori moved slowly, and his men did the same, staying behind him, waiting to see what he would do.

  The Stokhod was broad and shallow, and they reached the far side without getting wet above their thighs. They had already been overtaken by keener men, Grigori saw with satisfaction.

  Once on the narrow path through the swamp Grigori’s platoon had to go at the same pace as everyone else, and he could not carry out his plan of falling behind. He began to worry. He did not want his men to be part of this crowd when the Austrians opened fire.

  After they had gone a mile or so the path narrowed again and the pace slowed as the men ahead squeezed into single file. Grigori saw an opportunity. As if impatient with the delay, he moved off the path into the watery mud. The rest of his men quickly followed suit. The platoon behind moved up and closed the gap.

  The water was up to Grigori’s chest, and the mud was glutinous. Walking through the bog was very slow, and—as Grigori had anticipated—his platoon fell behind.

  Lieutenant Kirillov saw what was happening and shouted angrily: “You men there! Get back on the path!”

  Grigori called back: “Yes, Excellency.” But he led his men farther away, as if searching for firmer ground.

  The lieutenant cursed and gave up.

  Grigori was scanning the terrain ahead as carefully as any of the officers, though for a different purpose. They were looking for the Austrian army; he was looking for a place to hide.

  He kept moving forward while letting hundreds of troops overtake him. The Guards are so proud of themselves, he thought; let them do the fighting.

  Around midmorning he heard the first shots from up ahead. The vanguard had engaged the enemy. It was time to take refuge.

  Grigori came to a slight rise where the ground was drier. The rest of Major Azov’s company was now out of sight far ahead. At the top of the rise Grigori shouted: “Take cover! Enemy emplacement ahead to the left!”

  There was no enemy emplacement, and his men knew that, but they got down on the ground, behind bushes and trees, and aimed their rifles across the downside of the slope. Grigori shot one exploratory round into a clump of vegetation five hundred yards away, just in case he had unluckily picked a spot where there really were some Austrians; but no fire was returned.

  They were safe, Grigori thought with satisfaction, as long as they stayed here. As the day wore on, one of two things would happen. Most likely, in a few hours’ time Russian soldiers would come stumbling back through the swamp carrying their wounded, chased by the enemy—in which case Grigori’s platoon would join the retreat. Alternatively, toward nightfall Grigori would conclude that the Russians had won the battle, and take his group forward to join the victory celebrations.

  Meanwhile the only problem was forcing the men to maintain the pretense of engagement with an Austrian emplacement. It was boring to lie on the ground hour after hour staring ahead as if raking the landscape for enemy troops. The men tended to start eating and drinking, smoking, playing cards, or taking naps, which spoiled the illusion.

  But before they had time to get comfortable Lieutenant Kirillov appeared a couple of hundred yards to Grigori’s right on the far side of a pond. Grigori groaned: this could ruin everything. “What are you men doing?” Kirillov shouted.

  “Keep down, Excellency!” Grigori shouted back.

  Isaak fired his rifle into the air, and Grigori ducked. Kirillov ducked too, then retreated back the way he had come.

  Isaak chuckled. “Works every time.”

  Grigori was not so sure. Kirillov had looked annoyed, not pleased, as if he knew he was being fooled but could not decide what to do about it.

  Grigori listened to the boom and clatter and roar of battle up ahead. He thought it was about a mile away, and not moving in any direction.

  The sun rose higher and dried his wet clothing. He began to feel hungry, and gnawed on a piece of hardtack from his ration tin, avoiding the sore place where Azov had knocked out his tooth.

  After the mist had burned off he saw German planes flying low about a mile ahead. Judging by the sound, they were machine-gunning the troops on the ground. The Guards, crowded onto narrow paths or wading through mud, must have made dreadfully easy targets. Grigori was doubly glad he had made sure he and his men were not there.

  Around the middle of the afternoon the sound of battle seemed to come nearer. The Russians were being pushed back. He got ready to order his men to join the fleeing forces—but not yet. He did not want to be conspicuous. Retreating slowly was almost as important as advancing slowly.

  He saw a few scattered men away to his left and right, splashing through the swamp back toward the river, some evidently wounded. The retreat had begun, but the army was not yet in full flight.

  From somewhere nearby he heard a neigh. A horse meant an officer. Grigori immediately fired at imaginary Austrians. His men followed suit, and there was a rattle of scattered fire. Then he looked around and saw Major Azov on a big gray hunter splashing through the mud. Azov was shouting at a group of retreating soldiers, telling them to return to the fray. They argued with him until he drew his pistol, a Nagant revolver—just like Lev’s, Grigori thought irrelevantly—and pointed it at them, whereupon they turned around and reluctantly headed back the way they had come.

  Azov holstered the gun and trotted up to Grigori’s position. “What are you fools doing here?” he said.

  Grigori remained lying on the ground but rolled over and reloaded his rifle, pushing his last five-round clip into place, making a show of haste. “Enemy emplacement in that clump of trees ahead, Your Highness,” he said. “You’d better dismount, sir, they can see you.”

/>   Azov remained on his horse. “So what are you doing—hiding from them?”

  “His Excellency Lieutenant Kirillov told us to take them out. I’ve sent a patrol to come at them from the side while we give covering fire.”

  Azov was not completely stupid. “They don’t seem to be shooting back.”

  “We’ve got them pinned down.”

  He shook his head. “They’ve retreated—if they were ever there in the first place.”

  “I don’t think so, Your Highness. They were blazing away at us a moment ago.”

  “There’s no one there.” Azov raised his voice. “Cease fire! You men, cease fire.”

  Grigori’s platoon stopped shooting and looked at the major.

  “On my signal, charge!” he said. He drew his pistol.

  Grigori was not sure what to do. The battle had clearly been the disaster he had forecast. Having avoided it all day he did not want to risk lives when it was clearly over. But direct conflict with officers was dangerous.

  At that moment, a group of soldiers broke through the vegetation in the place Grigori had been pretending was an enemy emplacement. Grigori stared in surprise. However, they were not Austrians, he saw as soon as he could make out their uniforms; they were retreating Russians.

  But Azov did not change his mind. “Those men are cowardly deserters!” he screeched. “Charge them!” And he fired his pistol at the approaching Russians.

  The men of the platoon were bewildered. Officers often threatened to shoot troops who seemed reluctant to go into battle, but Grigori’s men had never before been ordered to attack their own side. They looked to him for guidance.

  Azov aimed his pistol at Grigori. “Charge!” he screamed. “Shoot those traitors!”

  Grigori made a decision. “Right, men!” he called. He scrambled to his feet. Turning his back to the approaching Russians, he looked to left and right and hefted his rifle. “You heard what the major said!” He swung his rifle, as if turning, then pointed it at Azov.

  If he was going to shoot at his own side, he would kill an officer rather than a soldier.

  Azov stared at him for a frozen moment, and in that second Grigori pulled the trigger.

  His first shot hit Azov’s horse, and it stumbled. That saved Grigori’s life, for Azov fired at him, but the horse’s sudden movement caused the shot to go wide. Automatically, Grigori worked the bolt of his rifle and fired again.

  His second shot missed. Grigori swore. He was in real danger now. But so was the major.

  Azov was struggling with his horse and unable to aim his weapon. Grigori followed his jerky movements with the sight of his rifle, fired a third time, and shot Azov in the chest. He stared as the major slowly fell off his horse. He felt a jolt of grim satisfaction as the heavy body plunged into a muddy puddle.

  The horse walked away unsteadily, then suddenly sat down on its hindquarters like a dog.

  Grigori went up to Azov. The major lay on his back in the mud, looking up, unmoving but still alive, bleeding from the right side of his chest. Grigori looked around. The retreating soldiers were still too far away to see clearly what was going on. His own men were completely trustworthy: he had saved their lives many times. He put the barrel of his rifle against Azov’s forehead. “This is for all the good Russians you’ve killed, you murdering dog,” he said. He grimaced, baring his teeth. “And for my front tooth,” he added, and he pulled the trigger.

  The major went limp and stopped breathing.

  Grigori looked at his men. “The major has unfortunately been killed by enemy fire,” he said. “Retreat!”

  They cheered and began to run.

  Grigori went up to the horse. It tried to rise, but Grigori could see it had a broken leg. He put his rifle to its ear and fired his last round. The horse fell sideways and lay still.

  Grigori felt more pity for the horse than for Major Azov.

  He ran after his retreating men.

  { II }

  After the Brusilov Offensive slowed to a halt, Grigori was redeployed to the capital, now renamed Petrograd because “St. Petersburg” sounded too German. Battle-hardened troops were required to protect the tsar’s family and his ministers from the angry citizens, it seemed. The remains of the battalion were merged with the elite First Machine Gun Regiment, and Grigori moved into their barracks in Samsonievsky Prospekt in the Vyborg District, a working-class neighborhood of factories and slums. The First Machine Guns were well fed and housed, in an attempt to keep them contented enough to defend the hated regime.

  He was happy to be back, and yet the prospect of seeing Katerina filled him with apprehension. He longed to look at her, hear her voice, and hold her baby, his nephew. But his lust for her made him anxious. She was his wife, but that was a technicality. The reality was that she had chosen Lev, and her baby was Lev’s child. Grigori had no right to love her.

  He even toyed with the idea of not telling her he was back. In a city of more than two million people there was a good chance they would never meet by accident. But he would have found that too hard to bear.

  On his first day back he was not allowed out of the barracks. He felt frustrated at not being able to go to Katerina. Instead, that evening he and Isaak made contact with other Bolsheviks at the barracks. Grigori agreed to start a discussion group.

  Next morning his platoon became part of a squad assigned to guard the home of Prince Andrei, his former overlord, during a banquet. The prince lived in a pink-and-yellow palace on the English Embankment overlooking the Neva River. At midday the soldiers lined up on the steps. Low rain clouds darkened the city, but light shone from every window of the house. Behind the glass, framed by velvet curtains like a play at the theater, footmen and maids in clean uniforms hurried by, carrying bottles of wine, platters of delicacies, and silver trays piled with fruit. There was a small orchestra in the hall, and the strains of a symphony could be heard outside. The big shiny cars drew up at the foot of the steps, footmen hurried to open the car doors, and the guests emerged, the men in their black coats and tall hats, the women swathed in furs. A small crowd gathered on the other side of the street to watch.

  It was a familiar scene, but there was a difference. Every time someone got out of a car the crowd booed and jeered. In the old days, the police would have broken up the mob with their nightsticks in a minute. Now there were no police, and the guests walked as quickly as they could up the steps between the two lines of soldiers and darted in through the grand doorway, clearly nervous of staying long in the open.

  Grigori thought the bystanders were quite right to jeer at the nobility who had made such a mess of the war. If trouble broke out, he would be inclined to take the side of the crowd. He certainly did not intend to shoot at them, and he guessed many of the soldiers felt the same.

  How could noblemen throw lavish parties at a time like this? Half Russia was starving and even the soldiers at the front were on short rations. Men like Andrei deserved to be murdered in their beds. If I see him, Grigori thought, I’m going to have to restrain myself from shooting him the way I shot Major Azov.

  The procession of cars came to an end without incident, and the crowd got bored and drifted off. Grigori spent the afternoon looking hard at the faces of women passing by, eagerly hoping against the odds to see Katerina. By the time the guests began to leave it was getting dark and cold, and no one wanted to stand around on the street, so there was no more booing.

  After the party the soldiers were invited to the back door to eat such of the leftovers as had not been consumed by the household staff: scraps of meat and fish, cold vegetables, half-eaten bread rolls, apples and pears. The food was thrown on a trestle table and unpleasantly mixed up, slices of ham smeared with fish pâté, fruit in gravy, bread dusted with cigar ash. But they had eaten worse in the trenches, and it was a long time since their breakfast of porridge and salt cod, so they tucked in hungrily.

  At no time did Grigori see the hated face of Prince Andrei. Perhaps it was just as well.


  When they had marched back to the barracks and handed in their weapons, they were given the evening off. Grigori was elated: it was his chance to visit Katerina. He went to the back door of the barracks kitchen and begged some bread and meat to take to her: a sergeant had his privileges. Then he shined his boots and went out.

  Vyborg, where the barracks stood, was in the northeast of the city, and Katerina lived diagonally opposite in the southwestern district of Narva, assuming she still had his old room near the Putilov works.

  He walked south along Samsonievsky Prospekt and over the Liteiny Bridge into the city center. Some of the swanky shops were still open, their windows bright with electric light, but many were closed. In the more mundane stores there was little for sale. A baker’s window contained a single cake and a handwritten sign reading: “No bread until tomorrow.”

  The broad boulevard of Nevsky Prospekt reminded him of walking along here with his mother, on that fateful day in 1905 when he had seen her shot down by the tsar’s soldiers. Now he was one of the tsar’s soldiers. But he would not be shooting at women and children. If the tsar tried that now there would be trouble of a different kind.

  He saw ten or twelve thuggish young men in black coats and black caps carrying a portrait of Tsar Nicholas as a young man, his dark hair not yet receding, his gingery beard luxuriant. One of them shouted: “Long live the tsar!” and they all stopped, raised their caps, and cheered. Several passersby raised their hats.

  Grigori had encountered such bands before. They were called the Black Hundreds, part of the Union of the Russian People, a right-wing group that wanted to return to the golden age when the tsar was the unchallenged father of his people and Russia had no liberals, no socialists, and no Jews. Their newspapers were financed by the government and their pamphlets were printed in the basement of police headquarters, according to information the Bolsheviks got from their contacts in the police.