The Red Gods

by Christopher Nicole

  Colin spread the map before them and they bent over it. “There,” he said. “That is sixty miles south-east of the town.”

  “And would Colonel Zhivkov be in possession of a radio?”

  “Good lord, no! We have not sufficient for isolated outposts.”

  “I would have thought isolated outposts would need them more than anyone else,” Joseph remarked. “However, Your Highness, if the message had to be relayed some fifty miles on horseback, and then took an hour and a half to be transmitted here...that contact with the enemy must have been made this morning. Several hours ago. Thus we have no idea what the situation is now.”

  “Hm,” Alexei remarked, stroking his chin. “I take your point, Joseph. On the other hand, Zhivkov does not report that the Reds are in any strength.”

  “Seven hours ago, sir.” He peered at the map. “Sector T Four appears to be nearer to the railway line than you are here, Your Highness.”

  Alexei sat up and peered at the map. “Hm,” he commented again. “But I do not believe they have a general capable of thinking in terms of cutting our lines of communication. Very few Red officers have any military training.” Joseph felt like tearing his hair out by the roots. “Nevertheless,” Alexei said magnanimously. “I think General Krasnov should be informed. You will come with me, Joseph, and I will present you.”

  Predictably, the commanding general occupied the largest hut, and was surrounded by his cronies, playing cards and drinking a great deal of champagne. He was a stocky man with a crisply cut beard, obviously modelled on that of the late tsar or the English King George V. “Ah, Prince Alexei!” Krasnov boomed. “I have been told that we have been joined by a nephew of yours?”

  “Indeed, Your Excellency. This is the young man. Captain Joseph Cromb. My late sister’s son.”

  Joseph saluted, and then shook hands. “You are most welcome, Captain,’ Krasnov said. “Believe me, we all carry the memory of your mother in our hearts, and on our swords, when we go into battle. Sit down, and take a hand. You too, Your Highness.”

  “With respect, Your Excellency, but there is a wireless message just come in which I feel you should see.”

  Krasnov studied the paper. “We knew there were enemy units east of us.”

  “But they have never advanced against us before,” Alexei pointed out.

  “Hm,” Krasnov commented.

  Here we go again, Joseph thought. But at that moment there was a knock on the door, and an orderly stood to attention, panting, face crimson. “Wireless message, sir.”

  Krasnov took it, stared at it, and said, “My God!”

  “Your Excellency?” Every officer present spoke together, except for Joseph. He knew what the message had to say.

  “Colonel Zhivkov’s detachment has been overrun. There are only a few survivors. General Abrikosov is rushing men down from Voronezh to counter-attack, but the survivors of Zhivkov’s battalion are saying the Reds are in vast numbers.”

  “That will have happened several hours ago, Your Excellency,” Joseph ventured. “The Reds mean to cut your communications.”

  Krasnov stared at him as if they had not just been introduced, then turned to Alexei with the same stricken expression. “There is nothing for it, Your Excellency,” Alexei said. “We must retreat to the railhead.” And pray that we get there first, Joseph thought.

  Chapter 3 - The Reconnaissance

  Bugles blew, horses whinnied, men shouted, as the camp was aroused from its evening repose. “Make it plain to all ranks that we are responding to a counter-attack and not retreating,” Krasnov told his senior officers. “But send a radio message to General Wrangel informing him that we are pulling back and that he must do the same to avoid being cut off in Orel.”

  Alexei nodded and hurried back to his office, followed by his two aides. “Should we destroy the buildings, sir?” Joseph asked.

  Alexei glanced at him. “You are right. Everything which cannot be carried with us must be destroyed. But not by fire; that would give away our intentions. In fact, the camp fires must be left burning. Colin, you had best attend to that; Joseph, help me pack up my things.”

  Joseph started accumulating papers, while Alexei’s orderly packed clothes. At least he was travelling light, Joseph reflected. But he was concerned about the noises round him, the curses and obscenities as the officers tried to get their men moving. Certainly he could not imagine this situation arising in the British Army. This army had not yet been defeated. But he would not give much for its chances if it had to fight a battle in the immediate future — which was its officers’ intentions.

  Alexei returned. “They do not wish to believe us, in Orel,” he said. “Well, that is up to them.”

  Joseph was aghast. “Cannot General Krasnov command them to retreat?”

  “General Krasnov has no authority over General Wrangel,” Alexei explained. “Only General Denikin has that. We shall have to inform General Denikin of the situation as soon as we can; he is not presently available, it seems.”

  Joseph scratched his head. One general retreating, the other refusing to retreat, and the commanding general blissfully unaware that his armies were not advancing. That the White forces had got this far had to mean that the Reds were even more disorganised — except for the man who had ordered the counter-attack south of Voronezh! “What are your orders, Your Highness?” he asked his uncle.

  “I intend to command the rearguard,” Alexei told him. “You have my permission to accompany the main body, if you prefer.”

  “I came here to fight beside you, sir.”

  Alexei slapped him on the shoulder. “Then you will do that.”

  “I still feel we should carry out a reconnaissance to the north, Your Highness. It is possible that this attack to the south-east is part of a general Red plan.”

  “You mean you think they have a general capable of planning? But you may be right. There is a squadron of the Actirski Hussars available. I will give you written orders instructing their commanding officer to accompany you, thirty miles to the north of our present position. Thirty miles, Joseph. No farther. You will then report back to me.”

  “Do you think you will still be here, sir?”

  Alexei’s smile was grim. “Yes. It will take several hours to get this army moving.” Several hours during which you could be entirely encircled, Joseph thought. But now it was we rather than you.

  *

  Major Yesinen perused the order, then raised his head. “First we are ordered to prepare to pull out. Now we are ordered to advance? What madness is this?”

  “It is a reconnaissance, Your Honour,” Joseph said. “The General wishes to know if there are any Reds in the vicinity who might interfere with our withdrawal.”

  “Ha!” Yesinen snorted. “There is nothing out there, Captain. Nothing.”

  “All we have to do is make sure of that, Your Honour.”

  Yesinen did not look convinced, but he had received an order and he knew he must carry it out. His men looked even less happy at the prospect of leaving the safety of their comrades. The Actirski Hussars were a famous regiment; Joseph’s great-uncle Georgei had served in them sixty years before and had been killed wearing their uniform while defending Sevastopol. But they, like nearly all the Russian regular regiments, had been torn apart by the Great War followed by the Revolution. The word squadron was decidedly optimistic: only eighty horsemen followed Yesinen and himself out of the encampment and into the mist. “Thirty miles,” Yesinen said, studying the map as he walked his horse. “That is to the village of Yelets. Then we turn back.”

  Joseph was happy with that; Yelets was roughly on a parallel with Orel, although at something like fifty miles to the east. If there were no Reds there, then the withdrawal should be carried out without interference. They had left the encampment just after midnight, and after an hour Yesinen commanded his men to dismount and walk their horses for an hour. This was sound leadership, but Joseph saw that almost every trooper had with him a flask
of vodka from which he took liberal swigs. Yesinen observed his junior’s concern. “It is a Russian tradition, to drink, and fight,” he remarked. “It is not so in the British Army, eh?”

  “No,” Joseph agreed. “It is not so.”

  Yesinen guffawed. “The British Army fights on tea, so I have been told.” They mounted again and continued to alternate riding with walking until dawn, which at this time of the year was not until after seven. By then the rain had stopped and instead it had grown very cold. “I am glad we are going south after this,” Yesinen confided. “Let the Reds have the snow, eh?”

  If we don’t come back before the snow melts, Joseph thought, we are never going to come back at all. But he didn’t say it, because he had an uneasy feeling that they weren’t going to come back at all. Never had he known such a mood of pessimism.

  With the first light, Yesinen called a halt to make tea and have breakfast, which consisted entirely of almost inedible sausage, but the men seemed to enjoy it well enough. Once again Joseph was dismayed to see the entire command gathered round the fires and the samovars, no one paying the least attention to the mist which surrounded them. “Should we not have some sentries out?” he ventured to the major.

  “Bah, there is nothing out there, Captain. These are not Germans. They are Reds. Reds skulk, and murder and sneak about the place. They do not...” He was interrupted by the crack of a rifle, which had one of the hussars spinning round and crashing to the ground, blood streaming from his shattered head. Before anyone could move there was a volley and several more men fell. “Return fire!” Yesinen bellowed, drawing both sword and revolver. “Form a perimeter. Fire at will!” Then he too fell, blood frothing from his mouth.

  Joseph realised he had been pitchforked into command, of men he did not know and who did not know him. “Fall back!” he shouted. “To me...” But all chance of command was gone. The horses were tearing out their picket line and stampeding to and fro and the hussars began throwing down their weapons.

  Joseph chewed his lip in horrified uncertainty. Every situation he had encountered in this war was new to him. Now he watched people emerging from the mist, realised to his increasing consternation that there were women as well as men; few wore anything that could be described as a uniform, but all were armed with rifles and bayonets. They came closer and several levelled their rifles at him; he was still holding his sword and revolver. “That is an officer,” someone said. “Do not shoot him. You, surrender or die.”

  Joseph hesitated; his first engagement in his new army and he was being taken prisoner; on the Western Front he had never suffered such an indignity. But his men had already surrendered, and dying seemed utterly pointless. He threw down his arms and was immediately surrounded by the women. This gave him a very unpleasant sensation as he wondered if by any chance they were Moslems, but while they searched him roughly enough for concealed weapons, they did not harm him, binding his wrists together behind his back. “Shoot the men,” the officer commanded.

  Joseph turned in consternation. “You cannot do that,” he protested. “Those men surrendered in good faith.”

  “What have I to do with faith?” the officer demanded. Now Joseph could look at him more closely he realised that he was younger even than himself, hardly more than a boy. “They are Whites. All Whites will die.”

  “Then shoot me with them,” Joseph said,

  The boy grinned. “We will shoot you, when you have told us what we wish to know.”

  “I will tell you nothing,” Joseph said.

  The boy grinned again. “We will see. Mount!”

  A horse had been brought, and the women manhandled Joseph into the saddle. He looked back at his men. He felt he should say something to them, but he didn’t know what. They could have no doubt that they were all about to be executed, they huddled together, but as if their brains had collapsed. Perhaps they had. Then he had to concentrate as he was moved off with an escort of two of the women, who had also mounted; as his hands were tied behind his back he controlled the horse entirely by his knees. To his great relief, almost immediately the men were swallowed up in the mist, but then he heard the sound of gunfire and a tremendous wailing sound. “Are you women or animals?” he inquired of his escort.

  The woman on his right, who had masses of curling yellow hair, crisply pretty features, and a full figure leaned over and struck him across the mouth with her gloved hand. “They are Whites,” she hissed. “Like you.”

  Joseph tasted the blood from the cut inside his mouth. “Marina was raped,” said the woman on his left. She was dark-haired, distinctly plain, tall and thin. “By Whites. And when they were finished, they cauterised her with a burning brand. She can never have children.” She shrugged and added: “Or proper sex.” And I am their prisoner, Joseph thought, his stomach churning.

  But the women were apparently prepared to obey their orders not to hurt him — at least until after he had been interrogated. Or perhaps they anticipated being allowed to do the interrogating? For the first time in his life he knew real fear. They rode for an hour, until he estimated they must almost have reached Yelets. And as the mist began to lift he saw houses, and a good many men and women, and again all armed. There were no flags to indicate that they belonged to any army but obviously they were Reds. The women drew rein and Marina unceremoniously pushed him from the saddle. Unable to break his fall with his hands, Joseph struck the ground so heavily he was completely winded. Gasping for breath he gazed at the boots standing around him. “Who is this, Galina?” someone asked.

  “A White officer,” the plain woman replied. “He was leading a patrol we ambushed. Captain Brovin is attending to them. We were told to bring the officer here for interrogation.”

  The toe of a boot was inserted into Joseph’s shoulder and he was rolled over, to gaze at the viciously hostile faces above him. “Tell us what you wish from him,” Marina said. “We will ask him for you.”

  “He is clearly from Krasnov’s command,” one of the men said. “He will tell us what they are up to. Get him up.”

  Two of the other men seized Joseph’s arms and pulled him to his feet. He thought they had dislocated his shoulders, but he was in such pain and discomfort from his fall it did not seem important. “Can we have him?” Even Galina was excited at the prospect.

  “For half an hour. But I want answers, not a corpse — until we have all the answers.”

  “Over there,” Marina said, giving Joseph a push.

  He staggered forward. “This is against all the laws of war,” he protested.

  “We have our own laws,” Galina told him, grasping his arm and marching him towards one of the houses. She did not take him inside, but behind the house into a little back yard. “Here will do,” she said. There was a paling fence at the end of the yard and Joseph was pushed against this. Galina released him and drew her revolver. Held in both hands, she levelled it at his head.

  “Move, and I will blow your head off,” she told him.

  Joseph stood absolutely still as Marina went behind him, released his wrists, carried them past the fence upright, and then tied them again, leaving him capable only of sliding up and down the upright. This can’t be happening, he thought. But to how many other men and women had this happened in this horrifyingly brutal war? Galina stood in front of him, and holstered her pistol. “Now, you talk,” she said.

  Joseph pulled himself together. “My name is Captain Joseph Cromb, and I am aide-de-camp to General Prince Alexei Bolugayevski.”

  “Who serves with General Krasnov’s army,” Galina said.

  “Yes.”

  Galina smiled. “You see, it is easy. Now tell me, what is General Krasnov doing now?”

  “You will have to ask the general that. He does not confide in me.”

  Galina pouted. “Now you are being stupid, Comrade.” Then she smiled. “But I am glad you are being stupid. Marina is glad too. Aren’t you, Marina?”

  “Is it time?” Marina asked, blonde curls tremblin
g with anticipation. Galina shrugged. Marina unfastened his belt. He contemplated kicking her, but that might only make matters worse. Marina let the belt fall away and pulled open his breeches so that the buttons popped. The breeches fell about his ankles, and she pulled down his drawers. Joseph found he was holding his breath in humiliation and anticipation of imminent pain. He is big,” Marina said happily.

  “Let me see.” Galina came forward to see for herself. When she flicked him his entire body jerked. He had an uneasy feeling that he was going to beg before they had finished with him. And what difference did it make if they knew Krasnov was retreating? They would know soon enough, in any event. There was only the problem of having to live with his honour shattered — but if the alternative was to die or be reduced to an eunuch...

  Marina came up with an abandoned newspaper, which she proceeded to roll into a baton. “She is going to burn you,” Galina told him. “She is going to burn it right off, slowly. She does this to all White soldiers she is allowed to interrogate. It is because of what they did to her, you see, Comrade.”

  Joseph sucked air into his lungs. “General Krasnov is retreating,” he said. “He has learned of a counter-attack south of Voronezh, and is pulling back to safeguard his communications.”

  “Only burn him a little,” Galina said.

  Marina smiled, struck a match, and the paper flared. “I have told you what you wish to know,” Joseph panted.

  “But we wish to hear you scream. It is good to hear a Tsarist scream,” Galina told him. “After that, you will tell us some more.”

  “For God’s sake...” Joseph nearly screamed then, as Marina stood up.

  And he heard a voice say, “Where is this prisoner?”

  Marina and Galina looked at each other. But Marina was not to be baulked. She thrust the burning paper forward, and then Joseph did scream, a howl of the most utter agony. Galina struck the paper from Marina’s hand. “Wait,” she said.

  Joseph sagged down the fence post, sitting on his haunches as waves of pain surged through his groin. My God, he thought, I have been castrated, by fire. Only dimly was he aware that there were several people in the yard. “What have you done to him?” a man asked.