by Ken Follett
Grigori pushed through the little crowd. "There's nothing wrong with this man!" he shouted. "He's an engineer, I used to work with him."
Kanin recognized him. "Thank you, Grigori Sergeivich," he said. "I'm just trying to make my way to my mother's house, to see if she's all right."
Grigori turned to the crowd. "Let him pass," he said. "I vouch for him." He saw a woman carrying a reel of red ribbon--looted, presumably, from a haberdashery--and asked her for a length. She cut some off with a pair of scissors, and Grigori tied it around Kanin's left sleeve. The crowd cheered.
"Now you'll be safe," Grigori said.
Kanin shook his hand and walked away, and they let him pass.
Grigori's group came out onto Nevsky Prospekt, the broad shopping street that ran from the Winter Palace to Nikolaevsky Station. It was full of people drinking from bottles, eating, kissing, and firing guns into the air. Those restaurants that were open had signs reading "Free food for revolutionaries!" and "Eat what you like, pay what you can!" Many shops had been broken into, and there was smashed glass all over the cobblestones. One of the hated streetcars--priced too high for workers to use--had been overturned in the middle of the road, and a Renault automobile had crashed into it.
Grigori heard a rifle shot, but it was one of many, and he thought nothing of it for a second; but then Varya, by his side, staggered and fell down. Grigori and Yakov knelt either side of her. She seemed unconscious. They turned the heavy body over, not without difficulty, and saw immediately that she was beyond help: a bullet had entered her forehead, and her eyes stared up sightlessly.
Grigori did not allow himself to feel sorrow, either on his own account or for Varya's son, his best friend, Konstantin. He had learned on the battlefield to fight back first and grieve later. But was this a battlefield? Who could possibly want to kill Varya? Yet the wound was so exactly placed that he could hardly believe she was the victim of a stray bullet fired at random.
His question was answered a moment later. Yakov keeled over, bleeding from his chest. His heavy body hit the cobbles with a thump.
Grigori stepped away from the two bodies, saying: "What the hell?" He dropped into a crouch, making himself a smaller target, and rapidly looked around for somewhere he could take cover.
He heard another shot, and a passing soldier with a red scarf around his cap fell to the ground clutching his stomach.
There was a sniper, and he was targeting revolutionaries.
Grigori ran three paces and dived behind the overturned streetcar.
A woman screamed, then another. People saw the bleeding bodies and began to run away.
Grigori lifted his head and scanned the surrounding buildings. The shooter had to be a police rifleman, but where was he? It seemed to Grigori that the crack of the rifle had come from the other side of the street and less than a block away. The buildings were bright in the afternoon sunlight. There was a hotel, a jewelry store with steel shutters closed, a bank, and on the corner, a church. He could see no open windows, so the sniper had to be on a roof. None of the roofs offered cover--except that of the church, which was a stone building in the baroque style with towers, parapets, and an onion dome.
Another shot rang out, and a woman in the clothes of a factory worker screamed and fell clutching her shoulder. Grigori felt sure the sound had come from the church, but he saw no smoke. That must mean the police had issued their snipers with smokeless ammunition. This really was war.
A whole block of Nevsky Prospekt was now deserted.
Grigori aimed his rifle at the parapet that ran along the top of the side wall of the church. That was the firing position he would have chosen, commanding the whole street. He watched carefully. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two more rifles pointing in the same direction as his, held by soldiers who had taken cover nearby.
A soldier and a girl came staggering along the street, both drunk. The girl was dancing a jig, raising the skirt of her dress to show her knees, while her boyfriend waltzed around her, holding his rifle to his neck and pretending to play it like a violin. Both wore red armbands. Several people shouted warnings, but the revelers did not hear. As they passed the church, happily oblivious to the danger, two shots rang out, and the soldier and his girl fell down.
Once again Grigori saw no wisp of smoke, but all the same he fired angrily at the parapet above the church door, emptying his magazine. His bullets chipped the stonework and sent up puffs of dust. The other two rifles cracked, and Grigori saw that they were shooting in the same direction, but there was no sign that either of them had hit anything.
It was impossible, Grigori thought as he reloaded. They were firing at an invisible target. The sniper must be lying flat, well back from the edge, so that no part of his gun needed to poke through the bars.
But he had to be stopped. He had already killed Varya, Yakov, two soldiers, and an innocent girl.
There was only one way to reach him, and that was to get up on the roof.
Grigori fired at the parapet again. As he expected, that caused the other two soldiers to do the same. Assuming the sniper must have put his head down for a few seconds, Grigori stood up, abandoning the shelter of the overturned streetcar, and ran to the far side of the street, where he flattened himself up against the window of a bookshop--one of the few stores that had not been looted.
Keeping within the afternoon shadow cast by the buildings, he made his way along the street to the church. It was separated by an alley from the bank next door. He waited patiently for several minutes, until the shooting started again, then darted across the alley and stood with his back to the east end of the church.
Had the sniper seen him run, and guessed what he was planning? There was no way to tell.
Staying close to the wall, he edged around the church until he came to a small door. It was unlocked. He slipped inside.
It was a rich church, gorgeously decorated with red, green, and yellow marble. There was no service taking place at that moment, but twenty or thirty worshippers stood or sat with bowed heads, holding their own private devotions. Grigori scanned the interior, looking for a door that might lead to a staircase. He hurried down the aisle, fearful that more people were being murdered every minute he delayed.
A young priest, dramatically handsome with black hair and white skin, saw his rifle and opened his mouth to voice a protest, but Grigori ignored him and hurried past.
In the vestibule he spotted a small wooden door set into a wall. He opened it and saw a spiral staircase leading up. Behind him, a voice said: "Stop there, my son. What are you doing?"
He turned to see the young priest. "Does this lead to the roof?"
"I am Father Mikhail. You can't bring that weapon into the house of God."
"There's a sniper on your roof."
"He is a police officer!"
"You know about him?" Grigori stared at the priest with incredulity. "He's killing people!"
The priest made no reply.
Grigori ran up the stairs.
A cold wind was coming from somewhere above. Clearly Father Mikhail was on the side of the police. Was there any way the priest could warn the sniper? Not short of running out into the street and waving--which would probably get him shot.
After a long climb in near-darkness, Grigori saw another door.
When his eyes were on a level with the bottom of the door, so that he presented a very small target, he opened it an inch, using his left hand, keeping his rifle in his right. Bright sunlight shone through the gap. He pushed it wide.
He could not see anyone.
He screwed up his eyes against the sun to scan the area visible through the small rectangle of doorway. He was in the bell tower. The door opened south. Nevsky Prospekt was on the north side of the church. The sniper was on the other side--unless he had moved to ambush Grigori.
Cautiously, Grigori ascended one step, then another, and put his head out.
Nothing happened.
He stepped through the doo
r.
Under his feet the roof sloped gently to a gutter that ran alongside a decorative parapet. Wooden duckboards permitted workmen to move around without treading on the roof tiles. At his back the tower rose to a belfry.
Gun in hand, he edged around the tower.
At the first corner he found himself looking west the length of Nevsky Prospekt. In the clear light he could see the Alexander Garden and the Admiralty at the far end. In the middle distance the street was crowded, but nearby it was empty. The sniper must still be at work.
Grigori listened, but heard no shots.
He sidled farther around the tower until he could look around the next corner. Now he could see all along the north wall of the church. He had felt sure he would find the sniper there, flat on his belly, shooting between the uprights of the parapet--but there was no one in sight. Beyond the parapet he could see the wide street below, with people crouching in doorways and skulking around corners, waiting to see what would happen.
A moment later, the sniper's rifle rang out. A scream from the street told Grigori the man had hit his target.
The shot had come from above Grigori's head.
He looked up. The bell tower was pierced by glassless windows and flanked by open turrets placed diagonally at the corners. The shooter was up there somewhere, firing out of one of the many available openings. Fortunately, Grigori had remained hard up against the wall, where he could not have been seen by the sniper.
Grigori went back inside. Within the confined space of the stairwell his rifle felt big and clumsy. He put it down and took out one of his pistols. He knew by its weight that it was empty. He cursed: loading the Nagant M1895 was slow. He took a box of cartridges from the pocket of his uniform coat and inserted seven of them, one by one, through the revolver's awkward loading gate into the cylinder. Then he cocked the hammer.
Leaving the rifle behind, he went up the spiral stairs, treading softly. He moved at a steady pace, not wanting to exert himself so much that his breathing would become audible. He kept his revolver in his right hand pointing up the stairs.
After a few moments he smelled smoke.
The sniper was having a cigarette. But the pungent smell of burning tobacco could travel a long way, and Grigori could not be sure how close the man was.
Ahead and above he saw reflected sunlight. He crept upward, ready to fire. The light was coming through a glassless window. The sniper was not there.
Grigori climbed farther and saw light again. The smell of smoke grew stronger. Was it his imagination, or could he sense the presence of the sniper just a little farther around the curve of the stairwell? And, if so, could the man sense him?
He heard a sharp intake of breath. It shocked him so much that he almost pulled the trigger. Then he realized it was the noise a man made when inhaling smoke. A moment later he heard the softer, satisfied sound of the smoker blowing out.
He hesitated. He did not know which way the sniper was looking or where his gun might be pointing. He wanted to hear the rifle fire again, for that would tell him that the sniper's attention was directed outward.
Waiting might mean another death, another Yakov or Varya bleeding on the cold cobblestones. On the other hand, if Grigori failed now how many more people would be brought down by the sniper this afternoon?
Grigori forced himself to be patient. It was like being on the battlefield. You did not rush to save a wounded comrade and thereby sacrifice your life. You took chances only when the reasons were overwhelming.
He heard another intake of breath, followed by a long exhalation, and a moment later a crushed cigarette stub came down the staircase, bouncing off the wall and landing at his feet. There was the sound of a man shifting position in a confined space. Then Grigori heard a low muttering, the words sounding mostly like imprecations: "Swine . . . revolutionaries . . . stinking Jews . . . diseased whores . . . retards . . . " The sniper was winding himself up to kill again.
If Grigori could stop him now it would save at least one life.
He went up a step.
The muttering continued: "Cattle . . . Slavs . . . thieves and criminals . . . " The voice was vaguely familiar, and Grigori wondered if this was a man he had met before.
He took another step, and saw the man's feet, shod in shiny new police-pattern black leather boots. They were small feet: the sniper was a diminutive man. He was down on one knee, the most stable position for shooting. Grigori could now see that he had positioned himself inside one of the corner turrets, so that he could fire in three different directions.
One more step, Grigori thought, and I will be able to shoot him dead.
He took another step, but tension caused him to miss his footing. He stumbled, fell, and dropped his gun. It hit the stone step with a clang.
The sniper uttered a loud, frightened curse and looked around.
With astonishment, Grigori recognized him as Pinsky's sidekick, Ilya Kozlov.
Grigori grabbed for his dropped gun and missed. The revolver fell down the stone staircase with agonizing slowness, one step at a time, until it came to rest well out of reach.
Kozlov began to turn, but he could not do so quickly from his kneeling position.
Grigori regained his balance and went up another step.
Kozlov tried to swing his rifle around. It was the standard Mosin-Nagant, but with a telescope attached. It was well over a yard long even without the bayonet, and Kozlov could not bring it to bear fast enough. Moving quickly, Grigori got close, so that the barrel of the rifle struck his left shoulder. Kozlov pulled the trigger uselessly, and a bullet ricocheted around the curved inside wall of the stairwell.
Kozlov sprang to his feet with surprising agility. He had a small head and a mean face, and some part of Grigori's mind guessed he had become a sniper to get revenge on all the bigger boys--and girls--who had ever pushed him around.
Grigori got his hands on the rifle and the two men struggled for possession, face to face in the cramped little turret, next to the glassless window. Grigori heard excited shouting, and guessed they must be visible to people on the street.
Grigori was bigger and stronger, and knew that he would win possession of the gun. Kozlov realized it too, and suddenly let go. Grigori staggered back. In a flash the policeman drew his short wooden club and struck out, hitting Grigori on the head. For a moment Grigori saw stars. In a blur, he saw Kozlov raise the club again. He lifted the rifle and the club landed on the barrel. Before the policeman could strike again, Grigori dropped the gun, grabbed the front of Kozlov's coat with both hands, and lifted him.
The man was slight and his weight was little. Grigori held him off the floor for a moment. Then, with all his might, he threw him out of the window.
Kozlov seemed to fall through the air very slowly. The sunlight picked out the green facings of his uniform as he sailed over the parapet of the church roof. A long scream of pure terror rang out in the silence. Then he hit the ground with a thump that could be heard in the bell tower, and the scream was abruptly cut off.
After a moment of quiet, a huge cheer went up.
Grigori realized the people were cheering him. They could see the police uniform on the ground and the army uniform in the turret, and they had worked out what had happened. As he watched, they came out of doorways and around corners and stood in the street, looking up at him, shouting and applauding. He was a hero.
He did not feel comfortable about that. He had killed several people in the war, and was no longer squeamish about it, but all the same he found it hard to celebrate another death, much as Kozlov had deserved to die. He stood there a few moments longer, letting them applaud but feeling uneasy. Then he ducked back inside and went down the spiral staircase.
He picked up his revolver and his rifle on the way down. When he emerged into the church, Father Mikhail was waiting, looking scared. Grigori pointed the revolver at him. "I ought to shoot you," he said. "That sniper you allowed onto your roof killed two of my friends and at least three o
ther people, and you're a murdering devil for letting him do it." The priest was so shocked to be called a devil that he was lost for words. But Grigori could not bring himself to shoot an unarmed civilian, so he grunted in disgust and went outside.
The men of his platoon were waiting for him, and roared their approval as he stepped into the sunshine. He could not stop them lifting him onto their shoulders and carrying him in procession.
From his elevated viewpoint he saw that the atmosphere in the street had changed. People were more drunk, and on every block there were one or two passed out in doorways. He was startled to see men and women doing a lot more than just kissing in the alleyways. Everyone had a gun: clearly the mob had raided other arsenals and perhaps arms factories too. At every intersection there were crashed cars, some with ambulances and doctors attending to the injured. Children as well as adults were on the streets, the small boys having a particularly good time, stealing food and smoking cigarettes and playing in abandoned automobiles.
Grigori saw a fur shop being looted with an efficiency that appeared professional, and he spotted Trofim, a former associate of Lev's, carrying armfuls of coats out of the store and loading them onto a handcart, watched by another crony of Lev's, the dishonest policeman Fyodor, now wearing a peasant-style overcoat to hide his uniform. The city's criminals saw the revolution as an opportunity.
After a while Grigori's men put him down. The afternoon light was growing dim, and several bonfires had been lit in the street. People gathered around them, drinking and singing songs.
Grigori was appalled to see a boy of about ten take a pistol from a soldier who had passed out. It was a long-barreled Luger P08 machine pistol, a gun issued to German artillery crew: the soldier must have taken it from a prisoner at the front. The boy held it in both hands, grinning, and pointed it at the man on the ground. As Grigori moved to take the gun away, the boy pulled the trigger, and a bullet thudded into the drunk soldier's chest. The boy screamed, but in his fright he kept the trigger pulled back, so that the machine pistol continued firing. The recoil jerked the boy's arms upward, and he sprayed bullets, hitting an old woman and another soldier, until the eight-round magazine was empty. Then he dropped the gun.
