Gajda gathered the men standing near the boxcar. “We don’t want a battle. Overthrowing the local Soviet is not our aim. But we can’t put up with this any longer. We’ve been meek as lambs, but no longer. It’s time to get our men back. What’s the state of our arms?”
“Ninety men, ten rifles.”
“Eighty men, eight rifles, six pistols.”
“One hundred men, nine rifles, ten pistols, and these two fists.” A brawny sergeant raised his enormous hands and balled them into formidable weapons.
The reports continued, most of them similar—few weapons but a good supply of men motivated by weeks of frustration over slow passage east and by the injustice of the local Soviet’s decision to release the Hungarians and sentence the Czechs to death.
Gajda and another man unrolled a hand-drawn map of Chelyabinsk and held it against the boxcar. Gajda motioned for Filip to take his end, giving Filip an up-close view as Gajda doled out assignments.
“Remember, this is a rescue mission. We don’t want to start a war, so hold your fire unless that becomes impossible. Men without firearms should take alternative weapons. Grenades. Rocks. Boards. Disarm and detain any sentries you come across. Take and hold all intersections in this zone.” Gajda used his finger to trace a circle on the map.
“Sedlák, you know where they’re being held?”
“Yes, brother.”
Gajda nodded. “Take a few men and cut the phone lines. We don’t want anyone warning them, and we don’t want them calling for reinforcements. After that, see what you can do with the sentries.” He ended with a traditional Czech wish for success. “
“Nazdar, Brother Captain.”
Filip gathered a few volunteers. Makovec, Golova, and Novak. They seemed competent enough, but he would have rather had Dalek, Anton, and Emil. “Have you been through the city?” he asked.
“No,” Novak said. “We were told to stay at the train depot. Didn’t want us getting into scuffles with the Bolsheviks. Some peasants selling food at the station told us the town was mostly shut down anyway.”
Filip nodded. “It’s quiet. Almost seems abandoned. If this is the new prosperity for all that the Bolsheviks promised, then I’m not impressed. More like prosperity for none, but I suppose I should give them a little time. But not time to execute our brothers.”
The sun was down, so they approached the main part of Chelyabinsk in darkness. Between the four of them, they had Filip’s handgun that he’d plucked from a German officer in Bakhmach and a blunderbuss Novak had traded a few loaves of bread for. In addition to the firearms, Makovec and Golova had a grenade each, and some wooden boards they could swing. Filip had a knife.
A hush enveloped the town, as if tension from the confrontation at the train depot had left everyone too nervous to leave their homes. After a war and two revolutions, Filip would have expected it to take more than a brawl with a casualty count of two to frighten the local population, but perhaps the Soviets treated the locals the same way they treated the Czechoslovaks.
The group crept to the nearest building. They had to move swiftly; those telephone lines had to be cut soon. The other groups of Czechoslovaks were supposed to maintain silence for as long as possible, but it would take only one red guardsman to raise the alarm. Filip couldn’t fail—Dalek, Kral, and ten others depended on his success.
Filip led them along the same route he’d taken before, but they stayed near the buildings, in the most shadowed portion of the street. He halted them on one road, waiting for a sentry to walk past. Then they paused on another street but only long enough to discern that a looming shadow was too drunk to be a threat.
They stopped several buildings before their destination because an alert guard stood at the front of the militia’s headquarters. Filip studied the rooflines of the nearby buildings but couldn’t make out the phone wires in the dark. Maybe they ran behind the buildings. He waved the men back the way they had come and approached from the opposite side.
“Look for wires,” Filip whispered when they reached the building that held the prisoners.
Novak pointed. Filip followed the wire from where it entered the building back to the nearest telephone pole. “I don’t suppose any of you were lumbermen in civilian life?”
They shook their heads, which meant the task would fall to Filip. He borrowed several belts and strung them together to make a loose tether. He wasn’t a lumberjack, but he’d watched them work before. And he was a gymnast. Even with an imperfectly healed shoulder, he was confident he could climb a telephone pole. He handed Golova his pistol and started up.
With the right pressure from his legs, he could push himself up, then use the belts to keep from slipping too far down. He slid twice but not far, and the second half was easier than the first half, despite the muscle aches that grew in each limb as he climbed.