A Waltz with Traitors полностью

“If I have a chance. He comes and goes so quickly, with never a moment to rest. And I suppose I made it worse by giving him one more responsibility.”

“Not all responsibilities are unpleasant. He’d spend more time with you if he could.” Dalek had never been a matchmaker before, but if Filip let a perfect opportunity like this pass him by, it would be a crime. And Dalek didn’t plan on letting his friend become a criminal. A deserter and a traitor, perhaps, but not the man who let a beautiful, interested woman escape him for want of effort.

Nadia glanced at her hands. “Will you let me know if you hear from him before I do?”

“Yes.”

“Then I ought to get back to my patients. Well done. It’s amazing what a few false telegrams accomplished today.”

***

The legion left a garrison in Omsk and continued on to Tatarsk, where Nadia and the hospital car connected with the rest of the regiment. But she saw Filip for only a few minutes. The railway ahead was clear to Novonikolayevsk but not beyond, so Kral sent Filip to gather information, and Nadia told him nazdar and somehow managed not to cry when he left again after scarcely saying hello. It might have been easier if he weren’t going into battle, or if she hadn’t heard so many rumors about the ways captured men were tortured.

After days of unimpeded travel, their train stopped in Mariinsk and waited for Krasnoyarsk to fall. Filip was up ahead somewhere, so she didn’t see him. When she’d married him in the Ukraine, she’d thought an absent husband preferable to a present one, but now she longed for his company. Prayers gave her comfort, and work with the wounded kept her busy, but he came to her mind again and again as the legion fought for control of the railroad.

The wounded who came to the hospital car were exhausted, their faces swollen with bumps. “I’ve never seen so many mosquitoes,” a soldier with a bullet hole in his arm told her. “And I’ve never had such blisters on my feet. Gajda and Kral led us on a seventeen-mile flanking maneuver. And when we got to the river, the ferry was missing, so we had to take rowboats.”

The next day, the wounded looked different. The skin of their faces, hands, and necks were black. “A peasant gave us this.” A soldier with a twisted ankle held up a bottle. “It stopped the mosquitoes.” And indeed, none of the men smeared in black had the horrible swelling of the other men.

“We fought for six hours. Doubt we would have taken it if Ushakov’s men hadn’t been attacking from the other side.”

Nadia did her best to keep track of everything she heard so she could tell the other women. As she returned to her carriage after a long shift in the hospital car, she wondered what Filip looked like. Was his skin swollen with mosquito bites or blackened to prevent them?

Veronika saw her and took her hand. “You look so tired.”

Nadia shook her head. “I’ll manage.” She pulled Veronika toward the hand-drawn map of Siberia someone had pinned up in the coach. “The men say Krasnoyarsk is ours now.” Nadia said ours without hesitation. She was with the legion now. “But the fighting was intense, so I imagine there’ll be rails to repair.” She doubted their train would be in Krasnoyarsk anytime soon. And by the time they got there, Filip would have already moved on.

“Any word on Anton?” Veronika asked.

“No. But that’s probably good news. If he were wounded, I would have seen him.” She assumed she would recognize him, even under the black liquid from the peasants.

“Any word on Filip?”

“No.” And suddenly, the comfort she’d offered Veronika felt useless. The legion tried to care for all its injured, but if Filip were wounded while scouting, he might not be found for days. And what if he were killed? They might never find his body.

Veronika squeezed Nadia’s hand. “Have faith.”

Nadia nodded.

“And get some sleep. More patients will need you tomorrow.”

Nadia washed up and slid into her bunk. “Veronika? What does polib mĕ mean?”

“It means ‘kiss me.’ Why? Has someone been telling you that? Other than Filip?”

“No . . . I was just wondering.” She hadn’t said that phrase to Filip yet. She’d scarcely had the chance, and now that she knew what it meant, she doubted she’d use it. Dalek was no doubt trying to stir up mischief.

She wouldn’t use the phrase, but she certainly thought about it. How would it feel to have Filip hold her, caress her, meet her lips with his own? She touched her lips with her fingers, wondering, dreaming, and longing.

Chapter Twenty

Filip and Kral stared at the map. After taking Krasnoyarsk, the legion had seized several hundred miles of track. They had more equipment now—rail carriages in addition to their boxcars, clothing, and ammunition. And a great many prisoners, most of them Austrian and German war prisoners who’d joined the Bolsheviks to keep from starving to death.

Kral tapped the map. “Irkutsk is next.”