“Yes, Brother Lieutenant.”
“Good. I want you with the advance party. See if they’ve set sentries between the mountains and their camp. And if they have, take care of them. Novak, Havel, go with him.”
“Yes, Brother Lieutenant.” Novak was one of the men Filip had worked with in Chelyabinsk. That offered a measure of comfort. Novak had been useful when they’d stormed Bolshevik headquarters to rescue their brothers from execution.
The three set off, marching with few breaks for the next two days. But after nightfall on the second day, they cleared the trees, and the view before them opened up. Sun and moon were hidden beneath the horizon, but despite the darkness, Filip could tell something was different. Stars speckled the sky, and a few lights shone in the town below. Beyond that, the darkness was smooth and wide.
“What is that?” Havel whispered.
“I think it’s Lake Baikal,” Filip said.
“It’s enormous.”
The locals called Baikal a sea, and even in the dark, Filip could understand why. But they couldn’t get distracted by the water, no matter how enormous or beautiful it was. The Bolshevik camp lay in the valley below, and if Filip’s group didn’t wedge themselves between the men in Kultuk and the explosives at Baikal Station, the Reds could keep the legionnaires to the west of the lake from ever joining with their brothers in the east.
Filip stepped quietly. The skills he’d learned in the Družina had never left him. So many evenings they would sing Slavic folk songs loudly enough for the Austro-Hungarian troops to hear. Then, under cover of darkness, he’d look for pickets. If they were Austrian or Hungarian, well, it was war, and they were the enemy. Knives, bayonets, or bullets ended the war for the sloppy sentinels. But if the men on outpost duty were Czech or Slovak, Filip would talk to them. Some had attacked him, but most had followed him back to the Russian lines, much like he had followed Kral.
The tsar’s regime had been eager for Slavic defectors but reluctant to encourage democratic ideals. They’d vacillated between allowing an enlarged Družina or keeping any anti-imperial movements quiet and weak. But even when Filip couldn’t promise a chance to fight with the Družina, he could promise an end to life under the thumb of German officers. The camps where the Russians held war prisoners weren’t pleasant, but they were better than the trenches.
The night was dark now, like those early days when the Družina was the eyes and ears of the Russian Army. Unlike Filip’s time on the so-called Eastern Front, the night was also quiet. But this quiet wouldn’t last.
Havel had moved to the right, and Novak to the left. So far, no sentries. Had the Bolsheviks really been that careless? Perhaps they didn’t think anyone could infiltrate through the mountains. Underestimating their opponents would be the Bolsheviks’ undoing. Unconfirmed reports said there were two and a half thousand of them down there, but a surprised enemy was less of a threat.
Filip went to Havel and kept his voice a whisper. “Have you seen anything?”
“No.”
“Keep watching. And listening.”
Filip went to Novak next, with the same results. “Tell the lieutenant,” he told Novak. “I’ll keep watch here.”
Kultuk slept, quiet in its little valley, the Bolsheviks below unaware that legionnaires had marched through the mountains to challenge them in their Baikal stronghold. According to rumor, the Bolsheviks would try to defeat the legion in other ways before they resorted to blowing the tunnels, because destroyed tunnels would hamper the Bolsheviks too, cutting off supplies and communications. They would do it to trap the legion but only if they had no other way of stopping them.
After an hour, Novak returned. “We’re attacking,” he whispered.
The summer sun rose early around Lake Baikal, but it was still dark, still night, and mist blanketed the ground. Filip joined the group of men Novak had led forward, and they dispersed among the buildings below, as silent as ghosts.
Filip and Novak climbed to a roof where they could shoot anyone leaving the nearest barrack. They waited, giving the others time to settle into position. Filip took a few deep breaths. He and four hundred fifty of his brothers were about to attack a camp of several thousand.
A silent signal went round, and then legionnaires threw grenades through the barrack windows. The air exploded with bangs, shouts, and rifle fire.
A handful of men burst from the wooden barracks, and Filip and Novak promptly struck them down. It felt almost cruel, but the Bolsheviks came out armed and shooting, and they planned no mercy for the legion—they meant to trap them, then annihilate or enslave them.