The battle went well at first. The Bolsheviks were sleepy and disorganized. Filip hit his targets before they could spot him. Between shots, he made as much noise as possible, following orders to make it seem like their numbers were larger than they really were. But no amount of noise could change the fact that the legion was vastly outnumbered. More and more of the Bolsheviks joined the fight. Shots flew toward him, and some of his brothers fell. There were simply too many Bolsheviks.
“Fall back!” the order came.
Filip slid his rifle across his back, and he and Novak scrambled from the rooftop. A splinter dug into his skin, but he ignored it. He was more concerned about larger things—like bullets—puncturing his skin.
The sun still hadn’t made an appearance, and darkness would allow them to withdraw unseen. They had a long fighting retreat ahead of them. Most of the Bolsheviks were in Kultuk, so Filip’s group just needed to slow them down long enough for Anton’s group to seize or destroy the explosives stored at Baikal Station.
Of the thirty-nine rail tunnels along the southern end of Lake Baikal, thirty-eight lay between Kultuk and Baikal Station on the Angara River, so there were plenty of places to make a stand. Fighting retreats could be pulled off with no casualties if everything went perfectly. But nothing was perfect in battle. A few wrong moves and fighting retreats could turn into massacres.
***
Anton ran. His group had left the mountains a few miles from Baikal Station, and now they rushed along the tracks, through tunnels lined with hollowed-out crevices prepared for demolition. They’d left most of their equipment in the hills, but he still carried a rifle and ammunition. The pace was brutal. With only fifty men, they couldn’t afford to be surrounded, couldn’t risk an engagement before they reached Baikal Station. They had to be quick.
He pushed aside thoughts of Veronika, pale and weary but content. And of Marek, so small and so perfect. If he let his family distract him, he might never see them again.
As they got closer, prudence dictated a slight letup in their speed. Their most recent intelligence on Baikal Station was several days old, so they didn’t know how many opponents they’d find, but they expected formidable defenses.
“Spread out and find that train!” came the order.
Anton stayed near another sapper, a round-cheeked boy from Pilsen. Rifle fire sounded in the distance, and small-arms fire joined it nearby, between them and the lake. A flash appeared ahead. Anton aimed but didn’t shoot—what if it was one of his brothers? Another flash, but that one was friendly, he was sure.
“I expected more of a fight,” the man from Pilsen said.
“Me too.” Anton held his rifle close, still expecting an attack, but only a handful of Bolsheviks defended Baikal Station. Where had all the Reds gone?
***
Dalek had spent the last several days sending bullets toward the enemy rather than tapping out dots and dashes to his brothers, and the entire time, he’d questioned the wisdom of his decision. He could have remained in relative safety in the rear with the gear, but this had seemed important.
He handed over another belt of machine-gun ammo. His group of seven had taken position beneath an overhanging cliff and behind a timber fence meant to stop rockslides. Thus far, no one had dislodged them from their spot, but it seemed the Bolsheviks had finally gotten fed up with a group of seven Czechs and Slovaks pestering their line with a single machine gun. They’d held off numerous probes and a few determined assaults over the past days, but now most of the Bolsheviks from Baikal Station were attacking.
Vojta poured water over the machine gun to cool the barrel. Even in the dark, perspiration was visible on his face.
“It’ll hold, won’t it?” Dalek forced a smile.
Vojta shook his head. “The gun will, for a while. But I think this next attack is too big for us. We won’t be able to hold them off forever, but we can’t withdraw without exposing ourselves. We’re trapped.”
“Not so good for us, perhaps, but I think we’ve about cleared Baikal Station.” Dalek had marched off to help his friends, and he’d succeeded. Anton and Filip had better hurry and find those explosives because if Dalek got himself killed while trying to help them and they didn’t accomplish their tasks, he was going to haunt them for the rest of their lives.
***
Anton and the other sapper found the train of high explosives on a siding in a meadow, with the mountains to one side and the lake to the other. They couldn’t find an engine with which to move it. Even if they had, they were blocked on both sides. The tracks were torn up in the direction of Irkutsk, so they couldn’t take it back to Gajda’s main group, even if they could get past the Bolsheviks, who were mysteriously missing from Baikal Station. In the other direction, the tracks were passable, but the Kultuk Bolsheviks stood in their way.