Anton nodded, and they both lobbed their grenades. They ducked back to the ground and heard a satisfying blast.
“Move there.” Anton pointed to a group of bushes about five meters to the left and a few meters ahead. “Then we’ll do it again.”
They repeated the maneuver several times, with Petr doing something similar to their right. On their fourth—and last, given the state of their grenade supplies—hurl, Emil cried out and crashed to the ground. Anton dove toward him and looked at the damage.
“Just a scratch, right?” Emil forced a smile. “Nothing more than you’d get from smashing a mosquito.”
Blood gushed from multiple wounds on Emil’s right leg. Anton couldn’t tell how deep they were, nor could he spend much time probing because the Bolsheviks were still shooting at them.
“I think this will earn you a ticket to Vladivostok.” If Emil lived that long. There was so much blood. Anton grabbed a rag from his pocket and made it into a tourniquet. Then he bandaged the two gaping holes, one on Emil’s thigh and the other on his knee.
Petr threw his last grenade, and several of the enemy ceased moving. Two of the Bolsheviks, then four, then a dozen fled to the woods behind the train depot. They’d held out longer than most of their comrades who had fought in the east last summer. They were either more disciplined or were held under tighter control by their commissars. The men in black fought until Kral led the rest of his group in a bayonet charge. Then, at last, Station 61 fell to the legion.
In the fading light of day, Anton helped the doctor with the wounded, starting with Emil. The bleeding wasn’t so bad now, so they could better see the injuries. His knee was destroyed. The doctor drew out the bullets and stitched up the gashes, but it seemed certain Emil would lose his leg. And if the wound grew infected, he’d die.
Anton followed the doctor to the other patients, helping where he could with washing and bandaging. The day’s battle had cost them dearly.
“No fires,” Kral ordered. “Least not until our armored train comes up from Shamary.”
They ate cold sausage and bread that night. Anton lay next to Emil in the station, knowing a wounded man could freeze more easily than a healthy man. It was only the first week of October, but winter came early in the mountains. A fire would have made them easy targets, and they were already vulnerable here, an isolated pocket of legionnaires connected to their brothers at Shamary by only a thin train track. Yet knowing the reasons behind the fire restriction didn’t prevent him from shivering.
Petr shook him awake sometime later.
“What time is it?” Anton yawned. The wind whistled through the station, and blackness hid the surrounding tracks and forest.
“About midnight.”
Anton listened for a moment, relaxing only when he heard Emil’s breathing. He’d survived the day, and that was something. “Am I to stand watch now?” They’d agreed to change at one, but maybe Petr needed relief earlier.
“No. We’re pulling back.”
“What? Why?”
“The Bolsheviks damaged the rails between here and Shamary. We can’t move our armored train forward, and without an armored train, it’s too easy for the Reds to cut us off.”
That meant the entire day’s work, all the day’s casualties, had been for land they were giving up. Anton didn’t say anything aloud, but his frustration grew as he searched the station for anything the legion could use. The Bolsheviks had taken most of the engines, boxcars, and coaches with them. They found a few flat cars designed to haul timber and put the legion’s wounded on one and the captured weapons on the other.
“What do we do with the wounded Bolsheviks?” Anton asked.
“Leave them. They’ll be in friendly hands again soon enough.”
Anton and a few of the prisoners placed bowls of water next to the enemy wounded who wouldn’t be able to fetch it for themselves. Then he and his brothers left them behind.
Kral ordered Anton and Petr to guard the weapons, then divided the rest of the men into an advance group and a rearguard. Anton climbed onto the car loaded with captured machine guns and rifles. They had no engines, so their Bolshevik prisoners pushed. The weapons remained unloaded, so even if one of the prisoners tried to steal one, they’d be shot before they could load it and turn it on their captors, but it was still a nerve-wracking task, guarding weapons that were so near the enemy.
“What a waste.” Petr kept his eyes moving, checking the prisoners. “All that work only to retreat.”
Petr spoke of the attack on Station 61, but the sentiment fit with the legion’s other experiences too. They’d finally taken the railway and secured the route all the way to Vladivostok only to turn back and get stuck in a war with the Russians.
Chapter Twenty-Eight