Byzantium Endures полностью

I had not expected to find such a large camp at Alexandriya. The town itself was of average size. But this was Hrihorieff s home base; his wife and family were here. He had a far larger army than anyone had suggested to me in Kiev. There he had been described as little more than a petty leftist warlord. He had the loyalty of thousands of Cossacks. They swarmed around him. They accepted him, in all loyalty, as their Ataman. He was as powerful as Krassnoff of the Don, who wrote that important book revealing much about Jews, Catholics, Freemasons and their betrayal of Russia. It was published in German in the twenties in four volumes: From The Two-Headed Eagle To The Red Flag. It is more truthful than anything written since. That was why the commissars hanged him when they got to Germany. He should have changed his name. I see him taken out into black trees and executed for telling the truth.

Hrihorieff had none of the dignity or literacy of Krassnoff. His bombastic proclamations were pasted up on every available space in Alexandriya and its environs. His camp lay outside the town, beyond the railway yards. Here armoured carriages, goods-wagons, passenger-cars, mobile guns and all the rest of his loot was heaped. They had army tents, shanties, every sort of temporary housing; a massive water-cart was constantly filled with vodka, from which any soldier could drink. Not only Cossacks, but regular infantrymen, artillerymen and Haidamaki had joined Hrihorieff. They were all drunk. ‘Changeable,’ Yermeloff warned me. He helped me out of the truck and then lifted the little girls down. He called to a woman washing her laundry outside a stationary railway-carriage. He told her to look after the girls and feed them.

Now I was Yermeloff’s mascot. He tied a red band around my sleeve and told me I was a liaison man with ‘our friends the SRs’. Most of the Cossacks supported the Left Socialist Revolutionary group known as Barotbists. These had a great deal of power in Kharkov at that time (Barotba means Struggle, the name of their newspaper). Hrihorieff issued many of his proclamations on behalf of these near-Bolsheviks. He might not have believed in their cause, but he was wise to accept it. The Cossack will serve his Ataman only if the Ataman serves him. Some of them would even spit when the word Bolshevik was mentioned. I noticed a few ‘leather-jackets’ in the town. Apparently Antonov had already sent his officers to parley with Hrihorieff. I asked Yermeloff if I could visit the telegraph-post. He shook his head. ‘You are in my charge. It’s my duty to keep an eye on you. Grishenko said so.’

‘You’re of the same rank. Why listen?’

We passed a broken Nieuport and an Albatros. Someone had tried, stupidly, to combine the parts. Neither plane would ever fly. Yermeloff ignored my question. Like a master with his dog, he let me stand by the aeroplanes as if waiting while I sniffed at something interesting. He said: ‘You mustn’t approach the commissars. Grishenko wants to keep you for us. We need mechanics, you see.’

‘Hrihorieff will have him shot. I’m a resource being diverted for Grishenko’s own use.’ I was outraged. I had really become a slave; a pawn.

‘Hrihorieff might pretend to have Grishenko shot. But Grishenko would not die.’ Yermeloff was amused. ‘I, however, would be shot if I let you go. You see the game Grishenko’s playing? You are now my responsibility.’

‘It’s a children’s game!’

‘All war’s that. Have you any titles, by the way?’

‘I have a Doctorate from the University of Kiev. Petlyura made me a major against my will.’

‘Major will be good. You’re now Major Pyatnitski of our Engineering Corps. Work well with us. You’ll get quick promotion.’ He helped me pick my way through a group of drunken, coughing partisans who lounged outside a hut. By the smell, the place was used as a latrine. ‘You outrank me already, you see!’

I was still tired. I was out of my depth. I had to stay with Yermeloff. He was my sole link with sanity in this unholy chaos. I resented him, nonetheless. He mocked me. The camp stretched for miles along the railway tracks. Occasionally long trains steamed in. They dispensed soldiers, guns, booty. Cossacks stumbled between moving locomotives, scarcely aware of them. I saw several men come close to being crushed under the wheels.