Red Winter

18

The train had not stopped at a station, but hunched in the shallow cutting through the forest as if it had paused for breath before continuing its journey. From all along its length, men spilled onto the trackside. The wounded stumbled from every door, like the walking dead. Comrade helped comrade as they fell and limped and crawled away from the train. Officers patrolled the length of the track shouting orders, telling the injured to stand clear, to get away from the train, and from the roofs of the carriages, soldiers passed down the corpses of the men who had perished during the journey.

The mist swirled about them, mingling with the smoke, burned away in places by the steam that hissed and jetted from beneath the wheels of the engine. The length of the train was shrouded in a nightmarish whirlpool of cloud, and the stink of burning coal, and there was that awful sound underlying everything; that terrible moaning.

Few men had the energy to speak, but those who did spoke in heightened voices, confused chatter, edgy with panic that began to build, smothering the monotonous groan of the wounded and the dying.

And with the wind so still and the air so cold, there was another dimension to the horror of this train. When the doors were opened, so the atmosphere from within the carriages was released, and warmed by the wood-burning stoves within, the tepid air that escaped was sweet with the scent of decay.

Watching from my place in the woods, it occurred to me that this whole land was dying, and I wondered if anything could revive it.

The chaos grew as more and more soldiers disembarked from the train until there were three or four hundred of them littering the forest. Many lay down as soon as they were clear of the metal beast, dropping wherever they could until bodies covered every part of the frosted ground. There were men with their arms in slings, others with bandaged heads or chests, men with missing limbs, diseased men resigned to their fate. Others were becoming more vociferous, calling to their commanders, asking what was happening, what was to become of them. The commanders ignored them and carried on with their task of emptying the train and setting able men to clear the dead from the roofs.

So it was into this sea of uniformed men that I went unnoticed, stepping from the trees and going among them, searching for any alert enough to answer my questions.

Crouching to speak to one man, I asked where they were coming from, had he heard of Koschei? But he just stared through me as if I wasn’t there, so I moved to the next man and then the next and the next, stepping over and among them, asking the same question but receiving no response other than the blank stare of men who have seen enough.

Up ahead, close to the front of the train, a soldier faced the carriages, ordering men down from the roof. I took him for a commander of some sort because he assumed an air of authority. He was dressed in a good winter coat and wore a thick hat. Round his shoulder he wore a leather strap from which hung the wooden case of his pistol. He had sturdy boots on his feet, and he moved back to avoid the poorly dressed men who tumbled from the roof and limped from the doors.

When I was three carriages away, the commander looked in my direction and our eyes met. He had a severe face, mean and hardened by war, only now it displayed a hint of confusion, his eyes narrowing as if he recognised me or wondered at my purpose. When he moved, though, starting to come towards me, one of the disembarking soldiers fell against him, jostling him backwards. The commander regained his footing and held the man firm with both hands, turning him and helping him to sit on the ground by the track.

I pulled my hat low to cover my brow and tugged the scarf over my mouth to hide my face as I continued, picking my way among them. I watched the commander squat by the wounded man and light a cigarette for him, looking up in my direction, just as someone reached out and grabbed the hem of my coat.

I stopped and turned to look down at him.

‘Are you a doctor?’ he asked. ‘They said there would be doctors.’

He was sitting cross-legged, his cap tipped to one side, his coat unbuttoned. The dressing on the left side of his face had once been white but was now a dirty brown. Beside him, a younger man sat with the head of another comrade face down on his lap. He was turned towards the forest, staring at the bones of the trees while running his hand through his comrade’s hair as if to comfort him.

I crouched beside the soldier who had grabbed my coat.

‘Are they going to leave us here?’ he asked.

‘Of course not.’

‘Then why are they making us leave the train? They said there would be doctors; that they were taking us to the doctors.’

‘They will,’ I said, glancing around at the commanders walking the length of the train, checking doors and roofs, ordering the last stragglers from the cars. ‘Are there prisoners here?’ I asked. ‘In any of these carriages?’

‘Are we there? Is this where the doctors are? Is that what you are?’

‘No. Listen to me.’ I kept control of my temper. I had to remain discreet. ‘Are there any prisoners on this train? Women and children? Are you headed for any camps?’

‘They don’t tell us anything,’ he said.

‘But you must have seen.’ I felt as if I wasn’t getting through to him, but I needed to find out what he knew.

‘I’ve seen no prisoners. Just soldiers.’

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Sure as I can be.’

I nodded and took a deep breath to calm my nerves. ‘Where are you coming from?’ I asked. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Tambov.’

‘But you’re going the wrong way. You’re heading towards Tambov.’

‘No.’ He shook his head and looked about. ‘No, that can’t be right. We came from there. Fighting the Greens… Or was it the Blues? I can never remember.’

‘Do you know Koschei?’ I asked him.

‘Koschei?’ He looked confused. ‘Why do you—’

‘Do you know him?’

‘From the skazka? You want me to tell you a story?’ His voice was thick with sarcasm.

‘Or do you mean the man?’ A voice spoke beside me and I turned to look at the young soldier who was staring into the forest. His face was streaked with blood, and his uniform was caked with dirt, but he didn’t appear to be wounded. He continued to look into the trees while running his fingers through the dark hair of the man resting his head in his lap.

‘Yes,’ I said, moving closer to him. ‘Yes. The man. Do you know who he is?’

‘No.’ He turned his head but still didn’t seem to be looking at me. His eyes were vacant, as if unseeing. ‘But I’ve heard of him.’

‘How? What do you know?’

‘That he’s like the devil. They say he boiled a priest and made the monks eat the soup.’

‘What?’

‘Stas would have told you. He knew him.’

‘Stas?’

The soldier looked down at the man lying in his lap. ‘He died on the train.’

I shifted and reached out to touch the dead man. I knelt in the dirt and hefted him so that his face was to the sky. The young soldier made no move to help, but also made no complaint.

I brushed the dead man’s hair away from his face and recognised him straight away.

‘Dotsenko,’ I whispered.

Now the soldier looked at me. He leaned in so his foul breath was in my face. ‘You knew him?’

I took my hand away from Stanislav Dotsenko’s body, wondering how he had come to be on this train. ‘I fought with him.’

‘You fought with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’re a—’

‘Did he say a name?’ I asked. ‘Did he say who Koschei is?’

‘Nikolai Levitsky,’ the man whispered.

‘What?’ The shock of hearing my own name was like being charged with electricity. Any regret or sadness I felt for Stanislav Dotsenko was shattered and I was suddenly aware of everything around me. My senses heightened, as if I saw better, heard better. But he couldn’t have said my name. I must have misheard. ‘What did you say?’

‘Nikolai Levitsky.’

‘No.’ I sat back. ‘No. That’s not right.’ I looked around, hoping no one else had heard it. From having been just another man in a crowd of men, I now felt singled out. I knew it wasn’t so, but it was as if all eyes and thoughts were on me.

‘He didn’t say that Koschei is Nikolai Levitsky,’ I pressed him. ‘Tell me he didn’t say that.’

‘He didn’t say that.’

‘Then what did he say?’

‘He said that someone called Levitsky let it happen.’

‘What?’ His accusation was somehow even worse: that I could have somehow unchained this monster.

‘Levitsky made Koschei. He let him loose, is what he said. It didn’t make any sense, but he kept saying it, over and over, and that he was sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘How should I know? I hardly knew him. He just needed someone to die on.’

A comrade to share his last minutes. None of us wants to die alone. I could understand that, but not the meaning of his final words. How could I have been responsible for Koschei? How could I have had anything to do with his actions?

I grabbed the soldier’s lapels with both hands and shook him, pulling him so close that our noses touched.

‘What’s his name?’ I asked. ‘Who is Koschei?’

‘I don’t know.’ The soldier displayed no fear. No emotion. No resistance. His expression remained blank, as if I were shaking a doll. ‘I don’t know.’

I released him, pushing him away so that he fell back and Stanislav slipped from his lap. I looked down at the dead soldier and felt the sting of shame and anger that now followed me wherever I went, always festering just beneath the surface. I stood and backed off, suddenly wanting to be away from here, back out on the steppe, just as I had done when I found the place of bones close to Belev. I took a deep breath and controlled myself, made myself remain calm. I didn’t want to attract attention. I wanted to slip back among the trees and go to Kashtan, find comfort in her companionship. I wanted to see Anna’s small, pale face and know there was something better in this world. I wanted to press on in search of my beautiful Marianna and my growing boys.

As I turned to pick my way back through the mass of the dead and the dying, though, I found my way obstructed by the commander who had noticed me earlier.

He looked me up and down as if to highlight my lack of uniform. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m a doctor,’ I said.

‘There are no doctors on this train.’

‘And yet here I am.’

‘So where are your… your things? Your bag. Your medicines.’

‘Stolen,’ I said, looking back in pretence. ‘I put them down and now they’re gone.’

‘Do you want me to find them? We can turn these men inside out and—’

‘No.’ I put out my hands. ‘Please. That’s not necessary. Don’t you think these men have suffered enough, Comrade Commander?’

‘Most definitely. Thank you.’ The soldier cast his eyes over the sea of men and sighed. ‘The division commander is wounded,’ he said. ‘If you’re a doctor, you can fix him.’

‘I have no—’

‘We have supplies in the division commander’s cabin.’

I had to think quickly. I had to get away.

‘What about these other men?’ I turned and swept my arm about me, taking the chance to peer into the forest and make sure Lev and Anna were well hidden. ‘They need a doctor too.’

‘More than the division commander does?’ His voice darkened and he stepped closer to me. ‘Do I need to remind you that—’

‘No,’ I said, turning back to him. ‘Of course not, Comrade Commander.’

He stiffened his back and pushed out his chest as he stared at me. ‘Then come with me,’ he said. ‘Now.’

I didn’t have time for this; there were men pursuing me, and ahead, time might be running out for my family if they were still alive. I was trapped here in the middle, but I had no choice other than to follow him. Although I was armed, my revolver heavy in my pocket, he was surrounded by men who would do his bidding without a second thought. Questioning orders in this people’s army could result in the most severe of penalties.

I risked another glance back at the forest to reassure myself that Lev and Anna were still hidden by the mist and the trees; then I did as I had been ordered.

The commander led me to the blind carriage directly behind the engine and we stepped through the steam that billowed from the undercarriage. He moved to one side, instructing me to climb aboard, so I pulled myself onto the steps and waited for him to follow and open the door into the car.

The interior was basic. Slatted plank walls, some of them reinforced with more wood nailed into place at random. The outer sides of the carriage were clad with welded metal plates, but the designer had clearly not anticipated attack from below because the floor had been left as it was. Some light crept through the firing slits cut into the walls, and yet more found its way through the cracks in the floorboards. Looking down, I could see the track below us. Benches lined the walls, and there were still one or two soldiers occupying places on them, but there was, by no means, a full complement of men aboard.

The men looked up at us as we came in, but paid us no more attention than that, going back to rolling cigarettes and drinking tea from metal cups.

In the centre of the carriage, an iron stove burned, warming the air to an almost bearable temperature, but the chimney, which fed through the roof, was cracked in places, and grey smoke swirled in the draught that cut in through the firing slits. The scent of burning wood and coal and decay was thick and sweet, almost covering the unwashed smell of the countless soldiers who had sat in here.

The inside of the carriage was stunted, though, smaller than it had looked from the outside, and I realised right away that it had been separated into two compartments.

‘There,’ the commander said, pushing past and marching to the door at the far end of the car, his boots clicking on the wooden floor.

I hesitated, glancing at the men seated on the benches, then followed, making my way past the stove and the pile of loose coal on the floor. The commander knocked on the door as I reached him and pushed it open without waiting for an answer.

‘Doctor for you, Division Commander Orlov,’ he said, ushering me in. Then he backed out and closed the door behind me.

There was the same odour of smoke and decay in here, but the room was more comfortable than the one I had just walked through. The bench at the side of this compartment was cushioned and upholstered with red fabric. There were no windows or firing slits here. Instead the walls were adorned with colourful maps of the Tambov area, nailed to the woodwork. Fingers of natural light filtered up through the cracks in the floorboards, smoke and dust swirling and eddying like magic in its glow.

In the far corner a small stove, this one in full working order, and beside it a stool with a colourful samovar balanced on it. In the centre of the compartment there was a table laid with maps and papers, a collection of used glasses, a lamp, a bottle of vodka and a pistol.

The large man who sat behind the table was Division Commander Orlov, whom I knew by reputation and had met once, a long time ago. I hoped he would not recognise me and was glad for the hat and scarf to cover my face.

Everything about him seemed square, from his shoulders to his chest and his short legs, and he would have been powerful in his youth, sturdy and well built, but he had aged a lot since I had last seen him. There was a beaten look about him now; a strained weariness reflected from him, filling the room. His hair was cropped close to his head, but there was little growth there anyway, and his cheeks were shaved clean. He still had the thick moustache I remembered, dropping at the corners of his mouth and pointing to the edge of his square jaw, except now the whiskers had turned from black to grey.

Commander Orlov leaned back in his chair, tunic open to reveal a dirty white shirt beneath, with his right foot propped on a stool. He wore no boot on that foot, and the material of his trousers had been split to the waist so that it hung loose to display the wound that festered in the meat of his calf.

A young soldier knelt on the floor, fumbling with a collection of medical supplies. Unravelling a bandage, it was clear the boy had no idea what he was doing.

Behind the commander, hanging on the wall, a clock told me it was just after ten, but it had to be at least midday by now.

‘So you’re a doctor?’ Orlov said, looking up and beckoning me over. ‘I didn’t know we had any doctors on this train.’

I pulled my hat down further and lowered my head.

‘When did you get on?’

I thought for a moment, trying to think where the train might have been coming from, where it might have stopped, but it would be dangerous for me to guess.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, before I could answer. ‘We’ve picked up all manner of stragglers. Every time we stop, a whole lot more climb aboard. Don’t they know we’re going to hell?’ He slurred his words and I guessed the vodka on the table was his way of killing the pain. ‘Get over here before this boy keels over from the smell. He’s useless anyway.’

Orlov shooed the boy away with one hand and reached for his glass with the other. The boy stumbled past me, making me step back, and hurried from the compartment, closing the door behind him so that I was left alone with the commander. I stared at the door for a moment, hoping that Lev and Anna had stayed where they were; that they had done as I had instructed.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Fix me up.’

I turned and glanced around the carriage, my eyes settling on the pistol resting on the table for a second, then I approached the commander, pulling the other chair towards me and rummaging among the medical supplies. My fingers worked quickly as I looked for the supplies I needed to dress the wound. The sooner I was back with Lev and Anna, the better.

Close to the commander, the stink of his wound was nauseating, even through my scarf, and I tried to take only shallow breaths.

‘Take off your hat,’ Orlov said. ‘Let me see your face.’

Without looking at him, I reached up and removed my hat. I placed it on the floor beside me, continuing to search through the bandages and field dressings. Outside, the muffled calls of soldiers shouting orders was beginning to die down.

‘The scarf,’ he said, taking a drink from the dirty glass, slurping the liquid.

I pulled down the scarf and looked up at him, our eyes meeting. For a long moment he held that look, breathing heavily, running his tongue round his teeth. His face glistened with sweat, and his whole demeanour was that of a man struggling with a fever.

When he spoke, his lips were wet with vodka, and flecks of spittle fell onto his chin. ‘Do I know you?’

I shook my head.

‘We’ve never met?’

‘No, Comrade Commander.’

‘You look familiar.’ He drank again, staring at me over the rim of the glass as he drained it. He swallowed hard and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. ‘There was a time I never forgot a face.’ He shook his head and sniffed. ‘Now I see so many damned faces I don’t know how I ever remember any of them.’ He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. ‘Most of them don’t live long anyway, so there’s no reason to remember them all, is there? But you…’ he said, pointing with the hand holding his drink. ‘For some reason I feel I should know you.’

‘I’m just a doctor,’ I said, leaning over and making a pretence of looking through the medical supplies. I was trying to decide what was my best course of action. I could dress the wound and leave – I knew how to do that, but he might decide to keep me as his personal physician. I could simply leave the carriage. Orlov was wounded, probably dying from the infection, so he was in no shape to come after me, but his pistol was close to hand; he could shoot me before I was at the door. I had my own revolver, but even if I could take it from my pocket before he could reach for his own, I couldn’t shoot him, not with soldiers just a few paces away, in the other part of the carriage. They would be in here in an instant, and when I was lying on the floor, bleeding and full of lead, I would have failed my children and my wife. Lev and Anna would be forced to continue into the forest alone.

I would have to overcome him silently, kill him without a sound if I were to escape from here unharmed. Perhaps I could reach the knife inside my coat, but I would have to be fast – his pistol was within easy reach.

In my contemplation, I had looked up without realising it and Orlov followed my attention, putting his hand over the pistol. He dragged it towards him and held it in his lap.

‘You’re not a doctor, are you?’

I stopped what I was doing.

‘You don’t even look like a doctor. Don’t act like one.’

I took my hand away from the supplies.

‘All the doctors I ever met were soft intellectuals. Weak and spongy men who never did a proper day’s work. Soft hands and waxy skin.’

I sat up and looked at him.

‘Not you, though. You move like a soldier – I saw that the second you stepped through that door. I’m not too old and blind to see that. Your hands have done too much work – killing work, I would say, judging by the way your fingers reach for the button of your coat. What do you have in there? A knife would be my guess. The pistol in your pocket would draw too much attention, but the knife… ah… that would be quiet, wouldn’t it?’

I hadn’t even noticed my hand move, but there it was, ready to unfasten the button and reach inside for the blade.

‘But it’s your eyes that really tell me what you are.’ Orlov drained his glass once more. ‘It’s always the eyes that give it away. I can see your intent just by looking into them. I can see you sizing me up.’

He leaned over to put his glass on the table, then lifted the pistol, staring at it. ‘Pour us both a drink,’ he said, ‘but keep those killing hands where I can see them, eh? This wound in my leg makes me… twitchy. It shames me. I’ve been in more battles than I can count and this is where I get shot. It couldn’t have been the heart or the brain – a good clean death – it had to be here so I can die slowly while my men watch. I might as well have been shot in the arse.’

I reached across the table and put two glasses together, looking over to the side of the carriage, wishing I could see through the metal plating, beyond the crowds of men and to the place where Lev and Anna were hiding in the forest. I wanted to get back to them, to be on with our journey. I envied the connection they had to one another, and I had enjoyed what little of it they had been prepared to share with me so far. It had left me wanting more; to be with them, in the presence of warmth and love, rather than here where there was only death.

‘Something out there?’ Orlov’s voice snapped me back to the moment.

‘Hmm?’

‘You were looking at the window. Where there was a window anyway. Is there something out there demanding your attention?’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No.’

Orlov watched me as if he didn’t believe me, pushing out his neck so that his face was closer to mine. He put two fingers to his eyes and narrowed them at me. ‘It’s all there,’ he said. ‘They give it all away.’ Then he leaned back again, wincing in pain and slapping his hand on the table.

‘Probably just as well you’re not a doctor,’ he said, recovering. ‘You’d only want to cut it off. The whole leg. To get rid of the infection, you’d say. Just…’ He made a sawing motion with one hand across the top of his thigh. ‘I’d only be half a man then, and what’s the point of that? What use would I be then? Maybe it’s just as well there are no doctors here – I’d have a train full of cripples.’

I said nothing and glanced at the clock. It was still just after ten, the hands stuck in the position they’d been in when the clock stopped.

‘So have you come to kill me?’ he asked as I picked up the bottle. ‘To give me a good clean death?’

‘No.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘I’m looking for someone.’ I had to tell him something and perhaps this was the best thing. He might have information I could use.

He made an impatient gesture over the glasses. ‘Pour. Pour.’ When he put his hand down, he studied me with unblinking eyes. ‘Looking for someone? Someone you do want to kill?’

‘Maybe.’ I poured vodka into each glass and pushed one across to him.

Orlov nodded and glanced at the glass but left it where it was. ‘You know, there’s someone I want to kill,’ he said.

I waited for him to go on.

‘We’ve been fighting in Tambov. Trying to put down this damn rebellion.’ He turned the pistol in his hand as if looking for the secrets of life in its design. ‘Returning with the wounded, picking up men along the way.’

‘But you’re heading towards Tambov,’ I said.

Orlov looked up. ‘Excellent observation. And that’s who I want to kill – the man who issued that order. I get this far, bringing my injured men and anyone else who cares to catch a ride with us, and they send new orders. Turn back, they say. They need the train, they say. Drop off the wounded and come back, they say. So I drop them here, in the forest. To die.’ He sniffed hard. ‘What else can I do?’

‘Disobey?’

Orlov waved his hand as if that didn’t deserve a reply. He picked up his glass and raised it to me. ‘The wounded,’ he said.

I toasted with him and took a sip. Orlov drained the glass and indicated I should refill it. He continued to talk as I poured, vodka glistening on his moustache. ‘Did you know that this man Antonov – the one who they say started this peasant uprising – he’s a petty criminal? Put in prison for stealing from railway station offices of all things, and when the revolution pardons him, what does he do but go to war against us.’ Orlov scoffed and shook his head. ‘What a bloody mess. This whole damn country has gone to hell and we can’t even pick our enemies properly. Too many colours to choose from, I say. Tokmakov is the real leader of this uprising, though, a former Imperialist. A decorated soldier, no less.’

Commander Orlov winced in pain and lifted his glass to his lips, stopping as he was about to drink. ‘Damn Imperialists,’ he smiled. ‘I was one myself once.’ He paused for thought. ‘You know the uprising began when some soldiers beat up an old man in Khitrovo?’ he said. ‘I went there and it was just like anywhere else. Just another unimportant town.’

I had been there too, but I didn’t tell Orlov that.

‘As if we don’t have enough trouble with all the other damn armies who want to stop the people’s revolution. This isn’t war; this is chaos. No one knows what the hell is going on. We push the White Army down to Crimea, send Wrangel to the dogs, deal with the Blacks, and now our own people are rising against us. Now we have a Blue Army to fight.’

‘The Whites are defeated?’

‘More or less. Wrangel and his men disappeared into the Black Sea, going to who knows where, and now there’s just all these other colours to finish off – Blue, Green, a whole rainbow of colours – but they might as well all be brown for the shit this country has gone to.’ He seemed pleased with that analogy and smiled to himself before tipping back his head and swallowing the vodka.

‘They say they’re diverting men who are coming back home from Perekop,’ he said, wiping his moustache on his sleeve and looking at me, ‘but they’ll be as useless as the men I’ve just kicked off this train. Every one of them battle-weary or wounded, and I am ordered to leave them here rather than take them to a place where they can be treated, which is what I promised them.’ He nodded at me. ‘Drink.’

I put the glass to my lips and sipped again.

‘All of it. Drink it all,’ he said, so I drained the glass and put it down beside his.

‘More.’ Orlov waved the pistol in my direction.

When I had refilled the glasses, he fell into a sombre silence, shaking his head every now and then, staring at the pistol. Outside, the sounds of the men had settled. No more orders were shouted. There was only the occasional voice that lifted above the constant murmur and moan.

I watched Orlov, wondering if now was the time for me to leave. He was so deep in thought I might have been able to slip from the carriage without him noticing. Or perhaps I could get to my knife and put an end to him, but I realised I had no reason to want to harm him. He had done nothing to me. He was a wounded commander trying to do his job, and it was refreshing to see the remorse he felt at having to leave his men to die. It would take huge courage for him to defy his orders, and looking at the state of the men outside, many of them would be dead before long anyway.

‘Nikolai Levitsky.’ The words came at me like a slap. It was the second time today that someone had spoken my name and I missed a breath, my hand tightening round the glass, some of it spilling over and running through my fist.

‘Nikolai Levitsky,’ he said again, this time turning his head to stare at me. ‘You’ve heard of him?’ He looked me up and down as if assessing me with new interest.

‘No.’

‘A hero of the revolution. Recipient of the Order of the Red Banner.’ Orlov shifted in his chair, pushing himself up a little straighter. ‘He was an Imperialist, just like me, but after the war with the Germans, he joined the Red Army and—’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

Orlov shrugged. ‘Not much longer than a month ago, Nikolai Levitsky and three men fought three hundred attackers in the village of Grivino. Armed with just their Mosin-Nagant rifles, they held the Blues back until reinforcements arrived. Earned himself the Order of the Red Banner. Now that’s a hero,’ Orlov said. ‘Fighting for the people. Not like this man Tokmakov, leading his peasants against the revolution.’

It hadn’t been that way, though. We hadn’t been fighting for the people; we had been fighting for our lives. And there hadn’t been three of us; there had been ten, including my brother, Alek. And we had a tachanka. Peasants with a few rifles and pitchforks were no match for trained soldiers with good weapons and a horse-drawn machine gun. We gave them a chance to surrender, but they refused, so we gunned down every man, woman or boy they sent at us. Not three hundred, though; there can’t have been more than a hundred and fifty. And there were no reinforcements coming to help us; we didn’t need them. The battle lasted no longer than twenty minutes before the peasants finally saw the futility of their attacks and scattered back into the forest around Grivino. We didn’t follow them in, but sent a few gas grenades into the trees to finish off any stragglers.

Only one of us died in that battle, and that was because his own rifle exploded, the barrel fragmenting and firing a piece of shrapnel into his head. But the real story was no inspiration to Bolshevik soldiers. They needed heroes, not men who slaughtered women and children. So the propaganda machine changed our story and put medals on our chests, right over our heavy hearts, and the more I had thought about it, the more ashamed I grew. It had been a burden to my brother too. He never spoke of it, but I had seen it every day in his eyes.

‘You know, they say Levitsky was killed in Ulyanov. Ambushed by guerrillas and shot dead. Left in a ditch with his face smashed in.’

‘Is that right?’

Orlov shrugged. ‘Maybe. Others say he deserted. Left his unit like a coward.’

‘Maybe he just wanted to go home.’

‘And who would blame him?’ Orlov said. ‘Don’t we all just want to go home? Except it isn’t permitted.’

‘He doesn’t sound like a coward to me.’

‘Nor to me. And yet they say that men from his own unit are hunting him down to bring him to justice. Just like you’re looking for someone,’ he said. ‘Who are you looking for, Doctor?’

I put the glass down without emptying its contents. I had drunk enough already, and I needed to keep my wits about me. The alcohol would slow me, diminishing my chances of leaving the carriage alive. Outside, Lev and Anna were expecting my quick return, relying on me to lead them to safety. I would not let them down.

‘Well?’ Orlov waited for a reply.

I held my hands together to stop them from shaking and met his stare, wondering if he was going to shoot me or call for me to be arrested. But he had come from north of here; perhaps he knew something that could help me. ‘I’m looking for a man who calls himself Koschei.’

‘Like the story?’

I nodded and told myself to relax. I breathed steadily, loosened my hands and let them separate to hang by my sides, ready to act.

‘I never understood that story,’ Orlov said. ‘Why they called him “the Deathless”. Every story I ever heard about him, he dies at the end. I suppose that’s the truth, isn’t it? Eventually everybody dies, no matter who we are. Even me.’

I said nothing and the commander shifted round in his chair a little more, the pistol still in his hand, the muzzle towards me. All it would take was for his finger to twitch.

‘I’ve heard of a man who call himself by that name,’ he said. ‘A Chekist.’

And with those words, my attention sharpened. ‘Do you know who he is?’

‘Nobody. Somebody.’ Orlov shook his head. ‘I overhear the men talking when I’m sitting in here, but I’ve heard so many names. Krukov, Levitsky…’ He watched me for a reaction. ‘Other names I forget.’

‘Krukov?’

Orlov shrugged. ‘That’s a name I heard.’

I knew Krukov: we were from the same unit. I had fought alongside him, and now I saw his face. Lean and gaunt. I could understand why men might call him Koschei. Like the spectre in the skazka, Krukov was tall and thin and drawn. His beard was long enough to touch his chest, and he carried a sword, too. But if Orlov was right – if Koschei and Krukov were the same man – then what the young soldier outside had said could be true. Perhaps I had been responsible for loosing Koschei upon the world. If I had not deserted, he would never have been able to perpetrate such acts as he had.

Belev would have been safe.

If Alek and I had stayed with our unit, Koschei might never have gone into our village, and that sense of responsibility was like a weight crushing down on me. My mind reeled as it followed the thread of events that could have led to Krukov’s metamorphosis into Koschei. If I had not run, so much would be different.

‘You know where he is?’ My mouth was dry, my throat tight. My skin crawled and grew cold. The smoky air suddenly felt thick and claustrophobic.

‘No idea. First I even heard of him was a few weeks ago, but it was just stories. Hearsay about the things he had done. Yesterday, we took one of his men on board. Maybe he could give you—’

‘I saw him.’ My voice seemed to come from someone else. ‘He’s dead. What else can you tell me?’

‘Not much. My commanders are afraid of the Cheka, so they don’t ask too many questions, but he said he was with a small group escorting prisoners to a camp north of Dolinsk. His own men turned on him for some reason.’

‘Prisoners? You’re sure?’ I couldn’t hide my concern.

Orlov raised his eyebrows in interest. ‘Mm-hmm. It’s what he said.’

‘Women and children?’

‘I think so.’

Prisoners. It was a single word that gave me renewed hope. If Stanislav Dotsenko had been with Koschei and was then transporting prisoners, there was a greater chance for Marianna and the boys.

‘From what they say, I think a lot of people would want to kill this man Koschei, but why do you want to kill him?’

‘He took my family.’

‘Then I can see why you’re interested to hear about prisoners, and why you’d want to find him.’ Orlov nodded. ‘I have a family – a wife and son in Moscow. So far away.’

‘You’re wounded; you can go back to them.’

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe if I could walk like you can. Maybe if this damned leg wasn’t so rotten.’ He snatched his glass from the table and stared into it.

‘Do you have any prisoners on board this train?’ I asked.

‘You mean civilians?’

I nodded.

‘You mean, did the Chekists give their prisoners to us?’

I nodded once more.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Your family is not here. You have my word on that.’

I felt a mix of emotions at this news. There was relief that Marianna and the boys were not cooped up and starving inside one of the carriages, and there was disappointment because I still didn’t know where they were. But Koschei did have prisoners – Orlov had told me that much – and that gave me more hope that they were still alive.

‘You know what I would do if I found Nikolai Levitsky?’ Orlov said. ‘If, for instance, he walked into my carriage right here on this train and told me he was looking for his family? Like you are, I mean.’

‘No. What would you say?’

‘I’d tell him to keep running. To keep looking. To find this man Koschei and tear out his heart for taking his family.’

‘Why?’

‘Because now I understand what is important. Not fighting. Not war. Not revolution. None of this shit. Family. Family is what matters. In all this mess…’ Holding the pistol, he swept his hand around him. ‘In all this mess, nothing matters anymore except family. Not the revolution, not Lenin and definitely not the idiot who ordered me back to Tambov.’

His words were enough to warrant execution.

‘I’ll never see my family again,’ he said, lowering his voice and becoming reflective. ‘With this leg, I won’t last more than another week. I’m rotting away right here in this carriage and they’re sending me back south to die.’

‘I can still dress it for you,’ I said. ‘I know how.’

‘I imagine you’ve seen a few wounds in your time.’

‘Maybe you’ll find a surgeon who—’

‘A surgeon?’ he sneered. ‘Out here? Not a chance. Anyway, I don’t want to be half a man. I’m a soldier.’ Commander Orlov looked up at me. ‘But if I knew that a man like Nikolai Levitsky was out there looking for his family, I would tell him to find them and take them somewhere small.’

‘Small?’

‘Somewhere unimportant. Invisible. Because even when this war is won – and it will be the Bolsheviks who win it, I’m sure of that – there still won’t be any peace. Not for anyone.’ He raised his glass and toasted, saying, ‘Family.’

Orlov placed the glass on the table, then turned the pistol once more in his hands. ‘Time for you to go,’ he said. ‘We both have things to do.’

‘Thank you, Commander.’ I stepped out and closed the door.

Returning through the carriage, the soldiers hardly watched me pass, but I was relieved to reach the far end and come out into the fresh air. I wanted to be back on Koschei’s trail straight away. Commander Orlov’s information had given me greater hope and I felt a renewed urgency. I was eager to return to Kashtan, to Lev and Anna, and to be away from this place.

But I hadn’t escaped yet.

As I turned to descend the iron steps, I saw something that changed my mood in an instant.

I stood for a moment, trying to process what was happening.

The commander who had taken me aboard the train was picking his way through the wounded men, coming towards the carriage with a grim expression of determination on his face. As he came, he drew his pistol from the wooden holster, raising it to point at me, and when I glanced up to look behind him, beyond the sea of wounded soldiers, I understood why.

Close to the trees, two men with rifles stood guarding Kashtan. Lev’s horse grazed beside her. And there, between the soldiers, Lev and Anna stood prisoner.