The Town By The Sea

THE BODY IN THE GULLY

The thing Vukovich had been afraid of had happened. When inquiries were made about Pecheritsa in Friedensdorf, one of the chapel-goers heard about it and immediately informed Kunke that the authorities were interested in his guest.

Cursing his luck but not waiting to be captured, Pecheritsa left the colony at dusk and made for the nearest railway station, Verkhny Tokmak. Kunke had supplied him with letters of recommendation to rich Germans living on the outskirts of Taganrog.

. . . Night. Two oil lamps cast their dim light on the little station of Verkhny Tokmak that lay half-hidden amid melon-fields and vineyards in the middle of the steppe. The sleepy stationmaster dozed by the open window waiting for a call from the next station.

Pecheritsa paced up and down the gravel platform. Presently another passenger approached him and asked for a light. Pecheritsa held out his burning cigarette. Having nothing better to do, the two men strolled up and down the platform talking. Little by little Pecheritsa learnt that his new acquaintance was a supply agent from Novocherkassk. His name was Yosif Okolita. He was on his way home after a long trip round the coastal districts bordering on the Azov Sea, and was glad of someone to talk to.

Soon Pecheritsa learnt that Okolita was a Galician like himself. Okolita's parents had taken him out of Galicia to the Volga region when he was still a boy. Fearing Austrian persecution, the people of many villages in the Western Ukraine had left their native land with the retreating Russian troops in those years. In 1916, there were Galicians to be found in the Caucasus, in Tavria, in the Crimea. Some of them travelled even further—to the Penza and Saratov provinces. Okolita's parents had died during the famine in the Volga region and he, now an orphan, had gone to live with his uncle, also a refugee from Galicia, who had settled in Novocherkassk as a tailor.

Son of a schoolmaster from Galicia, Yosif Okolita had not only got used to living with the Russians, he even praised Soviet rule and was intending next autumn to enter the Rostov Teachers' Training Institute.

That night, as he listened to this confiding young fellow who had almost completely lost his Galician

accent, Pecheritsa agreed with him about everything and at the same time thought to himself that he could make very good use of Yosif Okolita's papers and biography.

Who could tell what treatment he would receive from the friends of Gustav Kunke to whom he was going! And besides, to save his own skin, Kunke might disclose Pecheritsa's whereabouts at the very first interrogation.

A bell rang indicating that the train for which they were waiting had left the last station and was on its way to Verkhny Tokmak. Pecheritsa's cold treacherous mind worked quickly. While trying to gain the friendship of his fellow countryman with memories of his native Galicia, Pecheritsa was thinking: "The body will be discovered with my papers on it, and if they've started searching for me, their first move will be to call up Kunke to identify the murdered man. Kunke's an old hand at the game. To save himself and give me a chance to get away, he's bound to say it's me."

A short distance from the station a well could be seen among the trees. Saying that he was very thirsty, Pecheritsa asked his companion to work the pump. Suspecting nothing, Okolita willingly agreed. They walked towards the well. As soon as they reached the shadow of a warehouse, Pecheritsa pulled out a hunting knife and stabbed Okolita in the back. Pecheritsa dragged his victim into a near-by gully, searched his pockets and took his papers, money, and cigarette-case. There was no time to lose. After hastily thrusting the false papers bearing the name Shevchuk into the dead man's pocket, Pecheritsa washed his hands in a puddle by the well, and picking up Okolita's little wooden case of provisions calmly walked on to the lighted platform from the other side of the station.

The train from the Azov Sea stopped at Verkhny Tokmak for three minutes. Then the train steamed on to Pology carrying with it the bogus supply agent Yosif Okolita.

The homebound holiday-makers, sunburnt and sleepy, dozed between their clean sheets. Anxious for a short rest before arriving at the busy station Volnovakha, the old steward nodded in his compartment. No one paid any attention to the chance passenger who had taken a vacant seat in one of the candle-lit compartments.

The new passenger was in high spirits. Certain that he had at last baffled his pursuers, Pecheritsa on arriving in Rostov-on-Don took a room in the best hotel in the city.

He calmly booked himself in at the hotel and was able to live there for three days, confident that no one would take any notice of a supply agent travelling through Rostov on his way from Novocherkassk. He must have enjoyed his sleep after so many days of agitated wanderings. In the evenings he went for walks round the city.

Pecheritsa experienced what must have been the most terrifying moment in his life on the fourth day. The door of his room opened and instead of the waiter with silver-plated tray whom he had been expecting he saw framed in the doorway the slim fair-haired figure of Vukovich.

Vukovich raised a revolver and in a calm, everyday voice said: "Hands up! ..."

"Hold on, Nikita! How could he have found Pecheritsa under another name, and in a big town like that?" Sash a exclaimed.

"You may be a flyer, Sasha, old chap, but you are still unforgiveably naive," Nikita said impressively. "Try to understand this. Vukovich and his comrades were trained under the Iron 'Knight of the Revolution, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky! They serve the Party and Soviet power, guarding all that we gained in the Great Revolution of October. Everyone is eager to help them! When Vukovich had caught that spy, he wrote the railwaymen of Verkhny Tokmak a letter requesting them to put up a memorial on the grave of Yosif Okolita, near the gully where he was murdered by Pecheritsa. And he

even thought out an inscription for it. Do you know what it was? To a son of the oppressed Western Ukraine, Yosif Okolita, who was murdered by a hireling of world capitalism. Sleep in peace, dear comrade. Your native land will know the happy hour of liberation.' I'll be passing through Verkhny Tokmak tonight, and if the train stops there, I'm going to have a look at that memorial."

"All right, Nikita," I interrupted, "but you haven't told us properly yet how Vukovich guessed that Pecheritsa was living in that hotel."

"How did he guess it?" Nikita said with a grin. "I'll tell you. I mentioned that the dead man's uncle was a tailor in Novocherkassk, didn't I? Well, knowing his nephew would stop in Mariupol for a few days, Okolita's uncle sent him a letter to be called for at the post-office there. It was brief but pleasant.

Okolita's uncle told his nephew that he had been accepted for the Rostov Teachers' Training Institute. He advised him to turn in his work and come straight home. Okolita had put this precious letter in a pocket that Pecheritsa in his haste failed to search. Vukovich immediately telegraphed the murdered man's uncle to come to the scene of the crime. While the coroner was checking the age of the dead man, which obviously did not correspond to Pecheritsa's, Okolita's uncle was on his way to Verkhny Tokmak. He identified the body and after that it was quite a simple matter to arrest the murderer..."

As if awakening from a deep meditation, Petka said excitedly: "Just think what would have happened, chaps, if Pecheritsa had fooled us! We'd never have finished our schooling, we'd be hanging about half-trained in Podolia somewhere, and the working class would have lost a reinforcement of fifty-two people!"

"And the commune wouldn't have got its reapers," said Sasha.

"There wouldn't have been any reapers, that's a fact," I agreed readily. "A lot of things wouldn't have happened. We wouldn't have been sitting here... Gosh, what a lot of harm just one traitor can cause, if he isn't discovered in time!"

"You're not going very deep, Vasil," Nikita cut in. "It's not just a matter of our factory-training school. People like Pecheritsa do harm to the life of the whole people, to Soviet power. The point is that we've learnt how to get at their dirty hearts long before they can get at ours! They'll never succeed in splitting the Ukraine away from Russia. The people of the Ukraine are honest working people, and they understand very well what gentry like Pecheritsa are after. Remember Lenin's words that we learnt at school: 'If the Great Russian and Ukrainian proletariat act together, a free Ukraine is possible. Without that unity the subject cannot even be raised.' Every worker in the Ukraine has got those wise words deep inside him now. He tested them well during the Civil War and treachery won't change his convictions. And sooner or later those traitors will get what's coming to them, because the truth is found to be on our side." Nikita was silent for a little, then he said: "Let's go back, chaps. The. sun's setting and we've a long way to row."

We all heaved together and pushed the boat into the calm water of the harbour. I rowed at stroke and Sasha took charge of the rudder. The long springy oars swept easily through the water. Glistening drops falling from the blades sparkled in the dying rays of the sun. The rowlocks creaked in time with our oars and Sasha, resting in the stern, struck up a song:

Bravely we march to fight

For the power ofthe people!

All of us our lives will give

In that great battle!

... We saw Nikita off late at night. With us we brought a sack of hay to make him comfortable in the open truck under one of the reapers.

The engine was being coupled to the long goods train, when Nikita suddenly pulled an enamel flask out of his rucksack and said: "Show me where I can get some water, Vasil."

"Come on, we'll show you," Petka volunteered readily.

"No, you and Sasha wait here and look after my things. Vasil will take me there. Come on, Vasya!" Nikita said hastily.

When I led Nikita to the water tap I did not know that it was a desire to tell me a secret that had made Nikita insist on my showing him the way. As soon as we reached the taps sticking out of a stone hut at the back of the platform, Nikita glanced over his shoulder and whispered in my ear: ;

"Tell me, Vasil, did you show anyone your letter before you sent it to me?"

Not realizing fully what Nikita was driving at, I replied cautiously:

"No, I didn't... Why?"

"And you didn't tell anyone about what you had written?"

"No, nothing... that is, I said I had written you a letter, but I didn't tell anyone what was in it."

"You didn't tell anyone about your suspicions that this woman Rogale-Piontkovskaya who runs the dancing-class is a relative of the Countess in Podolia?"

"But is she? ... Well, that's what I thought!" And I went on excitedly: "But when I saw her, I decided it must be just a coincidence. That one back home was thin and dignified-looking, but this woman here's more like a meat-trader at the market."

"Well, go on thinking that, understand?" Nikita said meaningfully. "Just a coincidence of names, and no more! And don't talk about it. That's a request not only from me, there's someone else..."

"Vukovich?"

A loud clanking announced that the engine had been coupled to the train.

"I'll tell you all about it one day," Nikita said, "but for the time being... dead silence! All game has to be stalked quietly."

"Wait a minute, Nikita!" I protested, thoroughly bewildered. "We're planning to show up Madame and her dancing-class. I told you..."

"As a Komsomol undertaking?"

"Yes, all the young chaps will be in it..."

"If it's the Komsomol that's doing it, that's all right. That won't interfere. But you must act as if you'd never heard that name in your life before. Then the little detail that you told me in your letter won't be wasted... Now, let's go..."