Part 20 (1/2)

'Why should he take an oath? They They are going to swear anoath to are going to swear anoath to him.' him.'

'Well, I'd rather die, (whisper) I won't swear . . .'

'No need for you. They won't touch women.'

'They'll touch the Jews all right, that's for sure . . .'

'And the officers. They'll rip their guts out.'

'And the landlords! Down with 'em!'

'Quiet!'

With a strange look of agony and determination in his eyes the fair-haired orator pointed at the sun.

'Citizens, brothers, comrades!' he began. 'You heard the cossacks singing ”Our leaders are with us, with us like brothers”. Yes, they are with us!' The speaker thumped his chest with his hat, which was adorned with a huge red ribbon. 'They are with us. Because our leaders are men of the people, they were born among the people and will die with them. They stood beside us freezing in the snow when we were besieging the City and now they've captured it - and the red flag is already flying over our towns and villages here in the Ukraine . . .'

'Hurrah!'

'What red flag? What's he saying? He means yellow and blue.'

'The Bolsheviks' flag is red.'

'Quiet!'

'Hurrah!'

'He speaks bad Ukrainian, that fellow.'

'Comrades! You are now faced by a new task-to raise and strengthen the independent Ukrainian republic for the good of the toiling ma.s.ses, the workers and peasants, because only those who have watered our native soil with their fresh blood and sweat have the right to rule it!'

'Hear, hear! Hurrah!'

'Did you hear that? He called us ”comrades”. That's funny . . .'

'Qui-et.'

'Therefore, citizens, let us swear an oath now in the joyous hour of the people's victory.' The speaker's eyes began to flash, he stretched his arms towards the sky in mounting excitement and the Ukrainian words in his speech grew fewer and fewer - 'and let us take an oath that we will not lay down our arms until the red flag - the symbol of liberty - is waving over a world in which the workers have been victorious.'

'Hurrah! Hurrah! . . . The ”Internationale” . . .'

'Shut up, Vasya. Have you gone crazy?'

'Quiet, you!'

'No, I can't help it, Mikhail Semymovich, I'm going to sing it: ”Arise, ye starvelings from your slumbers . . .” '

The black sideburns disappeared into their owner's thick beaver collar and all that could be seen were his eyes glancing nervously towards his excited companion in the crowd, eyes which were strangely similar to those of the late Lieutenant Shpolyansky who had died on the night of December 14th. His hand in a yellow glove reached out and pulled Shchur's arm down . . .

'All right, all right, I won't', muttered Shchur, staring intently at the fair-haired man. The speaker, who was now well into his stride and had gripped the attention of the ma.s.s of people nearest to him, was shouting: 'Long live the Soviets of workers', peasants' and cossacks' deputies. Long live . . .'

Suddenly the sun went in and a shadow fell on the domes of St Sophia; Bogdan's face and the speaker's face were more sharply outlined. His blond lock of hair could be seen bouncing on his forehead.

'Aaah . . . aaah . . .' murmured the crowd.

'. . . the Soviets of workers', peasants' and Red Army soldiers' deputies. Workers of the world, unite!'

'What's that? What? Hurrah!'

A few men's voices and one high, resonant voice at the back of the crowd began singing 'The Red Flag'.

Suddenly, in another part of the crowd a whirlpool of noise and movement burst into life.

'Kill him! Kill him!' shouted an angry, quavering, tearful man's voice in Ukrainian 'Kill him! It's a put-up job! He's a Bolshevik! From Moscow! Kill him! You heard what he said . . .'

A pair of arms shot up into the air. The orator leaned sideways, then his legs, torso and finally his head, still wearing its hat, disappeared.

'Kill him!' shouted a thin tenor voice in response to the other. 'He's a traitor! Get him, lads!'

'Stop! Who's that? Who's that you've got there? Not him - he's the wrong one!'

The owner of the thin tenor voice lunged toward the fountain, waving his arms as though trying to catch a large, slippery fish. But Shchur, wearing a tanned sheepskin jerkin and fur hat, was swaying around in front of him shouting 'Kill him!' Then he suddenly screamed: 'Hey, stop him! He's taken my watch!'

At the same moment a woman was kicked, letting out a terrible shriek.

'Whose watch? Where? Stop thief!'

Someone standing behind the man with the thin voice grabbed him by the belt and held him whilst a large cold palm, weighing a good pound and a half, fetched him a ringing smack across his nose and mouth.

'Ow!' screamed the thin voice, turning as pale as death and realising that his fur hat had been knocked off. In that second he felt the violent sting of a second blow on the face and someone shouting: 'That's him, the dirty little thief, the son of a b.i.t.c.h! Beat him ____ 'Hey!' whined the thin voice. 'What are you hitting me for? I'm not the one! You should stop him him - that Bolshevik! - Ow!' he howled. - that Bolshevik! - Ow!' he howled.

'Oh my G.o.d, Marusya, let's get out of here, what's going on?' There was a furious, whirling scuffle in the crowd by the fountain, fists flew, someone screamed, people scattered. And the orator had vanished. He had vanished as mysteriously and magically as though the ground had swallowed him up. A man was dragged from the centre of the melee but it turned out to be the wrong one: the traitorous Bolshevik orator had been wearing a black fur hat, and this man's hat was gray. Within three minutes the scuffle had died down of its own accord as though it had never begun, because a new speaker had been lifted up on to the fountain and people were drifting back from all directions to hear him until, layer by layer around the central core, the crowd had built up again to almost two thousand people.

By the fence in the white, snow-covered side-street, now deserted as the gaping crowd streamed after the departing troops, Shchur could no longer hold in his laughter and collapsed helplessly and noisily on to the sidewalk where he stood, 'Oh, I can't help it!' he roared, clutching his sides. Laughter cascaded out of him, his white teeth glittering. 'I'll die laughing! G.o.d, when I think how they turned on him - the wrong man! -and beat him up!'

'Don't sit around here for too long, Shchur, we can't take too many risks', said his companion, the unknown man in the beaver collar who looked the very image of the late, distinguished Lieutenant Shpolyansky, chairman of The Magnetic Triolet.

'Coming, coming', groaned Shchur as he rose to his feet.

'Give me a cigarette, Mikhail Semymovich', said Shchur's other companion, a tall man in a black overcoat. He pushed his gray fur hat on to the back of his head and a lock of fair hair fell down over his forehead. He was breathing hard and looked hot, despite the frosty weather.

'What? Had enough?' the other man asked kindly as he thrust back the skirt of his overcoat, pulled out a small gold cigarette-case and offered a short, stubby German cigarette. Cupping his hands around the flame, the fair-haired man lit one, and only when he had exhaled the smoke did he say: 'Whew!'

Then all three set off rapidly, swung round the corner and vanished.

Two figures in student uniforms turned into the side-street from the square. One short, stocky and neat in gleaming rubber overshoes. The other tall, broad-shouldered, with legs as long as a pair of dividers and a stride of nearly seven feet. Both of them wore their collars turned right up to their peaked caps, and the tall man's clean-shaven mouth and chin were swathed in a woollen m.u.f.fler - a wise precaution in the frosty weather. As if at a word of command both figures turned their heads together and looked at the corpse of Captain Pleshko and the other man lying face downward across him, his knees crumpled awkwardly to one side. Without a sound they pa.s.sed on.