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'Jesus Christ Almighty!' muttered a voice behind Turbin. Somebody nudged him in the back and breathed down his neck.

'Lord . . . the things that happen these days. Have they started killing people? What is all this?'

'I know no more than you do.'

'What? What? What? What's happened? Who are they burying?'

'Vanya!' screamed the voice in the crowd.

'Some officers who were murdered at Popelyukha', growled a voice urgently, panting with the desire to be first to tell the news. 'They advanced to Popelyukha, camped out there and in the night they were surrounded by peasants and men from Petlyura's army who murdered every last one of them. Every last one . . . They

gouged out their eyes, carved their badges of rank into the skin of their shoulders with knives. Completely disfigured them.'

'Was that what happened? God . . .'

Ensign Korovin.

Ensign Herdt -more yellow coffins bobbed past.

'Just think . . . what have we come to . . .'

'Internecine war.'

'What d'you mean . . .'

'Apparently they had all fallen asleep when . . .'

'Serve 'em right . . .' cried a sudden, black little voice in the crowd behind Alexei Turbin and he saw red. There was a melee of faces and hats. Turbin stretched out his arms like two claws, thrust them between the necks of two bystanders and grabbed the black overcoat sleeve that belonged to the voice. The man turned round and fell down in a state of terror.

'What did you say?' hissed Turbin, and immediately relaxed his grip.

'Sorry sir', replied the voice, shaking with fright. 'I didn't say anything. I didn't open my mouth. What's the matter?' The voice trembled.

The man's duck-like nose paled, and Turbin realised at once that he had made a mistake and had grabbed the wrong man. A face of utter loyalty peered out from behind the duck-bill nose. It was struck dumb and its little round eyes flicked from side to side with fright.

Turbin let go the sleeve and in cold fury he began looking around amongst the hats, backs of heads and collars that seethed about him. He kept his left hand ready to grab anything within reach, whilst keeping his right hand on the butt of the revolver in his pocket. The dismal chanting of the priests floated past, beside him sobbed a peasant woman in a headscarf. There was no one to seize now, the voice seemed to have been swallowed up by the earth. The last coffin marked 'Ensign Morskoy' moved past, followed by some people on a sledge.

' Voice of Liberty!' came a piercing contralto shriek right beside

Alexei Turbin's ear. Senseless with rage he pulled the crumpled newspaper out of his pocket and twice rammed it into the boy's face, grinding his teeth and saying as he did so:

'There's your damned Voice of Liberty! You can damn well have it back! Little swine!'

With this his attack of fury subsided. The boy dropped his newspapers, slipped and fell down in a snowdrift. For a moment he pretended to burst into tears, and his eyes filled with a look of the most savage hatred that was no pretence.

'What's the matter with you? Who d'you think you are, mister? What've I done?' he snivelled, trying to cry and stumbling to his feet in the snow. A face stared at Turbin in astonishment, but was too afraid to say anything. Feeling stupid, confused and ashamed Turbin hunched his head into his shoulders and, turning sharply, ran past a lamp-post, past the circular white walls of the gigantic museum building, past some holes in the ground full of snow-covered bricks and towards the huge asphalt square in front of the Alexander I High School.

'Voice of Liberty! Paper! Paper!' came the cry from the street.

The huge four-storey building of Alexei Turbin's old school, with its hundred and eighty windows, was built around three sides of an asphalted square. He had spent eight years there. For eight years, in springtime during breaks between classes he had run around that playground, and in the winter semester when the air in the classrooms was stuffy and dust-laden