The White Guard - Mikhail Bulgakov [63]
words, reported briefly to Major-General Blokhin, distracted on all sides by the insistent buzz of telephones from headquarters, that he, Nai-Turs, and his cadets were now ready for combat, but only on the essential condition that his entire squad were issued with fur caps and felt boots for a hundred and fifty men, without which he, Nai-Turs, considered military action as totally unfeasible. When the laconic colonel had made his report, General Blokhin gladly signed him a requisition order to the supply section but warned Nai-Turs that with this piece of paper he was unlikely to obtain the equipment he wanted in less than a week's time, because both headquarters and the supply section were hotbeds of inefficiency, red tape and disorganisation.
Colonel Nai-Turs took the piece of paper and, with his habitual twitch of the left half of his clipped moustache, marched out of General Blokhin's office without turning his head to left or right (he could not turn it, because as the result of a wound his neck was rigid and whenever he needed to look sideways he was obliged to turn his whole body). At the Detachment's quarters on Lvov Street Nai-Turs collected ten cadets (armed, for some reason) and a couple of two-wheeled carts, and set off with them to the supply section.
At the supply section, housed in a most elegant villa on Kudry-avskaya Boulevard, in a comfortable office adorned with a map of Russia and a portrait of the ex-Empress Alexandra left over from the days of the wartime Red Cross, Colonel Nai-Turs was received by Lieutenant-General Makushin, a short unnaturally flushed little man dressed in a gray tunic, a clean shirt peeping over its high collar, which gave him an extraordinary resemblance to Milyutin, Alexander II's war minister.
Flinging down a telephone receiver, the general enquired in a childish voice that sounded like a toy whistle:
'Well, colonel, what can I do for you?'
'Unit about to go into action', replied Nai-Turs laconically. 'Please issue felt boots and fur hats for two hundred men immediately.'
'H'mm', said the general, pursing his lips and crumpling Nai's
requisition order in his hand. 'Can't issue them today I'm afraid, colonel. Today we're taking an inventory of stores issued to all units. Come back again in about three days time. And in any case I can't issue a quantity like two hundred.'
He placed the requisition order at the top of a pile under a paperweight in the shape of a naked woman.
'I said felt boots', Nai-Turs rejoined in a monotone, squinting down at the toes of his boots.
'What?' the general asked in perplexity, staring at the colonel with amazement.
'Give me those felt boots at once.'
'What are you talking about?' The general's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
Nai-Turs turned to the door, opened it a little and shouted out into the passage:
'Hey there, platoon!'
The general turned a grayish white, his glance swivelling from Nai-Turs' face to the telephone receiver, from there to the ikon of the Virgin hanging in the corner, then back to the colonel's face.
There was a clinking and shuffling in the passage, then several red-banded cadets' forage caps of the Alexeyevsky Military Academy and some black bayonets appeared in the doorway. The general started to rise from his padded armchair.
'I have never heard anything like it . . . this is mutiny . . .'
'Please countersign the requisition order, sir', said Nai. 'We haven't much time, we move off in an hour. The enemy is right outside the city.'
'What on earth do you mean by . . .'
'Come on, hurry up', said Nai-Turs in a funereal voice.
Hunching his head between his shoulders, his eyes starting from his head, the general pulled the piece of paper from