The White Guard - Mikhail Bulgakov [8]
'Well, it was evening by the time we got to Post-Volynsk. The chaos there was indescribable. I counted four batteries just standing around still limbered up - no ammunition, apparently. Innumerable staff officers everywhere, but of course not one of them had the slightest idea of what was going on. The worst of it was, we couldn't find anywhere to unload our two dead men. In the end we found a first-aid wagon. If you can believe it they threw our corpses away by force, wouldn't take them. Told us to drive into the City and dispose of them there! That made us really mad. Krasin wanted to shoot one of the staff officers, who said: "You're behaving like Petlyura" and vanished. Finally at nightfall I found Shchetkin's headquarters car - first class, of course, electric light . . . And what d'you think happened? Some filthy little man, a sort of orderly, wouldn't let us in. Huh! "He's asleep," he said, "the colonel's given orders he's not to be disturbed." Well, I pinned him to the wall with my rifle-butt and all our men behind me started yelling. This brought them tumbling out of the railroad car. Out crawled Shchetkin and started trying to sweeten us. "Oh, my God", he said, "how terrible for you. Yes, of course, right away. Orderly - soup and brandy for these gentlemen. Three days' special furlough for all of you. Sheer heroism. It's terrible about your casualties, but they died in a noble cause. I was so worried about you . . ." And you could smell the brandy on his breath a mile away . . . Aaah!' Suddenly Myshlaevsky yawned and began to nod drowsily. As though asleep he muttered:
'They gave our detachment a car to themselves and a stove . . . But I wasn't so lucky. He obviously wanted to get me out of the way after that scene. "I'm ordering you into town, lieutenant.
Report to General Kartuzov's headquarters." Huh! Rode into town on a locomotive . . . freezing . . . Tamara's Castle . . . vodka ...'
The cigarette dropped out of Myshlaevsky's mouth, he leaned hack in the chair and immediately started snoring.
'God, what a story . . .' said Nikolka, in a bemused voice.
'Where's Elena?' enquired the elder brother anxiously. 'Take him to get washed. He'll need a towel.'
Elena was weeping in the bathroom, where beside the zinc bath dry birch logs were crackling in the boiler. The wheezy little kitchen clock struck eleven. She was convinced Talberg was dead. The train carrying money had obviously been attacked, the escort killed, and blood and brains were scattered all over the snow. Elena sat in the half-darkness, the firelight gleaming through her rumpled halo of hair, tears pouring down her cheeks. He's dead, dead . ..
Then came the gentle, tremulous sound of the door bell, filling the whole apartment. Elena raced through the kitchen, through the dark library and into the brighter light of the dining-room. The black clock struck the hour and ticked slowly on again.
But after their first outburst of joy the mood of Nikolka and his elder brother very quickly subsided. Their joy was in any case more for Elena's sake. The wedge-shaped badges of rank of the Hetman's War Ministry had a depressing effect on the Turbin brothers. Indeed dating from long before those badges, practically since the day Elena had married Talberg, it was as if some kind of crack had opened