Free Tempting Fate by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

sentence given to all the men in the company. Those who were billeted in the village were unaware of what was happening at the monastery and therefore should not be held responsible. Only Acting Captain Yuri Yureivich Garin, Acting Colonel Dmitri Mihialovich Rubashek and I were at the monastery when the escape occurred, and it is only the three of us who ought to bear the responsibility for it.
    It is the stated policy of the new government to mete out justice with true impartiality, and if that is the case, then I ask that this sentence be reviewed so that men who were in no way involved with the escape be exonerated. Without doubt the three of us who were there are guilty and deserve the penalty. The rest have no share in it, and it is wrong that they pay the price of our inexcusable neglect.
    You yourself have stated that it is the intention of the military court to make an example of our little garrison. If that is in fact what you intend, then make an example of those officers responsible, and do not condemn blameless soldiers to die for the errors of their leaders.
    I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that one of the reasons so much of the garrison was in Konstantinovka rather than at the monastery was that our supplies had run so low that if the men had remained at the monastery, there would not have been sufficient food to provide sufficient meals for half of them, let alone for the prisoners. As it is, of those prisoners who did not escape, two froze to death, one died of the fever, and six starved. The supplies promised us were never delivered, and the villagers, after two grantings of food and drink, refused further assistance because of the inadequacy of their own stores. If the prisoners who had escaped had remained at the monastery, many of them would have died, as there would have been no way to feed them.
    As you have been informed, of the nineteen prisoners who escaped, sixteen have been accounted for: the other three have probably perished, since the winter storms interfered with our pursuit. Such a hunt should not have been necessary, and it is our fault that it was, but those three men might have got away in the course of moving the prisoners to Petrograd, as was planned.
    I beseech you to have the men who were in Konstantinovka attend the execution of Garin, Rubashek, and myself, but spare them. You will have better and more dedicated service from them if you do, and I will not feel that I have unwittingly brought about the deaths of my men.
    In gratitude for your attention, I most respectfully sign myself
    Nikolai Ivanevich Rozoh
    An appended memo in Colonel Alexei Sergeivich Genadov’s hand reads:
    Rozoh’s point is well-taken. The firing squad for Garin and Rubashek and the full Parade of Dishonor for Rozoh, all the men of the Monastery of the Victory garrison attending. Rozoh can then be sent to one of the regiments on the Polish border in as menial a capacity as we can contrive. A man willing to do so much for his soldiers should have some recognition. When the hostilities are over, Rozoh can be sent to join the other pioneers at one of the Siberian outposts.
    Has there been any more learned about the three prisoners still missing?

4
    Frost had hardened the ground, spangling the dried stalks of plants so that they glistened under the moon. Wind sloughed in the branches of the distant trees and fanned the last of the embers into winking red eyes before passing on across the ice-girded lake. Wraiths of smoke slipped out of the ruined stables, fleeing the burned buildings as the horses had done more than twelve hours ago. Spring had made only the most tentative headway here, although April was half over.
    Ragoczy rode out of the woods where he had waited since sundown, his dark eyes impassive as he looked at the destruction around him. He had seen a great deal of it in the last five days—ruined bridges, rails twisted like party ribbon, blackened and gutted buildings, barges