Free The Dangerous Years by Max Hennessy Page A

priest vanished, the artillery clattered past followed by the Cossacks, singing as they went, the music conducted by the officer in front with his whip.
    A pale young Russian Guards officer stepped forward.
    ‘Captain Takhatin,’ he introduced himself sombrely. ‘I am to be your liaison officer. I think perhaps this time they give me an easy job.’
    ‘Wasn’t the last one easy?’
    The Russian’s face stiffened. ‘The last time,’ he said, ‘I am evacuated wounded. But perhaps I am lucky because a week later the others are all murdered.’
    It set Kelly back on his heels. It was one of those unexpected anecdotes that always seemed to be turning up in Russia which completely prevented any reply or words of sympathy. They were so common and so terrible there was simply nothing that could be said.
     
    Led by a light train, they set off north. It was sunset as they reached the main ranges of the Caucasus. Rocks, cliffs and pinnacles rose in front with pine forests in a smooth purple plain, and finally a river appeared, rushing from the slopes white with foam.
    Kimister carried out his duties nervously so that Kelly wondered if he’d been detached from Queen Elizabeth because someone wanted to get rid of him, but the artilleryman, Galt, was everywhere at once, enthusiastically checking rations, ammunition, spare parts and tools. Occasionally they passed other trains waiting in sidings, sometimes full of soldiers docile as sheep, sometimes full of passengers packed into incredibly filthy cattle cars with barely enough room to move. They were even on the roofs and buffers and packing the windows, their pale faces full of resignation. Takhatin watched them gloomily.
    ‘One month ago,’ he pointed out, ‘they go north. The war goes well and they wish to go home. Now they go south.’
    Oh, charming, Kelly thought. Bloody charming! With his usual luck he had found himself in the middle of a lost campaign hundreds of miles from the sea.
    After a while the train began to run across a bare treeless countryside as flat as a billiard table. Occasionally they saw groups of mounted men riding alongside the track, tall, well-built men in long grey coats with cartridge belts across their chests and high karakul caps. They seemed to be weighed down with weapons and occasionally one of them fired his rifle in the air in salutation.
    They spent the night in a sidings at Ekaterinodar. There seemed a great deal of nervousness about the place but the military maps on the walls showing the White armies’ advances appeared to have nothing on them to cause concern, because the whole of the Northern Caucasus seemed to be in Denikin’s pocket, while General Wrangel had just liberated the Terek region, and Kolchak, the White leader in Siberia, was advancing towards the Volga in the hope of a link-up.
    There were far more troops about in Ekaterinodar even than in Novorossiisk but no less confusion. The soldiers were patient and good-humoured but they seemed to be treated abominably by their officers.
    Takhatin shrugged. ‘They constantly desert,’ he said.
    The following morning, as they headed further north towards Tsaritsyn, the steppe seemed more lifeless and depressing than ever. At intervals they passed villages that broke the monotony of empty earth and sky. The houses were all square, mud-brown and thatched, and the entire population, with their cattle and horses, lined the track to watch them pass.
    Tsaritsyn was only just beginning to recover from its long occupation by the Bolsheviks. It was said they had murdered thousands of people before it had been recaptured, and their bodies had been placed in the ravines on the outskirts. The information seemed to bother Kimister.
    The shops were still empty and the churches desecrated. The population had a shocked look and there were starving children everywhere begging for food. Wrangel’s troops were further to the north heading for Saratov as part of Denikin’s great plan, but no one