Yashka · Part IV · Chapter 18 (2/2)

“Well, we are not releasing her, are we?” retorted Petrukhin. “I am going to call the committee together and have her story investigated.”

“An investigation!” scoffed Pugatchov. “And if you don’t find any evidence against her, will you let her go? You don’t know her! She is a dangerous character! How could we afford to save her? I wouldn’t even waste bullets on her. I would call the men and they would make a fine gruel of her!”

He made a motion toward the door. Petrukhin kept hold of him.

“But consider, she is a sick woman!” he pleaded. “What is the investigation committee for if not to investigate before punishing? Let the committee look into the matter and take whatever action it considers best.”

At this point the Commandant of the station arrived. He supported Petrukhin. “You can’t act like that in such a case,” he said, “this is clearly a matter for the investigation committee. If she is found guilty, we will execute her.”

Petrukhin went to summon the members of the investigation committee, who were all, twelve in number, common soldiers. As soon as he told the news to each member, he told me later, the men became threatening, talking of the good fortune that brought me into their hands. But Petrukhin argued with every one of them in my favour, as he was convinced of the genuineness of my plea. In such a manner he won some of them over to my side.

Meanwhile Pugatchov paced the room like a caged lion, thirsting for my blood.

“Ah, if I had only known it before, I would have had you shot in company with those fifteen officers!” he said to me.

“I should not have the heart to shoot at my own brothers, soldier or officer,” I remarked.

“Eh, you are canting already,” he turned on me. “We know your kind.”

“Taking you all in all,” I declared, “you are no better than the officers of the old regime.”

“Silence!” he commanded angrily.

Petrukhin came in with the committee at that instant.

“I must ask you not to make such an uproar,” he said, turning to Pugatchov, feeling more confident with the committee at his back. “She is in our hands now, and we will do justice. It is for us to decide if she is guilty. Leave her alone.”

There were only ten members of the committee within reach. The other two members were absent and the ten, as they made a quorum, decided to go on with the work.

“Whether you find her guilty or not, I will not let her get out of here alive!” Pugatchov declared. “What am I?” he added. “I am no enemy either.”

However, this threat worked in my favour, as it touched the committee’s pride. They were not to be overridden like that. Pugatchov demanded that I should be searched.

“I am at your disposal,” I said, “but before you proceed further I want to hand over to you this package of money. There are ten thousand roubles in it, sent to me by Princess Tatuieva, my former adjutant, to enable me to take the cure at the springs. I kept this money intact, because I hoped to return it to her upon reaching the Caucasus.”

The money had in reality been given to me by Kornilov, to secure my parents and myself from starvation in the future.

The valuable package was taken away, without much questioning. I was then ordered to undress completely. Petrukhin protested against it, but Pugatchov insisted. The dispute was settled by a vote, the majority being for my undressing.

The search was painstaking but fruitless. There was the ticket to Kislovodsk, the letter from Princess Tatuieva, a little bottle of holy water, given to me by my sister Nadia, and a scapular, presented to me before leaving for the front by one of the patronesses of the Battalion.

“Ah, now we have got it!” exclaimed Pugatchov, seizing the sacred bag. “There is the letter from Kornilov!”

The bag was ripped open and a scroll of paper was taken out on which a psalm had been written in a woman’s hand. I declared that the sin of tearing it open would fall on their heads and that I would not sew it up again. One of the soldiers obtained a needle and thread and sewed up the bag again.

The members of the committee apologized for having been obliged to have me searched in such a manner.

“What shall you do with me now?” I asked.

“We shall have you shot!” answered Pugatchov.

“What for?” I demanded in despair.

The brute did not reply. He merely smiled.

Petrukhin was afraid to defend me too warmly, lest he should be suspected of giving aid to a spy. He preferred to work indirectly for me, by influencing the members of the committee individually. It was decided, I believe, at the suggestion of Petrukhin, that the case should be submitted to the Commander-in-Chief, Sablin, for consideration and sentence. This was merely a device for preventing an immediate execution, but the feeling among the men was that my death was certain. Nevertheless, I was deeply grateful to Petrukhin for his humane attitude. He was a man of rare qualities, and among Bolsheviks he was almost unique.

I was ordered to a railway carriage used as a jail for captured officers and other prisoners. It was a death-chamber. Nobody escaped from it alive. When I was led inside, there were exclamations:

“Bochkareva! How did you get here? Coming from Kornilov?”

“No,” I answered, “I was on my way to Kislovodsk.”

There were about forty men in the car, the greater part of them officers. Among the latter there were two Generals. They were all shocked at my appearance among them. When my escort had departed, the prisoners talked more freely. To some of them I even told the truth, that I had actually been to Kornilov. None of them gave me any hope. All were resigned to death.

One of the Generals was an old man. He beckoned to me and I sat down beside him.

“I have a daughter like you,” he said sadly, putting his arm round my shoulders. “I had heard of your brave deeds and had come to love you like my own child. But I never expected to meet you here, in this deathtrap. Is it not dreadful? Here are we, all of us, the best men of the country, being executed, tormented, crushed by the savage mob. If it were only for the good of Russia! But Russia is perishing at this very moment. Perhaps God will save you yet. Then you will avenge us.⁠ ⁠…”

I broke down, convulsed with sobs, and leaned against the General’s shoulder. The old warrior could not restrain himself either and wept with me.⁠ ⁠…

The other officers suddenly sang out in a chorus. They sang from despair, in an effort to keep from collapsing.

I cried long and bitterly. I prayed for my mother.

“Who would support her?” I appealed to Heaven. “She will be forced to go begging in her old age if I am killed.” Life became very precious to me, the same life that I had exposed to a hundred perils. I did not want to die an infamous death, to lie on the field unburied, food for carrion crows.

“Why haven’t you allowed me to die from an enemy’s bullet?” I asked of God. “How have I deserved being butchered by the hands of my own people?”

The door swung open. About forty soldiers filed in. Their leader had a list of names in his hand.

“Bochkareva!” he called out first.

Somehow my heart leaped with joy. I thought that I was to be released. But the officers immediately disillusioned me with the statement that it was a call for execution. I stepped forward and answered:

“I am here!”

“Take off your clothes!”

The order stupefied me. I remained motionless.

Some soldiers came up, pushed me forward and repeated the order several times. I awoke at last and began to undress.

The old General’s name was read off the list next. Then a number of other officers were called out. Every one of them was ordered to cast off the uniform and remain in his undergarments.

The Bolsheviks needed all the uniforms they could get, and this was such an inexpensive way of obtaining them.

Tears streamed down my cheeks all the time. The old General was near me.

“Don’t cry!” he urged me. “We will die together.”

Not all the prisoners were in our group. Those remaining kissed me farewell. The partings between the men were alone sufficient to rend one’s heart.

“Well, we shall follow you in an hour or two,” those who were left behind said bravely.

After I had taken off my boots, I removed the icon from my neck and fell before it on my knees.

“Why should I die such a death?” I cried. “For three years I have suffered for my country. Is this shameful end to be my reward? Have mercy, Holy Mother! If not for the sake of humble Maria, then for the sake of my destitute old mother and my aged father! Have mercy!”

Here I collapsed completely and became hysterical.

After a few moments an officer approached me, put his hand on my shoulder, and said:

“You are a Russian officer. We are dying for a righteous cause. Be strong and die as it befits an officer to die!”

I made a superhuman effort to control myself. The tears stopped. I arose and announced to the guards:

“I am ready.”

We were led out from the car, all of us in our undergarments. A few hundred feet away was the field of slaughter. There were hundreds upon hundreds of human bodies heaped there. As we approached the place, the figure of Pugatchov, marching about with a triumphant face, came into sight. He was in charge of the firing squad, composed of about one hundred men, some of whom were sailors, others soldiers, and others dressed as Red Guards.

We were surrounded and taken toward a slight elevation of ground, and placed in a line with our backs toward the hill. There were corpses behind us, in front of us, to our left, to our right, at our very feet. There were at least a thousand of them. The scene was a horror of horrors. We were suffocated by the poisonous stench. The executioners did not seem to mind it so much. They were used to it.

I was placed at the extreme right of the line. Next to me was the old General. There were twenty of us altogether.

“We are waiting for the committee,” Pugatchov remarked, to explain the delay in the proceedings.

“What a pleasure!” he rubbed his hands, laughing. “We have a woman today.”

“Oh, yes,” he added, turning to us all, “you can write letters home and ask that your bodies be sent there for burial, if you wish. Or you can ask for similar favours.”

The suspense of waiting was as cruel as anything else about the place. Every officer’s face wore an expression of implacable hatred for that brute of a man, Pugatchov. Never have I seen a more bloodthirsty scoundrel. I did not think that such a man was to be found in Russia.

The waiting wore me out soon and I fell again on my knees, praying to the little icon, and crying to Heaven:

“God, when have I sinned to earn such a death? Why should I die like a dog, without burial, without a priest, with no funeral? And who will take care of my mother? She will expire when she learns of my end.”

The Bolshevik soldiers burst out laughing. My pleading appealed to their sense of humour. They joked and made merry.

“Don’t cry, my child,” the General bent over me, patting me. “They are savages. Their hearts are of stone. They would not even let us receive the last sacrament. Let us die like heroes, nevertheless.”

His words gave me strength. I got up, stood erect and said:

“Yes, I will die as a hero.”

Then, for about ten minutes I gazed at the faces of our executioners, scrutinizing their features. It was hard to distinguish in them signs of humanity. They were Russian soldiers turned inhuman. The lines in their faces were those of brutal apes.

“My God! What hast Thou done to Thy children?” I prayed.

All the events of my life passed before me in a long procession. My childhood, those years of hard toil in the little grocer’s shop of Nastasia Leontievna; the affair with Lazov; my marriage to Bochkarev; Yasha; the three years of war; they all passed through my imagination, some incidents strangely gripping my interest for a moment or two, others flitting by hastily. Somehow that episode of my early life, when I quarrelled with the little boy placed in my charge and the undeserved whipping I got from his mother stood out very prominently in my mind. It was my first act of self-assertion. I had rebelled and escaped.⁠ ⁠… Then there was that jump into the Ob. It almost seemed that it was not I who sought relief in its cold, deep waters from the ugly Afanasy. But I wished that I had been drowned then, rather than die such a death.⁠ ⁠…