RHYKOV (Part 1)


By KATZMAREK ©


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AUTHOR'S NOTE.


Some of the events and personalities in this story are real,
other's aren't. Please don't Email to tell me that X was with Y
in Z and not in Q. This work is Fiction.


As always, it remains my property and may not be reproduced for
profit without my express permission in writing.


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Yuri Feodorovich Shapalev was born, 'somewhere beyond the
Urals' in Western Siberia. He was uncertain of the year, but
must have been in the 1890s. One of a large family; he was
always vague about the number of his siblings, but he thought
about nine.


He did recall, though, that his parents had been political
exiles and either chose to remove themselves from police
repression, or had been ordered out of Europe by the secret
police, the OKRANA. In a dreary, cold and windswept wasteland
his parents had continued to breed.


But he barely remembered them because he'd been given away to
another family when he was only three. That family had wandered
from place to place, seeking work labouring on farms or working
in mines.


His new family, he recalled, were illiterate, stoic and
emotionally distant. He didn't remember getting hugs or presents
on his birthday. He did remember, though, the back breaking toil
in fields since he could barely stand upright. The whole family,
apparently, had a collective responsibility to survive.
Education was in the fields, the wild climate and the
lawlessness of frontier towns.


He was barely a youth when the labour convulsions of 1905 broke
out. It had little effect on their lives, but it was about that
time when he decided to strike out on his own.


He was a valuable member of the family's labour force, however,
and they would've locked him up if they knew his plans. He went
out into the Siberian winter, he said, 'to take a leak,' and
never came back.


If Yuri knew little else, he did know how to survive in a harsh
climate. He became a hunter, vagabond and thief, like so many of
his contemporaries. He knew that 'West' meant the wealth and
opportunities of European Russia. There, he'd known from an
early age, was where factory work could be obtained or
employment in the Army. 'West' meant pretty girls who were
compliant and accomodating. 'West,' particularly the Caucasus,
meant warm summer days and the sun-drenched shore of the Black
Sea. This was the stuff of legend, of folk tales told around the
campfire when the night was dark and the freezing wind drove the
blizzards down from the Arctic. 


-------------------------------------------------


Ekaterinburg had been founded in 1723 in the reign of Peter the
Great. It was named after his wife, Saint Catherine, later
Empress Catherine the Great. Then it had been an administrative
centre, founded by one Tatischev and Peter's Proconsol for the
Ural Region. Later, however, when mines were opened up in the
Urals, Ekaterinburg grew in importance. Then came the Trans
Siberian Railway.


Vostochnaya Station was a busy complex in 1905. Ore trains
banged and crashed in the railyards and throngs of people
looking for work jostled outside and in the station's great
hall. It was the city's de facto employment centre, and as such,
one wall of the hall was cluttered with notices for work.


Yuri pushed among the crowds. Illiterate, the notices on the
wall made no sense to him. Naturally reticent, he found it hard
to ask questions. Besides, although he'd have been reluctant to
admit it, the sheer number of people in the hall intimidated
him. He hung about on the fringe of the crowd, confused and
growing despondent. He hadn't allowed for this in his mind, the
sheer weight of humanity. He'd never seen so many people in his
life.


"You lost lad?" he heard a voice behind him. Yuri was instantly
on alert, hoping the voice would pass by or be talking to
someone else. "Tovaritch! You, lad," the voice continued. His
tone had a commanding, almost a stentorian tone like a policeman
or an official. Yuri looked for an escape route. Cops meant
trouble and there was a lot of trouble following him from the
East, he was sure. A hand clamped on his shoulder. Yuri spun
around ready for a fight but was confronted by a man of truly
enormous proportions.


Yuri, already a good 6 foot in height, looked upwards to the
man's face. He was dressed in a long, grey, greatcoat and fur
hat. The bearskin featured a silver badge with a twin-eagle
crest and crossed rifles. A gold sash hung about his enormous
waist and a dress sword hung from it. On his feet he wore high
boots into which was tucked his grey trousers with a broad red
stripe down the outside of each leg. "You're a fine, strong
lad," the man continued, "d'you fancy the life of a Guardsman?"


Yuri was dumbstruck, both by the man's intimidating appearance
as well as his request. "What's your name, lad?" the man asked.


"Yuri," he replied, his voice lowered and not just a little
frightened.


"Looking for work?" the man asked. Yuri nodded. "Well, what do
you say? No finer life than the army... good pay, good food and
lodging, girls, eh? You in trouble with the police?" Yuri's face
blanched guiltily. "No worry," the man went on, "you'll have a
whole regiment to protect you, eh? You behave yourself in the
army and you'll have no trouble."


The man promised Yuri renewal and a clean start. This was a
chance to forget about his old life, an opportunity to live an
honest existence free from the insecurity of the road. He'd
hardly said a word before the man took him by the arm and led
him out of the station. He walked down boulivards teeming with
humanity before being steered into an office on Tsarskoye Street.


"Last name?" asked the man behind the desk. To Yuri his surname
was a distant memory, a name he'd foresworn for the comfort of
anonymity. He hesitated and scratched his head. "Ok," the man
smiled knowingly, "here, sign this, Private Rhykov!"


"Private, who?" he asked, confused.


"The name of my cousin's lifelong friend. He was killed on
active service so I don't suppose he needs it anymore... sign!"
Yuri shook his head. The recruiter smiled and signed for him. He
was now in the army.


-----------------------------------------------


Private Rhykov was a natural when it came to soldiering. He was
tall and strong and rigid discipline came easy to him. The army
looked after him, clothed and fed him, educated and gave him
comfortable quarters. In return he gave them unquestioning
loyalty. From where he'd come from, with minimal expectations of
life and from people, the army gave him a life with respect.


His initial term of enlistment was for 12 years. When the Great
War burst onto the Russian people, Rhykov was a 'Sub-
Proporshchik' in the 2nd Foot Guards 'Alexandra Imperatrix,' one
of the most prestigious infantry regiments in Imperial Russia.
The old fashioned rank of 'Sub-Proporschik,' or senior NCO,
indicated how much tradition suffused the ranks of the Guard
Regiments. They were hand-picked; only the tallest, the best and
the most impressive infantrymen became Guardsmen. In theory they
were charged with the preservation of the Imperial family. As
such, the 2nd Guards' honourary Colonel, or 'Polkovnik,' was
none other than the Tsarina Alexandra herself.


Rhykov took seriously his oath of loyalty to the Romanovs. In
1914 he was fully prepared to die in the service of the Tsar and
his family. Such a death ensured his instant salvation and fast
track to Paradise in the eyes of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Rhykov had never questioned that in his nearly 10 years of
military service.


But the abdication of the Tsar, the Revolution, and the rise to
power of the Bolsheviks came at a time when Rhykov's term of
enlistment was up. His regiment had all but ceased to exist, the
Officers fled, and the enlisted men split between the Whites and
the Reds. He had no idea what he was to do.


------------------------------------------


The Barracks in Petrograd were known locally as the 'Preobash.'
In October 1917 (Old Style calendar) it was home to groups of
despondent and disorientated former Imperial Guardsmen. Their
Officers had already fled Petrograd and Konstantin Yerenev's Red
Guards had them besieged. Barricades had been set up outside in
the street and nearby buildings bristled with snipers.


But it was a very porous blockade, and many Guardsmen had
already escaped, to go home, join the Bolsheviks or 'go South'
with their Officers. Rhykov had taken control of the remainder,
some 200 soldiers, as senior Noncom.


There was little ammunition and food was getting scarce. The
walls of the barracks were made from forbidding brick and was
virtually impregnable to assault by storm. The Red Guards seemed
unwilling to shed their own blood and the besieged had nowhere
to go. It was a hopeless standoff and they all knew it. After a
few days, a little party approached the main gate carrying a
white flag. It was led by a man named Comrade Vladimir Antonov-
Ovseenko.


Ovseenko was a Ukrainian, and a former 'Internationalist
Menshevik' who'd gone over to the Bolsheviks in May 1917. He was
from the elite, an Officers' family, and he'd commanded some of
the Red Guard detachments who'd stormed the Winter palace in
October. By November 1917 he already held a senior position in
the Bolshevik Defence Committee, 'Sovnarkom.' Later, as a firm
friend of Leon Trotsky, he was to end his life in the Stalinist
purge of 1938.


Rhykov greeted the Bolshevik in the atrium of the barracks. He
wore his dress uniform and sword, deliberately provoking the Red
with the Tsarist crest on his busby. For Rhykov, all he had left
was loyalty to a cause which no-longer existed. Ovseenko,
however, oozed charm and diplomacy, 'he fully understood the
soldier's dilemma,' he maintained.


"But the Working Class needs men like you," he insisted, "to
defend their freedom."


What impressed Rhykov more, however, was not Ovseenko's words
but the fact he was a military man like himself. Ovseenko
carried himself like an Officer, was familiar with a soldiers'
way of speaking. So when he offered Rhykov a commission as
'Kombat' and a Battalion of Red Guards, in fact most of his own
men, he readily accepted. 'Reinforcements were needed in the
South,' Ovseenko explained, so Rhykov led his troops South, into
the Ukraine.


--------------------------------------------


In Novocherkassk, General Alexeev had been joined by Kornilov
and the Don Cossack Army to form the White Volunteer Army, the
'Dobrovocheskaya Armiya.' They took Rostov, then stormed into
the Southern Ukraine scattering the weak Red Forces before them.


When Rhykov's Battalion arrived, the Ukraine was in an uproar.
The Anarchist 'Black Guard,' or 'Machnovistas,' had made common
cause with the Socialist Revolutionaries and held various towns
to the South of Kiev. They were fighting brigades of Ukrainian
Nationalists, who were being supplied by the German Army. The
Anarchist/SR group had yet to commit to the Bolshevik cause and
Ovseenko had been ordered by Sovnarkom to negotiate. The
Bolshevik policy was to divide and rule; there would be time
enough to settle with them later.


Shortly, though, at Brest-Litovsk, representatives of the
Ukrainian Nationalist Rada would crash the peace talks and
strike their own deal with the Germans. Ukraine would then be
occupied by an Austro-German army until the general armistice in
November 1918.


Rhykov, however, entered Kiev in late December '17 and took up
defensive positions at Vasilkov, on the railway South.


The Battalion had taken their weapons with them from
'Preobash.' As a Guards Unit, they'd been well-supplied with
Maxim Machine Guns. Their ill-armed opponents were no match for
them and refused to challenge their control of the railway line.


A barricade of logs blocked the line and nearby huts were
reinforced as makeshift pill boxes. Rhykov knew his craft and
sited his defences well. Even Ovseenko was impressed and had
taken quite a shine to his 'Kombat.' The Kommissar was looking
for an experienced man to lead all Red Guard forces in the area,
now grouped as a 'Division.' He looked no further than 'Comrade
Kombat' Rhykov. 


The new 'Comrade Komdiv' Rhykov had achieved a command position
unthinkable for an ill-educated peasant soldier in the service
of the Tsar. He now had nearly 7000 troops under his authority.


Vasilkov was well-supplied with food, thanks to
'expropriations' from local farms by enthusiastic local Red
Guardsmen. The Kiev Soviet had organised the city onto a war
footing, drafting legions of industrial workers to build
barricades and man defences. To Rhykov's consternation, squads
of women volunteers, mostly cloth workers, pitched in with the
men and marched around in armed fighting squads. All of them,
were now under his personal authority.


As the winter ground on, the 'Machnovistas,' short of food
supplies, thanks to the deprivations of Red Guard 'taxes,' began
small scale raiding against Bolshevik-held villages. It was a
particularly harsh winter, made worse by the disruption to
economic activity and shortage of manpower in the fields.
Possession of cities like Kiev took on major importance,
particularly if they were well-serviced by railways. Food could
be brought in from outside; not so the small villages, those
held by the 'Machnovistas.'


"Comrade Komdiv, Comrade Komdiv," gasped the breathless Red
Guard, "we've captured... thieves..."


Rhykov was annoyed. This was both a discipline and a political
problem. Theft of food from the 'proletariat,' was a capital
offence, punishable by summery execution. But if they were
'Machnovistas,' and he suspected they were, then his orders from
Kommissar Ovseenko was to let them go free. This was not out of
any humanitarianism, but because Sovnarkom was trying to enlist
the 40,000 strong Anarchist forces into the Red Army.


They were a sullen and miserable lot. There were five of them,
two women and three men and they looked at the Komdiv with a
mixture of anger and fear. Rhykov noted they were ill-dressed
for the cold, a mixture of civilian and military clothing. Their
weapons and ammunition belts had been torn from them and lay in
a pile in the corner of the hut. A young Guard stood menacingly
over them brandishing a Military Nagant revolver.


Rhykov held little patience for thieves, it emperilled them all
and offended his sense of discipline. But these people were
starving and even his cold heart melted a little at their
desperation.


"Feed them," he ordered, "then send them back to their people."
The guard looked disappointed and glanced sideways at Rhykov.
Common sense had taught him never to question the Komdiv,
however, and he scuttled out of the hut to forage some food from
the kitchen. "Who are you? Where are you from?" he asked.


The men and one of the women turned their heads away in
disgust. Although reprieved, their hatred infected the very air
in the hut.


"Olga," said the younger of the women, "from Belo Pole."


"Ah." Rhykov knew Belo Pole was one of the Anarchist towns in
the South West part of the Ukraine near the Romanian border.
"Are things bad over there?"


The others shot warning glances at Olga, but she ignored them.
Nodding, she then lowered her face.


"No food?"


"None... so hungry... I... I don't want to die." Her voice was
timid and pathetic. Some more of Rhykov's cold heart melted.


"How old are you?" he asked curious. Although her face was
lined with fatigue, she seemed incredibly young to him.


"16, I am 16 years old this Spring."


"A baby!" he shook his head, "if you have a home you must
return to it. You do not belong among this rabble."


"Salvation is in our hands and no-one else's. If we want
Liberty we must seize it ourselves."


"True, but whose Liberty are you seizing starving to death out
there? There are other ways of furthering the liberation of the
working class."


"Such as?"


"Such as remaining here and joining the Red Army. We have
everything we need, here, food, clothing..."


"Stolen from the peasants?" grumbled one of the other men.


"'Donated' to the Revolution," Rhykov retorted, smiling. He
knew it was bullshit, and so did the Machnovistas. But, he
figured, the peasants would follow their food supplies and that
trail led right to the Red Army's recruiters. "So?" Rhykov
continued, "starvation or a good job... as my secretary." That
addition had been an afterthought. "You read and write?"


"Yes."


"Good. Come, I'll find you some quarters or perhaps you'd like
to eat first?"


"Eat."


"Very well. Later, perhaps?"


The girl had nodded uncertainly but Rhykov was sure she
wouldn't refuse. She'd had enough of life out there among the
Machnovistas, he could tell, and he was a good judge of people.


------------------------------------------


Rhykov and the young Anarchist girl got on well together. He
found in Olga both an efficient secretary and confidante.
Although the army had taught him to read and write, he still
found it a struggle. Olga took to dictation like a trouper and
faithfully translated his reports into acceptable Russian
'officialese.'


But most of all she was someone who listened to him without
comment. He'd even rave to her about the parlous state of supply
and the political machinations of Sovnarkom that left him
wondering constantly what was going on. He received signals from
Ukrainian Kommissar Ovseenko that were often contradictory and
ambiguous and even lengthy bulletins from War Kommissar Trotsky
left him none the wiser.


It was frustrating that he was prevented from advancing against
the Machnovistas. He knew their positions were weak and their
fighters in a poor state. In didn't make any sense to wait any
longer and risk allowing them to make their positions more
secure.


Olga could see the sense in what Rhykov was saying, even if she
couldn't agree to him making war on her friends. Instead, she
suggested they set up some talks, maybe invite them into
Vasilkov. After all, she insisted, they had the same common
enemy, the Rada forces and the Volunteer Army. All this was way
beyond a Komdiv's authority, however, but he did agree to send a
delegation with Olga over to their lines.


The delegation duly returned with the important news that the
Anarchists had withdrawn. Further news arrived over the coming
days that the Machnovistas had retreated back to their bases
along the foothills of the Carpathians. Something was happening
but Rhykov hadn't the foggiest idea what.


With no enemy confronting them, Rhykov ordered the abandonment
of the positions at Vasilkov and brought his men to Kiev for
winter quarters. Olga and he 'expropriated' some quarters, at
the former mayor's mansion, and hunkered down to await the
warmer weather. 


The mansion was in the well-to-do Sviatakym suburb of Kiev. The
aristocrats had long fled, however, and their fine palaces had
been acquired by Red Guards and landless peasants. Much of the
fine furniture in these houses went up in smoke as they were fed
into the fireplaces to heat these cavernous dwellings.


Boredom was something Rhykov, as a soldier, had long experience
at dealing with. First, he arranged his quarters the way he
wanted it. Then he repaired his kit and uniform. Lastly he used
his time to draw up plans, anticipate possibilities, and improve
his supply lines. The Kiev Division was acquiring the reputation
of being one of the best in the region, all thanks to Komdiv
Rhykov.


-------------------------------------------------


'Komuk to Komdiv Kiev Division'


'This morning, 25th, German and Austrian forces invaded Ukraine
and occupied Lwow(Lvov). Bourgeois Ukrainian Rada forces and the
Insurrectionary Army of Machno are in league with them.'


"I don't believe it!" Olga exclaimed, "Machno wouldn't join the
Germans!" Rhykov shrugged. Politics always left him gasping for
air. The Army was so much simpler, 'march here, march there,
fight those people, retreat there.' He read through the pages
until he found his orders, then handed the rest to Olga. She
could make sense of it.


'You are advised to withdraw in good order along the line of
the North East Railway as soon as conditions permit. The Kiev
Soviet has been asked to expropriate a locomotive and such
rolling stock as they can find. You should  not make any
menacing move against the bourgeois occupying forces and must
preserve the Kiev Division for further operations.'


"So you're going to abandon the Ukraine?" Olga asked, accusingly.


"Yep. I heard the German army is moving into Estonia. My bet is
Sovnarkom is  panicking over a move on Petrograd. That'll be why
we're pulling out... concentrating our forces... makes sense."


"Can the Red Army beat the Germans?" Olga asked.


"Nope," Rhykov replied, "we have some good units, sure, but
we're still in the middle of organising. The Germans and
Austrians are all crack troops with good Generals and so forth.
I can't see how we can get troops and artillery to the fronts in
the middle of winter. Half the railways are not working and our
boys are scattered around all over the place. Trotsky is
correct, retreat is the best option until we can concentrate.
Scorch the earth and make them carry their own rations, slow
them down."


"What about the peasants, how are they to live?"


"They must pull back with the army."


"In winter? Old women and children?"


"Fuck, Olga, I didn't invite the bastards!"


"I'm sorry, Komdiv Rhykov, I know you would help them if you
could."


"I would?" Rhykov asked, raising his eyebrows.


"Yes. You're not as tough as you make out."


"I'm not?"


"No! You understand... you're from the peasant classes... you
have solidarity, I can tell."


"You can? I do? Listen, Olga, I think you have the wrong idea
about me. I'm a soldier, I do as I'm ordered. If I have to leave
a family of peasants in the snow to die of starvation then I
will. My 'feeling' is for the army and my men..."


"You keep repeating that, Komdiv Rhkov, and maybe one day
you'll believe it," Olga called back as she left the room.


"I do believe it," he muttered, "I don't need a concience." 


-----------------------------------------


Olga seemed willing to oblige Rhykov in every way, but he'd
come to regard her as the young sister he'd never got to know
before. Perhaps, it seemed to him, she was almost like a
daughter? But she attempted to be his concience as well, the
concience he always denied he had. He and Kommissar Antonov-
Ovseenko understood each other in that regard. Ovseenko would
maintain that a concience diverted a soldier from his class
duty. He, Rhykov, however, would claim the same, except he'd
leave out the word 'class.'


He'd never had much time for women throughout his life in the
military, except as whores as the need arose. 'There were plenty
of them,' he chuckled to himself. But he was strangely drawn to
this Olga. 'Perhaps it was curiosity,' he mused, 'like some
strange animal.' But he was Komdiv and had few people in whom he
could confide. 'I mean, really confide,' he thought, 'not just
like discussing strategy and tactics with his Kombats.' He could
bounce ideas off her and guage her reaction and she'd bring a
whole new perspective to his mind. 'What about the peasants?
Fuck the peasants! They knew how to survive by instinct, they
didn't need his help.'


"Olga!" he yelled, "get onto Kommissariat and ask them how many
railway wagons they can scrounge?"


"Yes, Komdiv, what for?"


"We may be taking some passengers with us when we retreat."


"Yes, Komdiv, right away!" Olga turned her face away lest he
caught her smiling.


---------------------------------------------


Olga Berezkovkaya was Russian by birth, rather than Ukrainian.
But the only life she knew was in South Western Ukraine among
the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. Belo Pole had been
the hometown of one Nestor Machno, the charismatic leader of the
Ukrainian Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement and their Militia, the
'Black Guard.'


The young Olga had grown up in privilege, as a member of the
ethnic Russian 'elite.' Her Father, in fact, was the mayor and
local Tsarist administrator of the Belo Pole District.


She was twelve when the Great War broke out. Her father was
adamant the Tsar would protect them. The family was in Church
praying for salvation when the Romanians and their Serbian
allies marched in from over the mountains. She remembered the
commotion and people running into the Church for sanctuary. She
was horrified when armed soldiers stormed in and began dragging
people out. Her Father then kissed her and the Priest hid her
under the altar. There were shots and she could hear her
Father's voice, and that of the Priest, shouting, pleading. The
Priest halted mid sentence and Olga heard his body hit the floor
near her hiding place.


It was several hours before she summoned the courage to peek
out from under the altar. Inside the Church, bodies lay in
heaps. Most appeared to have been bludgeoned or bayonetted to
death. She knew them all, they were her neighbours. Terrified,
she went in search of her parents.


Outside, the streets were deserted, except; on each of the
telegraph poles that lined the main street a body hanged; and
the two poles nearest the church hung those of her Mother and
Father.


The next day, advancing Russian soldiers found Olga delirious
and near collapse below her parent's bodies. They took her to a
house where she was cared for by some Orthodox nuns. The Army
then set to the grim task of burying the dead.


She was allowed to attend the funeral of her parents. It was
hastily arranged and presided over by the Army Chaplain. The
nuns explained that the Romanians killed all the Orthodox
Christians in the village and anyone suspected of being Russian.
They told her that God had a special punishment devised for
those that broke the sanctuary of the Church.


But Olga began to have doubts that God had anything at all to
do with what went on. She was a thinker, an artist, who
expressed her thoughts onto canvas. In the days following, she
withdrew into herself, and sketched.


That was when she met Nestor Makhno and the Black Guard. The
Army had pulled out and she was left in the care of the nuns,
who'd somehow survived the onslaught of the Romanians. There was
little administration left in the village and many of the
survivors had left with the army. The Anarcho-Syndicalists of
the Black Guard then came and filled the void.


Machno was charismatic, driven and idealistic. His force of
personality gathered many peasants from the surrounding fields
to his Red and Black flag. The young Olga instantly fell for the
man, even though he was 27 years old.


Machno, however, seemed to regard her as a daughter. He called
her his 'sparrow,' as one would a child. The young Olga resented
the word, she wanted to be regarded as a woman. She remained as
part of the 'Machnovistas' until encountering the Red Army in
December 1917.


By then she'd been involved in many skirmishes with the
Anarchists' various enemies. Machno was a player, who formed
alliances as the need arose, then broke them when they were no-
longer beneficial. The collapse of the Russian Armies in
September 1917 left many competing groups in the Ukraine
squabbling for control. The Machnovistas joined with the
Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries and called themselves the'
Greens' for a time. Their enemies were the Nationalists of the
Rada, then, but even the Black Guard would form an association
with these 'bourgeois forces' when the need arose.


Nestor Machno, then, was pragmatic and shrewd, and he had
little interest in the young Olga as a lover. After a year by
his side, Olga requested to be sent to a fighting unit. She
could no-longer tolerate Nestor's spurning of her affection and
his taking of other lovers around her. Perhaps, she thought,
that by her death in battle Nestor Machno would finally confess
his love for her? 


But the misery and privations of that Winter of 1917 all but
extinguished her spirit. Rather than wanting to die, she
desperately sought a reason to live. That reason turned out to
be a Red Army Officer by the name of Rhykov. She instantly knew
it the moment he confronted their raiding party in that hut at
Vasilkov.


Rhykov was about the same age as Machno. She had a thing for
older men, she thought, smiling inwardly. Like Machno, too, he
pretended he was this tough guy who cared about nothing but his
duty. But Olga knew better, she could see into the hearts of
men, she always could, from an early age.


On the front line she'd lost weight and her clothing had hung
baggy and shapeless about her form. The Kiev Division, however,
had plenty of food and she'd regained her health. Rhykov, she
mused, and the Kiev Soviet were efficient organisers and had
provided for the Division well.


The Division had been well-supplied, too, with uniforms, care
of the clothing workers of Kiev. Her's was a good fit, she'd
seen to that with a few adjustments of her own. Rhykov couldn't
fail to see she was a woman under the military uniform. She knew
he could, she could tell by the way he looked at her.


"Olga!" he yelled from the next room, "have you called the
Komissariat yet? What do they say?"


"I have, Comrade Komdiv. They have already collected a great
many wagons. They say there's plenty for the Division and enough
for any of the peasants who wish to leave."


"Locomotives?"


"Seven, although they say they'll need coaling before they
reach the border."


"Tell them to take what they need from Konotop. There were
mountains of it there when we passed through."


"I will, Komdiv." Olga smiled in satisfaction. She gathered
together the latest signals, unbuttoned the top two buttons of
her shirt, then stood to go in to see Rhykov.


--------------------------------------------


KATZMAREK ©





