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Chapter Twenty-one

Former Tsar Nicholas II and Crown Prince Alexei, Sawing Wood

Tobolsk

The negotiations were for appearances’ sake and nothing but. With the amount of money on hand, Turgenev—for once in a position where his aristocratic accent and manners weren’t a handicap—could have bought considerably more than two warehouses and one safe house.

As it turned out nothing worthwhile was for sale. There were, however, places to lease. There were, in fact, two warehouses for lease, perhaps twenty-five arshini by thirty, in one case, and thirty by thirty-five, in the other. One was near the pretty much abandoned for the fall, winter, and spring river docks, the northernmost set, sitting inside a little apparently artificial bay. The other was at the southwestern edge of the town, perhaps a versta and a half from the Irtysh River.

The safe house, a decent sized log building with a good Russian stove in the center of the main room, was a bit to the south and several blocks to the east of the Cathedral of the Annunciation. It was two floors, with a basement, the basement having a kind of root cellar to it. The rent was appalling but, as the realtor explained, “It does at least have a winter’s worth of firewood with it. That’s something, this year.”

“Can’t you . . . ?” began Turgenev, forcing a tone of exasperation into his voice that he really didn’t feel.

“Sir,” replied the realtor, who recognized “quality” when he saw it, “if I tried to drop the rent a kopeck the owner would skin me. And if I told him I was renting to a competitor—you gentleman are in the fur trade, yes?—he’d pour salt on the freshly exposed flesh as he cut.”

“But I’m taking a lease for a whole year!”

“Even so. Sir, I can’t.”

With feigned disgust, Turgenev pulled out some of the oversized currency exchanged with Saskulaana and proceeded to peel off five hundred and one hundred ruble notes.

“Can you direct me,” he asked, as he passed the wad over, “to where I can buy a large quantity of food? We’re going to be bringing in a hundred hunters and trappers for two months and they’ll need to eat.”

“Oh, sir, this is the worst time to try to buy food in Tobolsk. We have no rail line so everything must come down the river or be pulled by animals. The river stays frozen for another two, maybe two and a half months. Yes, of course there will be some for sale, but you can expect the price to be outrageous.”

“Even so, they must eat. I don’t suppose . . . ?”

“I’ll make some discreet inquiries.”

Turgenev translated this as, “I will consider which of my relatives to favor and will jack up the price accordingly.”

“You could, too,” said the realtor, “do some hunting yourselves for meat. The animals, too, will be a little thin but still.”

“Rostislav Alexandrovich?”

“Yes, Maxim Sergeyevich?”

“Since we have a couple of rifles, why don’t you and one other of our party take a few horses, rent a sleigh, and do a little hunting.”

“Define ‘a little.’ ”

“A thousand pood would not be too much.”

“I’ll see what we can do. Do you mind if I range rather far? As we came north from our earlier scouting expedition I saw a lot of sign.”

“Certainly.”

* * *

While Mokrenko was making his arrangements, Turgenev took Natalya for a walk about the town. Whatever she imagined might be the purpose, there was not a shred of romance in his intent. She was, frankly, just cover. Who, after all, does combat reconnaissance with a young girl in tow?

Three blocks west from the safe house and a bit to the north led them to the Cathedral of the Annunciation, the very place, though Turgenev didn’t know it, where the royal family was sometimes allowed to attend services.

They found the priest inside, standing at the altar and gazing intently at one in particular of the icons. Turgenev was loath to interrupt but, finally, ahemed his way to the cleric’s attention.

“Excuse me, Father,” Turgenev said. “I represent a fur trading firm looking to expand our enterprise here in Tobolsk. We’ve taken a house a few blocks east of here. My sister and I were looking for a place we could attend mass.”

“You don’t want to come here,” said the priest, who further introduced himself as “Father Vladimir Khlynov.” “My predecessor, Father Alexei Vasiliev, is in terrible disfavor with the Reds guarding the tsar and his family, so Bishop Germogen exiled him to a monastery for his own safety. I cannot encourage anyone to attend this church; those men are fanatics and vindictive, both.”

“A terrible combination,” Turgenev agreed. “Are you, personally in disfavor?”

“No,” answered the priest, “but while I am serving as in charge of this cathedral I might as well be.”

“What happened?”

Father Vladimir gave a sad sigh, then stated, “The tsar was here for mass at Christmas and the chorus, at Father Alexei’s direction, sang the ‘Mnogoletie,’ the wish for a long life to the tsar. The Reds were not amused. But then we didn’t do it to amuse them, did we, but to let our tsar and his family know that we support them still.”

“Do you?”

“How can I not?” replied Vladimir. “They cannot come to mass here, anymore, so I go to them when it’s allowed. And, when it isn’t, I go up to the bell tower and bless them, from a distance.”

“We saw the tower when we arrived,” Turgenev said. “Can you see them from up there?”

“When they’re in the right area, yes.”

“Could I see?” Natalya asked.

“Surely, child,” the priest replied. “Why don’t you and your brother just go on up? While you’re up there, say a prayer for our tsar and his family, why don’t you?”


The lieutenant observed, “A single sniper up here, Natalya, could command Ulitsa Great Friday all the way to the Church of Zachary and Elizabeth.”

“Does that matter?” she asked.

“It might. It might be a place for Kostyshakov to put in a sniper or machine gun team. It might be a place we need to make sure the Reds don’t put in a sniper or machine gun team.”

“I need to make a confession,” she said.

Turgenev had been dreading this moment. The girl’s crush had been obvious for some time, probably at least since the time he’d pulled a half-drowned Babin from the Black Sea. And he liked her, too, of course. Nor did he blame her for the abuse she’d suffered. But he was too old, or she too young, for anything romantic. Maybe in five or seven years.

“Go ahead,” he said, dreading the expected revelation.

She leaned against the wall, back toward the governor’s house. It was mostly to steady herself. Even then, though, she hung her head, ashamed.

“I should have told you when you first freed me but, you see, when the Bolsheviks murdered my parents, they knew who I was. Their abuse because of that was horrific, much worse than simple rape. So I didn’t want anyone to know who I was anymore lest I be beaten or raped . . . well, raped differently . . . because of who my parents were. I suppose they didn’t tell Vraciu because then he might have shown me some consideration before selling me back to one of my relatives.”

“Tell him what?”

Again, she sighed. “Tell him the reason they abused me . . . sold me. Maxim Sergeivich, with the deaths of my parents, I inherited . . . well . . . their status. I am a baroness. No, no huge estates, but a ‘proprietary’ baroness all the same, since we do . . . did . . . have a decent sized farm. But . . . well . . . it’s worse than that, really. The royal family . . . mmm . . . we’ve met. I was little then but they might still recognize me, because I look so much like my father.”

“Does anyone else—anyone else in our party—know?”

“Sergeant Mokrenko guessed, I think. Then he caught me out, twice, at least twice, as having a better education than a simple peasant girl ought to have had, or to be expected to have had.”

“Yes, if anyone would have guessed . . .” Turgenev laughed at himself. “You know, Baroness Sorokin, I can’t tell if I’m disappointed or thrilled.”

“Disappointed, why?” she asked.

“I was afraid you were about to utter a declaration of undying love.”

“Why,” she asked, dryly, “would I make a declaration of something that is so obvious? I’ve decided you think I’m too young and love you the more for that. I am; I am young, not stupid or blind. But in five years, or seven, at the outside, and maybe as few as three, Maxim Sergeyevich, you belong to me. Period. If, that is, you are not disgusted by what they made of me, the Reds and the crew.”

“Don’t be silly. You want to talk about peoples’ bodies being used for obscene purposes? I’ll tell you about the war sometime. That was an obscene purpose. And I had no more will in it than you did.

“All right,” he said, “in five years we’ll open this discussion again. In the interim, how do you actually feel about the royal family?”

“I don’t know the tsarevich, Alexei,” she replied, “but the four girls—OTMA, they call themselves, as a group—are wonderful. You would think they would be spoiled, right? Self-centered? Stuck up? Bitchy? They’re not. They cleaned their own rooms, made their own beds, and took cold baths. Think about that; cold baths, in Saint Petersburg, in the middle of winter? They’re regular people, at heart. They’d all adore being regular people, in fact.”

Turgenev went silent for a moment, thinking hard. I wonder if . . . 

“Hmmm . . . you know, it would help if we had someone who could act as a go between. Do you think you could get in there as a maid to them? My little spy? But without telling them much of anything . . . or anything at all?”

“I will try. For you, I will try.”

Governor’s House, Tobolsk

It turned out, as such things will, to be harder than that; the former tsar wasn’t hiring. Turned away at the gate by the main entrance to the Governor’s House, Natalya wasn’t sure what to do. She turned south again, heading to their safe house, and was met by Turgenev coming north on his continuing reconnaissance of the town.

“I don’t know what to do, Maxim Sergeyevich,” she said, when they turned east toward the center of town and the market. “How do I get in to work in a place that isn’t hiring because they have no money to pay staff?”

Turgenev didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he mentally counted the paces from the southwestern corner of the Kornilov House, to its northwestern corner, and then the same for two eastern corners of the Governor’s House.

“Olga is looking out the window,” Natalya said. “No, don’t turn and stare. Just trust me, she’s there with . . . mmm . . . someone I don’t recognize . . . a man.”

“Too busy counting to look,” the lieutenant replied. “In any case, I believe you. Now. remember these figures, Natalya . . . thirty-four arshini, forty-one arshini.”

“Thirty-four and forty-one,” she echoed. “What are those, anyway?”

“The exterior dimensions of the Kornilov House and ‘Freedom’ House, on their long axes. I’ll get the other dimensions later.”

“Oh. Why do those matter?”

“I’ll explain to you later, if you remind me. Indeed, you can help me with a certain project I have in mind.

“As to what to do, I don’t know, Natalya,” Turgenev replied. “If you offered them money to let you work there, it would raise suspicions. Maybe if we had a way to introduce money to the household, they could then hire staff. But would they hire a new girl or take back old staff they’ve had to let go? I confess, I don’t know. While we think about this, let’s go shopping for some rope and, after that, maybe get some lunch.”

“What kind of rope?” she asked.

“Different kinds or, rather, different colors.”

“What for? The horses?”

“No,” he answered, with a shake of his head. “If we can yet find a way to introduce you into the house or houses, I want to use it to trace out floor plans for my boss, so he can plan how to liberate the family.”

Natalya considered that for a bit, then her eyes widened. “With rope you can make a floor plan and then roll it up, so no one notices . . . is that it.”

“I’ve said it before; you’re a clever girl.”

She thought, Five years, seven years, and maybe as few as three.

As it turned out, the market was not a great place to buy rope, though the lieutenant did manage to acquire about two hundred arshini of a thin, plain hemp.

“You can find more and of different types,” said the vendor, “either down by the river docks or at one of the logging firm’s warehouses.”

Natalya wasn’t paying any attention to the rope transaction, but simply looking around at the generally used wares on display and the people shopping for them. She saw a Tatar bargaining for a smoked fish with some old woman. The bargaining was in Russian. Near those two some fur-wrapped man wearing waders ran a complex net through his hands, examining it closely. Not far from there, a milk salesman chopped off chunks of frozen milk, weighing them for sale to someone dressed in a way Natalya had never seen, in furs of different kinds sewn together to form patterns. Their bargaining was completely silent but conducted with gestures. Two women chatted while watching the spectacle, much as Natalya was.

“What’s that language?” she asked, pointing with her chin at the warmly and well-dressed women, talking between themselves.

Turgenev followed the direction and saw the same two women. He listened to their chatter for a bit, then said, “It’s vaguely Germanic but not German. Some of the words even sound somewhat French. English, maybe?”

“I don’t speak that,” she said. “French, yes; Mokrenko caught me with that. German, too. No English.”

Hoisting the coil of rope he’d purchased over one shoulder, he said, “They’re here, so they likely speak Russian. Let’s go ask.”

“Sophie Karlovna Buxhoeveden,” was the answer, in Russian, followed by, “And this is my friend, Miss Mather.” Sophie then proceeded to translate some of that into English for her friend.

“Buxhoeveden . . . Buxhoeveden,” Natalya rolled the name around her mouth a few times before coming up with, “Baroness Buxhoeveden; you were a lady-in-waiting to the tsarina.”

“Shshsh, young lady,” Sophie cautioned, “I have enough trouble already with the local authorities. And how would you know that, anyway?”

“That’s a long story,” Turgenev interrupted. “Oh, and please excuse my manners; Maxim Sergeyevich Turgenev, at your service. You seem very concerned about the local ‘authorities.’ ”

“I’ve heard too much about what the prisons are like for a ‘political’ not to be. And since the Bolsheviks asserted their authority here in Tobolsk, not so long ago, I’ve felt the need to be careful. I mean, when it was just my dentist who was a Red, it wasn’t so bad. And she, at least, was a competent dentist.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to see the inside of one and I have no political baggage whatsoever.” This last, of course, was not remotely true. “Could I offer you ladies lunch? And, for languages; do you and your friend speak French?”

“We do.”

“So do Natalya and I. Let French, then, be our language.”

There was another hotel near the town center. It, too, offered meals for a price in a warm dining room. Turgenev, Natalya, and their two new acquaintances went in there and waited for someone to bring menus.

Looking around, the lieutenant said, “Place like this, I’d expect them to just post the menu on a chalkboard.”

At the next table, a man, sitting alone, and already well on his way to drunkenness and slurring his words, said, “Why botha? The men . . . men . . . menu this time of ye . . . ar is always the sa . . . me. Rye-ey bre . . . ad and soup. Sometimes the soup is bif . . . sometimes . . . sterlet . . . . sometimes . . . well . . . sometimes you don’ really wanna know. To be fairrr, when they have sterlet, it’s actually pppretty ggggood.”

“Comrade,” said Turgenev, “I know it’s not my business, but isn’t it a little early in the day for this?”

“Whennnn . . . you haf los’ your jo . . . ob . . . that you hel’ for t’irty year . . . zzz . . . wha’ diff . . . er . . . ence . . . t’e time o’ day.”

“You have a point,” the lieutenant conceded. “Who did you work for.”

“T’e tsa . . . tsa . . . t’e tsar.”

There is a God, thought the lieutenant. Well . . . there is, but His hand may not be in this. Small town, after all, and what’s a recently fired servant to do but get drunk.

“I am Maxim Sergeyevich Turgenev,” the lieutenant introduced himself. “To whom do I have the honor of addressing myself?”

The drunk leaned over and reached out a hand, only to collapse to the floor unconscious.

“Been expecting this to happen,” said one of the waiters of the hotel. He called over a couple of men to pick the drunk up and toss him outside into the icy street.

Turgenev intervened. “Don’t you have rooms here?”

“He isn’t paying for a room. Out he goes.”

The lieutenant reached into a pocket and pulled out some gold ten-ruble coins. “How many days in a decent room—with a fire—will this buy him?”

“With meals?” asked the waiter.

“Yes.”

“Six days.”

Certain he was being cheated, still Turgenev said, “Then take these and take him up to a room. And what is the soup for today?”

“Sterlet, served with bread and butter. Despite what the drunk just said, there is a little more pattern to the menu than that. Fridays and Wednesdays are always fish, yes, often sterlet, but sometimes other fish. Mondays tend to beef, Tuesdays to pork. Thursdays will be chicken or some other kind of fowl. Saturdays and Sundays are not that predictable, so it’s best to ask.

“I can tell quality when I see it, too,” said the waiter. “Today being sterlet, well, you gut a sterlet, you also get caviar. Would you and your . . .”

“My sister,” Turgenev supplied, “and our friends.”

“Of course. Your sister. And friends. Well, would you and your sister and your ‘friends’ care for some caviar with thin sliced toasted bread and sour cream?”

“Sour cream? In Tobolsk? In the dead of winter?”

“We have a deal with a nunnery that runs a dairy not too far from here. So will you have it?”

Turgenev stole a glance at Natalya, who seemed about ready to drool at the prospect.

“Yes, please.”

“And the soup and bread?”

“Oh, by all means.”

“Thank you, Maxim Sergeyevich,” whispered Natalya across the table after the waiter had left. “Yes, thank you,” added Sophie, a sentiment echoed in English by Miss Mather.

In the course of the meal, which was, as the drunk had claimed, “pretty good,” Turgenev worked on extracting whatever information he could glean from Baroness Buxhoeveden.

“I was staying at the Kornilov House,” she admitted, “right up until the Reds demanded I move out. Fortunately, Miss Mather was able to accommodate me in her rental.”

Turgenev resisted the impulse to be polite and offer perhaps better accommodations. That she knows things I want to know does not necessarily mean she should be trusted with things I do know.

“As for the royal family; they’re cold, hungry, miserable, and frequently unwell. But they persevere; it’s an inspiration really.”

“How are they doing for money?” Turgenev asked.

“That situation is not good. They’ve had to let many of their personal retainers go;” she replied, “that drunk was apparently one of them, though I couldn’t put a name to his face.”

“I’m not sure he could, either,” muttered Turgenev, in Russian, rather than French, raising a titter from both the Russian-speaking females. Returning to French, he asked, “Is there a way to get money to them?”

“It’s been done,” Sophie answered. “I’ve been a conduit to pass things to the valet, Volkov. But I think a certain amount, whether of money or food, finds its way into someone’s pocket or larder before it gets to the family.”

“I confess,” said Turgenev, “that the idea of the ex-royal family living in want disturbs me. Is it possible, then, do you think, to have someone else carry money in?”

Sophie thought about that for a moment. “Well, there are people who work inside but have quarters outside. So maybe.”

“What is better to send, gold and silver coin or currency?”

“A ten ruble gold coin,” she answered, “is worth as much as a one hundred ruble note, for some purposes. But, then, the notes are lighter and easier to pass.”

“A mix, then, but I insist that what I send to the tsar gets to the tsar. Can you, Baroness Buxhoeveden, make arrangements for my sister, here, to bring money in. I’ll be happy to give a ten percent premium to whichever person still working inside gets her in and out.”

Sophie thought upon this, weighing the greed and corruption of both the Bolshevik guards and some of the tsar’s remaining staff. “Kirpichnikov,” she said. “He’s a cook cum pigkeeper. It’s very hard to tell where cooking ends and pigkeeping begins, too. But he’s said to be extremely loyal and can come and go without much difficulty. He could, I think, bring an assistant with him.”

“Perfect,” said Turgenev.

Governor’s House, Tobolsk

Since Natalya had been seen at the gate before, it seemed wise to disguise her a bit. This was done partly by lowering her standard of dress from the way the freed women had dressed her to something more approaching what would be expected of the local peasantry. The market had been most useful for this. Other changes included putting her hair up in twisted braids and adding a few smudges to her face. Perhaps most importantly, given that she’d be dealing with men, was that she now sported enormous breasts, monuments to both one of Sophie’s own bras and one or more of the imperial mints.

“It will have to do,” said Sophie, standing back and scrutinizing her handiwork.

There were, as usual, two guards on the gate. One held his rifle at port arms, more for show than for any other reason, while the other unlatched and pushed slightly open the broad wooden gate. Both had a hard time keeping their eyes off of Natalya’s false chest.

“Thank you, my friends, thank you!” exclaimed Kirpichnikov. He had a small basket hanging from one arm. This, by way of a tip, he passed over to the man who’d opened the gate.

“And who’s your little friend?” that guard asked. “She looks familiar, at least a bit.”

“Oh, I’m going to put her to work as a scullery.”

The guard shrugged. “But how are you paying her?” he asked. “You-know-who has no money.”

“She doesn’t cost much. She’s an orphan. These days, such as her can be put to work for the price of a meal.”

If there was a double entendre there, the guard chose to ignore it. He waved the pair through.

None of the royal family were out in the outer enclosure, though there was a big pile of unsawn wood standing near a saw and a couple of wooden sawhorses.

“This way, girl,” Kirpichnikov ordered, leading her past a picket fence, through a rectangular opening in another wall, and to the kitchen, which was a separate building to the west of the main mansion, connected by an enclosed passageway.

Once they were safely inside, and no guards were seen hanging about, the cook and pigkeeper pointed east, toward the house. “Follow that passageway,” he said. “There will be stairs to your left after you get to the house. The royal family will be either upstairs or in the dining room which will be to your left front. You have maybe twenty minutes to get back here and get to work on the pots and pans before it begins to look suspicious. If you see me with a guard when you return, thank me graciously for letting you use the toilet, clear?”

“Yes,” Natalya answered, “clear enough.”

“Now go.”

Given that she weighed half a pood—about seventeen pounds—more than usual, with most of that being top heavy and front-centered, Natalya walked gracefully enough. That had required a bit of practice, too. Reaching the house and entering it, she stopped for a moment, to listen. There were no sounds coming from the room Kirpichnikov had told her was the dining room, so she turned and began to ascend the stairs.

At the top floor, she did hear voices. Most she didn’t recognize but from her left front, over where the dining room stood, she thought she heard the Romanov girls. They were speaking Russian, but actually had non-Russian accents, a result of growing up in a household where the only language their parents had shared from the beginning, and still the lingua franca of the family, had been English.

She hurried across the floor and finding the door locked, knocked a few times to gain admittance.

The door was partly opened by a stout girl, stout, though terribly pretty with enormous eyes. Those eyes could not be mistaken for anyone else’s.

“Let me in, Maria,” said Natalya, to the girl blocking the doorway. “For the love of God, let me in.”

“Do we know you?”

“Yes, from happier times. Now get out of the way and let me in.”

* * *

They all spoke in whispers, with Natalya making her re-introductions. “I’m that Natalya. My mother and father, sad to say, are dead, murdered by the Bolsheviks. A . . . a friend asked me to try to get some money in to you. Speaking of which, have any of you any idea how cold gold can be on one’s tits? And it doesn’t help when they’re small tits.”

With that, Natalya partially disrobed, then began taking out small packets of tightly cloth-wrapped gold coins from her sort-of-kind-of brassiere. The girls, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia stood open-mouthed, at the sudden shower of wealth.

“That’s about six thousand, five hundred rubles in gold,” Natalya informed them. She then began to pull tightly tied bundles of cash from up under her skirt. “That’s about forty thousand in currency. It’s really only worth maybe as little as four thousand in coin. Now I need some clothing to fill up this enormous bra in its place.”

The girls quickly began assembling a set of false breasts from whatever cloth could be spared.

As Turgenev had coached her, she continued, “And now, if you want the largesse to keep flowing, you need to take control of this money and show it to your parents. And then you have to get them to hire me. Can you do this?”

“We can’t show it to Mother,” the tallest one, Tatiana, said. “She not only talks too much but everything that happens that isn’t a complete disaster is, in her view, a sign from God of our eventual release.”

“Besides, she’ll probably waste it,” added Maria, the somewhat stout girl with the huge eyes. “Tati, you should take control of it and arrange to hire . . . by the way, tell me again, how do we know you?”

“We’ve met when my parents were guests of your family. I was little then; it was before the war. I am . . . well, since the murder of my parents I am now Baroness Sorokin. But you can’t tell anyone that.”

“Are you associated with Little Markov and a rescue attempt?” Tatiana asked.

“Who’s Little Markov? And, no, I am sorry, but I don’t know anything about a rescue attempt.” Well, one truth and one lie. Forgive me, please, God. Though, in fact, I don’t know much about it. As Maxim said, “What I do not know cannot be tortured out of me.”

“Little Markov,” Tatiana explained, “is a nice boy, a lieutenant of the Crimean cavalry, who writes to mother and would desperately like to rescue us from this place. I don’t believe it will happen.”

“Sorry, then,” Natalya said, “but I’ve never heard of him. Anyway, time is short. If you can arrange to hire me in some capacity, pass the word to Kirpichnikov. He’ll know where to find me.”

“Why,” asked Anastasia, the youngest of the lot, “would you bring all this money then ask us to hire you for a fraction of it?”

“No time! I have to go now. Just arrange the hiring.”

Camp, south of Tobolsk

Mokrenko arrived, after a day’s hard ride, to find things well in order, the horses healthy, and a guard properly posted.

Lieutenant Babin rolled out from a lean-to shelter. Mokrenko saluted, then dismounted from his short Yakut horse. Corporal Koslov stood up from the fire he was attending and joined the trio. After an exchange of pleasantries, Mokrenko asked, “How’s our man, Shukhov?”

“I’m fine, Sergeant,” came from one of the other lean-tos. “Fine enough that, if you people need me to blow something up in Tobolsk, you had better bring me there. I’ve already prepared the lake, here, for blasting. If you need me to blow anything substantial up in Tobolsk, you had better get me some more explosive.”

“Is he well enough to travel?” Mokrenko asked Babin, sotto voce.

“Probably. I’m not a doctor but I can, at least, say there’s no more external bleeding and no sign of infection that I can see.”

“All right, I’ll be taking him with me, then. As for the rest of you, just wait. Cut wood for four big bonfires. And Lieutenant Turgenev says—well, a message from the rear says—that it would be a great help if you could hunt for a lot of meat. As much as we can get. Cold as it is, it will keep in this weather until needed. I’m going to be ranging to the east and northeast of here, looking for the same. I’ll be taking four of the horses and two of the sleighs; Shukhov can drive the other one. We’ll take my horse behind one of them.”

“Define ‘a lot,’ Sergeant.”

“As much as you can get. ‘A thousand pood would not be too much,’ Lieutenant Turgenev told me.”

“I doubt we’ll get that much,” said Babin, “but tell him we’ll do the best we can.”

“No man can ask more,” Mokrenko agreed, then bellowed, “Shukhov, you lazy excuse for an engineer, pack your bags! And set up two sleighs; we’re taking them for the town.”


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