Knight Without Armour

Then came news that the Bolsheviks were moving down the Volga towards Samara. This sent a wave of panic amongst the White refugees, for, unless they got away quickly eastward, there was every possibility of their being trapped. Yet eastward lay the floods, still rising, that had turned vast areas into lakeland and swamps. Some took the risk of drowning and starvation and set out, but for most there began a period of anxious tension, with one eye on the floodwater and the other on the maps which showed the rapid Red advance. A shower of rain was enough to plunge the town in almost tangible gloom, and groups of White cadets, a little scared beyond their boyish laughter, climbed the church tower at all times of the day and scanned impatiently that horizon of inundated land. Even the local inhabitants were beginning to be apprehensive. Their position was a ticklish one, and the worried expression on the faces of local Soviet officials was wholly justified. Was it wise to have been so complacent with the White refugees? The latter were too numerous now to be intimidated, but at first, when they had begun to enter the town, would it not have been better to have been more severe? Troubled by these and similar misgivings, and with their eyes fixed feverishly on the war-map, the Novarodar Soviet, from being mildly pink, flushed to deep vermilion in almost record time.

A.J. and Daly, like the rest, were waiting for the floods to subside. They were both keen to get away, and even the hospitality of the Valimoffs, so unstintingly given, would not induce them to stay an hour longer than had to be. The Valimoffs assured them that Novarodar was quite safe whatever happened, but A.J. did not think so. At last a day came when the floods showed signs of falling. He had made all preparations for departure, had accepted supplies of food from the still generous Valimoffs, had thanked them, and pressed them in vain to take some money in return for all their gifts and services; and then, just as he was tying up a final bundle, one of the young men rushed in from the street with the news that Samara had fallen.

All Novarodar was in instant uproar. With Samara in Bolshevik hands the last hope that the Czech retirement was only temporary disappeared. Worse still, the White line of retreat was cut off; Novarodar was now ringed round on three sides by Red troops, and the fourth and only line of escape was waterlogged. White refugees were gathering in little excited groups to discuss the matter; some set out across the swamps, and later on that very day a few stragglers carne back, mud-caked from head to foot, to report catastrophes as horrible as any that were to be feared.

Once again A.J.’s plans suffered a blow. There seemed little hope now of ever catching up with the recreating Czechs. A.J. and Daly talked the whole question over with the Valimoffs; the latter, of course, thought that the best plan would be for them to stay, disguised as they were, in Novarodar. But A.J. was still all for movement; he felt instinctively that every moment in Novarodar was, as it were, a challenge flung to Fate. He talked of making for the Don country, where White troops, under Denikin, had already driven a northward wedge to within a few score miles of Voronesk. His eagerness increased as he computed the chances of the plan. Denikin’s army, he argued, was more likely to advance than to retreat, since, unlike the Czechs, it had a solid backing of support from the local populations. And it was an advantage, too, that the way towards Denikin was the way towards the Black Sea ports. Had he and Daly succeeded in reaching the Czechs, their sole line of escape would have been by the long and tedious Trans-Siberian journey, during which anything might have happened, and with the chance of being held up indefinitely in the Far East. But to reach Denikin’s army was to reach at once a far simpler gateway to the outer world.

In the end it was agreed that the southward plan should be tried; it was, in fact, the only practical alternative to remaining in Novarodar. “We shall trust to our disguise,” A.J. said, “and work our way, by trains, if we can find any, through Kuszneszk and Saratof.” He agreed, however, in view of the change of plans, to postpone departure to the following morning.