Bassanda and the Bolshevik Revolution, Ch. 1

PROLOGUE: The Evacuation (January 1916)

THE EVACUATION

Jan 1916

It is growing dark. The wind is blowing hard. Between the advancing twilight and the swirling snow, it’s hard to see, or to know quite what is being seen. But as he comes over the crest of the mountain ridge, he can just make out, ahead and below, the bent heads and hunched shoulders of soldiers and civilians. Squinting into the teeth of the wind-driven snow, he sees blood in the churned, freezing mud and dung of the trail.

He glances over his shoulder, and sees the lumpy shapes of the balance of the column, as it sprawls and straggles over the ridge from the north, like a gigantic Worm Ourobouros at the very edge of exhaustion and demise. Though there are hundreds in uniform—soldiers, civilian horsemen and cooks, a few officers on weary horses—there are hundreds more refugees, men, women, and children wrapped in every kind of blanket, scarf, and rags, stumbling over the ridge, flinching at the cutting wind that blows uphill into their faces, obscuring their version and stealing any vestige of warmth from exposed faces and hands.

The Sergeant, leading an overburdened skinny mule, comes down the trail toward him. As he nears, Michael realizes the Sergeant is talking quietly to the old beast, one hand on the bridle.

“Come on now, old fellow. There are no good outcomes anymore. And we’re both hungry.”

The Sergeant scratches the gray scraggly mane. Then he takes out his service revolver and, without hesitation or seeming emotion, still stroking the old mule’s neck with the other hand, he presses the muzzle to its temple and pulls the trigger. The roar of the .50 caliber shell is muffled by the snow and wind.

The Sergeant turns and looks at Michael. “I’m sorry to say goodbye to him. He was a good mule and a good friend. But we need to feed some people.”

And he pulls out a skinning knife.