Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

“You don’t understand,” Goat’s Foot said with a pained expression. “I don’t want anything. I’ve just come to pass on some news, that’s all.”

“What news?” the corporal asked suspiciously.

“I was just about to tell you,” the peasant said plaintively as he took a sip from his tea. “I had a visitor last night. A carrier. He turned up too late for the livery stables so he spent the night at my place. He’s got some things for the barracks.”

“What sort of things?”

“I think he mentioned something about blankets.”

“Blankets, blankets,” the corporal repeated thoughtfully. “What sort of blankets? For men or horse?”

Goat’s Foot hesitated. It had not occurred to him that the blankets might be for horses.

“I don’t know, he didn’t say,” he admitted ruefully.

“Blankets,” Blonski muttered again to himself. His brow cleared.

“Holy Christ, we ordered them ten months ago,” he told Goat’s Foot. “Last spring sometime. Typical bloody Army. I remember now. I wrote the order out myself. Ten horse blankets for summer manoeuvres. Oh well, better late than never, I suppose. Where are they now?”

“Still with him, and he’s sleeping it off at my place. He’ll be along shortly.”

Glumly, he took another sip of tea. The hopes that had risen within him were now dashed. He had intended to offer the corporal a price for the old bed blankets that the new ones were replacing and resell them elsewhere. It seemed as if the major reason for his coming to town no longer existed. Nevertheless, there was still a glimmer of hope. He debated whether he could get back to his shack and intercept the carrier before he left. It was doubtful. The blankets were probably already on their way into town.

“Horse blankets, eh?” he said genially.

“That’s right.”

“Ten, you say?”

“Ten. Wrote the order myself.”

“Dear, dear. You see, there’s a slight problem. The carrier is bringing sixteen blankets.”

Blonski looked at him. A sly smile crept slowly across his face.

“Ah! Well now,” he said, “that’s different.”

Chapter Four

Tuesday 6th February 1907

Berezovo

A half hour later, having sealed his contract with the corporal with another drink and a handshake, Goat’s Foot left the Black Cock and crossed the Market Square. His hangover much reduced, there was a new jauntiness to his step. He had every reason to be satisfied with their compact although the corporal had driven a hard bargain: a rouble each, cash on the nail and the half dozen unordered blankets to disappear quickly and forever. All the same, he foresaw no problems with the transaction. Nothing could be easier than to alter the carrier’s receipt from 16 to 10. A slip of the pen, a smudge of ink and it was done. Lepishinsky at the livery stables would give him two roubles eighty copecks, possibly even three roubles for each blanket. The peasant began chortling happily to himself. Ten, maybe twelve roubles profit, just for carrying them from the barracks to the stable! It would not be quite as easy as that, he told himself. First, the blankets would have to be dyed, so that they were not recognisable as regimental property. Still, ten roubles at least for a morning’s work was not at all bad.

Halfway across the square, he paused to inspect a pile of potatoes on one of the stalls. He shook his head discouragingly at the stall holder who had hopefully left the small group of men standing huddled around a glowing brazier. Moving on, he passed the well and went and stood by the window of the town’s library, which overlooked the eastern end of the market square. Behind its clouded pane of glass, Maslov had erected a board upon which was pinned an amateurishly drawn notice advertising the drama committee’s forthcoming production. In one corner of the poster, the librarian had pasted an engraving of the plays’ author that had been cut out from a magazine. To Goat’s Foot’s unlettered eye, the playbill meant nothing, although he thought that the slight man in the engraving did bear a resemblance to the merchant Shiminski. With a contemptuous sniff, he left the window and made his way out of the square in the direction of Hospital Street. By the time the bell of The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary had finished striking the hour of twelve, he had taken up his station in the doorway of the empty shop opposite Doctor Tortsov’s surgery.

He did not have long to wait. Soon a sleigh drew up outside the surgery door, the Doctor appeared at the door, and in less than a minute he had departed. Goat’s Foot kept his eyes fixed on the light in the consulting room window. When it was extinguished, he left the doorway and crossed the road. He let Chevanin close and lock the door and take his first step towards the hospital before he hurried up behind him.

“Good morning, Doctor!”

Startled by his appearance at his elbow, Chevanin curtly returned his greeting and continued walking.