Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

“What, girl! Do you mean to strike the army dumb?” Tolstov protested. “Swearing comes naturally to a soldier. Sometimes I find that it offers a sense of relief denied even by prayer.”

“If you must swear, general, then swear by your pistol, or by your whip or bayonet. The habit must begin with you, sir, or the others won’t follow!”

This seemed to give Tolstov food for thought. Ned noted that from that point onward, whenever Tolstov was with the Maid, he never swore except by his pistol or his whip. And from time to time, he even escorted her to worship services and led the congregants in prayer.

As for alcohol, which many Russians considered a daily necessity, even if they weren’t physically addicted to it, Zhanna took an equally severe position.

“If the tsar ordered a ban on vodka sales at the front during the war against Germany, and if the Bolsheviks have maintained the ban on their side of the front, then why do we allow vodka to undermine the discipline of our troops and the output of our civilian workers? If any vodka is found west of Ufa or Orenburg, let it be poured onto the ground or burned!”

After conferring with his staff, Tolstov ordered the vodka ban. Two days later, Ivashov told Ned an anecdote that conveyed both Tolstov’s growing respect for Zhanna and her determination to rid the camp of drunkenness. Ivashov had been present when Tolstov had asked Colonel Denisov to send for a certain chaplain by the name of Father Grigory, who had been aboard the train from Iletsk.

“Grigory is gone,” Denisov had told the general. “The Maid has dismissed him. He has been sent back to Omsk.”

“My God, what for?” Tolstov demanded.

“Drunkenness, sir,” the colonel replied.

“Aye, he is often guilty of that,” Tolstov agreed. “But so are the other chaplains. How many of them does the girl aim to dismiss?”

“All who will not or cannot remain sober till the war’s end, general.”

At this, the Cossack leader scratched his bearded chin and before long, a smile appeared on his lips.

“That is something I would very much like to see,” he observed. “I shall miss Grigory, but not so much as to dispute it with Zhanna. Fetch me another priest.”

Ivashov then told Ned of a notorious shirker who complained about the rigors of the camp’s training regime. Zhanna heard the complaint and rebuked him for it.

“What, you don’t like your orders?” she snapped. “You may not like them, but you will obey them. If you were a Red soldier, you probably would not. But then, that is why our side will win and theirs will lose.”

Within three days, Tolstov and his staff officers were amazed at how strong the Maid’s influence had grown over her rough band of libertines and looters. It seemed that the young girl’s prudery had somehow worked to restore the self-respect of a hitherto demoralized army. And any who would not comply were sent away, for Zhanna insisted that service in her unit be voluntary.

“She achieves such results not by persuasion, for she makes no effort to persuade,” Tolstov explained to one of his staff colonels within Ned’s hearing. “Her mere presence casts a charisma of the purest sort, almost like that of a saint.”

“Indeed, sir, there is something special about her,” the colonel agreed. “Whoever listens to her voice and looks into her eyes falls completely under her spell and is no longer his own man. By my saber, the men no longer swear in her presence. Not even you!”

But there was more to Zhanna’s leadership than charisma, for she also possessed an ample measure of common sense and displayed what Tolstov called the ”seeing eye,“ by which he meant an uncanny intuition in judging a man’s character. She had shown this repeatedly in getting what she wanted from the men around her, whether from Kostrov, Volkov, Kolchak, Dieterichs, or now Tolstov. Nor could Ned and Ivashov exclude themselves from this list. Though the girl suffered from the natural limitations of youth, none could deny that Zhanna was a born leader.

* * *

In the days ahead, Zhanna’s remarkable judgment and foresight became increasingly apparent to those around her. From the very first day, she ate with her troops at the field kitchens and insisted that the officers eat after the enlisted men, with the highest-ranking officer eating next to last, for she herself always ate at the very end. The result was that, from time to time, the food would run out before her turn came. And when that happened, the troops invariably shared their food with Zhanna and with any other officers who had not yet been fed.