Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

Through the smoke and haze, Ned followed the progress of Zhanna’s leading Austin, gray as a toad, blasting through barriers and barbed wire entanglements with its single three-inch cannon and clearing the way for infantry to follow. The Maid always seemed to be where the fighting was heaviest, and her men always rallied at the sight of her and her banner, still held high. Although she presented an inviting target to all the bullets and bomb fragments flying, silhouetted as she was in the Austin’s machine gun turret, the Maid remained unhurt. Watching her lead her men deeper and deeper into the killing zone, Ned thought the picture of her and the waving banner eerily beautiful and did not dare close his eyes for fear she might disappear from view.

They fought all morning, from one trench to the next, barricade to barricade, with the armored cars returning to the rear from time to time to reload, cool off, and swap crews. By mid-afternoon, the attackers had nearly penetrated the Red defenses on the Siberians’ right flank, nearest the city center. It was then that disaster struck: a black puff from a mortar shell or grenade burst beside Zhanna’s turret and she slumped forward. Within moments, a crew member pulled her inside and Popov reversed course, speeding back toward safety.

Ned ran at top speed to the armored car depot and arrived in time to see blood flowing from Zhanna’s right shoulder, just below the neck, when they extracted her from the vehicle. She regained consciousness not long after as the medics began to clean her wound. She remained awake while they removed a sliver of steel and dressed her wound. Later Ned learned that the metal had penetrated to a depth of more than an inch but had stopped short of puncturing a lung or severing a major artery.

“Ah, never have I seen blood flow but my hair stood on end!” Zhanna joked with a wan smile when they carried her to a recovery tent, her teeth chattering and her face pallid as a corpse. “Now leave me so that I might lie here for a while to rest and pray.”

The doctors whispered to the officers gathered outside her tent that the wound was superficial and that the Maid would recover. But the greater damage was done. For as soon as a Red spotter saw her slumped over the Austin’s gun turret, he raised a shout that was relayed all along the defenders’ front line.

“The witch is down! Victory is ours!”

Soon after, the Siberian advance stalled and the Red defenders rallied their forces, clenching their collective fist for a cruel counterblow. In the medical tent, Zhanna slipped in and out of consciousness. An old Cossack nurse, after giving her water to drink, offered her some sort of spirit amulet to cure her wound. But Zhanna refused it and waved the woman away.

“It would be a sin to cure myself by such enchantments,” she bristled. ”I would rather die than offend God in that way!”

While Zhanna swooned, the battle raged on. The sun sank low in the sky as a bugle blast woke her from her sleep.

“Have we broken through? Are we advancing into the city?” she asked with an excited glow in her eyes.

The doctors and nurses gathered around her and cast gloomy looks at one another before summoning General Tolstov from the command bunker.

“Our men are stalled at the innermost barrier, exhausted,” Tolstov said, taking her pale hand in his. “We’ve done all we can now and have sounded the retreat. We must regroup and try another day.”

Upon hearing the word “retreat,” Zhanna sat up.

“Are the Bolsheviks not as exhausted as we are? To win, one must hold fast until the enemy abandons hope. We need only allow our men a brief rest and the sector is ours! Give me an hour and I will show you!”

She asked Paladin to help her to her feet, then shuffled outside the tent clutching Paladin’s arm and called for an armored car to carry her back into battle. While Tolstov stood by, aghast, Paladin brought her banner forward and took up position at her side.

“Well, general, will you not call off the retreat?” she asked when Tolstov caught up with them.

At a loss for an answer, the Cossack general cast his eyes about as if seeking support from his staff. In reply, Colonel Denisov seized the banner from Paladin’s hands and presented it to Zhanna.

“If the Maid will lead, I will be first to follow,” Denisov told the general, as if shamed by her example. “We must make one last effort or lose all the ground we have gained.”

Tolstov hesitated for a moment, as if stunned by the colonel’s boldness, and then made his decision.

“By my whip! If she says, attack, we shall attack!”