Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

Ned and Ivashov set off at once for the staff tent, where they found the Maid calmly answering questions from General Tolstov and his aides about her raid. The moment she saw them, Zhanna rose and embraced each man like a long-lost brother and urged them to sit, drink tea, and provide a detailed account of the battle at Ufa and the death of General Frunze on the Belaya.

Ned and Ivashov took turns telling the story, though neither of them revealed how they had distributed photographs of Frunze and had trained the sharpshooters and artillery spotters to target the Red commander for death. While this sort of thing had been fair game in the Philippines and Mexico, and seemed to Ned fully justified against the Bolsheviks, both officers feared that some on their side might not consider it sporting. Nor did Ned want word of his bounty hunting to appear in writing, lest it find its way back to an overly fastidious General Graves in Vladivostok.

Instead, both men gave full credit to Zhanna for having weakened the Red attack at the critical moment by drawing off Chapayev’s force to the south and compelling Frunze to wait for additional troops from Samara. The resulting delay had given the Allies time both to deliver additional heavy arms to the Western Army and to force upon General Khanzin and the Stavka the essential changes in the Siberian defensive plan that had made victory possible.

“Fortunately, the importance of the White victory at Ufa appears not to have been lost on the Allies,” Ned informed the group. “Continued military support for the Siberian Army now seems assured. And despite earlier setbacks, political recognition for the Admiral appears to be back in play.”

At this news, Tolstov jumped up with startling agility and blurted out, “I’ll be a dock-tailed mongrel if this doesn’t call for a toast! Orderly, bring out some vodka from the medical supplies and be quick about it!”

But Zhanna waved the orderly off.

“There will be time enough for drinking when the war is won, but not before,” she declared, looking from one man to the next. “And as for Captain du Pont and Staff Captain Ivashov, I advise both to get some rest. Before another day goes by, I shall call upon you to ride with me again and witness yet another battle. For I sense that the Red devil Chapayev has not given up his pursuit of us, nor his thirst for revenge. Tomorrow we shall ride out to meet him.”

Zhanna ended by offering Ned a smile so beatific that it reminded him of how she had once appeared to him, sitting cross-legged on a Buryat prayer rug spread upon the snow at her father’s estate. Here was the same girl, barely half a year older, but now the veteran of numerous skirmishes against the Red Army. What sort of Zhanna would he see tomorrow as she faced off against Chapayev? And if she prevailed, what sort of Zhanna would she be afterward, and after the next battle, and the next? For while Ned felt a natural urge to protect her, and dreaded the thought of seeing her killed or maimed, he also feared how a long series of hard-fought victories might harden her, as war had hardened so many before.

* * *

The next morning, Zhanna and Tolstov ordered nearly their entire cavalry force and half the infantry to gather up arms and prepare for a midnight departure to an undisclosed destination. At the staff tent, Colonel Denisov reported new intelligence that, at Trotsky’s order, Chapayev had taken his mobile strike force south from Belebey on a punitive mission to hunt down and destroy the Maid and her volunteers. Skirting the east bank of the Volga at first, he had retaken the town of Pugachyov and was headed further south toward Yershov in order to advance on Uralsk undetected from the southwest.

According to the latest reports, Chapayev’s progress had been slow, owing to his shortage of cavalry and the lack of reliable rail transport east of the Volga. More than that, the local population consisted almost entirely of Cossacks and prosperous farmers who were implacably hostile to the Bolsheviks. When the Red column encountered a settlement on their advance, they invariably found the houses abandoned, grain stores buried or destroyed, and the wells poisoned. By now, Chapayev’s troops were exhausted from weeks of combat and forced marches, and many had sickened from typhus and malnutrition. But he and his officers, hell-bent on avenging General Frunze’s death and the loss of Uralsk, vowed not to rest until they had burned that city to the ground, laid waste to the surrounding stanitsas and killed all male Cossacks they found above the age of five. And if they caught up with the Maid, all the sweeter.

Zhanna listened to Denisov’s briefing without emotion.

“Tell me more about this Chapayev fellow,” she said when he finished his briefing. “What kind of a man is he, and how can we turn his nature to our advantage?”