Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

Ned viewed it all through binoculars from behind a rocky outcrop overlooking the enemy camp. The places where sentries should have been posted were deserted, just as would be expected if the watch had been relieved but not replaced. So when fragmentation shells burst overhead without warning and machine gun bullets whistled unexpectedly through the streets, the Red troops awoke in a panic and scurried about in the semi-darkness, half-dressed and carrying only their rifles. Confusion spread among the Reds, who fought in isolated groups, no one group knowing what the others were doing. Before long, the more experienced among them formed skirmish lines and advanced toward the incoming fire, but most retreated to the banks of the Maly Uzen, where truck-mounted machine guns and tachankas mowed them down in a vicious crossfire.

Several hundred yards downstream, Ned spotted a Cossack cavalry squadron concealed in a grove of willows close to the river. The Cossacks rose to their feet, tightened their saddle girths, and mounted their horses, ready to sweep the riverbank clean the moment the trucks and tachankas withdrew. It was then that Ned noticed a handful of Red troops bolting toward the river while several dozen of comrades let loose a volley of rifle fire to cover their retreat. Ned called out to Ivashov, who watched nearby through his own field glasses.

“Do you see the squad to the right of the chapel attempting to escape? They look like officers. Look, could that one be Chapayev?”

“Which one?” Ivashov called out.

“The one in the center, holding a rifle in his left hand and dangling a revolver in his right,” Ned replied.

“By God, I believe it’s him. He’s making for the river before our riders catch up to him. Damn! We can’t let him get away!”

Without another word, Ivashov ran to where his horse was tethered, climbed into the saddle, and galloped alone toward the stretch of river where the Cossacks were attacking, despite the line of Red riflemen arrayed against him. Though Ned felt a strong urge to mount his horse and follow rather than let Ivashov ride off alone, his orders not to join the fighting were still in place. Even more, Ivashov’s charge seemed wholly unnecessary, with a squadron of Cossack horsemen close on Chapayev’s heels. What was the point of following him, at the risk of drawing fire from a dozen enemy riflemen?

So Ned stayed among the rocks and watched, his pulse racing, while Ivashov rode wide around the enemy’s flank toward the river. By the time Ivashov reached it, Chapayev’s comrades had lowered their commander, apparently wounded in the left arm or shoulder, down the steep riverbank and into the swirling waters. Two men held him afloat while the current carried them all downstream and volleys of bullets sent up plumes of water around their heads.

Within minutes, one comrade vanished beneath the surface, and then another, until all three disappeared silently from sight. Ivashov rode along the river’s edge and raised his rifle to take a last shot at the Red commander, but by the time he did, no target remained in view. The once-charismatic Chapayev, driven by impetuosity, ambition, revenge, and violent hatred for the entire Cossack breed, had overreached and paid the price.

Over the next several hours, Cossack cavalrymen tightened the cordon around the leaderless and disorganized Red forces while Zhanna’s riflemen closed in on the town and slaughtered the enemy until none was left to resist. Chapayev’s second-in-command fought off the Cossacks as long as he could, until he ran out of ammunition and fired his last revolver bullet through his own temple. The division’s political commissar, who had hidden in a cottage at the edge of the village, was turned out into the street by a pair of old women and promptly run through by a Cossack’s saber.

At the end of the day, the Siberians had killed or captured more than three thousand Red troops and taken much valuable weaponry, with negligible losses of their own. The few Red survivors who escaped were harassed for days in their forlorn flight toward the Volga. And within a week, all remaining units of the First and Fourth Red Armies posted between the Volga and Uralsk withdrew to the river’s western bank for safety.

Now, with both Uralsk and Orenburg in White hands, and the Cossack cavalry controlling the entire Orenburg steppe, the Maid had not only rescued Admiral Kolchak’s Western Army from disaster at Ufa, but within a single month had paved the way for an achievement that no observer had considered possible: the joining of Kolchak’s Siberian Army with Denikin’s AFSR on the Lower Volga and the formation of a united White front in the south.

Chapter 15: Stavka Massacre

“Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.”

—Friedrich Schiller