Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

But the more Ned saw of Kazan that day, the more difficult he found it to imagine how Zhanna’s lightly armed regiments could possibly prevail against a much larger and better-equipped Red garrison fighting from behind fortified positions. Even when compared with Uralsk, an attack here seemed out of the question. Though prospects improved somewhat after Zhanna’s cavalry surprised the Red artillery batteries guarding the city and captured them without a fight, this would by no means be sufficient to tip the balance in her favor.

Perhaps sensing doubt or fear among her officers, Zhanna turned around in her saddle as the men surveyed the distant fortifications in the glow of the setting sun.

“Who is with me?” she called out. “Who here will help me liberate Kazan from the Bolsheviks?”

“I am with you, as always, Zhanna Stepanovna,” answered a middle-aged cavalry officer riding beside her who had served with her bravely since her arrival at Iletsk. “But this is not Uralsk, and we have no armored cars or heavy weapons to force a breakthrough.”

“If our army is smaller, our faith must be that much greater,” she answered with a firm gaze.

“As great as our faith might be, general, God has been known to favor the big battalions,” the officer replied. “Our shortcomings are not easily overcome.”

“Dear Colonel Streltsov,” Zhanna replied in a haughty tone that Ned had rarely heard from her except when she saw her plans frustrated by skeptics and unbelievers, “Have you lately grown afraid? Take heart, for I tell you that God has damned the Red garrison at Kazan and has sent us to punish them. In God’s name, we will fall upon them behind their barricades and destroy them. Even if they were hanging from the clouds, we should pull them down and slay them! Tomorrow, my Voices tell me, our army shall have its greatest victory ever! Uralsk and Yershov were as nothing compared to what He is prepared to give us now. So go bravely and fear no one. If you go forward like true men, we will have our victory yet!”

* * *

It was a triumph of leadership that the Maid was able to inspire her officers and soldiers to follow her into battle the following night. Everything rested on Zhanna’s word and that of the S-Rs. If her Voices were mistaken or the S-Rs deceitful, the assault would be mass suicide.

Accordingly, Ned was heartened to see flames and explosions rise from within the city shortly after sunset on the night of the planned attack. Watching with the staff from a shallow rise overlooking the city walls, he could see skirmishes raging in the streets between Reds and S-R partisans that were of nearly equal ferocity to the fighting expected to begin shortly outside. Only a few minutes before Zhanna gave the signal to attack, Ned saw white flags raised at several of the city’s main gates, where teams of S-Rs were clearing paths for Siberian foot soldiers and cavalry to stream into the city.

Inspired by this apparent godsend, and with renewed faith that the victory the Maid had predicted lay within reach, the Siberians fought with savage ferocity, for they knew that their choice was between glorious victory and ignominious death. Zhanna led them on horseback through the first gate to be opened, easily recognized by her long white banner, gold-trimmed jacket, and dark fur hat. The Cossack cavalry followed close behind, sending a wave of panic through the trenches. Soon the unnerved defenders fled their entrenched positions and came into the gunsights of Zhanna’s riflemen, who mowed them down in a hail of gunfire and grenades.

More Siberian infantry followed in turn to mop up remaining pockets of resistance, relying on Mills bombs, pistols, bayonets, and hand-to-hand combat to finish off the Reds. But the newest Siberian volunteers, not having absorbed the strict discipline that Zhanna had imposed at the training camp outside Uralsk, soon succumbed to a savagery that exceeded anything seen in the Maid’s previous battles. Fanaticism turned to viciousness, and war into atrocity, perhaps because bloodlust was the only sin her troops had not been consistently denied. From the moment a White victory seemed assured, the S-R partisans joined the Siberians in an orgy of revenge killings against suspected Bolsheviks and their collaborators within the city.

Around this time, Zhanna withdrew from the front lines to focus her cavalry on hunting down Red deserters. But while chasing down one such defender, a rough factory worker full of malice against a mere woman who had defeated so many brave Communists, the defender turned and leveled his Mauser pistol at her, shouting, “Take this, accursed whore!” His first bullet pierced her thigh and forced the Maid to turn aside. Ned watched with horror as she bent forward onto her horse’s neck. Moments later he rejoiced when her head popped up again. When she came nearer to him, he heard her call out in rage to the Siberians to fight on and spill more enemy blood.