x
During the next few weeks, until he handed over his post under General Smotrov to a more experienced staff officer just up from Korosumska, Dimitri made a number of failed attempts to learn the reason for that isolated outbreak of violence. He soon learned that trying to pry any direct information out of a Serari populace was next to impossible. There were no Russian sympathizers among them as there were among the people of the northern lands, no channel of communications between the rulers and the unwillingly ruled. Not even the identity of the pariyamuwa could be learned. No one claimed the body. The various imams of Sebakar insisted under polite questioning that they knew nothing of the pariyamuwa, although he had obviously been readied for his holy mission by a Moslem cleric.
Dimitri could only come to the conclusion that the incident was meant to convey a warning rather than set off an insurrection. The fortress itself could never be taken by direct assault---not by Seraris armed mostly with knives---but the men who commanded it could be made to realize their presence in the Serari country was bitterly resented and opposed, that they would never be safe outside their cantonments. The killings at the officer's club would place them under the constant fear of massacre, create an artificial state of siege at no cost to their enemies.
If that was the intention, it fell short of success. The Serari, perhaps, was unable to understand the sanguine temperament of the Russians, their ebullient confidence that decent treatment and the lure of European comforts would somehow overcome the fiercest resentments, their almost mystical faith that "the Russian way of doing things" would convert the most alien people.
In a few weeks the incident was almost forgotten. The garrison regarded it as the case of an unbalanced native running amok. By the time Dimitri had returned to his battalion command his fellow officers were absorbed in speculating on others matters, especially the arrival of a Cossack force at Sebakar. One day in late January a trainload of reinforcements arrived at the station near the Susnin Barracks. The Cossacks' assignment was to run down the Serari bandits operating in the barren wastes of the Kenzankian and Sebakar deserts, but what about the foot soldiers? They hinted that the infantry garrisoning Sebakar would be broken up and scattered about the southern foothills and headlands, at harder and more dangerous service than obtained at the fortress.
"I'm fed up," Alexei announced to Dimitri at the bar of the officers' club during the last Saturday night hop of the month. The two brothers were on slightly more friendly terms; Alexei seemed to be quieting down, maybe because Raisa had announced that she was going to have a baby and partly, because the local society did not offer the headier temptations of Korosumska.
210Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX8dUTP3T3y
"The inactivity here is stifling," Alexei explained. "I shuffle a few papers around, watch the company drill, listen to the endless gossip and palaver of my brother officers, inspect the barracks, and take Raisa on a walk in the early evening. The days pass by in a kind of dream, one of the same as the other."
"Half a soldier's life is spent waiting for something to happen and getting ready for it," Dimitri said.
"Half? Nine-tenths! I'm beginning to think the only men of action left in the world are the businessmen, the moneymakers.... Barkeep!" Alexei summoned the corporal who tended bar for the officers. "Give us two more whiskeys......We're serving a backward country, Dimitri. Nobody really likes us these days... People overseas think of us as ignoble savages that the Czar unleashes anytime it suits his purposes and raise hell if we kill a few people along the way. Our superiors use us to suit themselves, but the moment our usefulness comes to an end, from their viewpoint, we get kicked into the ashcan. Look at General Malekina!"
"I had an idea that was preying on your mind." Alexei's father-in-law had resigned from the army after months of idleness in Korosumska during which he came to the realization that he would never again be given a field command. He had then joined the Anglo-Russian Oriental Trading Company and was now at the company's Vladivostok office being indoctrinated for his new civilian career, which, Dimitri suspected, would be largely a matter of snatching up mineral and timber concessions abandoned by the deposed Sultan.
"He was given the filthy end of the stick after a long and honorable career."
"The general," Dimitri retorted, "played a very dangerous game called circumventing orders."
"Oh yes, he was guilty of snatching a bigger victory than his goddam superiors could envision with their stinking little adjutant's mentality."
"Have it your own way. General Malekhina never truly recovered from the Crimean War. He was a kind of unscarred casualty......"
"I'll be damned if I know what you're going on about, Dimitri. Maybe you'd better pass up the next drink."
"I wish him well, anyway."
"I think he'd be pleased to know that. He's always had the idea that you held him in small regard."
"Curious. I've had the same idea about him. Somehow, though, I wish he'd affiliated himself with someone besides Captain Hall."
"I thought you were friendly with him."
"I've found him interesting, but I don't know that I'd trust him any farther than I could throw this bar."
"Hall strikes me as a practical fellow, out for all he can get, yes, but what's wrong with that? You and I both want rank instead of money, but it all comes to the same thing. No, Dimitri, I don't think we can afford to sneer at these civilian money-grabbers."
“Has Hall been giving you his recruiting talk?”
Alexei never had a chance to answer the question, for, at that moment, the band stopped playing in the middle of a two-step and its leader announced: “All officers of the 1st Battalion are ordered to report to Colone Spravtsev immediately.” The 1st was Dimitri’s battalion.
A great commotion broke out on the dance floor. The order had the ring of a call to arms, a man-the-ramparts urgency hitherto absent in the affairs of the garrison at Sebakar.
Raisa left her partner and hurried over to the Karamazov brothers, demanding to know what had just happened.
Dimitri and Alexei were buckling on their dress swords, and the latter rather curtly, “We haven’t the faintest idea, Raisa.”
Raisa, noting the flush of excitement on her husband’s face, immediately resented it. “How happy you are, darling! It wouldn’t bother you in the slightest if to leave a pregnant woman behind while you go off chasing barbarians in the desert.”
Alexei had a true instinct for cutting the ground out from under a lady. “I haven’t the slightest interest in pregnant women. Having a child is your affair. I can’t help you give birth to the creature.”
“No, but you could......” Raisa flushed and bit off her words. “Oh, damn you, Alex. Can’t you be gentler with me? We may be separated for months.”
“It may be nothing of importance, Raisa,” Dimitri said. “We’ll let you know as soon as possible.”
The two brothers hurried off to regimental HQ in the fortress. As they walked through the barrack square, they noted that the battalion had already been alerted and was assembling under arms while quartermasters were issuing field rations and ammunition.
The battalion’s officers, except for a young lieutenant who was prowling around the ghettos and could not be located at once, gathered in Colonel Spravtsev’s office. General Smotrov was also present. The colonel read an order dispatching the 1st Battalion to the Cteldun Oblast to restore law, peace and order forthwith. An army messenger shortly before midnight had brought alarming news from the territory: Serari warriors had come down from the mountains and raided the principal town, also named Cteldun, to carry off women, slaves and loot. The raid was the first large-scale act of defiance against the Russian laws forbidding such practices. Major Karamazov was directed to occupy the town of Cteldun, establish a military post, negotiate for the return of the captives and stolen property, and as a last resort take aggressive action against the bands of dissident Serari warriors. The expedition was to leave in three hours.
After Colonel Spravtsev finished reading the order the junior officers were dismissed to supervise preparations for the embarkation on army trains. These trains were under orders to carry them across the Sebekar Desert to Cteldun.
Dimitri was asked to stay behind while Colonel Spravtsev, with General Smotrov offering an occasional comment, discussed matters of supply and administration. Dimitri, in effect, would be the governor of Cteldun and this entailed certain non-military responsibilities, which could be vexatious.
He had to force himself to pay attention to what his seniors were saying. From the first mention of Babakar in this office, a realization began to nag at him. Wasn't this region, Sebakar, the destination of Chloe and Milorad Elmpt? They had said it would be! And (to make matters worse) Cteldun, part of Sebakar, was the native oblast of Fenuldhun, the Serari he had met under unfavorable circumstances in Korosumska more than a year ago. He could not help remembering the disquieting manner in which Fenuldhun had promised to keep his land untainted by Russian influence.
"We've got to come down hard on these people who think they can murder people at will, understand?" Colonel Spravtsev said.
"Yes, Colonel."
"What the hell's bothering you, Karamazov? I'd swear you haven't heard more than one word in ten I've spoken?"
"I've been wondering whether you have any information concerning two Russians, a brother and sister, who went to Cteldun Oblast to establish a hospital and school. One of them was Milorad Elmpt---you remember him, Colonel, he was a contract surgeon at Fort Torchinovich a few years ago."
"Yes, yes, I remember Elmpt. Drunk most of the time, as I recall. Redheaded bastard with no respect for army ways. He'd be a small loss, but we have no information on any Russians in Cteldun."
"I doubt whether your friends have been harmed," General Smotrov said. "But if anything has happened to a Russian subject, don't waste time talking to those people. Go in with everything you've got, and we'll reinforce you if we must. A Cossack legion will stand by in Cteldun as long as they are needed."
210Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeL9LSEYsjf
210Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAeK3zvZ52A
