“I will have my say. Before you slay me I must speak my mind. Do you know me? Do you know that I am one of you, a plain peasant soldier?”
“Yes, we do,” the men answered.
“Well,” I resumed, “why did you kill this man?” and I pointed at the disfigured body at my feet. “He was the kindest officer in the Corps. He never beat, never punished a soldier. He was always courteous, to privates and officers alike. He never spoke contemptuously to anyone. Only a month ago he wanted to be transferred and you insisted on keeping him. That was four weeks ago. Had he changed, could he have changed, in such a short time?
“He was like a father to his men. Weren’t you always proud of him? Didn’t you always boast that in his regiment the food was good, the soldiers were well shod, the baths were regular? Didn’t you, of your own accord, reward him with a Soldiers’ Cross, the highest honour that the free Russian army has to offer?
“And now you have killed, with your own hands, this noble soul, this rare example of human kindness. Why?
“Why did you do it?” I turned fiercely on the men.
“Because he was of the exploiting class,” came one answer.
“They all suck our blood!” shouted some others.
“Why let her talk? Who is she that she should question us?” somebody cried out.
“Kill her! Kill her, too! Kill them all! We have shed enough of our blood! The bourgeois! The murderers! Kill her!” was shouted from many throats.
“Scoundrels!” I screamed. “You will kill me yet, I am at your mercy, and I came out to be killed. You ask why I should be allowed to talk. You ask who I am. As if you didn’t know me! Who is Yashka Bochkareva?
“Who sent delegates to present icons to me, if not you? Who had me promoted to the rank of an officer, if not you? Who sent me this testimonial to Petrograd only a couple of weeks ago, if not you?”
Here I drew out from my breast pocket the resolution passed and signed by the Corps Committee and despatched to me while I was in the Petrograd Hospital. I had brought it with me. Pointing to the signatures, I cried:
“You see this? Who signed it, if not you yourselves? It is signed by the Corps Committee, your own representatives, whom you, yourselves, elected!”
The men were silent.
“Who suffered, fought with you, if not I? Who saved your lives under fire, if not Yashka? Don’t you remember what I did for your comrades at Naroch, when, up to my armpits in mud, I dragged dozens of you to safety and life?”
Here, I turned abruptly on a gaping fellow, looked directly at him and asked:
“Suppose the rank and file were to elect their own officers. Now, what would you do in the Commander’s place, if you were chosen? You are a plain soldier, of the people. Tell me what you would do!” I thundered.
The man looked foolish, making an effort to laugh.
“Ha, I would see,” he said, “once I got there.”
“That is no answer. Tell me what you would do if our Corps were in the trenches and another one refused to relieve it. What would you do? What?” I demanded of the whole crowd.
“Would you hold the trenches indefinitely or leave? Answer me that!”
“Well, we would leave, anyhow,” replied a number of men.
“But what are you here for,” I shouted fiercely, “to hold the trenches or not?”
“Yes, to hold,” they answered.
“Then how could you leave them?” I fired back.
There was silence.
“That would be treason to Free Russia!” I continued.
The men bowed their heads in shame. Nobody spoke.
“Then why did you kill him?” I cried out bitterly. “What did he want you to do but hold the trenches?”
“He wanted to shoot us!” several sullen voices replied.
“He never said anything of the sort. What he wanted to say was to explain that the General did not threaten you either, but remarked that in other circumstances your action would be punished by shooting. No sooner did Colonel Belonogov mention the word ‘shoot’ than you threw yourself upon him without even giving the man a chance to finish what he was saying.”
“That was not what we understood. We thought he threatened to shoot us,” the men weakly defended themselves.
At this point the orderlies and friends of the murdered Colonel rushed up. They raised such a cry of grief when they saw the mutilated corpse that all speech was silenced. They cursed and wept and threatened the mob, although they were few and the crowd numbered thousands.
“Murderers! Bloodthirsty ruffians! Whom have you killed? Our little father! Did ever soldiers have a better friend than he was? Was there ever a commander who took greater care of his men? You are worse than the Tsar and his hangmen. You are given freedom, and you act like cutthroats. You devils!”
And the mourners broke out in even louder lamentations. The wailing rent the air. It gripped everybody’s throat. Many in the mob wept. As the dead man’s friends began to relate the various favours they had received from him, I could not choke down my tears and stepped down from the stool, convulsed with sobs.
Meanwhile, in response to calls for help, a division from a neighbouring corps arrived to quell the mutiny. The Committee of the Division came forward and demanded the surrender of the ringleaders of the movement that had resulted in the soldiers’ refusal to return to the trenches and in the murder of Colonel Belonogov. There were negotiations between the two committees, which finally ended in the surrender by the mob of twenty agitators, who were placed under arrest.
The officers who had fled and the General now reappeared, although the latter was still afraid to order the soldiers to relieve the corps in the trenches. He asked me to broach the subject.
I first addressed the men about the funeral.
“We must have a coffin made. Who will do
