NIKITA IN NEED
'Dear Vasil,
'Forgive me, old chap, for not answering at once. I've been up to my neck in it. Talk about having your hands full! You went away to your factories, the school was empty and it seemed the time had come for us to sit back and sun ourselves on the rocky banks of the Smotrich. But we decided
otherwise. At a time like this, when the Party has called upon us to make a full-scale offensive on private enterprise, and put all our energy into the industrialization of the country, what right have we to take a rest cure?
'I got the first-year Komsomol members together, Polevoi invited the instructors, and at a general meeting we decided to renovate the school without any outside help.
'Every day for over a month we turned up at the school, putting the place into shape, making new tools, and enlarging the various shops. You wouldn't know your foundry now, Vasil! It's been whitewashed inside and out. Kozakevich has made a big casting of the metal-workers' trade union badge and hung it over the entrance. Nowadays, when people pass, they know at once that iron is smelted in this clean little building, where the ratecollectors used to hold their meetings. And do you remember the store-room near the locksmiths' shop? It no longer exists! We have knocked down the wooden partition and put another three benches in the extra space. That means another nine places at the school for training the new generation of industrial workers. Just think what that means, Vasil! Next autumn we shall be able to take nine extra boys and girls who would like to make friends with the hammer and chisel.
And suppose every factory-training school follows our example? That will make a whole division for the army of the industrial proletariat! Our Soviet youth, plus machinery, plus a socialist attitude to labour, plus the ability to understand blue-prints, and to build the future according to those blue-prints!
'I am very glad for you that the director of the works turned out to be a real Bolshevik and treated you understandingly, as a Communist director should. From your letter, Vasil, I conclude that you have established excellent relations with your Komsomol organization at the works, and that they respect you. That is why, since I still look upon you, old chap, as a delegate of the Podolian Komsomol to the Azov coast, I have a big request to make to you, Maremukha, and Bobir.
'Do you remember the state farm on the bank of the Dniester where you and I made friends in the days when you used to live at the Party School? The District Party Committee has decided to put the whole farm with its land and outbuildings at the disposal of a Youth Agricultural Commune. This commune will train young specialists for agriculture. And they, in their turn, will show the rest of the peasantry how to farm on new, Soviet principles.
'The number of volunteers for the commune has been terrific. Young people from all over the place who have read about the commune in the newspapers are showering the District Committee with requests to be sent there.
'But now there's a hitch. We've got everything in the commune—cows, horses, plough-land, young people ready to work, enthusiasm and the desire to devote oneself to a good cause—but we're short of machinery! Our Komsomol members at the school will, I am sure, be able to repair the ploughs and harrows for their brother commune. Working overtime, we'll manage to turn out a few straw-cutters for them. But that's about the limit of our resources. And yet it's absolutely essential to supply the chaps at the commune with at least five reapers. It stands to reason, of course, that no one from the centre will send us reapers in the middle of the season. But how fine it would be if when harvest time comes round, our chaps drove out into the fields on good, new Soviet reaping machines!
'And when I read what you wrote about your works making reapers I naturally thought to myself: 'Here's the man who will help our young commune!' Yes, Vasil, say what you like, but you've got to help us! Polevoi and I are certain, and the District Committee of the Komsomol is certain, too, that you will bring it off.
'Go and see the works Party organization, go and see the director and explain to them what a great political effect it will have if a model youth commune springs up on the border between us and the Rumania of the landowners. Tell them... But why explain everything to you! Won't you be able to get us five reapers without that? Ask, insist, get Golovatsky to help you. Judging from your letter, he's a helpful sort of chap. In short, Vasil, the whole factory-training school, as well as every Komsomol on the border
have put their hopes on you.
'You may be asked who will pay for these reapers? Don't worry about that. As soon as we receive your telegram telling us the amount we must pay, we'll send the money at once. We have already started collecting the money. We have performed two plays at the Shevchenko theatre, we have held a fancy-dress ball there, like the one we held to collect gifts for the Red Cossacks. And the District Committee has also got some cash for the commune. In short, Vasil, you've got to act, act at full pressure!
'Oh, and I nearly forgot! You ask whether there's any news of Pecheritsa. There certainly is, and a lot of it. But I think it would be premature to write about it just now.
'Best wishes to you all from Polevoi, 'Kozakevich, and self.
'Dmitry Panchenko sends you his greetings and says he is sure you, Maremukha, and Bobir will justify our hopes about the reapers.
'Sincerest Komsomol greetings,
'Nikita Kolotneyets.'
I showed the letter to my friends. Sasha read it and muttered something vaguely. Petka scratched his head and said:
'Now we're in for it! Five reapers will take a bit more buying than a reel of cotton!'
'But what's the news about Pecheritsa?' I said suddenly.
'They must have nabbed him,' Sasha came out of his reverie. 'I told you I had seen him here!'
'You saw him here and they caught him there? Very queer!' I said, bringing Sasha down to earth. 'In fact, it's all a bit queer...'
'Don't you know iKolomeyets?' Petka said. 'That's him all over. He always liked making a mystery of things.'
'Well, what shall we do, chaps?' I asked, thinking of Nikita's request.
'Go and see the director, what else!' Sasha exclaimed promptly, as if it was the obvious thing to do.
'Let's go together.'
'Count me out for today,' said Sasha. 'I've got a job on at the flying club that will take me all night to finish.'
'What about you, Petka?' I asked, looking imploringly at Maremukha.
'I've told you already, Vasil: we've got a technical class this evening. How can I miss that!'
But I did not go to the director. First I called on Tolya Golovatsky to ask his advice.
Of course, I remembered the state farm on the Dniester that Nikita had written about. I remembered how mysterious it had seemed to me when our carts drove up to the gates in the dead of night. The farm-house was surrounded by tall poplars and a white stone wall. Horses could be heard champing in the stables. A watchman, rifle in hand, loomed out of the darkness of the yard, and before opening the heavy gates, asked us many questions.
And how could I forget the first night at the farm, when I lay in the crisp hay, with a rifle pressed to my side, under the iron roof of the barn! Or our morning bathes in the swift, cold waters of the Dniester! Or the smell of mint near a gooseberry bush that I had found while wandering through the neglected garden!... And how I used to enjoy those Sunday trips to the little town of Zhvanets for the state farm's mail.
. . . Before me stretches the dusty cart-track above the Dniester. The hooves of the light-bay horse plop into the soft dust raising little grey clouds behind us. I loll in the creaking saddle and look across the Dniester at the houses on the edge of Khotin and the ruins of an ancient fortress on the Bessarabian bank. My horse flicks his ears and keeps trying to snap at the ripening ears of corn by the roadside.
And then I'm on my way back with a packet of fresh newspapers and magazines. If there is no wind,
I twist the reins round my arm and read the newspapers as I am riding along. I glance over the head-lines
