'He may not have spoken to you, but he spoke to everyone in the works Komsomol committee. Comrade Rudenko approved all our plans, particularly the idea of having a wall newspaper.'
'I shall investigate this matter! You won't get away with your tricks as easily as that!' Andrykhevich muttered in confusion.
Turunda appeared at my side.
'Stefan Medardovich,' he said peacefully to the engineer, 'I can vouch for the fact that Mandzhura is speaking the truth. I state that as a member of the Party. We thought you would thank us for our efforts, but there seems to be some disagreement...'
'We shall see about that!' the engineer interrupted in a threatening growl.
He straightened his cap and strode hurriedly out of the foundry.
'Six-nil in our favour, Vasya!' Zakabluk shouted as soon as the door banged behind the engineer.
'Look here; you Komsomolite!' Kashket babbled, going up to Kolya and breathing vodka all over him. 'What have you got against me? You're a terrific talker but your talking won't do any good this time. I'd rather choke myself than take my money here. Bring it to me at my machine!'
'Well, you needn't take it then! We're not going to run after you with it!' Turunda put in. 'The works cashier will make it over to your savings book.'
'I haven't got one. I'm not a miser like you!' Kashket bawled furiously.
'All the better for you, you'll get a. savings book at the same time. You've got nothing to fly off the handle about. Aren't you and your partner the champion spoilers in this shop?' Turunda flashed out at Kashket. 'The chaps who wrote this newspaper are talking sense. If you like turning out rotten work, you can receive your wages after the others... Or else you can get out altogether and go fishing on your own account. Maybe you'll do better at that!'
'What is this, boys?' Kashket howled, seeking for support among the laughing foundry men.
But no one gave him any.
Gradually the crowd broke up.
Unexpectedly a burly figure went up to Zakabluk's table. It was the old furnace man Chuchvara. Not long ago he had spent a whole working day at the wedding of a relative of his, in Matrosskaya Settlement. The music at that wedding had been audible on the other side of the bay and Chuchvara came to the foundry next day a very sleepy man. Now he had decided to take his pay as it was offered, without making a fuss and drawing a lot of unnecessary attention to himself.
'That's started the ball rolling!' Zakabluk said loudly. 'Who's next? Step up, please.'
For the first time since we had knocked off I heard Tiktor's voice. Silent till now, and somehow dispirited, he nudged Kashket's arm and said: 'Dry up, can't you! You know we did a bad job on those rollers. Take your money and push off!.. .'
The foundry became deserted as soon as Kashket and the unusually reasonable Tiktor had received their pay.
Turunda, Zakabluk, and I walked out of the works together and I remember Turunda saying:
'Did you notice that, Vasil? Your mate from Podolia's coming to his senses. Seeing himself in company like that had an effect! He's not such a goner after all.'
Turunda was right. I had thought that Tiktor would make more fuss than anyone when he saw himself in the newspaper. But the result had been quite the opposite and much more desirable.
Still throbbing with excitement after my skirmish with Andrykhevich, I strode along with ray mates and thought: 'Now Angelika will hear all about me from 'Daddykins' at dinner tonight! 'Confound that grubby young admirer of yours!' he'll say to his darling daughter. 'Stood in my path! And we treated the young ruffian to beer and sturgeon!' Now Angelika will turn her nose up when she sees me. Well, let her! Why should I change my principles to please her! I'll stay as I am. My path lies in a different direction— with Turunda, Golovatsky. Naumenko, and all my new friends in this town.'
Warmed by these thoughts, I gripped Turunda's arm and said:
'Well, we've made a start, Luka! This'll give the chaps something to talk about! . . . But we've got plenty of fighting to do yet!'
'We're on to a big thing, Vasil,' Turunda answered seriously. 'Politics are a battle of millions, as they told me at our workers' university. And those who fight it on their own always lose. But there are millions like us!'
THE NOTE UNDER THE STONE
Two days after our wall newspaper went up in the foundry, Petka, setting out to work after me, found a white envelope under a stone on the garden path. It contained a note, which deserves to be quoted in full:
'Look here, you half-baked khokhol! You've got very quarrelsome rather sudden. Didn't you know that Old Man Makhno and his men will be coming home very soon. We'll be knocking the stuffing out of all these Party members and Komsomolites. So you'd better keep quiet, or better still—get out of here while your legs can still carry you. Make tracks for your Podolia, where the devil brought you from. And if you breathe a word about this letter to anyone, don't expect any mercy. We'll stop your mouth for good!'
In place of a signature a skull and cross-bones had been drawn at the bottom of the page.
When I came in from work, Petka handed me the envelope.
'The snakes are threatening you! Read this, Vasil!' he said worriedly.
I glanced through the badly-written note, and burst out laughing.
'I don't see anything to laugh at!' Sasha grunted. Like a cottage-weaver with her wool, he was winding thin strands of rubber for the flying club on the backs of two chairs.
I scanned them both keenly.
'You aren't pulling my leg, are you, chaps?' I said.
Petka flared up indignantly. 'Why, you disbelieving Thomas! He thinks we sent him the rotten thing on behalf of Makhno and his men!'
And Petka told me how he had found the envelope under the stone.
Petka's story convinced me. It would have been hardly the thing for Komsomol members to play a joke of that kind.
'Who do you think wrote it, Vasil?' Petka asked. 'Could it have been someone in the foundry?'
'Of course it was. One of the shirkers. We've trodden on their toes and now they're trying to scare us,' I replied.
'If you're sure it was Kashket,' Sasha said in a low voice, 'go and report it. It's a political matter!'
'If I knew for sure. . . But no man's a thief till he's caught, you know. He'd wriggle out of it, and I'd look a fool.'
But Sasha went on confidently: 'Never mind that! ' They'll sort things out. The people there know what they're doing. They can find a man anywhere just by his handwriting.'
'Sasha's right, Vasil,' Petka broke in again. 'Show that note to the right people. They'll do something about it. That's a piece of sabotage, you know it.'
Until late in the evening we discussed the wretched anonymous letter. We could talk of nothing else.
In the end we came to the conclusion that it wasn't their prosperity or strength that made our enemies resort to such low methods, but rather weakness and failure.
Only a short time ago I used to be very offended when people treated me as a boy. How I had wanted to skip ahead of my years and become grown-up like Turunda, or even Golovatsky! Yet today the offensive word 'half- baked,' which hinted at my youth, did not affect me so much as the insulting and hated nickname 'khokhol.' Under tsarism it was the police and the gentry who used to call Ukrainians by that name. I had often heard the Denikin boy scouts speaking contemptuously of us workers' children as khokhols. Nowadays the term was hardly ever used and on any document I wrote my nationality as Ukrainian with a feeling of pride. I liked to go to the club of an evening and sing Ukrainian songs. I spoke Ukrainian. Now I could see that the scoundrel who had written this anonymous letter was sneering at my nationality, and that offended me more than anything.
