Two days later we got news in the Drozdov woods that a big German munitions convoy had entered Zhukovka.
And we needed cartridges like hell. We talked it over, and the boys got all worked up, so it was decided to march on Zhukovka and seize these munitions.
About a hundred of us got together.
Thirty were sent to the highroad, to cut off the retreat of the Germans on Chernigov, in case we were successful.
The rest marched in line formation on Zhukovka.
We crept up at dusk, dropped down in the rye near the village, and sent out seven men to see how the land lay, and bring us back information, so that we could make a surprise attack in the night.
We lay there as quiet as mice, no smoking was allowed.
It was drizzling... we were all sleepy... it was awfully damp... we waited and waited till it began to get light.
Not a movement.
We couldn't understand it.
We saw the women beginning to drive the cattle into the fields.
And then our seven scouts came crawling back, the little dears.... It turned out they got to the mill, and lay down for a rest, the rotters, and slept all night, till the women driving out the cattle came upon them.
Of course there could be no question of an attack.... We were so furious, we could hardly contain ourselves.
We had to hold a court martial, and sentence them, and it was unanimously decided to shoot them.
But they started crying and begging for mercy, and frankly admitted their offence.
They were just young chaps, and it was their first offence... so we decided to pardon them.
But they were told they must redeem their crime in the very next battle."
"A pardon does good sometimes," said the soldier.
"Yes.... So we began to discuss our plans.
Since we had not taken Zhukovka in the night, we should have to take it in the day.
No easy task—and the lads knew very well what they were in for.
We spread out thin and waited for the guns to start—we didn't crawl, we fairly ran on all fours.
Loud guffaws from the top shelf.
"And instead of Germans, we were met by women with baskets on their arms. It was a Sunday, and they were going berrying.
How they laughed at us! 'You're late,' they said. The German munition carts took the path to Kulikov two hours ago.'
Then we decided unanimously to go after the Germans, even if it should cost us all our lives.
We took spades for making dugouts; the women brought us pancakes and pies.
And off we went.
A great crowd—quite an army—joined on to us —mostly of course out of curiosity.
And this is what we did: we issued stakes to them all, men and women, and formed two lines, with a distance of twenty paces between each person, in such a way that one would have a rifle, the next one just a stake or a stick, and so on, to look formidable.
Our lines stretched over three miles or so.
I picked fifteen men, including our luckless scouts, as well as a couple of officers we had mobilized—they were obvious counterrevolutionaries, but they had been warned to justify our trust in them if they wanted to save their skins.
This group got into the path ahead of the munitions convoy.... And then a battle started, my lads, that went on and on, for days on end...." (Here he made a gesture, as if reluctant to continue.)
"How was that?" asked the soldier.
"It was like this.... Our group let the column pass and fell upon its rear—the carts.
We captured about a score of ammunition carts.
We hastily filled our pouches with cartridges and issued rifles to all the peasants we could, and went on with the attack.
We thought we had surrounded the column, but really it was the Germans who surrounded us: they moved all their units up to this place along three roads.... We broke up into small groups, taking cover in ditches.
It was our luck that the Germans conducted operations according to the rules for big-scale battles, or not one of us would have come out alive.... As it was I, and perhaps ten other partisans survived.
We fought as long as the cartridges lasted.
Then we decided that this was no place for us, that we should have to cross the Desna, and get into the neutral zone, to Russia.
I hid my rifle and made my way to Novgorod-Severski, pretending to be a prisoner of war....'"
"And where are you off to now?"
"To Moscow for instructions."
Pyavka recounted a great deal more about the partisans and about village life.
"We go on from one disaster to another.
The peasant has to be like a wolf—always ready to spring."
Pyavka was from Nezhin, where he had worked at-sugar refineries.
He had lost his eye during the Kerensky regime, in the abortive June offensive.
"Kerensky put out my eye," was the way he formulated it.