Units, detachments, and crowds of refugees, were now all gathered at Belaya Glina.
Here stood the Iron Division of Dmitri Shelest, reinforced by a volunteer militia ten thousand strong.
Men of all ages had been called up.
The approaches to the village were fortified, system and a strategic grasp of the situation being here displayed for the first time.
At meetings the challenge was to victory or death.
But it was in vain.
The foe was learned in warfare, and met courage and desperation with science and technique, never overlooking a single detail, planning every move with the deliberation of a chess player, and somehow always managing to turn up in the enemy's rear.
At first, it is true, the White attack was a failure.
Colonel Zhebrak, who was in command of the Drozdovsky column, led his men in the darkness straight up to a farmstead at which the advanced lines of the Reds were lying. Despite brisk enemy fire, he rushed to the attack and fell down dead.
His men retreated, making for cover.
But at nine o'clock the next morning Kutepov broke into Belaya Glina from the south, supported by the Kornilov Regiment, a Drozdovsky cavalry regiment, and an armoured car.
Borovsky approached from the direction of the captured railway station.
Street fighting began.
The Reds, realizing that they were surrounded, fell into confusion.
The armoured car cut a path through their ranks.
Thatched roofs caught fire.
Cattle and horses rushed about amidst flames, gunfire and shrieks....
Shelest's Iron Division, and with it the guerrilla fighters and the whole population, began retreating along the only path still open to them.
But there, in front of the signal box was Denikin, on horseback, shouting furious orders, shielding his mouth with his hand, for his men to cut off the retreat of the fugitives.
Erdeli's cavalry galloped after them.
The commander's own escort could not resist flying after them with drawn swords.
The staff officers, whirling round in their saddles, galloped up like big-game hunters, laying about them with their swords at heads and backs.
Denikin was left quite alone.
Taking off his cap, he fanned his heated countenance with it.
This victory would clear the way for him to Tikhoretskaya and Ekaterinodar.
Sharp volleys sounded in the twilight from the village and farmsteads: it was Drozdovsky's men taking vengeance for Zhebrak's death by shooting Red Army prisoners.
Denikin sat drinking tea in a fly-infested hut.
Despite the stuffiness of-the night, his thick, heavily braided tunic was buttoned up to the throat After each volley he turned towards the broken window and passed his handkerchief, rolled into a ball, over his forehead, and down each side of his nose.
"Vasili Vasilich," he said to his aide-de-camp, "be a good fellow and ask Drozdovsky to come here. This can't go on, you know!"
Clicking his spurs and saluting stiffly, the aide turned on his heel and left the room.
Denikin began to fill up the teapot from the samovar.
A fresh volley rang out—so near this time that the windowpanes rattled.
Then a long scream rent the darkness.
The boiling water overflowed the teapot, carrying with it a few tea leaves.
"Tut-tut," whispered Denikin, putting the lid back on the teapot.
The door was jerked open, admitting a man of about thirty, deathly pale, in a crumpled tunic, the limp general's shoulder straps also crumpled.
The flame of the oil lamp was dimly reflected in his eyeglasses.
His square, cleft chin, covered with stubble, jutted forward, his hollow cheeks twitched.
He stopped just inside the room.
Denikin rose heavily from the bench on which he was sitting, and extended his hand.
"Sit down, Mikhail Grigorevich!
Will you have some tea?"
"No, thank you, Sir! I have no time!"
It was Drozdovsky, who had recently been made a general.
He knew why the Commander in Chief had sent for him, and, as always when he expected a reproof, it cost him an agonizing effort to suppress his rage.
He stood there, with bent head and averted eyes.
"Mikhail Grigorevich, old man, I want to talk to you about these shootings...."
Drozdovsky turned still paler. "I am unable to restrain my officers," he said in a voice unpleasantly shrill, verging on the hysterical.
"You are aware, Your Excellency, that Colonel Zhebrak was bestially tortured by the Bolsheviks.... Thirty-five officers brought by me from Rumania have been tortured and mutilated.... The Bolsheviks are killing and torturing all our people... yes, all of them...." (His voice broke, he seemed to be almost suffocated.) "I cannot restrain the men.... I refuse.... If you object.... I can send in my papers.... I should consider it a joy ... to serve in the ranks...."
"Now, now..." said Denikin.