The Kerch left the scene of death at top speed, heading for Tuapse.
Early next morning her crew took to the boats, and a message was broadcast by wireless from the doomed ship:
"To all.... I am going down, after having destroyed those vessels of the Black Sea fleet which preferred destruction to the disgrace of surrendering to Germany.
Destroyer Kerch."
Its sea cocks opened, its engines blown up, the destroyer sank fifteen fathoms to the bottom of the sea.
On shore, Semyon Krasilnikov and his mates discussed their future plans.
Many suggestions were made, and at last it was decided to set out for Astrakhan on the Volga, where Shakhov was said to be forming a river fleet for fighting the White Guards.
Kozhukh's Taman army, the enemy at its heels, and encircled by villages all of which bad risen against the Reds, was endeavouring to break through, by mountain paths, and over pathless wastes, to the Upper Kuban.
Their way lay through Novorossiisk, occupied by the Germans since the sinking of the fleet.
The Taman columns made a surprise entry into the town—before anyone knew what had happened, troops were marching through the streets, singing.
The German garrison, mistaking their purpose, rushed to the ships and opened fire on the rear column, mowing down, as well as the Red troops, their appendage of drunken Cossacks in frenzied pursuit.
By way of precaution, the Germans withdrew from the town, which, after Kozhukh had fought his way through it, was occupied by Cossacks; a little later, White troops entered, and sacked the town.
Sailors, Red Army men and anyone who looked too poor, were strung up on telegraph posts without a trial.
Three thousand corpses were taken to the sea on lorries during those days.
Novorossiisk had become a White port.
The Taman army, encumbered by the carts of its fifteen thousand refugees and their belongings, trudged along the famine-stricken coast to Tuapse, where it turned sharply eastwards.
Denikin's men were close behind them and all the mountain passes and canyons ahead were occupied by counterrevolutionary insurgents.
Not a day passed without heavy fighting.
Bleeding, snapping back, half-dead with hunger, the army crept on, climbed the steep slopes of hills, melting away as it marched, but plodding doggedly on.
One day, a Red Army prisoner released by General Pokrovsky was brought to Kozhukh. He bore a letter written with military frankness:
"You have disgraced all the officers of the Russian Army and Navy, you scoundrel, by joining the ranks of the Bolsheviks, the thieves and the tramps; know, then, that this is the end for you and your tramps.
We have a firm grip on you, you scoundrel, and we're not going to let you slip through our fingers.
If you desire mercy, that is to say, to get off with nothing worse than being sent to a convict labour company, do as I order: lay down your arms this very day, and take your gang, disarmed, two or three miles west of the Belorechenskaya railway station.
Let me know when you have complied with my order, send a message immediately to signal box number 4...."
Kozhukh read the letter, sipping tea from a tin can.
He glanced at the Red Army man, shoeless, his tunic unbelted, standing dejectedly before him.
"You stinker!" said Kozhukh. "How dare you bring me such a letter?
Go and find your unit...."
And that very night Kozhukh struck a telling blow at General Pokrovsky's troops, putting them to flight and pursuing them with cavalry.
He then made a breakthrough to Belorechenskaya and broke out of encirclement.
Towards the end of September, the Taman army reached Armavir, which was occupied by Denikin's troops, took it by storm, and joined up with the remnants of Sorokin's army in the village of Nevinnomysskaya.
After the disasters of Viselki and Ekaterinodar, Sorokin, embittered by failure, chewing the cud of lost military glory, had no more influence with the soldiers, and retreated further and further east, caught like a chip in the vortex of what had once been divisions, brigades and regiments, but was now a mere herd fleeing in panic at the first sound of enemy fire.
The soldiers destroyed everything in the line of their retreat.
Their one idea was to get as far as possible from the death whose breath they could feel on their necks—to go anywhere, the farther the better.
Endless processions of deserters roved the Terek steppe, along the highways of antiquity, now covered with funeral mounds and wormwood.
Almost two hundred thousand troops and refugees escaped after the battle of Ekaterinodar.
Those who remained were cut to ribbons, hung, or tortured by the Cossacks.
Corpses swung from the Lombardy poplars in every Cossack village.
The Cossacks, now that they no longer feared the return of the Reds, revenged themselves ruthlessly on any who fell into their hands.
The very word Bolshevik was being stamped out with blood and fire throughout the district.
Sorokin was a child of the revolution, and sensed its fluctuations with an almost animal instinct.
He made no attempt to stem the retreat, knowing that it would be useless.
The stampede towards the east was now at its height, and could only be checked when the Whites relaxed the fury of their pursuit.
All he could do now was to look morosely out of the window of the railway carriage, as the train dragged its length past the scorched steppe, dotted over with the funeral mounds of ancient Pelasgi, Celts, Teutons, Slavs, Khazars.... There was a bodyguard on the train, for passing troops had been heard shouting:
"The commanders have betrayed us, mates, sold us for a drink—kill yours as we have killed ours!"
Chief of Staff Belyakov, on his occasional visits to Sorokin's compartment would sigh and drop a few vague, cautious words as to the impossibility of going on with the struggle.
"Revolutions have their phases," he repeated incessantly, passing a hand over his large forehead. "The phase of revolutionary enthusiasm is over, and we have the elemental forces against us.
It is not the officers we are fighting any more, but the people themselves.
We must try and save the achievements of the revolution from destruction before it is too late... even if it means peace by compromise." And he would quote all sorts of corroboratory examples from history.
"How much money do you mean to offer me, you Scoundrel?" was Sorokin's only answer to all this.