Under the auspices of the Germans, who had had the sense not to station a garrison in Novocherkassk, the "Saviours of the Don" presented the ataman's mace to General Krasnov, "personal friend of Emperor Wilhelm," as he was pleased to call himself.
The bells of the cathedral pealed merrily.
The Cossacks crowded on the cobbled square in front of the cathedral shouting
"Hurrah!", and the village elders wished good luck to the new order.
The Germans did not penetrate beyond Rostov far into the Don and Kuban districts.
Attempts were made by them to "win over" Bataisk, a village on the left bank facing Rostov, inhabited by working folk from the Rostov workshops and plants, and by the overflow of the poor from the city.
But despite hurricane fire and bloody assaults, the Germans could not take the village.
Bataisk, almost surrounded by flooded fields, showed desperate resistance and remained independent.
The Germans stayed where they were, contenting themselves with consolidating the power of the atamans, and supplying the ataman forces with munitions taken from the Russian depots in the Ukraine.
The delicate question of the attitude to be adopted towards the two Volunteer groups—the army of Denikin and Drozdovsky's detachment—was handled with no less discretion.
The Volunteers recognized two commandments: to destroy the Bolsheviks and to display their eternal loyalty to the Allies by reviving the war against the Germans.
The former struck the Germans as wise and good, the latter they considered as a not particularly dangerous folly.
They therefore shut their eyes to the existence of the Volunteers.
And Drozdovsky's and Denikin's men, too, pretended not to notice that there were Germans on Russian soil.
Once the Drozdovsky battalion, while marching from Kishinev to Rostov, had to cross the river.
On one bank, at Borislavl, were the Germans, and on the other, at Kakhovka, the Bolsheviks.
The Germans had been unable to force a crossing over the river.
The Drozdovsky detachment managed this, drove the Red battalions out of Kakhovka, and proceeded on their way without waiting for the Germans to thank them.
Denikin dealt, on a much bigger scale, with situations no less paradoxical.
In the end of April the remnants of the Volunteer Army, battered as they were by the fighting at Ekaterinodar, nevertheless forced their way to the district around the villages of Yegorlitskaya and Mechetinskaya, about thirty miles from Novocherkassk.
Here they found unexpected relief in the news that Rostov was in the hands of the Germans, and Novocherkassk had fallen to the ataman-led Don Cossacks....
The Reds left the Volunteers in peace, and opened a front against the new foe—the Germans.
The Volunteers had an opportunity to rest, to look after their wounded, to rally their forces.
The first necessity for them was to replenish the equipment of their army.
All the railway stations, from Tikhoretskaya to Bataisk, were crammed with military materiel for the offensive which the Reds were preparing against Rostov.
Generals Markov, Bogayevsky and Erdeli attacked the nearest rear of the Reds in three columns; at the Krilovskaya, Sosika, and Novo-Leushkovskaya railway stations they destroyed troop trains, blew up an armoured train, and retreated to the steppe with huge quantities of trophies.
The Red Army offensive was prevented.
The dislocated shoulder, and the trifling scratches gained in fighting were healed.
Roshchin regained his strength, grew sunburned, and ate his fill, during the last few days in the quiet village.
The task he had set himself, the thought of which had been afflicting him like a spiritual sickness ever since he left Moscow—to avenge his disgrace at the hands of the Bolsheviks—was accomplished.
He was having his revenge.
One moment remained engraved in his memory. He had been running towards the railway embankment.... There had been a victory.... His knees had trembled, and there had been a hammering in his temples.
He had taken off his soft cap to wipe his bayonet.
He had done it involuntarily, like a veteran soldier who always keeps his arms clean.
The former fanatical hatred, the feeling of a leaden ring round his head, of the blood rushing into his eyes, had vanished.
He had simply overtaken an enemy, thrust his bayonet into him, withdrawn it and wiped it clean.
So he had been right after all! His mind, gradually clearing, tried to understand—had he been right? Had he?
And if he had, why did he have to go on asking himself this question?
It was a Sunday.
Mass was being celebrated in the village church.
Roshchin, who was late, found himself jostled in the porch amidst soldiers with freshly-shaven heads, and went out to wander in the old cemetery behind the church.
Walking over the grass, where the dandelions were in blossom, he plucked a grass stem to nibble and seated himself on a mound.
Vadim Petrovich was an honest man, and, as Katya had called him, a good man.
The singing of children came through the half-open, cobwebby window, and the deep-voiced responses of the deacon sounded wrathful and ruthless enough to put the childish voices to flight in sheer terror.
Vadim Petrovich's thoughts involuntarily went back to the past, as if seeking something bright, something innocent....
He has waked up from sheer delight.
Through the high, sparkling windowpanes he sees the blue sky of spring— never since has he seen such a sky.
He hears the trees rustling in the garden.
A new sateen shirt—blue with white spots—hangs over a chair beside the wooden bedstead.
It has a Sabbath smell.