He suddenly urged on his horse and plunged into the very thick of the crowd.
Then, leaning in his saddle, he pointed:
"That's the one!"
The crowd involuntarily turned towards the man pointed at—a tall, gaunt individual, with a big nose.
He went pale and, spreading out his elbows, retreated a step.
Whether Sorokin really knew him, or merely made a victim of the first man his eyes fell on, will never be known.... The crowd wanted blood.
Drawing his scimitar, and brandishing it whistling through the air, Sorokin smote the tall man on his long neck.
The blood gushed out in a powerful stream, splashing the muzzle of Sorokin's horse.
"It is thus that the revolutionary army deals with the enemies of the people!"
Sorokin again urged on his mare and, flourishing his bloodstained sword, his face pale and formidable, he darted among the crowd, abusing, swearing, reassuring.
"There hasn't been any rout.... The White scouts and spies have been trying to spread panic.... It's they who are encouraging you to plunder, it's they who are undermining discipline.… Who says we've been beaten?
Did you see it happen, you beast?
Comrades, I have led you to battle—you know me! I bear the marks of twenty-six wounds.
I demand the instant cessation of plundering!
All back to your trains!
Today I shall lead you to the attack. And cowards and traitors will meet with vengeance from the enraged people...."
The crowd listened.
In their enthusiasm they climbed on to each other's shoulders for a look at their Commander in Chief.
There were still a few dissenting voices, but most were eager for a fight.
From all around could be heard:
"It's true, what he says! Let him lead us! We'll follow him...."
Company commanders who had been in hiding, crept back, and the soldiers gradually returned to their ranks.
There was a rent in the breast of Sorokin's tunic where he had torn it open to display his scars.... His face was deathly pale. The panic died down, and machine-gun detachments were dispatched to meet the oncoming troops.
Telegrams of the most determined nature flew backwards and forwards.
There was, however, no way of stemming the retreat.
It took several days to restore order among the troops in the neighbourhood of the Timashevskaya railway station, and embark upon a counterattack.
The Reds advanced in two columns upon Viselki and Korenovskaya.
And wherever the battle wavered, the Red Army men would see Sorokin galloping among them on his chestnut mare.
It was as if, by his passionate will alone, he had stemmed the tide of defeat and saved the Black Sea coast. There was nothing for the Central Executive Committee of the North Caucasian Republic to do, but give official confirmation of his command of military operations.
* VI *
During those very days, late in May, when the army of Denikin was launching its "Second Kuban Campaign," a new threat to the Russian Soviet Republic arose.
Three Czech divisions, moving eastwards from the Ukrainian front, mutinied at almost the same moment in all the troop trains from Penza to Omsk.
This mutiny was the first of a series of blows dealt at the Soviet Union by the Intervention.
The Czech divisions, which had begun to be formed as far back as 1914, from Czech nationals in Russia, and later from prisoners of war, constituted, after the October Revolution, a foreign body in the country, exercising armed interference in its internal affairs.
It had not been easy enough to get them to «take part in an armed attack against the Russian Revolution.
The Czechs still cherished the idea of Russia as the future liberator of the Czech nation from Austrian tyranny.
The Czech peasantry, fattening geese for Christmas, had become accustomed to saying:
"One goose for a Russ."
The Czech divisions, retreating under pressure of the German offensive in the Ukraine, got ready to transfer themselves to France, there to demonstrate at the front, in the face of the whole world, their aspirations to Czech liberty, and their right to participate in the defeat of the Austrians and Germans.
German prisoners of war, and with them the detested Hungarians, converged upon the Czech troops advancing on Vladivostok.
Passions ran high at halts, when these converging bodies met.
Agents of the Whites whispered to the Czechs of the insidious designs of the Bolsheviks, hinting at intentions to disarm the Czechs and betray their troops to the Germans.
On the 14th of May a serious fight broke out at the Chelyabinsk railway station, between Czechs and Hungarians.
The Chelyabinsk Soviet had some of the most aggressive Czechs arrested.
The whole troop train flew to arms.
The Red Army men at the disposal of the Chelyabinsk Soviet, were here, as all along the line, inadequately armed, and were forced to- yield.
The tidings of the Chelyabinsk incident spread like wildfire among the troops.
And there was a veritable explosion when, in response to the incident, the following treacherous and inflammatory order of the Chairman of the Supreme Military Council of the Republic was issued:
"All Soviets are called upon to disarm Czechs, and will be held responsible for nonfulfilment of this order. Any Czech found armed on the railway line to be shot down, all Czechs in any troop train in which a single armed Czech is found, to be detrained and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp."
But since the Czechs had excellent discipline, solidarity and fighting experience, not to mention an abundance of machine guns and cannon, while the Soviets had nothing but the poorly equipped Red detachments, under inexperienced leadership, it was not the Soviets which disarmed the Czechs, but the Czechs who disarmed the Soviets, thus making themselves masters of the whole line from Penza to Omsk.