'Where are these Senegalese troops? Come on, Shervinsky, you're at headquarters: tell us why they aren't here.
Lena, my dear, drink some more wine, do.
Everything will be all right.
He was right to go.
He'll make his way to the Don and come back here with Denikin's army.'
'They're coming,' said Shervinsky in his twinkling voice, 'reinforcements are coming.
I have some important news for you: today on the Kreshchatik I myself saw the Serbian billeting-officers and the day after tomorrow, in a couple of days' time at the latest, two Serbian regiments will arrive in the City.'
'Listen, are you sure?'
Shervinsky went red in the face.
'Well, really.
If I say I saw them myself, I consider that question somewhat out of place.'
'That's all very well, but what good are two regiments?'
'Kindly allow me to finish what I was saying.
The prince himself was telling me today that troop-ships are already unloading in the port of Odessa: Greek troops and two divisions of Senegalese have arrived.
We only have to hold out on our own for a week - and then we can spit on the Germans.'
'Treacherous bastards.'
'Well, if all that's true it won't be long before we catch Petlyura and hang him!
String him up!'
'I'd like to shoot him with my own hands.'
'And strangle him too.
Your health, gentlemen.'
Another drink. By now minds were getting fogged.
Having drunk three glasses Nikolka ran to his room for a handkerchief, and as he passed through the lobby (people act naturally when there's no one watching them) he collapsed against the hat-stand.
There hung Shervinsky's curved sabre with its shiny gold hilt.
Present from a Persian prince.
Damascus blade.
Except that no prince had given it to him and the blade was not from Damascus, butit was still a very fine and expensive one.
A grim Mauser in a strap-hung holster, beside it the blued-steel muzzle of Karas' Steyr automatic.
As Nikolka stumbled against the cold wood of the holster and fingered the murderous barrel of the Mauser he almost burst into tears with excitement.
He suddenly felt an urge to go out and fight, now, this minute, out on the snow-covered fields outside the City.
He felt embarrassed and ashamed that here at home there was vodka to drink and warmth, while out there his fellow cadets were freezing in the dark, the snow and the blizzard.
They must be crazy at headquarters - the detachments were not ready, the students not trained, no sign of the Senegalese yet and they were probably as black as a pair of boots . . .
Christ, that meant they'd freeze to death - after all, they were used to a hot climate, weren't they?
'As for your Hetman,' Alexei Turbin was shouting, 'I'd string him up the first of all!
He's done nothing but insult us for the past six months.
Who was it who forbade us to form a loyalist Russian army in the Ukraine?
The Hetman.
And now that things have gone from bad to worse, they've started to form a Russian army after all.
The enemy's practically in sight and now - now! - we have to rake up troops, form detachments, headquarters, - and in conditions of total disorder!
Christ, what lunacy!'
'You're spreading panic', Karas said coolly.
Turbin lost his temper.
'Me?
Spreading panic?
You are simply shutting your eyes to the facts.
I'm no panic-monger. I just want to get something off my chest.
Panic?
Don't worry.
I've already decided to go and enrol in that Mortar Regiment of yours tomorrow, and if your Malyshev won't have me as a doctor I shall enlist in the ranks.
I'm fed up with the whole damn business!