It's Colonel Bolbotun.'
So much for the story that Bolbotun had turned his coat and deserted Petlyura. #
Bored with trying to execute the complex manoeuvers devised by Colonel Toropets' general-staff mind, Bolbotun had decided that events needed a little speeding up.
His mounted troops were freezing as they waited beyond the cemetery due south of the City, a stone's throw away from the majestic snowbound Dnieper.
Bolbotun was frozen too.
He suddenly raised his cane in the air and his regiment of horse began moving off in threes, swung on to the road and advanced towards the flat ground bordering the outskirts of the City.
Here Bolbotun encountered no resistance.
The noise of six of his machine-guns echoed around the garden suburb of Nizhnyaya Telichka.
In a trice Bolbotun had cut across the line of the railroad and stopped a passenger train which had passed the switches across the railroad bridge, carrying a fresh load of Muscovites and Petersburgers with their elegant women and fluffy lap-dogs.
The passengers were terrified, but Bolbotun had no time to waste on lap-dogs.
The frightened crews of some empty freight trains were switched from the Freight Depot on to the Passenger Station, with much hooting of switching engines, while Bolbotun brought down an unexpected hail of bullets on the roofs of the houses in Svyatotroitzkaya Street.
On and on went Bolbotun, on into the City, unhindered as far as the Military Academy, sending out mounted reconnaissance patrols down every side street as he went.
He was only checked at the colonnaded building of the Nicholas I Military Academy, where he was met by a machine-gun and a ragged burst of rifle-fire from a handful of troops.
A cossack, Butsenko, was killed in the leading troop of Bolbotun's forward squadron, five others were wounded and two horses were hit in the legs.
Bolbotun's progress was checked.
He had the impression that he was faced by forces of untold strength, whereas in reality the detachment which greeted the blue-capped colonel consisted of thirty cadets, four officers and one machine-gun.
The order was given and Bolbotun's troopers deployed at the gallop, dismounted, took cover and began an exchange of shots with the cadets.
Pechorsk filled with the sound of gunfire which echoed from wall to wall and the district around Millionnaya Street seethed with action like a boiling tea-kettle.
Bolbotun's advance produced an immediate reaction in the center of the City, as steel shutters came crashing down on Elisa-vetinskaya, Vinogradnaya and Levashovskaya streets and all the gay shop-fronts turned sightless and blank.
The sidewalks emptied at once and became eerily resonant.
Janitors stealthily shut doors and gateways.
The advance was also reflected in another way - the field-telephones in the defense headquarters fell silent one by one.
An outlying artillery troop calls up battery headquarters.
What the hell's going on, they're not answering!
An infantry detachment rings through to the garrison commander's headquarters and manages to get something done, but then the voice at headquarters mutters something nonsensical.
'Are your officers wearing badges of rank?'
'Well, so what?'
Rrrring . . .
'Send a detachment to Pechorsk immediately!'
'What's happening?'
And the sound of one name crept all over town: Bolbotun, Bolbotun, Bolbotun. . . .
How did people know that it was Bolbotun and not someone else?
It was a mystery, but they knew.
Perhaps they knew because from noon onward a number of men in overcoats with lambskin collars began mingling with the passers-by and the usual riff-raff of City idlers, and as they strolled about these men eavesdropped and watched.
They stared after cadets, refugees and officers with long, insolent stares.
And they whispered:
'Bolbotun's coming.'
And they whispered it without the least regret.
On the con-trary, their eyes showed that they were delighted, and the stuttering rattle of machine-gun fire round the hills of Pechorsk echoed their news.
Rumors flew like wildfire:
'Bolbotun is the Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.'
'No he isn't: Bolbotun is the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich.'
'Bolbotun is simply Bolbotun.'
'There'll be a pogrom against the Jews.'
'No there won't: The troops are wearing red ribbons in theircaps.'
'Better go home.'
'Bolbotun's against Petlyura.'
'You're wrong - he's on the Bolsheviks' side.'
'Wrong again: he's for the Tsar, only without the officers.'
'Is it true the Hetman ran away?'