young lives on to the open sea, should now be so dead. No one seemed to be in charge of it any longer; there was not a sound, not a movement to be found any longer in its windows or behind the yellow-washed walls dating from the reign of Nicholas I. A virginal layer of snow lay on its roofs, covered the tops of the chestnut trees like white caps, lay evenly like a sheet over the playground, and only a few random tracks showed that someone had recently tramped across it.

And most depressing of all, not only did nobody know, but nobody cared what had become of the school. Who was there now to come and study aboard that great ship? And if no one came to school-why not? Where was the janitor? What were those horrible, blunt-muzzled mortars doing there, drawn up under the row of chestnut trees by the railings around the main entrance? Why had the school been turned into an armory? Whose was it now? Who had done this? Why had they done it?

#

'Unlimber!' roared a voice. The mortars swung round and moved slowly forward. Two hundred men sprang into action, ran about, squatted down or heaved on the enormous cast-iron wheels. There was a confused blur of yellow sheepskin jerkins, gray coats and fur caps, khaki army caps and blue students' caps.

By the time Turbin had crossed the vast square four mortars had been drawn up in a row with their muzzles facing him. The brief period of instruction was over and the motley complement of a newly-formed mortar troop was standing to attention in two ranks.

'Troop all present and correct, sir!' sang out Myshlaevsky's voice.

Studzinsky marched up to the ranks, took a pace backwards and shouted:

'Left face! Quick-march!'

With a crunch of snow underfoot, wobbling and unsoldierly, the troop set off.

Among the rows of typical students' faces Turbin noticed several that were similar. Karas appeared at the head of the third troop. Still not knowing quite what he was supposed to do Turbin fell into step beside them. Karas stepped aside and marching backwards in front of them, began to shout the cadence:

'Left! Left! Hup, two, three, four!'

The troops wheeled toward the gaping black mouth of the school's basement entrance and the doorway began to swallow litem rank by rank.

Inside, the school buildings were even gloomier and more funereal than outside. The silent walls and sinister half-light awoke instantly to the echoing crash of marching feet. Noises started up beneath the vaults as though a herd of demons had been awakened. The rustling and squeaking of frightened rats scuttling about in dark corners. The ranks marched on down the endless black underground corridors shored up by brick buttresses, until they reached a vast hall feebly lit by whatever light managed to filter through the narrow, cob webbed, barred windows.

The silence was next shattered by an infernal outbreak of hammering as steel-banded wooden ammunition boxes were opened and their contents taken out- endless machine-gun belts and round, cake-like Lewis gun magazines. Out came spindle-legged machine-guns with the look of deadly insects. Nuts and bolts clattered, pincers wrenched, a saw whistled in a corner. Cadets sorted through piles of store-damaged fur caps, greatcoats in folds as rigid as iron, leather straps frozen stiff, cartridge pouches and cloth-covered waterbottles.

'Come on, look lively!' Studzinsky's voice rang out.

Six officers in faded gold shoulder-straps circled around like clumps of duckweed in a mill-race. Myshlaevsky's tenor, now fully restored, bawled out something above the noise.

'Doctor!' shouted Studzinsky from the darkness, 'please take command of the medical orderlies and give them some instruction.'

Two students materialised in front of Alexei Turbin. One of them, short and excitable, wore a red cross brassard on the sleeve of his student's uniform greatcoat. The other was in a gray army

coat; his fur cap kept falling over his eyes, so he was constantly pushing it back with his fingers.

'There are the boxes of medical supplies,' said Tubirn, 'take out the orderlies' satchels, put them over your shoulder and pass me the surgeon's bag with the instruments . . . Now go and issue every man with two individual field-dressing packets and give them brief instructions in how to open them in case of need.'

Myshlaevsky's head rose above the swarming gray mob. He climbed upon a box, waved a rifle, slammed the bolt open, noisily charged the magazine, then aimed out of a window, rattled the bolt and showered the surrounding cadets with ejected cartridges as he repeated the action several times. After this demonstration the cellar began to sound like a factory as the cadets rattling and slamming, filled their rifle-magazines with cartridges.

'Anyone who can't do it - take care. Cadets!' Myshlaevsky sang out, 'show the students how it's done.'

As straps fitted with cartridge pouches and water-bottles were pulled on over heads and shoulders, a miracle took place. The motley rabble became transformed into a compact, homogeneous mass crowned by a waving, disorderly, spiky steel-bristled brush made of bayonets.

'All officers report to me, please', came Studzinsky's voice.

In a dark passageway to the subdued clink of spurs, Studzinsky asked quietly:

'Well, gentlemen, what are your impressions?'

A rattle of spurs. Myshlaevsky, saluting with a practised and nonchalant touch of his cap, took a pace towards the staff-captain and said:

'It's not going to be easy. There are fifteen men in my troop who have never seen a rifle in their lives.'

Gazing upwards as though inspired towards a window where the last trickle of gray light was filtering through, Studzinsky went on:

'Morale?'

Myshlaevsky spoke again.

'Er, h'umm ... I think the students were somewhat put off by

the sight of that funeral. It had a bad effect on them. They watched it through the railings.'

Studzinsky turned his eager, dark eyes on to him.

'Do your best to raise their morale.'

Spurs clinked again as the officers dispersed.

'Cadet Pavlovsky!' Back in the armory, Myshlaevsky roared out like Radames in Aida.

'Pavlovsky . . . sky . . . sky!' answered the stony walls of the armory and a chorus of cadets' voices.

'Here, sir!'

'Were you at the Alexeyevsky Artillery School?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Right, let's smarten things up and have a song. So loud that it'll make Petlyura drop dead, God rot him . . .'

One voice, high and clear, struck up beneath the stone vaults:

'I was born a little gunner-boy . . .' Some tenors chimed in from among the forest of bayonets:

'Washed in a shell-case spent . . .'

The horde of students seemed to shudder, quickly picked up the tune by ear, and suddenly, in a mighty bass roar that echoed like gunfire, they rocked the whole armory:

'Christened with a charge of shrapnel, Swaddled in an army tent! Christened with . . .'

The sound rang in their ears, boomed among the ammunition boxes, rattled the grim windows and pounded in their heads until several long-forgotten dusty old glasses on the sloping window ledges began to rattle and shake . . .

'In my cradle made of trace-ropes The gun-crew would rock me to sleep.'

Out of the crowd of greatcoats, bayonets and machine-guns, Studzinsky selected two pink-faced ensigns and gave them a rapid, whispered order:

'Assembly hall. . . take down the drapes in front of the portrait . . . look sharp . . .' The ensigns hurried off.

#

The empty stone box of the school building roared and shook in march time, while the rats lurked deep in their holes, cowering with terror.

'Hup, two, three, four!' came Karas' piercing voice.

'Louder!' shouted Myshlaevsky in his high, clear tenor.

'What d'you think this is - a funeral!?'