Zavrazin

By Clive Radford

Which famous Cold War era British politician suspected to be a Soviet mole, still evaded being arrested by MI5?
KGB Colonel Dimitry Zavrazin arranges defection to the West for his family and him with MI5 agent Craig Faulkner. In exchange, Zavrazin will bring a dossier with him identifying a prominent Establishment figure, codename Arrow Eye, to be a Soviet spy.
In making the deal a reality, Zavrazin becomes subject to a full scale KGB manhunt when he begins his escape westward from East Berlin, his family already safe in England.
After a firefight at a MI5 London safe house, the dossier disappears. Based on what little MI5 know about Arrow Eye, spycatcher Peter Wright knits together disparate information strands, proposing the true identity of the Soviet mole to Faulkner.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triplicity Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Sep 16, 2014

Clive Radford

Clive Radford began writing at school, then university but mainly through subsequent life experience.His poetry has been published in numerous poetry magazines such as The Journal, The Cannon's Mouth, Poetry Monthly, Poetry Now, Storming Heaven, Poetry Nottingham, Scripsi and Modern Review, plus in many compilations by United Press.A series of his short stories and poems have been published by Ether Books. The Arts Council has sponsored publication of his novels 'One Night in Tunisia' and 'The Sounds of Silence'. His contemporary satire 'Doghouse Blues' was number one in Harper Collins Authonomy chart and has been awarded gold medal status. It has been published by Black Rose. His spy thriller 'Zavrazin' has been published by Triplicity Publishing. It's companion sequel 'Nexus Bullet' is published by Ex-L-Ence Publishing. His three-book series 'Disclosures of a Femme Fatale Addict' is published by Wild Dreams Publishing.'One Night in Tunisia', 'Zavrazin' and 'Bullet' have all been converted into three-act screenplays.The 'Zavrazin' screenplay is under contract with Story Merchant/Atchity Productions for film production.Rogue Phoenix Press will be publishing his science fiction novel 'Maggie's Farm' April 2020, and his suspense-thriller 'Incident at Lahore Basin' October 2020.His work has a distinctive voice setting it apart and appealing to those fascinated by intrigue, and who question status quo accepted views.

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Zavrazin

By

Clive Radford

Zavrazin © 2014 Clive Radford

Triplicity Publishing, LLC

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without permission.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events of any kind, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition – 2014

Cover Design: Triplicity Publishing, LLC

Interior Design: Triplicity Publishing, LLC

Editor: Amanda Poythress - Triplicity Publishing, LLC

Chapter 1: 26th September 1958

When Craig Faulkner, MI5’s Head of Soviet Desk arrived at 252 Highgate Road, all seemed quiet with the safe house hidden in darkness, its occupants apparently resting or asleep. But the smell of cordite and traces of tear gas hung in the air like stale leftovers, indicating a fire fight had taken place. A few cars slid by on Highgate Road, but no pedestrians were to be seen in either direction; no dog walkers emerging from Hampstead Heath, no merrymakers returning home after an evening’s entertainment. Faulkner and his MI5 team had the area to themselves.

Cautiously, he led the squad forward. As he pushed a wrought iron gate open, it creaked slightly on its hinges, and the squad entered the safe house grounds. Halfway along a mosaic-lined pathway, a broken bay window and shattered front door came into view through the dim light, with bodies strewn below the window and in the porch way.

Being careful not to make any sound, unsure of who might suddenly loom into view, Faulkner continued forward, holding out his Walther PPK in front of him. He signalled for his companions to spread out either side of the path, and into the front garden. As he moved forward, the cordite odour became stronger. He stiffened his grip on the pistol, in preparation to enter the house. Stepping over bodies, he ascended four tile-lined steps leading to the porch and the smashed in front door. Faulkner felt around for the hallway light switch and pressed it down. The hall lights revealed dead MI5 agent Greg Franklin, deceased raiders, and a trail of blood leading to the lounge.

Gingerly, Faulkner edged forward to the open lounge door, turned on a light, and faced a scene of carnage in front of him. Colonel Dimitry Zavrazin and MI5 agent Dennis Easterbrook lay still and prostrate. Craning his neck round the door, he saw more raider bodies littered around the bay window, and MI5 agent Simon Balfour, his eyes still open after death took him. Faulkner rushed forward, put a finger over Zavrazin’s jugular, and sensed a pulse. He then turned to Easterbrook, and did the same thing, this time feeling no response.

Other MI5 officers entered the lounge recoiling at the smashed bodies and gunshot created debris surrounding them.

My God, said one of them.

Faulkner looked up. Get an ambulance, quick. Zavrazin is still alive.

The same man scurried back to a car, and made the call over the radio transmitter, knowing the effort would probably be fruitless. He had witnessed previous intense gun battles, few victims ever surviving its aftermath.

Having verified who lay dead and who still barely lived, Faulkner scanned around the blood-splattered lounge. There must have been one hell of a fire-fight here, he said to no one in particular, as he surveyed the blood-stained floor and consequential damage to the lounge, including multiple bullets lodged in the chimneystack wall above the fireplace.

Then he remembered Zavrazin’s KGB identification pass. He crouched down over the unconscious Russian, felt inside his inner breast pocket, but the document containing a microdot had gone.

His head dropped. We’ve gone through all this, only for the KGB to come away with the Arrow Eye dossier, and severely wound the one man who can tell us about its contents. Distraught, he looked heavenwards, clenched his fists, and wondered if MI5 Director General Roger Hollis had dropped the Soviets the information regarding Zavrazin’s debrief at 252 Highgate Road.

At daybreak, MI5 sent a clean-up team to 252 Highgate Road. By the evening, with the bay window repaired, the front door replaced, and the whole house refurbished from top to bottom removing all blood stains, no apparent sign remained that a fierce gun-fight had ever taken place.

Chapter 2: Son of the Revolution

Dimitry Ilia Zavrazin, born in the reign of Tsar Nicholas II to Russian peasants in Ryazan, 50 clicks south of Moscow, became a member of the Bolshevik Party in 1917, months before the October Revolution.

Quite ordinary in his looks and build as a boy, and yet to blossom into youth by the age of 13, Dimitry had become reclusive. Self-consciousness of his slender frame and junior-school facial appearance made him insular. A keen scholar of Russian literature, he would spend many hours hunched up behind a book, consumed in the works of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov, so as to avoid contact with other children he viewed to be his superior. Often, his mother Anna would call to him without answer, and eventually find him in a cornfield, squatted down, head bent over a book, oblivious to anything beyond his self-made universe.

His father Pavel, a tenant farmer, taught him about Russian traditions, culture, and sports. He introduced his son to bandy, a kind of ice hockey game played with a round ball, first instituted as a pastime by Russian monks in the 10th century. Pavel would engage his son for hours in protracted chess games, demonstrating the finer points of the game and winning moves. Immersing him in Russian folklore, his father taught him the steps of the Khorovod and Plyaska folk dances, and instilled in him the precepts of folk music, playing traditional songs on his gusli, a multi-string plucked instrument, which had been in the Zavrazin family for many generations.

In later years, the one thing that would remain in Dimitry’s mind, centred round Pavel’s persistence to see his son ride a bicycle. At age seven, Dimitry had little sense of balance. Pavel would run alongside him keeping him upright. He would let him go and invariably, Dimitry would crash to the ground. Eventually, Pavel’s perseverance paid off, and Dimitry mastered the skill. By his early teens, it liberated him to take long bike rides away from Ryazan, out into the countryside with his books, and find a deserted place where he could lose himself in Eugene Onegin, Anna Karenina and The Seagull.

Mid-teenage physical development resulted in Dimitry transforming into a handsome broad-shouldered youth by his fifteenth birthday, much to the relief of his parents. His deep cerulean eyes brightened, his fair hair shone, he found strength in his developing physique, and with that came the confidence to engage with his contemporaries and participate in their activities. He became popular at school, making many friends, his easy-going personality and ability to make people laugh at his satirical take on the world setting him apart. He began to feel good about himself.

Always a clever boy, he excelled in the learning process, gaining a good understanding of the Russian language, mathematics, and science, as well as his more favoured classical studies. He developed aspirations to become a playwright, following in the footsteps of Pushkin and Chekhov, a goal supported by both his parents and teachers. Yulian Dumanovsky, his classics teacher in his late school years, considered Dimitry to be university material. Often, Dumanovsky would spend out of normal school hours time with Dimitry, giving him further instruction, and opening his mind to subjects not covered by the school curriculum.

Though life could be extremely harsh under the rule of the autocratic Romanovs, and Russia had entered the First World War in 1914, as confidence grew in the young Dimitry, his enquiring mind and sense of adventure propelled him forward. Cocooned in Ryazan from world wrecking events, his personal development accelerated. He felt at one with himself, at last able to walk tall amongst his contemporaries. In his mindset, he looked forward to a sustained life of contentment with his family and friends. The Zavrazin’s setbacks of losing Dimitry’s elder sister Izolda to TB whilst he was still a baby, plus the premature deaths of Pavel’s brother Timur and Anna’s sister Ludmila, both to disease, seemed to have been put into perspective. The family had moved on, focusing on the future, and relegating tragedy to annual remembrance.

During the June 1916 Brusilov Offensive, Pavel had been seriously wounded, and invalided out of the Tsar’s Army. He came back to a Ryazan devastated by near to famine conditions, every scrap of farm produce sent to the front. He found Anna and Dimitry down to the last vestiges of flour, meat and vegetables. They had worked the farm in his absence, Dimitry in particular taking responsibility, adding the burden of agricultural duties to his schooling agenda. Anna looked drawn and ill, but thankfully, Dimitry had entered his body development stage, and appeared none the worse for the spartan conditions. Their predicament shocked Pavel. He had been at the front for nearly two years, relying on letters from Anna to tell him about life in Ryazan. Obviously, he thought, she had not burdened him with home truths.

Like every other poor Russian family, the Zavrazins soldiered on. Pavel tended to the farm, allowing Anna to recover her health, and reducing Dimitry’s commitment, but the Tsar’s military took most of their farm produce for the war effort. With near-starvation conditions existing in Ryazan, worse came later in the snowbound winter. Desperately seeking a resolution to the seemingly endless problem, Pavel joined a group of farm workers protesting for food at the town hall. Fearing a riot, the civilian authorities called in the Tsar’s lancers to break up the demonstration, and Pavel was cut down and killed during the conflict, the heartbreak having a life-changing effect on young Dimitry.

******

Determined to avenge his father, Dimitry joined Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin’s followers in the first revolution of March 1917. He had read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, determining that within Marxian principles lay a course to rid the world of tyrants who exploited the masses. Hatred of anyone supporting the Romanovs grew in his belly, generating the wrath and the revenge he would exact upon Tsarist sympathisers, in later years. Though the Tsar’s abdication and the coming of Alexander Kerensky’s Menshevik government in spring 1917 helped quell his anger, it soon became clear that little would change for ordinary farm and factory workers. When the Bolsheviks prevailed in the October Revolution, he was in Moscow to hear Lenin address the people; a speech Dimitry found inspirational, giving him renewed purpose and direction.

With Lenin in power, the deposed Kerensky fled to France, leaving the Tsar’s supporters to create the White Army to oppose the Bolsheviks, and sparking the Russian Civil War, a brutal conflict, fought without mercy by both sides.

Returning to Ryazan, Dimitry robustly told his mother he’d become a member the Communist Party, that his school days were over, and he would be joining the Red Guards. Shocked by the iconoclast-like change in her son’s outlook and personality, Anna tried in vain to reason with him, saying that Pavel would have wanted him to continue his studies to become a playwright, and that seeking vengeance for the death of his father would destroy him. Dimitry remained unmoved regarding his intended course of action. He kissed his mother, leaving her in tears before returning to Moscow.

He immediately signed papers with the Red Guards, later the Red Army. Not long after he began military training, War Commissar Leon Trotsky inspected his fledgling company. After the inspection, Trotsky stood talking to the company commander, their backs to a man who appeared from behind a building carrying a pistol. At attention, the company saw the intruder raise his weapon, no more than 20 paces away from Trotsky. Zavrazin broke ranks, quickly running forward and diving at the man, gunfire sounding as a round flew into the air, attracting his targets’ attention. Zavrazin wrestled with the man, disarming him. The company commander barked out an order, and privates surrounded the man, removing him from Zavrazin’s grasp.

Trotsky moved forward, eyeing his saviour with a steely stare. What is your name, comrade?

Zavrazin came to attention and saluted. Private Zavrazin, sir.

Your full name?

Private Dimitry Ilia Zavrazin, sir.

You are a Party member?

Yes, sir.

When did you join the Party?

During the March 1917 Revolution, sir.

Trotsky allowed himself a brief smile. Why did you join the Party?

Sir… Zavrazin began, before a lump appeared in his throat. He coughed. …sir, my father was murdered by the Tsar’s lancers in Ryazan. He chose his next words carefully. I want to bring those responsible to trial and justice.

You mean you want revenge?

Zavrazin snorted, unable to control his pent up wrath. Yes, sir, he answered in a calculating voice, I do want revenge.

Good, acknowledged Trotsky vibrantly. He turned to the company commander.

Passion is a far more malleable human emotion than cold dedication. It is something which will help us prevail against the White Army. See to it that this man undergoes officer training.

At the Moscow officer training academy, Zavrazin became a fully-primed Red Army officer, totally indoctrinated into the rightfulness of the communist cause, and the need to rid Russia of counterrevolutionaries and the White Army scourge. He was taught when to use his passion to accomplish military objectives, and when to assume a scheming and manipulative stance. If Dimitry felt no qualms about exacting vengeance on those who authorised his father’s death before he entered the academy, by the time he graduated, that desire had become honed into a javelin-like object, he would throw without remorse at anyone opposing Lenin and the Bolshevik government. Assigned to a battalion in the Domodedovo Regiment, he quickly established himself as a dedicated, reliable and trustworthy officer, going about his duties with verve and determination.

He wrote to both his mother and Yulian Dumanovsky, saying he had found his place in life, and the transition from late teenage student to army officer had been accomplished by his desire to ensure that tyrants never held dominion over the Russian people again. He felt sound and secure in his belief and direction, but letters he received back from Anna and Yulian were filled with caution and concern. His mother counselled him to step back from revenge motives, insisting that seeking retribution would ruin his life. Similarly, Yulian suggested that he try to divorce himself from reprisal intentions, saying that the settling of scores would only yield a transitory feeling, but built-up hate would have far more lasting consequences on his psyche in later life. Though Dimitry respected their views and advice, he couldn’t put down the sword in favour of reasoned calculation. He felt duty bound to make action his byword. Those responsible for Pavel’s fate would never admit their culpability in a court of law. The only redress for Dimitry would be the total removal of the Tsar’s regime by force and without compromise.

Chapter 3: Red Army Hero

In the wake of the October Revolution, the old-Russian Imperial Army had been demobilised. The volunteer-based Red Guard became the Bolsheviks' main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka, the Bolshevik state security apparatus. In January 1918, Trotsky headed the reorganisation of the Red Guard into a Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, in order to create a more professional fighting force. Political commissars were appointed to each army unit to maintain morale and ensure loyalty. Additionally, former Tsarist officers were utilized as military specialists, the Red Army sometimes taking their families hostage to ensure loyalty.

Squad Commander Dimitry Zavrazin led one such sortie to apprehend Major-General Maxim Krasnov at his Moscow residence, Zavrazin’s armed squad entering the apartment by force.

An imposing man, capable of achieving military objectives through charisma and the sheer strength of his personality, Krasnov had been one of the few Imperial Army successes on the Eastern Front, keeping the Kaiser’s forces at bay with some innovative tactics and leading by example. Though not a staunch Tsarist, he also had little support for the Bolsheviks, believing that if Kerensky had been stronger, then genuine democratic reforms would have resulted. With the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ratified, Krasnov found himself stood down from the Eastern Front and effectively kicking his heels.

Who are you? Krasnov demanded, as Zavrazin and his squad took up covering positions in the apartment’s main drawing room.

Zavrazin saluted. Sir, I am Squad Commander Zavrazin with the Red Army Domodedovo Regiment.

Krasnov glared at Zavrazin and kept his distance. By what authority have you broken into my home, he enquired in a considered tone, hands clasped behind his back, and appearing regal in his Imperial Army uniform.

By the authority of War Commissar Trotsky, under orders from Comrade Lenin, sir.

Krasnov sneered slightly, twisting away from Zavrazin to glance at his wife and children. What do you want, Squad Commander?

Sir, you are to accompany me to Red Army HQ.

For what purpose?

Sir, the War Commissar wishes to make use of your military skills as part of the drive to rid the Motherland of the White Army.

And if I refuse?

Zavrazin licked his lips, concentrating hard to sustain his nerve. Then I am to arrange for your trial as an enemy of the State, and your family will be imprisoned, sir.

Krasnov’s wife and children gasped at the finality of the option. He went over to them, whispering a few words of comfort before addressing Zavrazin.

It seems I have no choice, conceded Krasnov, his tone edged with resentment.

Zavrazin nodded to his squad. They moved forward apprehending Krasnov’s family.

The Major-General stepped forward to face Zavrazin, the young officer feeling the full-force of his commanding aura. What are you doing, Squad Commander?

Sir, Zavrazin replied, his voice beginning to falter, I have been ordered to take your family into detention while you are assisting the Red Army.

You mean you are taking them hostage?

Zavrazin didn’t answer. He gestured to his squad, and Krasnov’s dependents were hustled out of the apartment, his three children shrieking, and his wife calling out his name in a bitter, anguished voice.

Though Tsar Nicholas II and his family had been arrested and taken into custody in the Urals by the Cheka, while alive, he remained a point of clarion call for the White Army. On 17th July 1918, the Tsar and his entire family were brutally executed by gunfire and bayonets by order of the Bolshevik government. When the news filtered through to the Red Army and civilians at large, few shed a tear, austere life under the Romanovs still fresh in the memory. When Zavrazin heard, his continuing retribution condition hardened him to any sympathy for the victims. In his mind, a tyrant and an exploitative regime had been terminated. Justice had been done. In later years, he would revisit that sentiment, seeing it as a foolish pipedream.

Conversely, the death of the Tsar only served to attract more supporters into the White’s ranks. Reforming the Red Army in response to the oppositions growing strength, Trotsky integrated military alliances from eastern Russia and Ukraine into one homogeneous force.

In June, the greatly enlarged Red Army first checked the White’s advance into the core of Red Army controlled Russia, and then defeated main White Army forces in October and November 1919. That left extensive and protracted mopping up operations, until the civil war finally concluded in October 1922, remnants of the White Army proving extremely difficult to track down and destroy.

By now a platoon commander, Zavrazin had been part of the Red Army offensive to rout White Army forces. The battles became a butcher’s yard, the landscape and the towns involved cloaked in matted blood, blown-apart bodies, and the utter destruction of homes and public buildings. Leading his platoon from the front, Zavrazin engaged in hand-to-hand combat, dispatching many men to their maker without remorse or regret. His adopted school teachings, centring round the precept that all life was precious, had been stowed away, any sense of compassion, guilt or repentance, completely negated from his principle directory. He had swung so far in the opposite direction away from his near-to-genteel late teenage personae, that misgivings about taking life never troubled his moral compass. Receiving wounds during battle also hardened his belief in the righteousness of the communist cause.

During the Red Army campaign to protect Petrograd from advancing White Army infantry and mobilised units in October 1919, Zavrazin put in an extraordinary personnel effort to ensure that part of the front allocated to his platoon remained fast and secure. The Whites made a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men, leaving Red Army forces in confusion and disarray. Well-executed, the offensive used night attacks and lightning cavalry manoeuvres to turn the flanks of the defending Red Army. By 19 October, White Army troops had reached the outskirts of the city. Zavrazin and the Red Army hunkered down, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect Petrograd.

Some members of the Bolshevik central committee in Moscow were willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss of the city, personally organising its defences by arming all available workers, men and women, and ordering the transfer of military forces from Moscow. However, before they arrived, the Whites made a concentrated effort to break the Red Army defences around Zavrazin’s area. When the attack came, entire Red Army companies began to fall back. Recognising that if the retreat continued, Petrograd would be taken, Zavrazin marshalled his platoon to dig in and not give ground. He shouted to other platoon and company commanders to stop and join the fight. Some responded forming a concentrated wedge of fire power to repel the advancing White Army forces. As other Red Army platoons and companies began to see the enemy attack falter, they rallied, joining Zavrazin’s defence, sending the White Army troops back to their lines. Within a few weeks, the Red Army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered the White Army three to one. Short of supplies, White Army generals decided to call off the city siege and withdrew, retreating to Estonia, the Red Army chasing the foe all the way to the shores of the Gulf of Finland.

Zavrazin’s role in the defence of Petrograd came to the attention of Trotsky. After the Whites began their retreat, the War Commissar awarded Zavrazin the Order of the Red Banner, the highest military medal award of the Soviet State, at a ceremony held in Petrograd Palace Square. Zavrazin stepped forward from his company to receive the honour.

Eyeing the approaching platoon commander, Trotsky narrowed his eyes, thinking he knew the officer. Zavrazin saluted.

I know you, posed Trotsky. You are the one who stopped that maniac from shooting me in Moscow.

Yes, sir, confirmed Zavrazin.

Hhmm, I seem to recall that you were seeking vengeance for the death of your father.

That is correct, sir.

Trotsky turned to 5th Army Front Commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky, a veteran of the Eastern Front and a dedicated Bolshevik. I told this comrade his passion would help us prevail against the White Army. He refaced Zavrazin. And here he is, having fulfilled my prediction.

Trotsky took the medal from his adjutant, pinning it on Zavrazin’s lapel. He then kissed the newly decorated officer on both cheeks.

Zavrazin took one step back and saluted. Trotsky nodded and smiled his satisfaction plain to see.

Comrade Zavrazin, he said joyfully, you are also promoted to the rank of company commander.

******

By the end of 1920, much of the White Army had surrendered, and the Bolsheviks held authority as far as Vladivostok in the east, Lithuania in the west, and Ukraine in the south. The war become a hit and run affair for what remained of White Army forces.

Though Dimitry remained unwaveringly loyal to Lenin and the Party, he had not bargained for the often merciless actions of the Red Army during the later stages of the Civil War. Trotsky and his senior staff recognised that the only way to stop White Army resistance was to be merciless and set examples. When persistent offending pockets were seen off, the commissars saw to it that the news became public, so as to deter other Whites.

Whilst in western Russia hunting down White Army forces, Zavrazin witnessed many atrocities metered out to unarmed soldiers. Exacting revenge on the main protagonists responsible for Pavel’s death was one thing, but the wholesale slaughter of often White Army conscripts, many younger than him, became a sickening affair. His sense of right and wrong started to turn in favour of clemency and compassion for his enemies.

One particular incident would stick in his mind forever. After the Red Army overran a White Army position, a group of about 50 White Army officers were rounded up when their battalions surrendered. The White Army soldiers were near to starving, with many suffering severe injuries after previous battles. Red Army spotters had found their position and reported back their dishevelled state. When the Red Army launched their attack, the operation surprised the enemy. They offered little resistance and were quickly captured with few casualties.

The White Army officers were paraded before their captured men, and made to confess that they had led them into a disastrous conflict and were traitors to the Motherland. The officers were then summarily executed by firing squad.

Witnessing the terrible ritual, many young Red Army soldiers either threw up or fainted immediately after the execution. Company Commander Zavrazin came close to joining their number, noticing that at least half those executed looked like they were barely out of school. Though he managed to control his physical volition, his mind became permanently indented with the foreboding spectacle of young men deprived of adulthood, because they just happened to wear the wrong uniform.

******

Not long before Russian Civil War hostilities ended, further misfortune struck when Anna fell victim to hypothermia in the freezing winter of early 1922, orphaning Dimitry before his 22nd birthday. He returned to Ryazan for the funeral, seeing his mother buried next to his father Pavel and elder sister Izolda. He stood over the grave contemplating on his still fledgling life. All those who he had loved had gone. Many of his school friends had been killed in the Civil War, or had succumbed to illnesses brought on by hunger and physical fatigue. He wondered how many more would expire prematurely, and why he had been spared. Despite the high risk of being killed, the Civil War had only imprinted him with relatively mild wounds. He had seen stray bullets and shrapnel despatch his comrades without warning, but miraculously he seemed to evade the ultimate fate. Maybe the angels watched over him.

Standing next to Zavrazin, Yulian Dumanovsky provided support.

What are you going to do now, Dimitry?

Return to the army. That is all I know now.

Have you shelved your playwright ambition, or vanquished it all together?

Huh. I think that was an illusion, schoolboy dreaming, far from the actualities of the real world.

Standing back slightly, Dumanovsky challenged his ex-student. No, Dimitry, you are wrong.

Maybe, he conceded, but what I mean, is that any personal ambitions I may have had were predetermined not to become reality by events far from Ryazan.

I see you are still capable of making philosophical observation.

It’s an abstraction I have learned to cultivate very quickly, more based on harsh experience than classroom lessons.

You will never pursue this ambition then?

No…

He hesitated knowing Dumanovsky would be disappointed by his decision, and considered whether to fully burden him with the dark experiences now possessing his thinking. His old teacher had always come across as light-hearted and optimistic, disenchantment and dissatisfaction never destroying his sense of the ideal. Why trample on that, Zavrazin thought. Instead of forthright explanation he went for a delicate, edited rationale.

"My spirit and my mind have become so cluttered with dreadful images, that any notions I once had about artistic creativity have been exiled. Once, I could conjure up thoughts