Down below the student reader changed. A deep bass voice now soared up into the sunlight.
‘What we need are, one: immediate release and return for all those who have suffered for their political and religious beliefs, for strikes and peasant disorders.’
‘Empty the Peter and Paul Fortress,’ Mikhail said to Powerscourt and de Chassiron in wonder, ‘bring all those exiles back from Siberia. It’s unbelievable.’
‘Two: immediate proclamation of liberty and inviolability of the person, freedom of speech, of the press. Three: universal and compulsory education at the state’s expense. Four: equality of all, without exception, before the law.’
Centuries of European protest, of reform movements, of radical parties, of revolutions were distilled into a few pages of Russian and shouted through its capital on a sunny January day. Powerscourt wondered about the dead man, Roderick Martin. Was his death in some way connected to the events of today, or to the causes behind the events? Were there clues to his death down there on the streets, somewhere between the marchers and the military? The column approaching the bridge had burst into song.
‘Oh Holy Spirit, One in Power,
With God who reigns in highest heaven,
Come to our waiting souls this hour
And let thy Heavenly aid be given.’
Powerscourt thought to himself that the demonstrators were going to need all the help they could find, divine or human. He was beginning to feel very fearful about the outcome. The marchers were not going to turn round and go home. Would the authorities allow this vast army into Palace Square? He doubted it.
‘Thou art light of radiant glow
And thou canst fill our souls with cheer.
Come then thy glorious gift bestow
And with thy presence bless us here.’
They heard great shouts from behind them as Father Gapon worked his column into a religious fervour, using the same tactics he had employed at his mass rallies in the days before the march.
‘Do the police and soldiers,’ Gapon bellowed, ‘dare to stop us from passing, comrades?’
‘They do not dare!’ hundreds of voices shouted back.
‘Comrades, it is better for us to die for our demands than live as we have lived till now!’ Gapon again, at full volume.
‘Do you swear to die?’ he shouted at the faithful.
‘We swear!’ Hundreds and hundreds of people raised their hands and made the sign of the cross.
The marchers were much closer now. Peering through their binoculars, the party on the roof could make out individual faces very clearly, their unkempt beards, their dirty hair, the rough clothes and even the calloused hands. Most were wearing white shirts. The colour red had been banned by the march organizers as too provocative. The children, sitting on their fathers’ shoulders, seemed to think they were as safe as they would be at home. Older children climbed up lamp posts for a better view and screamed encouragement to their parents. Father Gapon’s column was probably less than fifteen minutes from Palace Square, the column approaching the Troitsky Bridge a little longer.
Then they heard a different sound. Powerscourt checked his watch. It was twenty past one. At first he did not know what it was but Mikhail had swung round to stare at the marchers from Putilov.
‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’ he said, grabbing Powerscourt by the arm and pointing dramatically to the south. He crossed himself three times. ‘It’s the cavalry, Lord Powerscourt! By the Narva Gates! They’re going to charge! The horses’ hooves make a different noise on the ice,’ he went on hopelessly, as if that was going to change what was just about to happen. ‘And look! Forming up behind them at the top end of Narva Square, lines and lines of infantry with their rifles at the ready. There’s going to be a massacre! God help them all! God help Russia!’
Powerscourt remembered for the rest of his life the strange way the events seemed to unfold to his little party up there on the roof of the Stroganov Palace. He remembered people who had nearly drowned telling him about their lives passing before their eyes in slow motion. The initial charge of the cavalry, sabres drawn to slash at their victims, seemed to take about half an hour. He watched in horror through his binoculars as the dragoons hacked at the faces of the marchers. They seemed to prefer the uncovered flesh to the more obstinate resistance of greatcoats and trousers. Soon the blood, bright and fresh, was staining the ice red. Many were killed on the spot, their heads half hacked off, arms almost severed from their trunks, faces mutilated, necks severed. Some of the marchers turned and fled. Others carried on. Powerscourt thought he could just hear the voice of Father Gapon, shouting through the screams, ‘Do you swear to die?’ and the answer, still audible in the midday air, ‘We swear!’ For too many of them, those were the last words they said in their lives. Their last wish was granted. For the infantry, the first rank kneeling in the snow, fired two rounds over the heads of the marchers. Then they lowered their sights. Volley after volley crashed into the protesters. Powerscourt saw one little boy lifted off his father’s shoulders and flung back ten or fifteen feet into the crowd, blood cascading from a great wound in his chest. Powerscourt hoped he was dead. He felt his arm being pummelled and the word ‘bastards’ being shouted over and over again as Mikhail Shaporov wept for the destruction of his city. The commander of the infantry was giving his orders as if he was on parade, ‘Reload! Take Aim! Fire!’ and every volley brought another round of death to the hallowed ground round the Narva Gates. They might have been built to commemorate Napoleon’s defeat in 1812. Today they were present to witness another, less glorious, moment of Russia’s history.
Eventually, when Powerscourt thought he could bear it no longer, the firing ceased. The dead and the dying were lying all over the square. Battalions of crows began circling overhead as if they were unsure what sort of carrion might await them down below. The cavalry, not content with the shattered faces dying on the ground, pursued the marchers as they slouched back towards the working class quarters of the city, their own districts where they might hope to find a place of greater safety. Many fell with wounds across their backs or slashed viciously across the neck to die on the bloodied streets of St Petersburg.
Then it was the turn of the marchers approaching the Troitsky Bridge. Mikhail Shaporov was sobbing uncontrollably now, his hand still clasping Powerscourt’s arm. De Chassiron had gone pale, almost white. This time the military performed their massacre in reverse order. Volley after volley of infantry fire tore into the head of the column, making its way deeper and deeper into the press of men as the first ranks turned and ran or died where they stood. Then, when the march had turned into a rabble of confused and wounded people, some still trying to advance on the doomed mission towards Palace Square, others wishing to flee back to their homes, the cavalry charged, the lancers screaming their hatred as they cut into the flesh and bones of men of a different class. Powerscourt watched through his binoculars as one dragoon slashed at his victim, cutting him open from his eyes to the chin, and then, his teeth clenched in a grin and the hairs of his moustache standing up on his elevated lip, let out a terrible shriek and spat at the dead man as he fell to the ground.