"No, thank God. They've taken their belts off and are swinging the buckles around. They're beating up everybody regardless, even women and children. Help me out, boys. I'll never forget it! There's nobody at the station except the duty officers, and by the time they get help from the other precincts, who knows how many people those blackassed hoodlums will mutilate."
"What about it?" Sanya asks, speaking mainly to Cat. "Shall we help the forces of the militia, the party, and the government in their struggle against the blackassed hoodlums?"
Looking at Sanya, Eddie-baby realizes that he needs to take out the rage he feels against Dora the hairdresser on somebody.
"What the hell have the party and the government got to do with it! They're bashing your own girls. They just gang-raped a girl in the park!" Stepan shouts.
"If they catch mine, she'll be glad," Sanya laughs.
"Come on," Cat agrees. "Let's go!" He doesn't ask Lyova, knowing he'll come with them anyway.
They all run after Stepan across the trolley tracks and into the darkness – Stepan, and then Sanya, well built for all his twenty-two years, and then the powerful Cat, as heavy as the barbells he lifts, and then Lyova and Eddie-baby, although nobody asked him to come and he's a bit scared.
At the poorly lit Stakhanovite Club (closed for the day), two frightened old doormen inform Stepan that the drugged, mutinous soldiers did not, as it turns out, head for the Stakhanovite Club as Stepan had expected, but have for some reason run on toward the practically deserted and uninhabited area over by Saburov's Dacha. That area is bounded on one side by the fence that surrounds the Hammer and Sickle Factory and extends for several kilometers there, and on the other side by the Piston Factory, while through it and parallel to the factories on either side runs the trolley line that takes people to and from Saltovka.
Eddie-baby thinks it's very possible that the soldiers have just gotten lost, since there is absolutely nothing for those nomads crazed by some Asiatic narcotic to do in that area. Beyond those two kilometers of wasteland, marshy in places and overgrown with several years of weeds, there are only more residential blocks, and beyond them the city. Perhaps that's where the soldiers want to go?
"Where are your fucking auxiliaries today?" Sanya shouts to Stepan as they run along, their elbows working furiously, in pursuit of the savage nomads in the direction indicated by the doormen.
"They're no goddamn use!" Stepan shouts back in despair. "None of them want to go out on patrol on a holiday."
Breathing heavily, they all pound away for a while in silence along one of the fences flanking the open rectangle. Its numbered steel sections flash by – 2, 3, 5, 7,… 20, and more, as Eddie-baby counts them off to himself.
20
At the place where the fences on either side of the rectangle converge in a sharp angle and the narrow asphalt path abruptly turns toward the trolley line, they are met by flying stones and a terrible howling. It isn't even a howling, more like a concerted roar – something on the order of a distorted "Hurra-a-a-h!" coming from invisible throats in the darkness.
"Goddamn!" Stepan curses angrily but impotently as he ducks the cobblestones, as heavy as cannonballs. His voice trembles, as if he were crying. "There's no fucking way we'll get them out of there! We're the ones who have to pay just because those asshole workmen haven't finished repaving the road."
The fact is that the blackasses have taken refuge behind a natural barricade of cobblestones, about a meter and a half high, left there by road workers who are now probably off getting drunk somewhere, with no inkling of what is happening at their abandoned workplace.
Stepan, Sanya, Cat, and Lyova, and behind them Eddie-baby, are forced to beat a hasty retreat beyond the range of the heavy cobblestones and talk the situation over.
"We've got to hold them until the militia cars arrive," Stepan says.
"No fucking way," Sanya objects. "The main thing is to catch the sergeant, and then the rest will run for it."
"Catch him, what do you mean catch him!" the militia officer sneers at Sanya. "How are we going to do that? There are only four of us and at least ten of them."
"Five of us," Eddie-baby observes grimly and resolutely as he pushes his way into the circle, but nobody pays any attention to him.
"Why don't you shoot them, you pussy?" Sanya asks Stepan. "What the fuck do you think they gave you a TT for? So you can catch crooks with your bare hands?"
"I can't do that," Stepan answers severely. "If I kill somebody and he's not armed, and a soldier to boot, I'll have to stand trial. I can't use the gun."
"You asshole!" Sanya says in a rage. "Shoot and they'll shit all over themselves. We'll all swear that it was in self-defense. If you don't want to shoot because you're afraid of killing them, then shoot at their legs."
"I can't do it!" Stepan cuts him off. "I can't do it."
"Well, give the cannon to me, then," Sanya says, "and I'll get the sergeant."
"How can I entrust a militia pistol to you!" Stepan says, losing his temper. "Are you joking?"
"You asshole! You fucking asshole!" Sanya curses him.
Their argument is interrupted by an outburst of roaring and a hail of stones. This time the situation is a great deal more serious. The frenzied soldiers have come out from behind their barricade and are running toward them. Eddie-baby can see them for the first time. Only a few of them are in greatcoats, despite the November cold. Without belts, their uniform tunics hang on them like peasant shirts, and their open collars reveal their white undershirts, which emphasizes their swarthy oriental features. Wrapped around the right hand of each is a wide army-issue tunic belt with a heavy brass buckle. Anybody taking one of those buckles in the side or top of his head usually falls down unconscious. Fighting with belt buckles is normal army practice. The soldiers are now running straight at them, swinging their belts in the air.
Sanya, Cat, and Lyova, the last limping, pick up the cobblestones thrown by the soldiers and hurl them back at them. Eddie-baby follows their example. Without much success. As in a slow-motion film, Eddie-baby sees the frenzied faces of the soldiers coming dangerously closer.
As if to give Eddie-baby a better look at what is happening, a previously inaudible trolley car rolls up and comes to an enforced halt, furiously ringing all its bells. It can't go any farther, since some of the soldiers are running across the trolley line and several large cobblestones are lying on top of the tracks.
The soldiers are now less than ten meters from the militia officer and the kids, who have all taken cover behind a pile of telephone poles. Stepan's trembling fingers move to the vicinity of his holster.
"Shoot, you asshole, or they'll bash our heads in! Shoot!" shouts Sanya.
Cat grabs Stepan by the arm and tries to take the pistol away from him.
Stepan wrenches himself free and holds the pistol at arm's length. The pistol shakes in his hand. Stepan is terrified.
"Shoot!" shouts Sanya.
"Shoot, you pussy!" shouts Lyova in a fury.
"Shoot at their legs!" yells Cat.
"Shoot!" shouts Eddie-baby.
Accompanied by the ceaseless chiming of the trolley's bells, the militia sergeant finally squeezes the trigger several times in succession. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four shots ring out in the night air, and four times the invisible bullets strike sparks on the cobbled roadway under and between the feet of the advancing horde, bringing it to a sudden halt.
Clustered behind Stepan, the kids see the soldiers running back into the darkness to take cover behind their barricade. In a shower of sparks, a second trolley car, also ringing its bells, rolls up behind the first. Its doors are closed, and its passengers' faces are pressed against the windows.
Stepan fires several more times and then changes the magazine.
The soldiers have taken cover behind the barricade, but not all of them. One large figure stops, as if changing his mind, then utters a desperate roar – "A-a-a-h!" – and sets out again toward Stepan and the kids.