“Yes, comrade,” the former keeper of the Romanovs agreed.
“Semyon, you are not as well known. Get as close as you safely can to the sound of the fighting and collect whatever information is safe to collect. Even rumors will be better than nothing.”
“Agreed,” said Zaslavski. “And what will you be doing?”
“I’m going to empty my house of food, drink, and blankets. Then all of us together are going to trek to Tyumen and get the word to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Log House, North of the Governor’s House, Tobolsk
Lazarev, the platoon leader for Dratvin’s Third Platoon, attached to Fourth Company, was unsure of what to do. His men had spread out as they ran toward the log house. Only one guard had been encountered, and he’d been half asleep, leaning against the stockade with his eyes fluttering closed.
The bayonets of three men had pinned that guard to the stockade. He’d only awakened for a tiny moment before a rifle butt knocked him into next week. Half a second later, the first of three bayonets passed through his heart, cutting off even the chance to scream.
And now what? wondered Lazarev. Nobody’s awake in the log house. They’re going to wake up though, as soon as the shooting starts.
Hmmm… lights still on… maybe I have time to set something up.
“First Squad?”
“Here, sir.”
“You and your squad, take all three Lewis guns. Set up northwest of the house, facing generally east. Don’t let anyone escape.”
“Okay, sir.”
“Second and Third?”
“Here, sir.” “Here.”
“We’re going to go through that door,” the lieutenant pointed. “Fixed bayonets, regular grenades, minimal shooting, maximum shouting and screaming. I want to panic the men in there into running… and there go the lights.
“Follow me!”
Kornilov House, Tobolsk
It was weapons free as soon as the lights went off. As such, the reinforced squad above Molchalin, on the roof of the one story building northeast of Kornilov’s, opened fire on whatever they could see of the guards, on the north and east sides of the Kornilov House. As the firing began, the lieutenant slapped one of the flamethrower men on the back, shouting, “Follow me.” He and his assistant did. Another man, who hadn’t gone up on the roof, followed as a guard. All but the lieutenant bore extra donut-shaped fuel and spherical air tanks on their backs.
The four of them ran forward, as quickly as the heavy burden of the German flamethrower allowed. They came to the wall surrounding the yard where the newly arrived Reds had secured their horses. There was one guard there, who called out a challenge before Molchalin fired a burst at him. The lieutenant was rewarded with a scream, a groan, and a thud.
“Over the wall with the flamethrower, quickly,” the lieutenant ordered. He and the guard boosted the flamethrower operator to the top of the the wall. From there, the man swivelled himself around on his belly before gingerly letting himself down on the other side. The assistant quickly followed. In half a second, Molchalin dropped beside him.
“Let the horses escape!” were the lieutenant’s last words to his guard before dropping to the ground.
To their front, horses, panicked by the shooting, reared and stomped, ran the short distance available then turned to run back the other way.
“We’ll keep close to the wall,” Molchalin said. “Horses may be dumb but they don’t run themselves into walls. Come on!”
As fast as humanly possible, skirting as close to the wall as possible, the two dashed for the building. No guards barred their way, though Molchalin thought that he heard sounds coming from inside the building, Probably guards alerting from the firing.
When they reached the building the lieutenant kicked one booted toe through a basement window, knocking out a single pane that would leave a space for the flamethrower’s nozzle.
Ordinarily, a flamethrower is used to suffocate an enemy by burning up all the oxygen in an enclosed space. In this case, however, the objective was to burn down the entire building, preferably with the enemy inside. That meant they wanted oxygen to get inside. To this end Molchalin pulled a regular concussion grenade from his belt. He quickly unscrewed the cap letting the porcelain knob fall out. Grasping both knob and the stick handle of the grenade firmly, he pulled the knob down and the grenade up. Then he threw the grenade into whatever room in the basement was on the other side of the broken window. He and the flamethrower team pressed their backs against the wall as the grenade blew the remains of the window across the yard.
Shouts came from above. To Molchalin they sounded very panicky. Behind them, the horses screamed. Some of them had probably been hit by pieces of flying glass.
“Burn them!”
In half a second, the nozzle was inside the window, pouring out a couple of seconds’ worth of intense flame. They didn’t wait to see what had caught fire; something almost certainly would.
Somewhat distantly, Molchalin heard the twin booms of the infantry cannon, punishing the entire western face of the Kornilov House.
They’ve got to be shitting themselves in there, and hardly even imagining yet that we’re setting them afire.
From there, the two raced to the east to almost the halfway point on that side of the building. Once again, a grenade followed a booted toe and was, in turn, followed by flame. This time, screams came from the basement even as the panic-stricken shouts above grew.
“Now the next story corner!”
Kick-Boom-Fwooosh!
“All right,” said Molchalin. “Now the second floor.”
“Got to change tanks, sir.”
“Well, do it, but hurry!”
Once the tank was changed, with both machine pistol and flamethrower nozzle raised, the pair backed out and away from the building. This was risking being trampled by the horses, now outright mad with fear, but there was no help for it. Molchalin turned for a moment, ready to shoot any that came too close. He discovered that, dumb as they might have been, the horses were still not so dumb as not to recognize the source of the explosions and fire that had them panicked. They did their screaming and shrieking while doing their best to stay far away. Some were also escaping out the gate opened by the guard of the small flame party.
“Good enough,” said Molchalin. He took a not especially careful aim at the second window in from the eastern corner, then blasted it out with his MP18.
“Flame!”
Instantly, the flamethrower shot a jet of hot burning fuel through the shattered window. It bounced off the ceiling inside, then splashed down onto the rest of the room. This time there was no doubt; Molchalin heard intense screaming coming from inside. He changed magazines while the flame was ongoing.
“One more. Will that thing reach the top floor?”
“Yes, sir, no problem.”
“Good.”
Another window was shot out. Molchalin saw, illuminated in the glow of the rising flames, a man leaning out a window with a rifle. The Lewis gun firing from the roof to the north drove that Red back inside.
With a window open there was no particular need to shoot out another one. The flamethrower operator fired through the open window, once again splashing flame down. The scream that came from that was truly horrifying.