“Any fuel left?” Molchalin shouted.
“Maybe two seconds’ worth, in this tank, sir.”
“Good. Expend what’s left on this one.” Again, the machine pistol chattered, shattering wood and glass overhead.
Whoooooshshshsh.
“Now let’s get the hell out of here!”
“We’ve got one more fuel tank, sir.”
“Save it.”
Girls’ School, Tobolsk
Dratvin had only his second platoon, south of the school, open fire initially, as the lights dimmed out, and that with rifles only, and those with a deliberate effort to do no harm. The Lewis and Maxim guns he wanted to be the first of several surprises he had in store for the Bolsheviks from Omsk.
Given the trouble and bad blood between them, the Omsk Reds are most likely going to think we’re the original guards, come to settle some scores. They won’t take us too seriously, and may just come charging out. And for that…
For that, Dratvin had two Lewis guns, cross firing along the streets to the south and north, and a Maxim and a Lewis gun, each, sighted to fire up the avenues, east and west. He also had the two remaining flamethrowers from the engineer platoon, but was holding them in reserve as he absolutely did not want to cause a rush from the building greater than he thought he could handle.
He also had a flare gun, ready to illuminate the scene when they tried.
And, sure as hell, they’re going to do it.
In the muzzle flashes from the rifles Dratvin caught the image of a mass of men, maybe as many as a hundred, pouring out of the school’s main entrance and then charging down Great Archangel Street with wild shouts and cries.
He raised the flare gun and fired. The starshell arced up, then exploded into light approximately over the school’s eastern side. Instantly, the heavy machine gun on that side, plus the Lewis in support, plus the other Lewis that was intended to cross fire from east to west, all opened up.
The two Lewis gunners shifted their upper bodies, left and right and then right to left again, each emptying a forty-seven round magazine onto a street and open area less than seventy feet wide. In a couple of seconds the magazines were changed and the guns firing again, right to left and then left to right.
The Lewis guns were firing low. Few were killed by them, until the bullets shattering ankles and femurs brought their owners’ torsos to street level. Then shoulders and skulls shattered, too. Likewise were hearts exploded and lungs perforated. The worst were the kidney hits, that silenced the receivers for a moment, with the sheer agony of the thing, but then set them to screaming like lost souls, as they bled out there, into the street.
While the Lewis guns fired low, the heavy, water-cooled Maxim was sighted to fire at about crotch level. The gunner depressed the trigger, sending out a steady spray of bullets at a rate of something between nine and ten per second. With the trigger depressed, he began slapping the gun, also left to right and then, once it had swept all the way to that side of the street, after switching firing thumbs, right to left.
At the same time, the one squad stationed east in the houses along the north-south avenue added their little bit to the carnage.
By the time the overhead flare had burnt itself out, forty or fifty Omsk Bolsheviks lay dead and dying in the street, while the rest, among them a number of wounded, some badly so, had scampered back into the school in abject terror.
So now, wondered Dratvin, do they try to fight out to the west or to the north? I don’t think they’ll risk the east side street again. But what I don’t want is to give them much time to think.
“Antitank rifle?”
“Here, sir.”
“Start putting rounds into the center of the building. I want to try to panic them into trying another attack.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, have you any idea how much this is going to hurt? Not complaining, sir; just asking.”
“Just do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Infantry gun section, Southwest of the Kornilov House
Both ends of the building were blazing merrily, now, with flames pouring out of the windows, north and south, and scorching the exterior walls. Even over the firing and the roar of the flames, it was possible to hear wounded men screaming as the fire reached them.
While the 37mm projectiles were blasting out windows and exploding against walls opposite the windows inside the rooms of the place, the antitank gunner, with his Mauser T-Gewehr, began putting rounds into the building more or less at random. The objective wasn’t actually to kill anyone, since the fire would take care of that part, but to frighten the occupants and disorganize or break up any firefighting parties that might arise.
It’s a damned good thing no one is expecting me to aim carefully, thought the gunner, because it’s all I can do to force myself to pull the trigger, knowing how much it’s going to hurt.
Trying to protect a thumb he suspected had been broken by the slamming of the pistol grip against it, the gunner slapped the bolt handle up with an open palm, then pulled it back with the four so far undamaged fingers of his right hand.
“Put another round in,” he told his assistant gunner, “I can’t hold it.”
With the round in place, he used his palm, again, to close the bolt and then rotate it down.
He was still praying for a blessed misfire when the gun section’s chief noncom, Yahonov, knelt beside the Mauser and said, “Put a couple into the area behind the door; the lieutenant thinks they’re getting reading to make a charge out.”
The first explosion was muffled enough to make Yurovsky think of a faulty heating system. The second one, however, left no doubt, That’s enemy action.
Instantly he’d tucked his orders into a jacket pocket and was on his feet. Bounding from his quarters, he began to shout for his men to take up their rifles and to defend themselves. It was good for him, at least for the moment, to have left his room when he did, because the place was lashed by machine gun fire coming from somewhere outside a bare moment later.
There were more explosions coming from inside the building, he heard. But they’re smaller, I think. Maybe not much more powerful than the muzzle blast from a rifle… okay, maybe two or three times more, but what could that be? Some kind of small hand grenade?
And then Yurovsky smelled smoke. He turned around and looked back through the door he’d just passed through. Through the now broken windows, he saw fire reflected from the buildings on the other side of the street.
Oh, shit. Those Omsk bastards!
Governor’s House, Tobolsk
Lepa was one of the first to realize an attack was in progress. He, however, also assumed it was coming from the Omsk louts. This was, in fact, a not unreasonable supposition, as the distance away of the platoon designated to seize the Governor’s House and free the Romanovs meant that, for the time being, there was nothing much—and nothing noisy—doing about the Governor’s House.
As de facto sergeant of the guard, Lepa was stationed at the southeast corner of the house, in a room previously designated “for officers.” Just to the north of that was the small room that normally contained Lili Dehn, now much overstuffed with Lili, plus Catherine “Trina” Schneider, and Countess Anastasia “Nastenka” Hendrikova.
Shouting the alarm, Lepa filled the officers’ room with the four guards on the main floor. They began firing at the large muzzle flashes coming from across the town park, to the due south.