The men of Company K flailed around the body of the train, looking for shelter, as the first bullets whizzed by them. Gordon arose from his swoon, vomited with some efficiency, and ushered his men as best he could. Within moments, all were safely behind the locomotive, which provided several tons of protection. “To the Lewis!” Gordon cried, and two men immediately fell to the flatbed on which the Lewis was mounted, one to fire and the other to feed the bullets through. Alas, their first volley was also their last, for there was a horrible sound of riveting and ricochets: the same locomotive that shielded them from the Bolsheviks was also directly in the line of their own fire. “Stop! Cease! Stop!”

In the silence, Hugo found his voice, and cried, as if someone might hear him and obey, “Pozhaluysta, nie streliayte—my devstvennitsy!,” which wasn’t actually effective. Instead, another deep sound, a wheeze, almost musical, and then the screech of another sixty-pound shell, which fell long again, bringing relief, but only for a moment: it had landed on the riverbank behind them. The result was a smoking crater six feet deep, and surrounding it, twisted metal still glowing with heat, the now ruined railroad tracks home.

This was when the Bolsheviks returned to their original plan of burning down the bridge entirely. The hay bales were to be distributed among the wooden beams of the scaffolding, and shouts went up for more paraffin wax with which to ignite them.

To their credit, the 339th had recovered their wits, and had begun to return fire. They were flat against the top of the engineer’s cab, and on the narrow gallery by the boiler, in excellent adaptation to the landscape. The Mosin-Nagant rifles, however, were not the weapons of choice at such distant range. As soon as the Bolos realized what was being fired, they shared a hearty laugh and went back to work without worry.

With the way to retreat a mass of smoldering ruins and the way ahead just about to be set afire, and their own arms roughly useless, the Americans fell to bickering. Eventually, it was settled that Hugo was to blame for their situation, because he hadn’t known how to make the train go backward. He wiped his brow with his kerchief, and it came away red. He’d been grazed—by rock debris, by a bullet, it was hard to tell—and when he stared at the blood with some disbelief, that, too, caused grousing. Wodziczko rolled his eyes.

“I’m wounded!”

“You were just pipped. We’re going to die. We hate you.”

The normal soldier’s lament struck at a man’s odor or ancestry; a simple declaration of hatred was startlingly direct. As much as he felt guilty (Wodziczko’s accusations stung worse than the wound to his forehead), Hugo also hated everyone on the train. He reached a terrible conclusion. If he was going to his death, he would take them along. He released the horseshoe brakes, teased the throttle open, and felt the pleasant shudder of the wheels unlocking.