It wasn’t a sawmill smokestack but a piece of equipment the Bolsheviks had been storing in the village grain house for several weeks: a 4.5-inch howitzer that lobbed sixty-pound shells with reasonable accuracy. They had dragged it on a donkey cart to its present location, had successfully loaded it, and were currently consulting the tattered field manual on how to aim it.

Hugo saw through the field glasses a flash at its tip no brighter than the lighting of a match, then heard a sound like wind rushing over a deep jug. He yelled, “Incoming!” just as the shell shrieked overhead and passed beyond them. It landed in the river with a muffled explosion that sent a spray of shattered rock in all directions.

“Bolos!”

They were under full attack: the hills ahead bubbling over with men pointing guns at them, men of no particular uniform but united by wild aggression, shouting “Hourra, hourra!” as they charged.

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.