“Private Wodziczko is on an important mission to secure barley and hops.” Gordon wore a sable hat—honestly sable—stained with malt paste from a gruesome prior attempt to make beer. He touched the heel of his hand to his hat, signing off on Hugo’s fate. “Your reward is to kill, old sport. Enjoy.” But then, as if irritated by a pang of conscience: “You know, Private, take the Springfield.”

This was a rare order. It was like asking him to accept filet mignon in place of bully beef. “Is there ammo?”

“I can spare a clip. Two clips. No, take one clip.”

Hugo was touched. The Springfield, however sparsely furnished, would actually hit its target. He took it from its case and placed his stripper clip of five bullets in a leather pouch that he dangled down inside his shirt, to keep them warm. He had the company Springfield!

Before he left, he announced to the whole company, “Men, I won’t embarrass you,” but no one looked up.

When Hugo reappeared outside, Aarne looked past him, toward the closing billet door. It latched, and they were alone together in the faint afternoon light. Hugo adjusted his hat and shrugged the weight of his patched greatcoat around, until he was relatively comfortable. Aarne looked around Hugo, toward the door, as if he were going to ask it a question.

“Alors,” Hugo said, and then, with a sigh that he hoped sounded jaded, “on y va!”

They walked side by side, passing the British field hospital, Union Jack snapping in the breeze (since it was ten degrees below zero, this was accomplished with the application of benzene). They passed the many barracks housing the 68th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery, whose eighteen-pounder guns stood under a thin layer of frost. Next door was the billet for eighty fearsome Cossacks, whose leader, Colonel Dilatorfsky, had once punched an ox in the head “to teach it manners.”

And yet Aarne had asked neither the Canadians, the British, nor the Cossacks for help.

It was perhaps three o’clock, and the purple light was already deepening. Solnechny Stranaians had an exquisite vocabulary to describe gradations in faint illumination—they would say now that it was light enough to see a friend but dark enough to miss the cunning of his shadow.

As they walked to the edge of the town, treeline thickening, buildings falling away, Hugo thought to ask why the Bolsheviks were attacking tonight of all nights, and Aarne admitted it was hard to know the ways of Bolsheviks.

“But,” Hugo continued, thinking of stores of flour and sugar, “how do they know about the women? Weren’t they hiding? And how do you know these women?”

The snow crunched under their feet. An owl hooted, and Aarne hooted back at it. Then a longer silence. Perhaps he was in awe of Hugo’s skills with idiom. Finally, Aarne said, “Maybe they want liqueur.”

“Pardon?”