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This was the same job they had had on Friday, but the orders were different. Lieutenant Kirillov briefed Grigori. He spoke these days as if he was in a constant bad temper, and perhaps he was: officers probably disliked being lined up against their own countrymen just as much as the men did. "No marchers are to cross the river, either by the bridge or on the ice, do you understand? You will shoot people who flout your instructions. "
Grigori hid his contempt. "Yes, Excellency!" he said smartly.
Kirillov repeated the orders, then disappeared. Grigori thought the lieutenant was scared. Doubtless he feared being held responsible for what happened, whether his orders were obeyed or defied.
Grigori had no intention of obeying. He would allow the leaders of the march to engage him in discussion while their followers crossed the ice, exactly as it had played out on Friday.
However, early in the morning his platoon was joined by a detachment of police. To his horror, he saw that they were led by his old enemy Mikhail Pinsky. The man did not appear to be suffering from the shortage of bread: his round face was fatter than ever, and his police uniform was tight around the middle. He was carrying a loud-hailer. His weasel-faced sidekick, Kozlov, was nowhere in sight.
"I know you," Pinsky said to Grigori. "You used to work at the Putilov factory. "
"Until you had me conscripted," Grigori said.
"Your brother is a murderer, but he escaped to America. "
"So you say. "
"No one is going to cross the river here today. "
"We shall see. "
"I expect full cooperation from your men, is that understood?"
Grigori said: "Aren't you afraid?"
"Of the rabble? Don't be stupid. "
"No, I mean of the future. Suppose the revolutionaries get their way. What do you think they will do to you? You've spent your life bullying the weak, beating people up, harassing women, and taking bribes. Don't you fear a day of retribution?"
Pinsky pointed a gloved finger at Grigori. "I'm reporting you as a damned subversive," he said, and he walked away.
Grigori shrugged. It was not as easy as it used to be for the police to arrest anyone they liked. Isaak and others might mutiny if Grigori was jailed, and the officers knew it.
The day started quietly, but Grigori noted that few workers were on the streets. Many factories were closed because they could not get fuel for their steam engines
and furnaces. Other places were on strike, the employees demanding more money to pay inflated prices, or heating for ice-cold workshops, or safety rails around dangerous machinery. It looked as if almost no one was actually going to work today. But the sun rose cheerfully, and people were not going to stay indoors. Sure enough, at midmorning Grigori saw, coming along Samsonievsky Prospekt, a large crowd of men and women in the ragged clothes of industrial workers.
Grigori had thirty men and two corporals. He had stationed them in four lines of eight across the road, blocking the end of the bridge. Pinsky had about the same number of men, half on foot and half on horseback, and he placed them at the sides of the road.
Grigori peered anxiously at the oncoming march. He could not predict what would happen. On his own he could have prevented bloodshed, by offering only token resistance then letting the demonstrators pass. But he did not know what Pinsky was going to do.
The marchers came nearer. There were hundreds of people-no, thousands. They were men and women in the blue tunics and ragged coats of industrial workers. Most wore red armbands or red ribbons. Their banners read Down with the Tsar and Bread, Peace, and Land. This was no longer merely a protest, Grigori concluded: it had become a political movement.
As the leaders came nearer, he sensed the tightening anxiety among his waiting men.
He walked forward to meet the marchers. At their head, to his surprise, was Varya, the mother of Konstantin. Her gray hair was tied up in a red scarf, and she carried a red flag on a hefty stick. "Hello, Grigori Sergeivich," she said amiably. "Are you going to shoot me?"
"No, I'm not," he replied. "But I can't speak for the police. "
Although Varya stopped, the others came on, pressed from behind by thousands more. Grigori heard Pinsky urge his mounted men forward. These horseback policemen, called Pharaohs, were the most hated section of the force. They were armed with whips and clubs.
Varya said: "All we want is to make a living and feed our families. Isn't that what you want too, Grigori?"
The marchers were not confronting Grigori's soldiers, or attempting to get past them onto the bridge. Instead they were spreading out along the embankment on both sides. Pinsky's Pharaohs nervously walked their horses along the towpath, as if to bar the way to the ice, but there were not enough of them to form a continuous barrier. However, no marcher wanted to be the first to make a dash for it, and there was a moment of stalemate.
Lieutenant Pinsky put his megaphone to his mouth. "Go back!" he shouted. The instrument was no more than a piece of tin shaped like a cone, and made his voice only a little louder. "You may not enter the city center. Return to your workplaces in orderly fashion. This is a police command. Go back. "
Nobody went back-most people could not even hear-but the marchers started to jeer and boo. Someone deep in the crowd threw a stone. It struck the rump of a horse, and the beast started. Its rider, taken by surprise, almost fell off. Furious, he pulled himself upright, sawed on the reins, and lashed the horse with his whip. The crowd laughed, which made him angrier, but he brought his horse under control.
