They questioned Nat about Czech equipment, about Czech plans, about Czech supplies, about the recent passage of goods trains, about conditions in Moscow, about a rumor which had spread over mid-Siberia that a medical train was headed westward loaded with Red Cross supplies. Nathan answered as best he could. But he was distrusted. Sentiment curdled against him.
One man wished to know if the skies were blue in America, the same as they were in Russia. Another declared that he had heard that all horses and cows in America had two legs, and how did a horse or cow move about if it only had two legs?
And such human material was striving to found a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal!
Rapidly Nathan lost caste. They took away his khaki coat and the contents of his pockets. There was much reference to the notes that the man with the big hands had recorded in the greasy book. Then from the mêlée of confusion and discussion, Nat’s blood began to curdle as he heard the general word “shteek” on all sides. (“Bayonet him!”)
The tall Cossack seemed to be defending Nat. The Cossack had to give it up. He shrugged his narrow shoulders and stalked out, his big saber rattling noisily.
With a blunt wave of his huge arm, the Commandant arose from the table. He gave an order in Russian and two men stepped forward. After a fashion they saluted. They were sandy-complexioned and had no chins. Another order, with a jerk of a big thumb toward the ashen-faced Yankee. They saluted again.
Nathan was seized and bundled from the room. The crowd trailed after. The flaming knots burned higher outside the door, death pylons now.
Into the yard Nat was dragged and the crowd fell back. They formed a semicircle for the execution. One of the soldiers drew his long glistening bayonet from a loop at his left hip. He clicked it upon the end of his rifle. Then he jumped the gun up into his hands and steeled himself for the messy thing he had been ordered to do.
But Nathan Forge of Paris, Vermont, U.S.A. had no intention of standing there and being stuck like an animal in an abattoir. His body stiffened. Horror maddened him. The only weapons, the only friends, he had left in the world were the two gnarled fists that Bernie Gridley had cauterized.
Nathan’s gorge rose. He leaped like a cat. His right fist smashed straight at the head soldier’s lack of chin. The blow broke his jaw. The gun dropped from his hands, fell sideways, and the bayonet stuck a bystander in the throat. Nathan’s boot then came up and stove into the pit of the other man’s abdomen. The man doubled like a jack-knife.