But the sound of soft sobbing was unusual for the barracks. The first rule and lesson of the barracks was to never show weakness.
The sound was coming from the cot of the recently matriculated Mikhail Shevemetev, a slight eighteen-year-old who had appeared on the academy’s doorstep almost as an orphan. In contrast to most of the other cadets who could not be sure of the plight of their families trapped behind Bolshevik lines, Mikhail had seen his immediate family slaughtered to a person from a hiding place in the family mansion on the Murmansk waterfront by a crazed mob early in the revolution.
Pyotr had felt particularly concerned for Mikhail, because he was the least of what anyone would expect to be military material. He was small and willowy and almost effeminate in demeanor. He probably only had been taken in when he appeared at the academy door because the fencing professor fancied him. And when the fencing professor grew tired of him, Vasily took him over.
Not being able to close his ears to the crying, Pyotr rose quietly from his bed and went over and sat by the prone body of Mikhail on his cot.
“What is it, Mikhail? You should sleep. You have a long journey ahead of you.”
“I’m scared, Count Pyotr,” Mikhail whimpered between his tears. “I cannot be brave about it as the rest of you are. The communists are going to push us into the Black Sea. I have seen what they can do. I don’t think I can endure more.”
“There, there, all will be well, little one,” Pyotr whispered. “What will be will be. And I think we need not be using titles anymore. I think such distinctions are long past needing to be dropped. I think they are much to blame for the circumstances we now are in. Transport has arrived. The academy will relocate just as it has done before. You will be fine.”
“I’m scared, Pyotr. Can you hold me? You are always so good to me. One of the few.”
With a sigh, Pyotr stretched out behind the small Mikhail and encased him in his arms. Almost immediately, Mikhail began moving his body against Pyotr’s, who couldn’t help but become aroused.
“Just go to sleep, little one. You don’t need to . . .”
“It is all that keeps me sane here. Am I not nice enough for you?”
“It’s not that. It’s . . . ahhhh.”
Mikhail had reached around and taken Pyotr’s cock in his hand through the fly in his sleeping shorts. There was no denying that Pyotr was aroused. Pyotr didn’t stop the smaller man when he lifted a leg over Pyotr’s hip and guided Pyotr’s cock to his channel opening. Pyotr slow fucked him, trying to make as little sound as possible. Mikhail’s sobs had turned to sighs and quiet pants.
“Tomorrow . . . tomorrow you will be there with me, won’t you, Pyotr?” The voice was thick, half clouded in the onset of an exhausted sleep.
“Yes, I will be there with you, Mikhail,” Pyotr murmured, the decision once again having been taken out of his hands, giving in to the manipulation of others from all sides.
* * * *
“How do you know we are looking at an 800-mile journey in these trucks?” Vasily demanded of Pyotr.
Vasily hadn’t let Pyotr out of his sight since they had all been rousted from their cots in the darkest hour of the morning. The barracks lieutenant had told them all to shower, and Vasily had given him lip. Daily showering was not the regimen at the academy. Pyotr had made the mistake of saying then that it would be 800 miles packed together in the trucks—two days at least, maybe three—before they would have any chance at personal hygiene again. Vasily had let that pass at the time, but now, as they were milling around the trucks and the faculty members were belatedly trying to bring some order to who would be riding in which truck, he challenged Pyotr.
“Who told you that ours was to be an 800-mile journey? Was it Orlov? Is that what he pulled you into the boathouse yesterday to tell you?”
“Yes, he wanted me to check the academy vessel to make sure we weren’t leaving anything behind that we would need. And he let slip that we are headed to the Black Sea—to Novorossiysk—to come under the command of Admiral Kothak. But he then told me not to tell any of the cadets, so please don’t spread that around.”
This wasn’t even close to what Pyotr was pulled into the boathouse to do, but it was the best lie he could think of at the moment.
“I thought so. I didn’t ask earlier, because Orlov has been stuck to you like a second skin all morning, and his being called away to help set up the passenger schedule provided the first opportunity to ask.”
No more stuck to me than you have been, Pyotr thought. And Mikhail Shevemetev as well. But Pyotr knew why. Each of the three was afraid that Pyotr may slip away, and each of the three wanted to control Pyotr in his own way. This left Pyotr angry and on edge—and once again disappointed in himself that he let himself be trapped and manipulated like this. His only hope was if they were all separated in the truck assignments. Pyotr still didn’t know if he would try to fade away from the journey given the opportunity. But he was angry that he may not have the opportunity to consider other options.
As it turned out, he was trapped into climbing up into the back of one of the trucks. Mikhail was assigned to another truck, drawn off by the fencing instructor who apparently hadn’t lost interest in Mikhail to the extent that everyone had supposed. And Orlov, as a faculty member, had to ride in the cab of a truck. He did arrange, however, for Pyotr to be in the back of that truck. And Vasily was in Pyotr’s truck as well, having been assigned elsewhere but having made his own decision not to leave Pyotr’s side for an instant until they were all on board and on the move.
They were packed in close, and there was barely enough room for all of the cadets in the bed of the truck to stretch out to sleep during the day. By the first night on the road, they had all receded into a semicomatose state from the effects of the brutal bouncing of the trucks on the primitive road south and the limited rations of water and food they were given.
Pyotr was wedged into one of the corners of the truck bed, behind the cab, and Vasily had muscled his way to his side. Orlov had repeatedly looked back through the glass in the back wall of the truck cab to check on Pyotr until Vasily had leaned his back against the glass and night had fallen, making it impossible for Orlov to pick any single cadet out of the teaming mass in the still-moving truck. The convoy had stopped every couple of hours, but only long enough for the men to take pisses and dumps at the side of the road and to, most unsuccessfully, work the cramps out of their arms and legs.
All of the men complained about the bruises that were being inflicted on their torsos, but Vasily had yelled out that the Bolsheviks would give them worse than bruises if they ever caught up with them. And then the men’s complaints were reduced to mumblings under their breath. None of the cadets stood up to Vasily.
While they were still within sight of the academy buildings they were abandoning, Vasily was already touching Pyotr with his hands and trying to get as close to him as possible. Pyotr fended him off as well as he could, but by the second night on the road, he was so exhausted and only half conscious, and he just lay there, listlessly, as Vasily worked his hand into Pyotr’s unbuttoned fly and slowly jacked the younger cadet off. And then Pyotr managed no more than soft whimpers and panting in shallow breaths as Vasily turned him on his belly, pulled his trousers down around his knees, covered him with his body at full stretch, and slow fucked him.