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carefully dig out the fuse from under the unfinished sand-covered furnace. Even before the town OGPU
chief, a short, amiable-looking man in a grey suit whom Flegontov had called up by phone, had arrived in
the foundry, Flegontov himself had discovered a mysterious box under the furnace and said that it
contained enough dynamite to blow up the foundations of the blast-furnace, the copper furnace, and even
the main wall of the foundry.
Tolya Golovatsky pointed to the box of dynamite and said: "Look at the present those capitalists left
for the working class, and remember it! They took the drawings away and put dynamite in their place.
What for? To blow up the foundry and stop the works for many months. To wet this sand with workers'
blood."
"One thing's not quite clear," Sasha said, breaking the silence. "Those capitalists want to get back
here. Why should they blow up the foundry?"
"You are a silly fellow," Petka said in quite a grown-up way. "What's insurance for? Perhaps
Caiworth insured this works before the Revolution. Whatever happens, he's bound to get his money out
of the insurance company, if the tsarist government gets here."
"All right, but why didn't they hide that fuse better?" Sasha insisted.
A new idea occurred to Petka.
"Perhaps one of them put it like that on purpose. We were always throwing dregs of iron out on that
dump. Just think, if a drop of hot iron had fallen on that fuse, the mine would have gone off!"
"It's better not to think of it!" Sasha replied in an awed tone.
"But you tell us this, Sasha," Petka said, tapping Sasha on the shoulder. "Why did the OGPU chief
shake hands with you? Do you know him?"
"Oh he shook hands with everybody," Sasha said evasively.
"None of that! He only shook hands with Flegontov and ^ you," Petka retorted.
"Well, I don't know," Sasha grunted.
"But I do! Give me the matches, Petka," I broke in.
Petka rummaged under his mattress and tossed me a match-box. Striking a match, I lighted the lamp.
As it burnt up, I pulled out of my breast-pocket a folded slip of paper whose existence I had almost
forgotten.
"Read this, Petka. Recognize the handwriting?" I said, handing him the paper.
"His! Of course it's his!" Petka exclaimed pointing at Sasha.
Peering at the paper that Petka kindly thrust under his nose, Sasha gave a groan.
"Gosh, what a memory!... Why didn't I burn it!" "Come on, out with your story! We're your pals,
aren't we?" I said.
"What is there to tell? You know yourselves. . . You wouldn't believe me when I said I'd seen
Pecheritsa. You laughed at me. But I thought to myself: 'Let them laugh, but my eyes can see all right.'
And I reported it. Pity I didn't destroy the copy... There's no need for you to laugh!"
"Who's laughing? You are a funny bloke! It was the right thing to do!. . . Do you think we ought to go
stargazing while they plant mines under us?" I said to Sasha.
That night I was the last to go to sleep. Listening to the steady breathing of my friends I thought over
everything I had seen during the day until my head ached.
The quiet, sunny seaside town seemed a very different place to me now. A desperate, struggle
between the new and the old was being waged behind its facade of blissful calm. The signs of this
struggle came to light suddenly, like the anonymous letter from one of Makhno's men, or the hidden fuse
that Tiktor had discovered today. Our hidden class enemies were still hoping to recover the power of
which the 'Revolution had deprived them for ever. In order to hinder our progress, they would sink to
any depths.
"They are on the watch for every mistake, every blunder we make," I thought. "And they are still
hoping to take advantage of our carelessness and good-nature. They are hoping that we shall collapse; if
we live and prosper, sooner or later we shall rid the whole world of them... They realize that and will
stoop to anything to prevent it. But if that's the way things are, don't be caught out, you of the
Komsomol! Have ears like axe-blades, as Polevoi used to say. Wherever you are, wherever you go,
always be on the alert."
WE ATTACK!
Although we made every effort to keep our plan of attack on Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya's
saloon a secret and held all our rehearsals behind locked doors, the rumour of it spread round the town.
Even the old men began to ask how much longer it would be before we put on our Komsomol show.
Two Leningrad musical-hall artistes, an Arkady Ignatievich and his wife, had come to our town for a
seaside holiday.
Arkady Ignatievich often brought his guitar down to the beach with him. When he grew tired of the
silent occupation of sun-bathing, he would sit on the edge of the pier with his legs dangling above the
water and start parodying the variety singers who made money out of their public with all sorts of
rubbish.
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