The town of Haapsalu was strangely untouched by the Great War. The German advance had stopped some hundred kilometers short of it before the Russian disturbances and the ensuing truce ended the hostilities. The calamities of the Civil War had so far bypassed it, for it was out of the way and not particularly important for any strategic reason. Although the town was served by a narrow gauge rail line and had a tiny port, the Reds had more rewarding targets to pursue. In 1918, Collier's announced that the excesses of the Bolsheviks would doom them to historic obscurity within a year. They were wrong. By 1919, the Reds began to expand the territory under their control. To everyone in Haapsalu, their advance into town was a matter of time, not eventuality. Though the details of the developments further east were sketchy, the residents had learned enough of the atrocities to keep travel trunks handy and a cargo ship "Galatea" was bought to effect the escape should the time come. A shipyard was improvised in the tiny two-pier port to convert that old steamer to ferry passengers. It promised no cruising comfort but only escape from the terror that dwarfed the bloody legacy of the first French Revolution. As the efforts of the Entente intervention appeared to hold the line, the collective breath abated in suspense. As German Jaegers and Suomi volunteers won Helsinki, and Archangelsk and Vladivostok were garrisoned by the Allies, hopes soared. The Fall came and with it rains that turned roads muddy and impassable, and all sighed in relief. The town would be safe from attack until April, for the muddy season would turn to snow shortly. Wearied and overextended, all factions were now incapable of winter campaigning. *** Otto and Martha Binder lived in a two-story stone house that overlooked the town from a Southward hill. It used to be a convent, but the nuns vacated it in late 1914, after the Tannenburg repulse. Mindful of the stories detailing the gruesome fate of their Belgian counterparts, the Sisters fled for the presumed safe havens of Sistroretsk and Petrograd. The Binders arranged to rent the spacious structure at once. Otto edited and sometimes typeset the little four-page newspaper that delivered week-old news to the town. The living wasn't fat but it kept him, Martha and their son Ruvim comfortable. The wartime inflation had long since rendered their rent nominal, so they survived. Otto proved unexpectedly resourceful. Martha, once a game seeker for pleasure, took to pursuing grouse and hares for the table. Uncertain of even the next day, Binders, like everyone else in Haapsalu, just got by. *** In late October, the first frost set it. A brigade of Tuchachevski's cavalry pushed West in the deepest penetration since Brusilov's invasion of Galicia. Almost unhampered by organized resistance, living off the subjugated populations, the Reds advanced rapidly. On November 2nd, as the Binders were breakfasting on oatmeal and ersatz coffee, they saw a long dark line stretching across the horizon. It inched almost imperceptibly towards town. An examination through an antique brass telescope revealed pointy cloth helmets and red piping on the uniforms. A cavalry force of considerable strength was closing on the town at trot. Otto dialed the newspaper office, glad that he had gone to the effort and the expense of stringing the phone wire up to his home. Running would have cost him the time he could not afford to lose. Although no one expected the Bolsheviks until Spring, the townspeople had planned against the eventuality. At once, all the bells in town were ringing and the mayor was trying to shout over them through a bullhorn. The evacuation efforts started without hesitation. The getaway steamer could be under power in half an hour after the crew got on board. Streams of people headed for the port, shedding heavier trunks as they ran. Of the seven thousand residents, about four thousand wanted to get away. The ship would fit no more than half of that number. Worse, the entire effort would be for naught had the approaching cavalry got to the gangplanks before the anchor was lifted. At the present rate of advance, the approaching troops would indeed overrun the port with time to spare. Defense of Haapsalu was debated hotly. Although no one wished to be under the Bolshevik control, few wished to risk the bloody reprisals that invariably followed crushed resistance. The lesson of the Warsaw Miracle, that even bloody combat was preferable to the uncertain mercies of the Cheka, was still in the future. By contrast, the many villages that the Reds swept clean of rebelling peasants and their huts were a compelling argument for meekness. Field artillery had a way of exacting compliance. Even of the one hundred and twenty men who had sworn to defend the town, only forty-two came through at the moment of truth. Once summoned, they occupied the buildings closest to the rapidly approaching threat. Half of the impromptu warriors had been to the front; the rest had drilled under the veterans. The men had little hope of holding out for long, yet resolved grimly to win the requisite time for their families. They had to buy an hour for the ship to clear the port and be out of range of small arms. As the enemy was not expected, the windows had no sandbags on them. No food or water was on hand and most of the defenders had only what ammunition they could grab in a hurry. Some had not the time to get rifles from home and were armed merely with sidearms or the obsolescent four-line Berdans provided by the Constabulary. A light Madsen machine gun which was somehow obtained the previous year commanded the most obvious approach. Unsuited for sustained action, it was a poor comfort against massed cavalry, and no comfort at all against artillery. The refugees had not known how dire their situation was. That ignorance may well have saved many, as a stampede on the narrow gangplanks would have surely caused people to fall into the icy water. A thin layer of ice had already formed on the harbor and anyone who fell in would have drowned. Had the ice been even a bit thicker, it would have closed the port to navigation and trapped the refugees. It was their luck that the Bolsheviks had not struck a week later than they did. *** Otto had to push his wife out of the door. They were luckier than many: Ruvim could walk by himself. Unfortunately, the boy's endurance would not last much past the kilometer-long dash to the harbor. Martha tried to gather a trunk of essentials but her husband was urging her on. "Go!" he urged them, trying to keep panic out of his voice. "I will catch up with you two and bring everything." Otto was lying about his plans. The young man planned to stay and fight. He put his woolen uniform overcoat around his wife's shoulders, hoping that it would keep her warm even exposed to the salty spray of the gulf. Martha dashed into the bedroom and returned with her double-barreled partridge shotgun slung under the coat on the right. The overcoat pockets sagged. Ruvim, gravely but quietly concerned about the proceedings, swiped a box of candy from the bearau. Then he and his mother ran down the steep slope towards the town, slipping on the crisp, frost-tinted grass. Otto returned to the window, trying to ascertain the progress of the invaders through his telescope. He saw the leading riders of the cavalry brigade get near the edge of town and fall. Three long seconds late the report of the volley came and then the tae-tae-tae of the machine gun. The attackers flowed around the buildings, some veering off to flank the defenders, others riding hard for the port. He saw that Martha made it to the main street of the town and then she was out of sight. Several of the defending riflemen fanned around the Madsen, the rest dashed back to fire into the receding backs of the horsemen. On that clear day, with the range not yet a hundred paces, they succeeded admirably. They Reds wheeled around, first returning fire from horseback, then dismounting to bring their carbines into action. Protected by the riflemen, the machine gunner could enfilade those troops that tried to flow around town. A burst that emptied the magazine scythed the first wave. Someone dumped a bucket of water onto the barrel jacket and a cloud of steam rose like black powder smoke. At that time, two field cannons unlimbered at six hundred paces and fired upon the town. Although some of the attackers where within the town already, their artillery fired at the outer row of houses without regard for the danger to their own side. After trying to respond with rifles to three-inch shells, the defenders retreated, awkwardly passing the hot Madsen down the narrow stairway. Until then their losses had been light but, as they entered the open street, the second wave of cavalry swarmed them. It takes courage to stand in the open and not run when a solid wall of horsemen comes at you, sabers ablaze with reflected sunlight. The men of Haapsalu stood their ground but the enemy came faster than they could reload. Twenty minutes after the first cannon shell burst, the path to the harbor was open to the invaders. *** Martha and her son got to the main street fatigued and out of breath. The sound of gunfire let up momentarily and Martha permitted herself a sigh of relief. The sound of horse hooves, heavy and resonant in the deserted street, wiped that relief away. Though the harbor drew the main force, the Binders had attracted one trooper's attention. Unlike his fellows, the man wore an astrakhan cap and his sword was a curved Cossack saber. He looked at Martha's tiny doe-eyed face framed by the heavy military overcoat and his features formed into a sadistic grin. Ruvim, hidden behind his mother's skirt escaped his attention entirely: all that the man saw was a tiny white-faced woman apparently too petrified to flee. The calloused hand of the soldier jerked the reigns and his massive stallion started towards Martha. Steadily, it gained speed and fairly flew over the cobblestones. The iron horseshoes beat out sparks. The curved blade hissed out of its scabbard and flew up for an overhead stroke. Fifty paces separating the actors shrank to thirty, then twenty. Behind the yellow eyes of the rider, his brain imagined the curves that the sword would soon lay bare and bloody. The head of the warhorse was only ten paces away from target when Martha sidestepped. Ruvim followed, his hands latched onto her sash. Though she dared not look away from the approaching death, Martha's back felt the shocked stillness of her son. As she stepped out of the path of the oncoming horse, her double pivoted up against the delicate shoulder and a tiny hand used to small game cocked both hammers. The birdshot took the horse in the face and the huge animal missed a step and skidded past her, spilling the rider in the process. His head was just rising off the ground when Martha discharged her other barrel with the muzzle almost touching his ear. She broke the breech out of habit, drawing a pair of paper-hulled charges from her pocket. Then the mother and son ran to the wharf, a glistening maroon fan of wetness radiating from the rider's ruined head left behind them. Martha and her son managed to reach the ship. They were shivering from the cold wind and colder salt spray on board of the escaping steamer by the time the first soldiers galloped onto the wharf. A hundred meters in the wake of the ship, the mounted Bolsheviks fired revolvers at it. The shipboard Maxim mounted aft of the smokestack flailed at the land, spraying hot brass onto the heads of the refugees who crowded the main deck. The fire from the wharf ceased. Shouts of alarm came from the bow of "Galatea": a coastal gunboat entered the harbor to complete the encirclement. It fired a shot that threw up water and ice chunks just astern of the freighter. No one was sure if that was a warning or a ranging shot. The steamer kept her course but she could not run, nor could she fight with the decks thick with refugees and no cannon. Salvation came from an agency quite unexpected. Since 1917, two British torpedo boats had been stationed in Haapsalu, at anchor in the summer, pulled into dry dock for the winter. That morning they took to sea and now were a kilometer South of the two merchant vessels. The ice was still thin enough that they could break through without damaging their fragile hulls. The boats were headed away from land when their crews observed the second shot from the ship intercepting the refugee hauler. An explosive shell burst amidships and mangled bodies tumbled thickly in the air as they fell overboard or were slammed into the ship's superstructure. At once, the torpedo boats turned around. The light grey hulls and the gasoline motors which gave off little smoke let the English get close. The lookouts on the hostile gunboat had just spotted the torpedo boats, when they launched all of their torpedoes, two each. The thin ice hid the telltale wakes and made evasive maneuvers impossible, even had there been time. Two of the twelve-inch steel missiles hit and broke the Bolshvik ship in half. Although the frigid water was lethal enough, the British sailors closed in and strafed the bobbing head to make sure. Meanwhile, the two three-inch guns had ceased bombarding the town. Their crews moved to the hill from which Otto was watching the battle. There they staked the limbers, spread out open ammunition boxes and prepared to fire on the escaping "Galatea". They saw the torpedo boats after the torpedoes were already away. When the British sailors closed in to exact retribution, the guns on the hill boomed as one. The first salvo was meant to get range but one of the two shots scored a freak hit on the torpedo boat nearest to it. The twenty-ton vessel floundered at once. Its surviving twin raced for safety, columns of explosions dotting its course. "Galatea" lumbered for the relative safety of greater range but it was making eight knots to the torpedo boat's sixteen and would still be in range when the other target ceased to occupy the gunners. From his house, Otto Binder saw the gunners curse and re-lay their guns for the freighter as the first target slipped out of range. He walked towards them, with a birding double slung across his back and a "broomhandle" Mauser pistol tucked tightly by his hip. The first cannon shell went well over the refugees' heads to break ice harmlessly further in the bay. The second cannon was closer to its mark. As the breech recoiled back and the muzzle blast smashed at eardrums, Otto extended a pistol almost to contact with his target and shot the gunner in the back of the head. They were slow to alarm and he got the other gunner, too. Three more shots dropped the officer who never did get his own holster open. The rest of the gun crews were unarmed, their rifles stacked some ten paces away. Had Otto commanded them to surrender, they would have obeyed. He did not. He simply shot the man nearest to him, then the next. The rest broke for the rifle pyramid and then his Mauser was empty. He reached for the clips in his pocket but saw the soldiers reach their weapons and dropped the pistol to free his hands for the shotgun. Hip shots aimed at Otto went wild, and he dropped the one man who had taken the time to aim by discharging both barrels at him at once. Reloading deftly, the typesetter swung at the remaining five. All six men fired at simultaneously and the fight was over. Four men were still standing, one holding onto his ribs where pellets struck. Otto Binder was not among the standing. *** "Galatea" steamed out of range and was safe. Although twenty of her passengers froze to death by landfall in Libau, Martha and Ruvim survived. Those who stayed in Haapsalu fared worse: the Bolsheviks had only time to execute a few before withdrawing, but they made up for that oversight in 1940.