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.