by Ralph Peters
Already weary of their fun, the soldiers acquiesced to Sergeant Kassabian’s paper-thin commands. Sergeant Kassabian wielded bits of half-remembered officer talk from old field exercises, struggling to please the lieutenant. The soldiers slumped off to guard the doors and windows. Shortly afterward, Lieutenant Korchuk disappeared back into the night. But the soldiers remained in their separate rooms, as much from inertia as from duty, as quiet as exhausted children.
Leonid and Seryosha took possession of an upstairs bedroom. The furniture had been toppled, and the mattress lay on the floor, where one of the soldiers had urinated on it. The two boys put down their rifles and flipped the mattress, then lifted it back onto the bed frame. They agreed that they would take turns sleeping — Seryosha first — after Leonid cleaned his uniform top. He carefully stuffed his precious cassette tapes into his trouser pockets and bent to his labor by the light of a dying candle. Water still ran in the pipes, and Leonid soaked and scrubbed his spattered tunic in the bathtub, as much impressed by the water pressure as by the luxury of the fixtures.
Leonid sat peaceably at the window as Seryosha drowsed, then muttered a few unintelligible words before beginning to snore with martial regularity. In a state of weariness that could not measure time, Leonid watched the brilliant display of battle on the horizon, the nighttime sequel to his own experience, in a war that had moved beyond him. He thought about music, and of how painful it would be at first to re-form the calluses on the fingertips of his left hand. He closed his eyes, chording his guitar in his mind. Twice he nearly collapsed into sleep, and the second time he woke himself just in time to see a beautiful pageant of colored rockets in the distance. The colored stars trailed off in slow deaths that filled Leonid with sadness to a depth he had never before known. The thought of the most trivial detail of home gained the power to bring tears to his eyes, and when he thought of his mother, the tears fell down his cheeks in the darkness just as the distant starbursts dropped into the darkened woodlands. Pulled loose from any real sense of the hours, he concluded that the night must be nearly over, and he carefully dried his eyes and the adolescent coarseness of his cheeks. Timidly, he began the task of waking Seryosha. He felt as though he would give anything just to sleep for a little while.
When Seryosha finally forced himself awake and stamped off to the guardpost at the window, Leonid told himself that he was lucky to have such a friend. His tunic was still too wet to wear, and he lay on the ammonia-scented mattress, wrapped in a coverlet ripped by the horseplay of his comrades. In a matter of minutes, he wept himself to sleep, filled with a vast, sorrowing, and indiscriminate feeling of love for his fellow man.
Twelve
At first, the enemy tanks were only a big, chilling noise in the darkness. Then the flares went up, and Senior Sergeant Hornik spotted the first huge vehicles working their way up along the highway beyond the meadow covered by his unit. The enemy were clinging to the treeline on the far side of the road. The steel monsters grumbled into his antitank gun’s zone of fire, and he worked with the other crew members to train the gun on the vehicle in the enemy formation that had most fully exposed its flank. He ordered his crew about with sharp, nervous commands, and the voices of the other gun commanders in the antitank battery seemed to echo him.
Ranging was very difficult. The light of the parachute flares had a garish, flattening effect that simultaneously seemed to freeze everything and to create small phantom movements just off center from the observer’s line of sight. The crews had been forced to hurriedly assess ranges and develop range cards with selected engagement points in the last twilight, while the engineers to their front raced to lay every last possible mine. Hornik had nonetheless felt confident as darkness draped over the guns. But now it was almost impossible to grasp the true perspective and distance to the target.
The enemy tanks sensed they were in for it. They deployed off the road, moving slowly toward the battery, hampered by the soggy terrain. Their turrets hunted targets, like animals setting their noses to the wind. Hornik felt confident that the guns were well camouflaged, and he ordered his men to remain still. But an enemy tank fired and, in an instant, the dreadful clang of a round striking metal ruptured the integrity of the treeline. Shouts and screams followed in the wake of the blast.
How could they see? Hornik wondered. How could the enemy tank have detected a camouflaged gun position in the dark?
“Fire!”
The antitank guns responded in a broken volley.
None of the rounds found their mark, and the enemy tanks returned the fire with unnerving accuracy. But their movements seemed confused by the antitank ambush. Some drew back toward folds in the ground or into the trees on the far side of the road, while others did the opposite by moving out into the open, advancing on the battery.
One of the leading enemy tanks bleached white in an explosion that seemed to ripple the metal. Hornik decided that the vehicle had struck one of the antitank mines. He could see rounds from other antitank guns striking the enemy tanks now as the gunners found the correct lay. Yet there seemed to be no pronounced damage, even when a round hit dead on. The greatest triumph of the entire battery was a shot that broke loose a track, which briefly reared like a giant snake, then flopped lifelessly, leaving the vehicle stranded in the middle of the meadow.
“Fire at the one that stopped,” Hornik yelled to anyone who could hear him, and he settled himself behind the optics of his own piece. The loader hurriedly slammed another round into the breech. Hornik went as carefully as his nerves and hands would allow, realigning to seek the most vulnerable point on the enemy vehicle.
“Fire.”
The round struck. But Hornik could see no difference in the state of the vehicle after the flash and sparks had cleared away. For a moment, the vehicle had seemed to be engulfed in flame. But it was all illusion.
Hornik could not understand why these monsters would not die.
“Reload,” he barked. “Hurry up.”
Hornik stayed with his gun. The enemy tanks came on, blasting the battery into junk. The other crew members deserted him. But Hornik struggled to get off one last shot, cursing at the top of his lungs, filled with so much hatred for the closing enemy that he felt his fury alone must stop them.
Leonid awoke to the enormous noise of Seryosha’s machine gun firing through the window frame. Seryosha screamed and, for a moment, rocketing awake, Leonid thought his comrade had been wounded. But Seryosha was only shouting for help, as though Leonid might be reinforcement enough to halt the advancing enemy.
Leonid sat on the bed for a moment, unsure what to do. Outside the window, the world flashed. He felt for and pulled on his still-wet tunic, a reflex from hundreds of awakenings in the barracks. It took him several more seconds to locate his load-bearing equipment with the ammunition pouches and his assault rifle. All the while, Seryosha screamed for him and cursed at the world beyond the window.
Fitting himself in beside Seryosha and the piercing pak-pak-pak of the light machine gun, Leonid tried to decipher the situation. Outside, the garden and the field that led back to the treeline glimmered with speckles and broken trails of light. Fiery streaks hurtled chaotically.
“They’re all around us,” Seryosha shouted at him as he loaded a fresh magazine into the machine gun. “Shoot.” And Seryosha dropped the heavy barrel back onto the windowsill.
“I can’t see anything,” Leonid said.
“Just shoot. Shoot at the lights.”
Leonid obeyed, still trying to recover a waking balance. The noise of their two weapons firing in the small room hammered at Leonid’s ears, telegraphing sharp physical pulses into his brain.
The fighting vehicle parked beside the house blew up, shaking the building and jolting the two boys against each other. Seryosha lost his balance and let go a wild burst of machine-gun fire as he fell. Leonid braced himself against the side of the window, watching in wonder as the pink glow of the burning vehicle revealed running figures. Without co
nscious thought, he raised his weapon and fired in the direction of a shadow scurrying along the edge of the radiance. But his effort seemed lost, devoured in the wildness of the firefight. Countless beads of light chased one another at dizzying speeds.
An unexpected blast downstairs shook the floor beneath them. Voices shouted in a stew of languages, and automatic weapons fired thunderously inside the building. The hallway flickered with light, and booted feet thumped across the floor downstairs. Leonid and Seryosha crouched behind the toppled furniture of the bedroom, weapons pointed at the doorway. Leonid watched with his mouth hanging open, breathing almost suspended.
The boots crashed from room to room. The noise sounded like at least an enemy platoon to the two boys. The enemy soldiers hunted about downstairs for what seemed an unreasonably long time. Then one pair of boots began to climb the stairs.
A voice called out in a foreign language, and another voice answered from the stairwell. Leonid expected a grenade to sail in through the open doorway. But instead, the soldier on the stairs turned about and went back down. The cassette tapes Leonid had stuffed into the pockets of his trousers cut into his flesh. It felt as though most of the plastic had splintered into shards. He wondered if the enemy would shoot him for stealing when they found him. He wondered if he should call out and volunteer to surrender. He didn’t want the enemy to be angry at him. Lieutenant Korchuk had told them that the Germans and Americans always killed their prisoners. Some of the soldiers didn’t believe Korchuk, but now, Leonid decided it was better not to take the chance. He lay still, doing nothing.
Incredibly, the booted feet began to leave the house, fading back into the bigger noise outside. The huge sound of tanks in rapid movement made the air tremble. The fire glow from the burning vehicle outside lit salmon-colored ripples and waves on the ceiling of the bedroom.
“We’re in the shit now,” Seryosha whispered.
Senior Lieutenant Zirinsky had no idea how long he had been fighting. The night seemed endless, a stubborn, miserable, unyielding thing. One by one, he had watched as his tanks were destroyed. It seemed totally unreasonable. Losing one or even a few might be expected in battle. But Zirinsky had watched six often explode in less than five minutes, several losing their turrets like caps popping off shaken seltzer bottles. He had almost immediately lost radio contact with the rest of his company, if any of them remained alive and capable of carrying on the fight. And he had begun the long game of cat and mouse with the enemy.
He had been ordered to hold the crossroads. The terrain ran low, with marshlands everywhere. The only practical way to pass armored vehicles through the area was to stay on the roads. And one lonely country crossroads tied the local network of roads and trails together.
Zirinsky figured that his antenna had been torn away by the artillery fire. Or that a nonlethal hit on his tank had knocked out the sets. The vehicle was so battered now it was impossible to tell exactly what cause had been responsible for each failure. He had no idea what the situation was like in the overall battalion sector, let alone from the regimental perspective. He hoped the others were in better condition than he was.
His unit had moved up from a holding area in East Germany, crossing the border in midafternoon. As they progressed deeper into the west more and more of the litter of battle had begun to punctuate the landscape. But no rounds had sought them out, and the aircraft up in the gray murk had ignored them. Except for countless unscheduled stops and starts, and the hectic confusion at the traffic control points, their march had been almost administrative in its tone, with the battle seeming to flee before them, always outside of their moving domain.
In the evening, his unit had been halted unexpectedly and ordered to deploy into hasty defensive positions oriented to face a threat from the southwest. Several of the officers were furious. They had all expected to race to the attack, to thrust deeply and dramatically into West Germany, each man in accordance with his own fantasy of himself. Then they were given the distinctly less glamorous mission of providing flank security. The battalion commander had protested that it was a poor use of his new tanks. But orders were orders. Zirinsky had occupied his defensive positions in the dark, disappointed that the battalion commander had not chosen his company to be held back behind the other two, where it could act as a mobile force in response to any threat that developed. Instead, Govolov’s company had been positioned to the rear. Zirinsky wondered where in the hell Govolov was now.
The sky had cracked open with artillery fire, totally without warning, catching some of the tanks with their hatches open. Then the enemy tanks had come on swiftly, hampered only by the necessity of sticking closely to the roads. The enemy tanks were enormous Leopards, almost twice the bulk of Zirinsky’s own vehicles. And the enemy’s fire superiority made it clear very quickly that they had superior night-fighting equipment on board. The Leopards had initiated the engagement at what seemed an excessive range for night combat, and Zirinsky had lost a platoon before he could effectively range the enemy. Then the firefight had begun in earnest.
When you hit the enemy tanks, they died. Zirinsky had taken that one positive lesson to heart as his only consolation. He listened to the pleas of his platoon leaders for help, but he had no help to offer them. He brusquely ordered them to take control of themselves and fight back.
The engagement seemed lost. The enemy tanks surged forward behind another deluge of artillery, moving very well, unbothered by any need to maintain close formations. At first, the wet terrain seemed to cooperate, accepting the weight of the Leopards as they maneuvered off the lifeline of the road. And Zirinsky accepted that he was going to die. But he was determined to fight it out. He felt himself fill with a wordless, unreasoning hatred of the enemy, with a desire not only to destroy them, but to cause them all possible pain in the process. He let his gunner and driver know beyond any doubt that they were there to fight. He coolly began to seek fresh targets, awaiting the fatal enemy round that would finish him off and give the enemy the crossroads.
But the enemy pulled back. They had been so close. Zirinsky could not understand it. The enemy’s losses had been minimal in comparison to his own.
Then they came again. Zirinsky had found a good fighting position, tucked as closely as the heat would allow behind the smoldering wreck of one of his own tanks. Again, the enemy delivered artillery in his vicinity. But this time it seemed little more than a drizzle in contrast to the earlier storm.
The enemy tanks dashed forward in bounds. Zirinsky waited, holding back his gunner until the targets were properly illuminated by the infrared searchlight. He identified three enemy tanks that could not get away if he did his work properly. They were obviously searching for him. He waited.
At the last possible moment, Zirinsky engaged the enemy tanks in quick succession, methodically destroying all three. Now it seemed as though the enemy could not even see him, as though he were a ghost. They fired in his general direction, but the rounds went wild, exploding along the treeline.
Zirinsky had already shot up half of his on-board ammunition in the series of engagements. He was especially low on high-velocity sabot now, the best tank killer. He tried his dead radio again, aching to communicate. It seemed to him that holding the crossroads was the most important thing on earth now, and he could not believe that no one had come to reinforce him.
The battlefield glowed with the light of slow-burning hulks, like random campfires. Zirinsky believed that he could count nine enemy tanks that had been put out of action.
The enemy tried a new tactic. A tank platoon raced at full speed down the road off to Zirinsky’s left flank, firing smoke grenades out into the darkness. Soon, the familiar accompaniment of artillery came back to search for Zirinsky’s lone tank. He ordered his driver to back up in order to reposition for a better range of shots.
The tank surged and heaved. But it could not break free of the earth. They were stuck.
Hurriedly, Zirinsky sought the lead tank of the enemy platoo
n before it reached the dead space behind the hulk that also served as Zirinsky’s protection.
His first shot missed.
Forcing himself to execute each step methodically, Zirinsky sent off another round. This one found its mark. The enemy tank began to trail flames, veering off its course.
Zirinsky hunted down the next tank in line and killed that one, too. Two trail vehicles fired madly in his direction.
Zirinsky’s universe was reduced now to the mechanics of destroying tanks. Come on, he thought. Just come on, you bastards. I’m waiting.
After the chief of staff had gone to transform the front commander’s intentions into activities, Malinsky fell into an exhausted doze. The picked-over tray of food lay before him on his desk, and a last cigarette suffocated on the edge of a plate. Malinsky remained vaguely aware that countless tasks had yet to be accomplished, even as he sensed uncomfortably that events were too big for any one man to truly control. He felt as though he were struggling to manage an endless team of wild horses, their broad backs stretching into infinity, while the reins were made of frayed bits of string. Then there were only prancing cart horses, dark against snow, snorting plumes of white steam.
Malinsky recognized the scene. The Urals. So long ago. And it was all exactly as it had been. It was remarkable how little had changed. Except for the sky. He could not understand why the sky had such a golden glow. From horizon to horizon, a gilded sky stretched overhead, making a shimmering tent over the mountain peaks and ridges, shading the snow to deep copper in the crevasses and saddles. And it was very cold. His tiny son held tightly to his gloved hand. Malinsky could feel the boy trembling. They were up so very high. The valley, the houses, all of the world’s familiarity and warmth, seemed lost. Paulina looked at him reproachfully. Paulina, as she had been in those early days, so neat and self-possessed. A treasure of great value, his Paulina. In her big fur coat that nearly hid her face with its collar.