‘Okay, boys, take a seat.’
He gestured to the broken bits that almost covered the floor. Yuri picked out the biggest piece to sit down on, Peter almost sitting on his lap in his effort to stay as close as he could to him. There was one dusty chair and that was for the sergeant. He gave it a quick wipe with his grimy hand and asked, as he sat down, ‘Where were you boys off to anyway?’
Yuri answered him truthfully, ‘Nowhere really, sir. We walk around every day, looking for food and stuff.’
The sergeant was surprised, ‘Do you realise how dangerous that is? The Nazis are monsters; they wouldn’t spare your lives just because you’re children.’
Yuri resented being called a child but felt much too intimidated to complain.
The second soldier cleared his throat, ‘Sir?’ and pointed to his watch.
The sergeant nodded, ‘Yes, Rodimtsev, I know. Time, as usual, is against us’. He turned back to the boys, ‘The thing is, we suspect there to be a group of Nazis hiding out in the cellar, two buildings away from here. You were just about to pass by it when we saw you.’
Peter and Yuri glanced at one another. Peter looked so anxious that Yuri smiled at him to remind him they were safe here.
‘So, my problem is we cannot get near the building without risking men’s lives and we’ve lost too many already. We’d be seen immediately, and we need to know if it’s worth it. You know, if there are definitely soldiers there, how many they are, are there any wounded, or do they have many guns? You understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Yuri replied. In fact, he found all this fascinating. Up to now he had only been concerned with his and Peter’s existence, about what they would do every day and where they could go, forgetting there was a whole other life being lived by the soldiers here.
The sergeant beamed at him. ‘Good, good. Well, there is one way we could find out who we’re dealing with.’
Yuri nodded eagerly, but then felt a sudden chill when the man moved from beaming at him to beaming brilliantly at Peter. ‘We need somebody brave, about your size, to climb through a pipe, like a tunnel, that runs through the two buildings. At some point there will be a grill, or a hole, where you should be able to look down upon them.’
Yuri could hardly keep up with what was being said.
‘Do you think that you could be a big boy and help us. I’m sure you know how to count, don’t you?’
Peter looked at Yuri, and then at the sergeant, and announced solemnly, ‘I can count to twenty-two!’
The grumpy soldier rolled his eyes. ‘Pity’s sake!’
‘Hush, now,’ said the sergeant. ‘Show me how you can count, then.’
Peter let go of Yuri’s hand and stood up, and in a tiny voice, began at the beginning, ‘One, two, three …’ all the way to twenty-two.
‘Peter,’ muttered an incredulous Yuri, ‘Twenty-three comes next, like three comes after two.’
This information did not seem to interest the boy in the least and he sat back down again.
The sergeant, however, was satisfied, explaining, ‘Just knowing that there’s more than ten Germans would be a huge help to us.’
In spite of himself Yuri nodded again; what the man said made perfect sense however much he disliked the plan. ‘Sir,’ he asked, ‘Perhaps I could do it? I’m a good climber.’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘Afraid not, lad, you’re too wide.’
The sergeant understood the older boy’s concerns but did not bother to acknowledge them. That was the thing about war; one neither had the luxury of time nor a selection of cast-iron solutions. Once a decision was made there was nothing to do but put it in motion. So this usually kindly man ignored Yuri to concentrate fully on the timid child who looked to be the same age as his little Sasha. Stifling the thought that he would kill any man who would dare ask his child to do what he was asking of this boy, he focused on boosting Peter’s confidence, ‘So, what do you say, sonny? Do you want to crawl into the pipe and then come back and tell us what you see? You could do that, couldn’t you?’
Obviously, Yuri was more afraid for Peter than Peter was because he nodded his head and said proudly, ‘Yes, sir.’ Where was the scared little boy who couldn’t pee unless Yuri was with him?
The sergeant issued his instructions, ‘Now, you must be as quiet as can be. Just crawl very slowly, there’s no need to rush at all. It is so important that the Germans don’t hear you in the pipe.’ He stared at Yuri, beckoning him to back him up.
Yuri hesitated, unclear about his feelings, but one look at the sergeant’s face told him that this was going to happen no matter what. The least he could do was help Peter stay safe. He turned the boy to face him, ‘Listen, Peter, you cannot let the soldiers know that you’re there, and that you can see them, or they will be really, really angry with you. Do you understand?’
The little head bobbed up and down. ‘Yes, Yuri!’
‘Right, comrade. Let’s go then.’ The sergeant lifted him up and pretended to whisper, promising Peter that if he did a good job, he’d win a huge piece of sausage for both himself and his friend.
Peter flashed Yuri a smile of utter delight while Yuri felt a sudden sharp pain, as if his heart had been pierced right through.
‘Okay, boys, we have to go up the stairs to where the pipe is. Follow me.’
As they passed the exhausted group of soldiers, a couple of them quietly wished Peter good luck.
Heading up the broken steps, Yuri wasn’t at all convinced that Peter would go through with it, mostly expecting him to climb into the pipe, crawl a few inches forward and then come straight back to him, in tears. But he didn’t. In fact, Peter didn’t so much as glance in Yuri’s direction. Puffed out with the importance of having the sergeant place his trust in him, he simply climbed into the pipe, and disappeared almost immediately.
There was a nasty smell and it was dark, two things that normally would have stopped Peter in his tracks, but he wasn’t going to let them stop him now. In all his years – all five of them – he had never been asked to do something important for a grown-up. Larissa had once asked him to kiss her, which had felt important, but this was completely different. He knew he had surprised Yuri with his bravery and now he wanted to show the sergeant what he could do. Wondering how much longer the pipe was, he crawled forward using his elbows and knees, making sure to do so as quietly and carefully as possible.
He knew that the men he would be counting were the ones who had destroyed his home and taken his mother away from him forever. They were bad men, while the sergeant and his friends were the good ones, so they should be the winners. And that was what he was helping them to do: win.
A few minutes later, he heard muffled voices talking in a language he didn’t recognise which meant that they must be German. Holding his breath, he stopped moving but then remembered that he had to count the men, not just know that they were definitely there. What a silly boy he was. He almost forgot the most important thing. Edging himself forward again, he pretended he was a snail with a heavy shell and could only move very, very slowly. Snails never made a sound, no matter what. They didn’t whistle like birds, or click like beetles, or chirp like crickets. But could they hear stuff? And when their shells were taken off them they looked like lumps of grey snot. It felt like there was snot dribbling out of his nose but he was determined not to sniff. Instead, he used the back of his hand to wipe away whatever was there. Peter believed he was being an excellent snail and, on top of everything, he could listen to the soldiers below.
There was light up ahead from a small hole in the pipe. It wasn’t that big, but when he peeked through it he could see a room below containing a group of men. This was exciting, sneaking up on people who had no idea he was there. Grinning to himself in the darkness, Peter strained his eyes to see as much as he could. Well, they were soldiers alright, all wearing the same dirty uniform, and he could see guns too. One soldier was trying to look out the window, without being seen from outside. Peter could ha
ve taught him a thing or two about that, since children were a lot better than adults at hiding and spying.
Two soldiers were hunched over a box on the floor; one was talking into a telephone while his friend was writing in his notebook. Two more soldiers sat on the floor cleaning their rifles. They smoked and talked to one another in low murmurs. None of the men appeared to be enjoying themselves, but then the Russian soldiers didn’t seem very happy either, although the sergeant was nice and friendly to him. Peter was glad he wasn’t a soldier; it looked really boring. He was about to start pushing himself backwards when a sudden movement in a corner of rubble caught his eye. What was that? Inching himself forward another tiny bit, he waited to see it again. There! Something was definitely there. The soldiers hadn’t noticed anything, but Peter was on red alert. Moving his head this way and that, he wished someone would push the broken bricks out of the way. Whatever it was, it was darting up between them and disappearing immediately after. Wait a minute, he knew what it was, it’s a rat! And he was the only one who knew it was there. It’s spying on the soldiers just like him; isn’t it clever? Wait until I tell Yuri I saw a rat and I wasn’t afraid of it!
Peter had been quite scared of the rats in the sewer. They were so big and there were so many of them, but here it was different. Nothing could touch him while he was all the way up here. The rat edged itself out through a tiny crack, stood up on its two back legs, its nose daintily prodding the air, and still, no one noticed it. Peter felt giddy as he stiffened his body to catch every single second of the fun. However, his jam-packed nose was annoying him so he instinctively did a big sniff to suck the gooey snot back up inside his head and out of the way. Ah, that was better.
In an instant he knew he had done something wrong, though really all he had done was sniff his nose and there was nothing wrong with that. But perhaps he shouldn’t have since the soldier who had been staring out the window was now staring hard at the ceiling. He said something to the two who were cleaning their rifles, and they peered up too. Peter wondered if he should go back now, but then felt the word NO vibrate through his entire being, so he stayed put. His cheeks were red with shame; he really did not want to get into trouble. Forgetting all about the rat, he pretended he was one of the laughing children at the fountain who couldn’t ever move no matter how frightened they got. The soldier at the window raised his rifle in Peter’s direction and, for a second, or two, nobody stirred or said a word. Peter felt his heartbeat quicken and it hurt to breathe quietly. He was afraid of getting caught, making the Germans angry and upsetting the sergeant and Yuri. Not even the gun aimed at the area around his head prompted him to worry about anything worse than that.
One of the soldiers sitting on the floor exchanged a glance with his friend and got to his feet, his rifle pointing in the same direction. Peter’s scalp began to itch. It started off as a little niggle just above his ear, and stretched into a full-blown, head-thrashing kind of itch, where it felt like every hair on his head was being tugged by hungry lice.
Meanwhile, all Yuri could do was wait with the sergeant and his corporal, which wasn’t as easy as it sounded. He asked, ‘If something happens, can we fetch him back straight away? Will we be able to hear him if he needs us?’
The sergeant kept himself too busy to look at Yuri, taking his time to find a cigarette in his pocket and then begin a second search for his box of matches, eventually saying, ‘Oh … sure, sure.’
Yuri was not comforted by this answer. It was as if he had asked if the sky was blue, and the sergeant hadn’t bothered checking outside to discover that the sky was actually grey with dark clouds; he’d merely said blue since most people believed that blue was the nicest colour for the sky, and, therefore, the nicest answer of all.
Yuri sat down to wait but then stood back up again. Needing to move around, he walked over to a window to gaze through it.
‘Wouldn’t do that, son,’ warned the sergeant, as his corporal seemed ready to tackle him to the ground. ‘There are snipers everywhere, especially in this area.’
Feeling more than a little embarrassed, Yuri returned to where he had been sitting. ‘Sorry!’
The sergeant settled himself onto a few of the bigger bricks and began to blow rings of smoke towards the sky. ‘It’s all about learning lessons, at the end of the day. What’s your name anyway?’
‘Yuri. Yuri Bogdanov.’
‘Well, Yuri Bogdanov, have you heard of the legendary Vasily Zaitsev, our top sniper?’
Yuri replied, ‘No, sir.’
The corporal, who had been watching him rather suspiciously, asked, ‘Do you know what a sniper is?’
Blushing guiltily, Yuri hated admitting, ‘Well, no. Not really.’
‘Huh!’ the corporal exclaimed. ‘Thought as much!’
The sergeant smiled at both their sulky faces. ‘Really, Rodimtsev, why would he know? He’s not in the army, is he?’ Taking a puff of his cigarette, he went on to explain, ‘A sniper is a special soldier with perfect eye-sight, a steady hand, a great deal of patience and, of course, his rifle. His job is to hide somewhere, if necessary for days on end, in order to get as close as possible to the Fritzes to shoot as many as he can. He has to lie completely still since any movement will attract the attention of the German sniper who is looking, in turn, to kill him.’
Ignoring the corporal’s smirk, Yuri nodded at the sergeant, grateful for the lesson.
‘Now, our Vasily has his own system. He uses a shop dummy, wearing bits of Red Army uniform, and positions it where the Germans will see it. Naturally they think it’s a Russian sniper and they fire at it from wherever they are hiding, in other words letting Vasily know exactly where they are. And that’s how he always gets his man.’ The sergeant took a long pull on his cigarette. ‘Never forget this, Yuri, the best plan is usually the simplest one.’
A second or two passed while Yuri thought about this and then his eyes flickered once more to the pipe. Noting this, the sergeant asked, ‘How long has it been now, Rodimtsev?
‘Twelve minutes, sir.’
‘Hmm, early days yet, I’d say. Wouldn’t you agree?’
The corporal grimaced. ‘With all respect, sir, you did tell him to take his time.’
His superior blinked heavily and sighed, ‘Yes, Corporal Rodimtsev, I certainly did, because it didn’t make sense to have the child stumble and be riddled with bullets before he had a chance to tell us anything!’
Yuri swallowed a gasp and shot Rodimtsev the dirty look he deserved. ‘Sir?’ A question had just occurred to him and he felt the sergeant just might be able to answer it. ‘When will it – the war – be over?’
The man stubbed out his cigarette on the ground beside him and said, ‘As soon as we clobber the Nazis, Yuri, as soon as that. But I tell you this much, we have to win.’
Yuri was not impressed with being told something that was all too obvious. Of course they had to win the war, what was the point otherwise? The sergeant decided to explain some more, ‘Hitler is overcoming all his enemies, country by country. So, it is up to us to stop him. We have got to win this battle, Yuri. The world is holding its breath because if he takes Stalingrad, it makes it easier for him to take Russia, and if he takes Russia, then God help us all. In other words, this city is playing host to one of the most important battles ever to take place.’
Too overwhelmed to make a decent reply, Yuri could only say ‘Oh’.
Peter was determined not to move until he really, really had to. He could win this game, he was sure he could, the game of who could stay still the longest. The two soldiers hushed the others and stood firmly side by side with their rifles propped against their shoulders. Peter fancied they looked a little scared too, perhaps they thought he was a ghost. His head was itchy though, getting worse and worse. The only thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was to scratch it, just one quick, hard scratch, that’s all. His fingers ached to do their business. Surely it would be okay. Closing his eyes, blocking out the Germans
, he finally gave in, sliding his right hand up to the crown of his head and tearing at it as fast as he could. At the sound of shouting, he opened his eyes again.
Two shots rang out.
Yuri jumped up while the sergeant lowered his head. An expression of genuine surprise flitted across the corporal’s face as he looked over at the pipe’s opening, hoping for an answer.
‘Is that them, the Germans next door?’ Yuri asked, desperately wanting someone to contradict him.
Rodimtsev walked over to the pipe, poked his head inside and listened for anything at all. His sergeant lit another cigarette and studied his boots.
Yuri stood, petrified, waiting for someone to say something. He couldn’t understand the two men; they didn’t seem to appreciate that Peter could be hurt, that those bullets could have been fired at him. ‘Sir,’ he asked, ‘what are we going to do?’
The sergeant decided that now was as good a time as any to tell a simple truth, ‘Nothing. We can do nothing.’
Peter was trembling all over, and much too shocked to cry for the rat that had been splattered all over the floor. The two soldiers laughed and shook hands while the boy above them had had enough, he crawled backwards, able to ignore the lice and his dribbling nose thanks to the killing he had just witnessed. One day he might realise that the rat had saved him from a similar fate. He edged himself back, looking forward to seeing Yuri again and to receiving his prize of more food.
‘Listen!’ said Rodimtsev. ‘Someone is coming.’
Taking comfort in the fact that there was no way for a man to fit in the pipe, Yuri stood beside the corporal, straining his ears for a hint that the sound of shuffling was definitely Peter. He leant forward and was rewarded with the sound of a familiar little sniff. That nose could be completely dry of anything and he’d still have to sniff as if he had a bad cold. Sure enough, Peter’s feet gradually appeared in view. Yuri waited, dazed, fighting the urge to cry out in relief. Muscling Rodimtsev out of the way, he made sure that he was the one to pull Peter out of the pipe. Peter was triumphant in his return, though innocent of how narrow his chances had been just a few minutes earlier. He smiled at the three of them in turn.
City of Fate Page 7