The Man From Talalaivka

by Olga Chaplin

  The captain waved his men on, to clear the junction, save whatever stock they could. The interpreter pulled at Peter’s sleeve: he, too, was required to mop up. Even without his veterinary supplies, he could still check, and indicate, which livestock could be saved. His stomach tightening again, mind numbed by the resounding blasts, he prepared himself for the slaughter before them. There would be few, if any, prisoners left in the wake of this ambitious General Guderian’s daring attack. His successes were legendary in the German Reich, even before his panzergruppe army began its diversionary south-westward hammer-swing from Russia’s Smolensk back into the Ukraine, on Hitler’s insistence, towards the final battle of Kiev.

  * * *

  “Hurry! Hurry! The commandant has arrived! We must hand-over now, and you must be explained!” The interpreter’s message rang out through the office, his eyes flashing with excitement as he ran back to the courtyard. Peter nodded to Andreye, his assistant, and clasped his shoulder as they headed for the line-up. The Talalaivka office and soldiers’ quarters had a peculiar normality about it, removed from the battles in the east and south. Miraculously his junior had, like him, survived the German invasion and demands of these past weeks.

  It was final, then. The German armies had pushed Stalin’s forces back to Russia’s border, had crushed the Soviet armies at Kiev, boasting its record capture of Soviet soldiers, and were poised, now, awaiting Hitler’s changing orders, for their attack on Moscow from the safety of their secured territory of the Ukraine and Belorussia. Like a chessboard game in which only the dominant player knows the rules with its life-and-death consequences, the German army systematically manoeuvred itself as it installed its commandant in each conquered area, while Hitler’s adversary, Stalin, remained almost mute, bunkered in the Kremlin, even as he prepared his government’s retreat eastward to Kuybyshev. The chessboard game was over, in mid-game. The Ukrainian people and lands would remain in the German army’s control.

  Peter bit his lip, as he waited with the soldiers. Despite all the grotesque fighting, the sacrifice of life from all sides, Stalin’s ‘scorched earth’ policy had almost certainly pre-determined the fate of the Ukraine and its people. Now, once the commandant and his ruthless army unit were ensconced to administer this area, they were under the rule of their new master, Hitler. Peter shook his head, the irony looming before him. His countrymen and women would henceforth—for how long he knew not—be forced to produce the agriculture and industrial goods, in ever-increasing quantities: those very goods and utilities that Hitler’s armies would ultimately use against Russia and other peoples. His countrymen had changed one master for another; their new master, Hitler, just as obsessed with his domination of the Ukraine as the seemingly conquered Stalin.

  He stood at attention, at the incongruously formal hand-over, his shoulders taut, still proud beneath his dusty jacket.

  “Please God … at least let them permit visits to our families sometime,” he prayed in silence. Weeks had passed, with no contact, no word from their kolkhoz village. There was no knowing how Evdokia and the children were faring or if they were still safe. He closed his eyes for a moment. Flashes of his enforced duties in the mop up of Konotop were still so raw and unsettling, reminding him of war’s horrors. All were victims, ultimately. Whatever was to come, and for however long they would be under the subjugation of Hitler’s regime, perhaps, with relative stability, lives would be spared and not wasted in unwinnable battles.

  * * *

  The wind biting at his ears as he made his way on the familiar roadway back to the kolkhoz farmhouse, Peter tugged at his jacket collar and let out a deep sigh. He smiled to himself. At last he could contemplate his home-coming. In a moment of emotional release, he even teased himself with child’s names as he whispered a little kaska from earlier days, a simple rhythm that blended with his horse’s mud-clogged pace: “The home of my flower, The home of my youth, She always awaits me, My heart for her to soothe.”

  At the bend in the roadway his horse shuddered, then jerked. Peter strained to look ahead for any obstacles, the afternoon light already casting deep blue shadows across the muddy way. He could see nothing untoward, and flicked the rein. Still, his horse neighed and raised its head, its mane tossing in warning. He steadied the horse and lowered himself, held the rein tight as he looked about towards the thicket. The deepening shadows cut surreal shapes, but something glinting caught his eye. He leaned closer towards the ditch hidden by the thicket.

  Without warning, his back pricked with tension: there was someone tossed there, among the lower branches. He stood back a moment, trying to gauge the situation. He was unarmed, with only his horse as his means of transport, still kilometres from the kolkhoz farmhouse. And light would soon fade, the bitter autumn night treacherous in this unpredictable climate. But he could not leave this man there: the ditch was already water-logged; the nightly rain would fill it to the muddy roadway.

  He took a deep breath, pushed aside his disappointment that he would not reach Evdokia before night fell. He tightened the reins at the adjoining tree and clambered down the muddy incline, the pungent musty undergrowth confounding his senses. He could not understand how this German soldier could be here, on his own, not to have been missed by his senior or his unit. He felt for a pulse, put his ear to the face. There was still sign of life. He felt along the man’s torso, his head and neck. His leg was broken; he was unconscious, concussed.

  Peter felt for a rifle, or gun, his stomach tightening as his fingers searched for a nozzle or trigger that might discharge at him. Somehow it was mislaid as he fell – from a horse, a wagon, or army truck. This soldier may even have come by motorcycle, with a message. He tensed as he considered these possibilities and realised it was possible this could still be the work of partisan activity, before all opposition to the German takeover was eliminated, and that he, too, could be targeted for interfering with this German soldier.

  He straightened a moment, dug his boots into the bushes for balance. It would be easy enough to leave the German soldier in this ditch. It was even possible his body would not be found for some time. But he was still alive, and could possibly survive if he received immediate help. On the other hand, if there was still partisan action in these parts, it was possible that their own kolkhoz could be unfairly implicated. Reprisals would automatically follow.

  But over-riding the fear of these consequences, he felt pity for this man who could only be saved with fast, direct intervention. Whatever his personal views may be of this injured soldier of Hitler’s army, the man, too, had kin who cared for him, waited for him to return to them. Peter swallowed, salty lips and muddy water beads reminding him that he, too, was parched, exhausted. He braced himself. He could not in conscience abrogate the responsibility to help a wounded man who had not, to his knowledge, tried to injure him or his family.

  He grabbed a few soft branches, placed them under the flagging leg, secured it with the soldier’s belt, and manoeuvred him out of the ditch. There was little choice: all medical help was back at Talalaivka. With almost his last breath he hauled the man over his horse, positioned astride, at its neck, braced himself behind him and reined his horse back to Talalaivka. The doctors, the medications, were there. He could do no more than this. He knew he would not need to look back over his own shoulder, to question his conscience or to remind himself one day that he would have let not only himself down, but humanity as well. With all else taken from them—dignity, pride, self-determination—it was the only credo which he and his compatriots had left to keep.

  It would have to serve them well, and long, for the duration of Hitler’s occupation of their Ukraine.

  Chapter 23

  September 1943

  Heart pounding uncontrollably, Peter jumped off his horse and threw open the farmhouse door. “Dyna, dite, ve doma?” An elder, startled, shook his head and pointed. Evdokia and the children were not yet back from the fields. Nor was Vanya. His heart sank as he tried to contain his feelings
of foreboding of events about to be played out in their region. He must find Vanya, protect him from imminent danger. Everything had changed so rapidly these past few weeks. To their north Konotop, the German army’s last remaining supply line for its control over this area, had just fallen. Talalaivka, north-west of Romny, was only just holding its grip for the German army’s evacuation and retreat westward.

  The German commandant knew this. Almost too late, he had received his evacuation orders from Hitler’s Army High Command, the OKH, which was still in disbelief and still unwilling to concede defeat in this region. Peter, in his punishingly long veterinary rounds, saw preparations for evacuation already taking place. He winced, now, as he thought of the choices given them, to his Ukrainian compatriots, as their military and political masters were about to change their iron fist batons again. He did not need to speculate far to see what lay ahead of them. News of German evacuation and retreats had been propagandised through Stalin’s henchmen, exaggeratedly, but realistically, pointing out the atrocities of the German Hun as he left their lands.

  German military confidence had been dealt a huge blow in this summer of 1943. The Red Army, like an unquenchable monolithic giant girded to avenge these past two years, cut a massive military swathe with its new scythe of impenetrable armour to win back every kilometre of Stalin’s lost territory. Despite horrific loss of life, the Red Army was now unstoppable. It had buried forever Hitler’s hopes of conquering Moscow, had fought to the death to win back Stalingrad, symbol of both totalitarian goliaths’ might, and it had crippled Hitler and Goering’s Luftwaffe in the sacrificial battle for Kursk. Orel had fallen next to this almost obsessed Russian war machine, intent on making good Stalin’s promise to push Hitler’s armies back to western Europe. Then Kharkov, Ukraine’s eastern city, now back in Russian hands. German military strongholds in these vital areas were now gone, their life-pumping supply lines permanently cut. The small railway junction from Talalaivka was the German army’s only remaining hope for a hasty retreat from this area. Peter knew this. The German commandant’s orders for him to inspect the remaining horses for transport, confirmed this.

  He ran to the fields, heart pounding recklessly. Evdokia, still tending to the solitary kolkhoz milking cow, looked up at her husband in relief, received his kiss on her dishevelled forehead. Little Mykola and tiny Nadia ran to him through spiky stubs, the harvested wheat having long completed its journey west to feed Hitler’s war machine. Soft early September light surreptitiously seeped away, transforming the wheat stubs into a myriad of bullet-like spears across the fields. The sun’s elusive rays had long gone. Ominous shadows spread over the countryside, over the dreaded woods and hill at the extremity of their kolkhoz fields.

  “Dyna,” Peter somehow contained the panic within as he asked, seemingly nonchalantly, “no sign of Vanya yet? He hasn’t returned? Kysma is already finished on his fields. He gave Vanya permission to come home.” Evdokia thoughtfully shook her head, without looking up. His heart sank.

  “Peta,” she ventured softly, “Vanya is hardly home these days. They seem to need him even more on Kysma’s fields. They have few men there too. And you know how fond he is of Shyra. They are both so young, just sixteen, but Kysma likes our Vanya … and, in these times …” She shook her head again, as if unable to contemplate the future. The precariousness of life was not indulgent thinking. It was a reality. Her own beloved older brother, an innocent pawn in the early weeks of fighting for his country, lay somewhere, unknown, on his native soil, one lonely brave soldier among the millions fallen.

  Peter’s stomach tightened, his fear for Vanya too real. He hesitated. His wife could not take more heartache. Her outward calm belied her own inner turmoil, her own grief and anxieties: the dark wells of her eyes, the loss of weight, the sad acceptance of her long hard days, said all. His heart skipped a beat, eyes stinging with pained tears. Looking at his forlorn wife he was reminded, too speedily for him to check his own emotions, of happier past times. And Manya’s death still plagued, tortured, her since that dark day shortly before the German invasion of their region.

  He blinked hard, shutting away private memories, private thoughts. The need to find Vanya was paramount. He had to force himself, remind himself, that their little family was not unique in its pain and hardships. Other families throughout the region suffered similarly, were often dealt even a worse hand in Hitler’s deadly game of stacked cards. Hitler’s murderous regime had cast a huge net, a mighty long shadow, over their beloved Ukraine. What the tyrant’s henchmen Heydrich and Himmler had unleashed and exacted in western Europe, so, too, had their underling Koch exacted from the Ukraine and its people, from the relative safety of his Kiev headquarters. The Nazi regime had gorged well on its ‘breadbasket’ of the Ukraine. Peter knew it would not be relinquished lightly. Everywhere, there were testimonies to their cruel sport. Their ink stains of infamy would indelibly stain their own countrymen as surely as the funereal markings placed on their innocent foes, Jewish and others alike.

  At least, he reminded himself, the commandant of their kolkhoz area had not played sport with their lives. He had allowed them their subsistence living, even observing a peculiar personal respect for these stoic, conquered Ukrainian people. But Peter also knew this could all change at a moment’s notice. Acts of treachery ended in executions, often of whole families. The dangling bodies so often seen in nearby villages earlier in the war, reminders of the Nazi regime’s will to succeed at any cost, were again prevalent with the German retreat as it attempted to contain counter-movements and partisan activity. If Ukrainian life under Stalin was cheap, it was nigh on worthless under Hitler’s tutelage.

  Panic pricked his flesh, his stomach still gripped tensely as they returned to the farmhouse. Dusk had cloaked the kolkhoz fields, but there was still no sign of Vanya. He could not tell his wife of his fears for Vanya. He would not tell her of the fall of Konotop. Evdokia was not a political being, but she knew of the town, its proximity to this kolkhoz area. He needed to find Vanya before tragedy struck. He opened the farmhouse door and kissed Evdokia and tiny Nadia, tousled little Mykola’s white-blonde hair. The waft of familiar nightly broth hit his nostrils but he could not, would not, eat. On pretext of another veterinary check, he manoeuvred his intelligent stead in the direction of the shadowy woods.

  The pitch-black night, eeried by slivers of moonlight that shone like an intermittent beacon over the woods and hill, gave little protection as he tethered his horse under a thicket and gave it his last precious lump of halva kept for this purpose. He patted his loyal companion, grateful it remained silent as if it, too, understood the import of its master’s mission. He crept hesitantly in the direction of the place he knew Vanya had frequented, out of bounds most times. Vanya had found there a reclusive place, seemingly removed from the incomprehensible world in which he lived.

  The German occupation had weighed heavily on his young man’s shoulders. Now, Vanya was so impressionable, even imbued with the ideas of a Ukrainian national resurgence one day, once the German menace was gone. Peter knew better. He had experienced first hand Stalin’s iron will. The tyrant would not rest until he had retrieved everything lost to his nemesis counterpart, Hitler. Russian partisan activity was now organised, and increasing in military support, in these days of Stalin’s new successes. The German High Command knew this. The orders were clear, to every commandant, whatever his personal ethics. Whole families, nay, whole villages, were wiped out in reprisal for involvement with Russian and Ukrainian partisans.

  From out of nowhere a brilliant flash of light, like an aberrant comet, whooshed over him. Stunned, he instinctively fell to the ground, face soaked in the leaves and heavy night dew. “My God!” he murmured as he lay there motionless, gripped with fear, puzzled. He looked back at the smoking ground behind him. This was not a German bomb; he knew this. This was like a katyshka, fired from some Russian gunner. Almost certainly, it came from an ‘advance group’ on the eastern fringes of the kolkhoz fi
elds, in this vicinity, protected by these woods. They were that close now, preparing to soften up the German defence line before a major attack.

  Peter could taste blood in his mouth as his teeth clenched, as he hesitated for a split-second, his heart pounding so furiously he felt as if a time bomb was about to explode within his body. He knew instinctively these woods and the rising hill above him would become another battleground for the opposing armies and that the German evacuation would be the signal for a Russian attack of this area. He had to find Vanya, plead with him to return to the relative safety of their farmhouse. He dared not contemplate what Vanya was doing, what his decision would be: only that he must try to find his son, warn him of the overwhelming dangers. “Hospode pomelyue,” he prayed silently, crossing himself. Hunching low, his face stinging with tension, the cold mist biting in the oppressive night dew, he lunged into the darkness, towards the hill, towards the partisans’ bullets.

  Chapter 24

  “Vanya … are you in there?” Peter’s hoarse whisper was a stranger’s voice, melding into the misty atmosphere. He crouched lower to the ground, boots crunching the crystallising droplets of heavy night dew on the undergrowth. His stomach tensed as a figure seemed to appear through the foggy dimness, then disappeared, as threatening clouds shut out the moon’s slivers of light. Every tree, every mound, was distorted in this no-man’s-land of the hill, shadows playing tricks on perception and reality. “Vanya … Vanya …” He stopped. Each sound he uttered exposed him to a partisan’s bullet.

  “Who comes here?” an unrecognisable voice growled through the blackness, almost within arm’s reach. His skin pricked with unbearable tension. “Vanya … is that you? … Vanya … it’s your father, Peter. Answer me, I beg you.” In the darkness, Vanya touched his father’s shoulder and, whispering for him to remain silent, led him to the safety of a cavern-like undergrowth.