Apricot Jam: And Other Stories

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  “Burlovsky’s connected!” someone shouts to me from the cellar.

  The extreme left! Now we have them all.

  Dugin is rubbing his hands. “This is gonna be something. Now we’ll have some fun, boys!”

  “A queer idea of fun you’ve got,” someone from the depths of the cellar says.

  Now we’re all right, we can pinpoint a target. But we need to get them surveyed in. (Until that happens the locations of the posts are just rough, as we’ve marked them on the map.)

  Up ahead there’s the hammering of a firefight in progress. It comes in waves, though. And if an artillery piece fires in one of the lulls, we can pick it up.

  Isakov has porridge ready. The men from our central station go out in turn with their mess tins.

  There are more planes flying in the sky overhead, both our own and German, but there are more of ours! We don’t see any dogfights; both sides are diving in at the front lines. There’s quite a skirmish going on there now, and we can feel the explosions through the ground; that means we can pinpoint them.

  Yemelyanov calls from the advance post: “I’m sitting with the infantry for the moment. I haven’t dug my own foxhole, they won’t let me. And there’s no cover. You’ll never believe how Ptashinsky just missed catching one—the bullet tore off his shoulder strap.”

  Ptashinsky is his relief man on the advance post. He’s a fine-looking lad, bright-eyed and very steady in battle.

  Despite everything, we’ve now managed to pick up two targets, 415 and 416, using our five posts. Now we have to work out their coordinates. The caliber of the guns we’ll figure out just by a well-trained ear, and we can estimate the range.

  The brigade is pestering me again: “They’re firing now on Arkhangelskoe.” (That was not far from headquarters.) “Which one was firing?”

  “It was coming from Zolotaryov-3, target 415.”

  “Give me the coordinates!”

  “They’ll still be rough—we haven’t finished surveying yet.”

  A hale of obscenities comes by way of reply.

  Ovsyannikov comes back from his tour of the posts; he’s covered about ten kilometers. I go with him to grab some hot food. We sit on the fallen linden tree.

  I love him like a brother, this open-hearted Ovsyannikov with his Vladimir accent. We went through our artillery courses together, but we didn’t become fast friends until we ended in the same battery. On the northwestern front, at the last moment before the ice broke up in the Lovat River, he rescued the whole battery by getting it across without breaking through. Then there was the hamlet of Grimov, where we really became friends. It had all been burnt out, only the chimneys still standing, and the Germans could see every patch of it from their OP in a bell tower. Our central station was in a cellar like this one, and Ovsyannikov and I were sitting on the earth floor, our feet in a slit trench, and eating out of the same mess tin between us. While we were finishing off that soup and tinned meat, we had to jump into the trench three times because of the shelling, but the mess tin up top stayed upright. We crawled out and attacked the food with our spoons once again.

  The Germans don’t have a direct view of Zhelyabuga Village farther down the slope behind us; they can only see it from the air. I roll myself a cigarette from some homegrown tobacco; Ovsyannikov doesn’t smoke. He tells me how he’s adjusted the locations of the listening posts. Someone coming along the road can see where the various units are located. There’s a big fire in Mokhovoe, where the Germans are. We must have set that off.

  “They’re getting squeezed. We’ll be pushing on. We won’t be here long.”

  Before I’ve finished my smoke I see some vehicles coming off to the left along the road here from the main road, bumping over the potholes. A lot of them! Katyushas!

  Eight trucks, fully loaded—a whole battalion. They always travel like that. Closer and closer. They aren’t coming here just by chance. Someone has picked out a spot for them here from the map. They’re only twenty meters from us, and we’ve never seen them firing from this close. We know enough to get away from the backs of the trucks and keep off to one side. They wave our boys away and they all tumble out and get busy.

  A volley! It begins from the far side and quickly moves down the row; the first one hasn’t finished before number eight is already firing. “Firing” isn’t the word, though. It’s a constant, deafening hiss, like some huge dragon from fairy tales. Fiery pillars slant down from behind each one, hitting the ground and burning everything that grows, scorching the air and the earth; ahead and above them you can see the rockets flying, dozens of them; then you lose sight of them until a huge fiery fan wells up along the German trenches. The power they have! Amazing! (The women in the cellar were frightened to death of the hissing of the Katyushas.)

  The last truck barely finishes firing before it’s turning around to leave. The second follows, then the third. All eight of them leave with the same rush with which they came. We watch them bumping over the potholes in the road again, though now the guidance rails hold no rockets.

  “Well, now they’re going to make it hot for us here,” one of our boys says. That’s not likely, though. The Germans know very well that the Katyushas vanish as soon as they fire a volley.

  Ovsyannikov and I go back to our seats on the tree trunk.

  When you’ve had a moment’s rest, your thoughts will quickly range farther.

  “Yes,” I start speculating, “we’ll keep on blasting them, and then— into Europe like a spring uncoiling. After a war like this, there’s bound to be a revolution, don’t you think? It’s straight out of Lenin. And this so-called patriotic war will be turned into a revolutionary war, isn’t that so?”

  Ovsyannikov goes on sitting peacefully, saying nothing. Ever since he found that the Germans were using synthetic gasoline, he couldn’t believe that they would soon run out of fuel, as the newspapers said. What worries him now is the advance post: “Things are so hot there they can’t even poke their heads out. It’s a bad spot. Here, look at the map. How far to the side can I shift them? Or pull them back? I can move them in a minute, and won’t even have to disconnect their line.”

  We measure off the distance with the dividers. They could come back 300 meters, even 400.

  Off goes Ovsyannikov, pacing boldly, tirelessly.

  I can see that Mitka Petrykin is getting things ready, working as easily as if he were taking a swim in a pond. He calls in the rest of the boys from the plotting platoon who were digging slit trenches.

  They’ve brought in some more cables to us, from the Second Battalion on the right and the Third on the left. They’re digging in the cables themselves. With cables fanning out on all sides, our central station looks like some important headquarters. Now three more people have squeezed into the cellar, sitting on sawed-off logs with the telephones on their knees.

  Immediately I’m called to the phone. It’s Tolochkov, commander of Eight Battery in the Third. I think a lot of him. He’s a short fellow, quite reckless, and gets so involved in his job that he forgets everything else. I’m happy to help him make his shots.

  “You’ve got to get me some targets! I’m getting bored here.”

  “Hang on, I’ll have some in a minute. We’re waiting for the survey. We’re feeling out target 418 right now.”

  Without any sound reconnaissance, the artillery can rarely identify a target. They can only do it in darkness by direct observation of a muzzle flash, and only if the enemy gun position is exposed.

  Then I have another call from the Second Battalion. From the voice I can tell that it’s the battalion commander himself, Major Boyev.

  “Sasha, we’ve got some real work to do today, don’t let us down.”

  “I can send you a few coordinates right away, but we’re still waiting on the final survey.”

  “Never mind, just send them. And something else: come and see me at the ‘cottage’ this evening.”

  He means the battalion headquarters.

 
“What’s it about?”

  “You’ll find out when you come.”

  I’m about to go outside when Yura Kulin comes almost running down the stairs. He hands me a sheet of paper with all of our coordinates.

  “If you can wait a minute, we can make them a bit more precise.”

  “They’re OK, thanks.” And I pass them right over to the plotter, Nakapkin.

  He picks up his measuring device, a metal goniometric rule marked obliquely and accurate to one meter, and sets down the “x” and “y” coordinates for each listening post on the plotting board marked with large blue grid lines, correcting the former temporary coordinates. And now he links the points of all the listening posts with new straight lines, new perpendiculars to them and new angles to the targets. Beginning with target 415, all the targets are indicated with new offsets.

  Each of the sensors at the listening posts sends back information that appears as a line of ink traced along the paper ribbon in the central recorder. The movements of the sensor diaphragm at the listening post appear here as squiggles on the paper. By the difference in corresponding irregularities from neighboring sensors we can calculate the direction of the sound on the plotting board. And in ideal conditions, at night or in cool, damp weather, these three or four projected lines will all come together at one point. That’s what we’re looking for—the location of the enemy gun, and we pass it on to our own guns over the phone. But when there is a lot of sound interference or, as today, a temperature inversion that causes the sound not to be reflected, the sound vibrations are indistinct, distorted, or only weakly transmitted; the moment of movement is imprecise, and so how can we make our calculations? And if we estimate our readings incorrectly, the beams will be plotted on the board incorrectly. We won’t get the single point we’re looking for, only a long triangle. You might as well whistle for it.

  That seems to be the problem now. Botnev is hanging over Nakapkin’s shoulder, frowning.

  Botnev and I have also been through a lot together. Once we were on the move, in two trucks as usual. The only way to get to our destination was along the dirt track into Belousovo. Then we saw it: a stake by the roadside with a sign: “Suspected minefield.” But it was faded and carelessly written. Switching to any of the side roads meant a long detour, even retracing some of the route. Well, what the hell, we’ll do it the Russian way—by guess and by God. Pashanin’s one-and-a-half-ton jerked forward. I pressed my feet against the floor as if trying to keep a mine from blowing up beneath us and kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead: Could there be something under that clump of grass? What about that patch of loose earth over there? We went on for about 300 meters and then heard the explosion behind us. We stopped and jumped out, knowing an antitank gun was no threat to a man on foot, and looked back: the right front wheel and fender of Lyakhov’s truck had been blown away, but everything else was still in one piece, including Lyakhov and the men in the back of the truck. Botnev had also survived, though the explosion had been on his side; but he was tearing off, running up a little hill. He came to his senses, though he was raving a bit and had a mild concussion. (The first truck went on to the destination; the rest of the essential equipment had to be carried in.)

  No, we’ve got a sizeable triangle here. Somewhere out there is target 415, but we still can’t pinpoint it. There’s clearly a one-fifty, and more than one of them. We have to keep looking, but we can’t squeeze much out of these recordings. I focus all my attention on the ribbons from 415.

  We can’t make any reports from this vague data, so let’s look for something else. Do the lines on the ribbons show some little spike or flutter that we can use for our calculations?

  We pay no attention to the local people here in the cellar, though we sometimes have to shout at them to stop their chattering. Now there’s a little boy about ten years old who’s trying to make his way to the stairs again.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I want to have a look outside.” His face shows determination.

  “Do you know what an artillery barrage is? Before you even have a chance to look around, a bit of shrapnel can go right through you. What grade are you in?”

  “Not in any grade,” he says, taking in a breath through his nose.

  “Why’s that?”

  It’s a silly question: it’s war, and there’s nothing more to say. But the boy explains sadly: “When the Germans came, I buried all my school-books.” His face now shows desperation. “I didn’t want to study when they were here.”

  It’s obvious how much he hates them.

  “And it’s been that way for two years?”

  He sniffles: “I’m going to dig them up now.”

  I turn aside for a moment, and he’s down on all fours, crawling under the plotting table; then he runs out to his own village.

  They call me to the phone. The brigade’s deputy chief of staff is impatient: “Where’s the target that’s firing from Zolotaryovo? Give me the target!”

  Well, I’m doing my best to find it. Just give me a minute to think. It would be easier if I just closed my eyes and stuck a needle in the map. They could fire off a dozen shells and calm down. And if there was still fire coming from over there, I could say that it was a new target. But I won’t do that. I don’t know how many times I’ve explained to them the problem of interference, passing aircraft, temperature inversions. Just be patient, we’re working on it.

  Then I’m called to another telephone. It’s the chief of staff of Third Battalion. He’s got the same question and is just as impatient. I easily recognize this fellow, Captain Lavrinenko, a sly Ukrainian. Once he called me to help him register a gun. He made the first shot and asked for a correction. I passed on the information from the shell burst: left 200 meters and add 150. He took another shot and asked us to pinpoint it. “There wasn’t any burst.” “What do you mean, no burst—we just fired.” “Ah, that’s what it was: we recorded an explosion, but it was half a kilometer to the right. What are you shooting at? Are you all drunk over there?” “Yes, we were a bit off on that one, but keep tracking our shots.” He didn’t trust me after just one shot. The next time, he spoke to our first sound-ranging battery on the sly and then to my second battery, both separately: “Get a fix on my shot!” And once again, both batteries were in agreement. So now he believes me. And here he is, pestering me again: When are we getting the coordinates?

  Yes, it’s a heavy gun that’s lobbing shells, a one-fifty; the bursts are to our left, between brigade headquarters and Third Battalion headquarters. It’s very likely coming from 415, but there’s so much noise from the battle going on and from the artillery on both sides in the forward areas that we can’t get a proper fix: each time we plot the target on the plotting table it slips away somewhere; we’re left with some new triangle.

  The advance post keeps starting the ribbon in the recorder. A heap of useless, discarded paper now reaches up to Dugin’s knees. We’ve already replaced one reel.

  Now we have to take turns to get a little sleep: “Fedya, you go into the hut and close your eyes for a bit. I’ll stay here and keep plugging away at 415.”

  Yenko, with a telephone receiver on either ear, is something of a joker. He’s taken note of the very pretty girl sitting at the far end of the cellar.

  “What’s your name, sweetie?”

  She has fair curls on one side of her forehead and bright eyes. “Iskiteya,” she says.

  “Where’d you get a name like that?”

  The old woman sitting beside her says, “That’s the name the good father gave her. But we call her Iskorka.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty,” she replies with spirit.

  “Still not married?”

  “It’s the war, you know,” the old woman explains on behalf of the girl. “Who gets married these days?”

  Yenko, who’s almost missed the call coming in, passes me one of his receivers: “It’s Lieutenant Ovsyannikov.”

  Ovsy
annikov is reporting from the advance post. He’s had to crawl to get there. He’s pulled them back a little, to a place where there are two large rocks, and they’re digging a little trench behind them. Still, it’s a hot spot to be in.

  “How do things look overall?”

  “Overall. Well, on the right our tanks have gone into Podmaslovo twice. They’ve just managed to squeeze in a bit, but for the moment they’re holding their ground. They’re taking a lot of fire.”

  “OK, that’s all we’ll need from you right now. Come on back and get some rest. We’re going to have a busy night.”

  “No, I’ll stay on with the lads here for a while.”

  Despite everything, we are managing bit by bit to collect some other targets. None of them are precisely pinpointed, though. When we can get a smallish triangle, we take its center and phone in the coordinates to both battalions. But we just can’t seem to pin down the target in 415.