Red Sky at Noon (The Moscow Trilogy)

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  ‘We have a few old Betushka tanks for them. We are driving new T-34s straight to the front off the assembly line at Stalingrad,’ said Vasilevsky, ‘but …’

  ‘I wouldn’t waste new T-34s on these jailbirds,’ advised Beria.

  Stalin padded to his chair, sat down, closed his eyes. ‘What to do?’ he said.

  ‘May I speak?’ It was Satinov, still sitting further down the table. ‘I believe there is another possibility. I recently spent some time down on the Don with Marshal Budyonny. May we call the marshals back in?’

  A nod. Satinov sprang up and opened the door, returning with the two marshals. He could tell they both expected punishment. Instead Stalin looked at Satinov: ‘Well, what’s the idea?’

  ‘Marshal Budyonny, you’re aware that penal forces are training at Stud Nine? How many horses do you have there?’

  ‘Twenty thousand of my new Budyonny breed,’ replied Budyonny. ‘But these horses are our future. Beauties, trained and bred for the finest cavalry.’

  ‘The prisoners there have been training as cavalry,’ said Satinov.

  ‘Correct,’ said Vasilevsky. ‘Since many were Cossack prisoners from the Gulags and the horses were on site, I approved cavalry training. And, since we are now so short of tanks, Comrade Stalin has ordered the formation of new cavalry regiments on all fronts.’

  ‘I knew the tanks would be a passing craze,’ boomed Budyonny, and Satinov could almost see the vodka oozing out of him. ‘This new-fangled technology never works. They just run out of diesel – unlike my horses.’

  Satinov looked at Stalin, who cocked his head as if to say: Tell me more. So Budyonny did. ‘Cavalry is the future, the heart of any army. But my horses are bred and trained to perform as the world’s best. Please, Koba,’ he appealed to Stalin, using his old nickname, ‘they shouldn’t be thrown away on ill-trained prisoners.’

  ‘How dare you speak such shit to Comrade Stalin!’ hissed Beria.

  Everyone waited for Stalin’s reaction.

  ‘Pah!’ Stalin waved his hand. ‘What a typical Cossack. Comrade Budyonny prefers horses to men. Perhaps one of your horses would have commanded your front better than you? Well, fuck that, now we need your beloved horses!’

  ‘Yes, Comrade Stalin,’ said Budyonny, bowing his head.

  Stalin stood up and paced the long room in his soft calf-leather boots. ‘I propose the following: Stavka has lost confidence in Timoshenko’s ability to manage his front. Timoshenko is dismissed.’

  Timoshenko saluted and left the office. Stalin kept talking. ‘Gordov will take command of the Stalingrad Front and you, Comrade Satinov, will fly down to Stalingrad and take control. Budyonny, you will fly back to the North Caucasus Front accompanied by Comrade Beria who will shoot anyone who takes one step back. You all leave tonight!’

  Budyonny saluted.

  ‘General Vasilevsky, form your criminals into cavalry battalions for immediate deployment. Who’s in command of these prisoners?’

  ‘A certain Melishko.’

  ‘General Melishko?’ Stalin glanced at Beria. ‘He’s still alive? Wasn’t he with you, Lavrenti?’

  ‘He was,’ replied Beria, who had tortured Melishko personally. He had smashed all his teeth out and still no confession. Very stubborn man, old school. Admirable really.

  ‘Maybe God preserved him to serve,’ said Stalin thoughtfully. ‘He must have been a good man all along. That’s decided then. Melishko’s First and Second Cavalry Penal Battalions to launch Operation Pluto on the Stalingrad Front.’

  ‘Orders are already being telegraphed to Penal-Colonel Melishko – that’s his present rank,’ Vasilevsky said.

  Stalin stopped pacing and sat behind his desk. ‘Beria, stay behind; the rest of you have your orders; go straight from here to the airport.’

  ‘Right, Comrade Stalin!’ Satinov and all the others left.

  ‘Lavrenti,’ said Stalin to Beria, now speaking their native Georgian. ‘Isn’t this the ideal moment for our game of daggers and mirrors?’

  ‘Yes. Our special operative is ready. His key task is in order, and it’s essential he’s delivered behind enemy lines – even if the Shtrafniki achieve nothing else and not one of them is left alive,’ said Beria.

  ‘Make sure that happens.’

  Stalin stood up and walked out of his office through the antechamber where his bodyguards jumped to their feet, brandishing PPSh sub-machine guns. Four moved in front of him, four followed. It would be so easy for one of them to shoot me in the back of the head, thought Stalin, so easy!

  Lighting a cigarette, head down, thinking, he walked through the long deserted corridors of the Kremlin palaces, along a pathway of red carpets over shining parquet, until he reached his apartment. Leaving the guards outside, he closed the door and entered the kitchen where a small but curvaceous teenage girl in a plain blue skirt and white blouse sat alone. She was holding a pencil over an open book.

  Svetlana Stalina, red-haired and freckly, jumped to her feet. ‘Papa, you look exhausted!’ She threw herself into his arms and he kissed her forehead.

  ‘Why aren’t you in bed, girl? It’s after midnight.’

  ‘I am sixteen, Papa, and I have to do my homework.’

  ‘It’s good you are working,’ he said. ‘Everyone must work for the Motherland …’

  ‘Can I feed you, Papa?’

  ‘My little sparrow can cook! But I’ve eaten.’

  ‘I heard the Germans are nearing Stalingrad. Can this be true?’

  ‘Pah! What’s with the questions, Sveta? Who are these panic-mongers you talk to? Papa’s girl doesn’t listen to foolish chatter! Kiss your old peasant papa goodnight and finish your homework.’

  After he had gone to his study at the back of the apartment, Svetlana sat down again, and for a moment, she dreamed of the things that all teenage girls dream of. She had never had a boyfriend; no one would touch her. She was Stalin’s child and none of them wanted her. ‘Your friends will want to worm their way into the family because you’re Stalin’s daughter,’ her father had warned. But, on the contrary, all the boys she knew were afraid of her. She was the princess in the Kremlin fortress; the girl in the tower. At the Josef Stalin Communal School 801, she saw her friends meeting boys after lessons, walking around the Patriarchy Pool, even kissing in the Alexandrovsky Gardens right outside the Kremlin. Not her, never her … If only she could fall in love and someone could love her back.

  She threw aside her book and started to read an article in Krasnaya Zvezda – or Red Star – the Red Army newspaper. It was by a correspondent called Lev Shapiro who reported from the Stalingrad Front. A few writers stood out: the novelist Ehrenburg with his murderous bombast, a younger writer called Grossman – and this Shapiro whose tales of the carnage in the south hid none of the tragedy of war. Yet he saw the world through such romantic eyes. Who was he? His words reached her, even here in her tower.

  In his study along the corridor, Stalin shut the door and, taking off just his boots and tunic, lay down on the long divan, pulled a counterpane over himself, and closed his eyes. Svetlana, my little dove, he thought. You look just like my mother. There was a picture of his late wife, Nadya, Svetlana’s mother, on the table next to his couch. He looked at her round, pouchy face, her dark eyes. Pah, he thought. She let me down. But it’s hard to be Stalin’s wife, Stalin’s daughter. And it’s hardest of all to be Stalin.

  And then he thought of the crisis in the south, the direst of the war, and the punishment battalion on the Don. The only way they can redeem themselves is by shedding their own blood, he mused, pleased with his idea, which seemed to belong in Ancient Rome. My reading of history helps me, soothes me, he told himself. But he was too tired to read now. He tried to sleep but he was still shaking. Russia was close to the edge – but this was his destiny in history. To command Russia, and ultimately to triumph, whatever the cost. That was the meaning of the word ‘Stalin’. It was the name he had invented just for this.

  He slept spikil
y in fragments, then awoke again, thinking of that wild, boneheaded, horse-worshipping fool Budyonny and his stallions, and the mission of the Shtrafniki. He half remembered three years earlier ordering Beria: ‘Beat Melishko – he might be a bastard; don’t treat him with silk gloves; he’s mixed up with enemies in Spain; he knows something.’ But he had been a good man all along. And now he was right where he, Stalin, needed him.

  He got out of bed in his vest and britches and lifted one of the phones. ‘Get me Melishko,’ he said. ‘Now.’

  VII

  At the Budyonny Stud Farm Nine, Melishko had finished talking to the General Staff in Moscow and had organized his bandits into the new units ordered by Stavka. Wearing only his underwear, he was now asleep on his mattress on the floor, snoring deeply, when the phone started to ring in his command centre in the farm manager’s house.

  His adjutant, fast asleep in a chair in the room, picked up the phone. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

  ‘Is this the command of Colonel Melishko at the Budyonny Stud Nine?’

  ‘It is,’ replied the adjutant.

  ‘Comrade Stalin on the line for Melishko,’ said the voice impassively.

  The sergeant’s first thought was this was a joke. ‘Who?’ He paused and the words stuck in his throat. ‘I’ll get him,’ he said, and ran in his underwear to Melishko’s room in the outhouse.

  ‘They say Stalin’s on the line,’ he stuttered.

  ‘Fuckers! Taking the piss, are they?’ But Melishko got up and staggered in his bare feet across the yard to the house, his exposed paunch shaking. He tripped up on a bucket, swore, got up again and ran into the headquarters where he picked up the phone.

  ‘Melishko on the line,’ he panted. He’d forgotten to put in his false teeth. Hell, I’ll sound like a simpleton, he thought.

  He heard the operator connect the call and then the echo of breathing. He stiffened to attention.

  ‘Melishko.’ The Georgian accent reverberated down the line. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I am well, Comrade Stalin.’

  ‘They gave you a hard time in prison. There are too many yes-men in this country who harm innocent people. That’s over now, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, Comrade Stalin.’

  ‘The Motherland needs you. You have your orders? After this attack, you will have your rank back.’

  ‘Thank you, Comrade Stalin.’

  ‘And, Melishko?’

  ‘I hear you, Comrade Stalin.’

  ‘Your criminals are now Soviet cavalry and you must attack the Germans at full charge. Give no quarter. If you run out of bullets, use your sabres, and if you run out of sabres, kill them with your bare hands … Even if none are left, your men will redeem themselves by shedding their own blood.’

  The phone line went dead. Melishko still held the phone. ‘Even if none are left …’ Then he shook his head and called for his adjutant. ‘Get the men on parade,’ he roared. ‘We move out at dawn.’

  Day Two

  I

  It was early morning, the cavalry was massing on the ridge, looking out over the endless plains. In the half-light, Benya could see the flash of hundreds of equine eyes, the gleam of stirrups, hear the stretch of girth straps, the clink of spurs, the jolt of rifle bolts being cleaned and checked, the thump of hooves – and, over it all, the drumming of his own terrified breaths. They were walking forward into squadron, so tight, Benya felt he could hear the heartbeat of the nearest rider. Right next to him, Speedy Prishchepa was drawing and redrawing his sword from its scabbard making a sound like a sharpened cymbal.

  He grinned at Benya, his teeth glowing in the gloom, and leaned over to whisper: ‘Did I ever tell you I was married back in the old country? She was such a sweet one, a real apple pie, a bun with currants! The Cossack girls have such style, not like Russian peasant women – they’re mules dressed in sacks – but a Cossack girl, phew, she knows how to walk. Who knows where she is now? Maybe I’ll meet her today,’ and he started to sing under his breath.

  On the other side sat Spider Garanzha, his large soft hand on his curved Cossack sword. ‘This shashka can cleave a man from neck to hip with one blow,’ he said, spitting. ‘The human body’s soft as a watermelon. With a sword like this, bones are like butter. Do you know how to do the Splitter? They don’t teach it at your Jew schools? No worries! I’ll teach you. Once when I was in the old country, I met a farrier who …’ They were packed so close, their boots were rubbing against each other, their stirrups almost entangled, but Benya was not listening. The suspense was intensifying. Garanzha went quiet but Prishchepa was talking incessantly. Smiley swivelled his steel teeth, his eyes hooded, and Little Mametka beside him, on his little horse, peeped ahead, looking, thought Benya, like a scared marmoset. It was always a relief to find someone more afraid than he was.

  ‘How long until …?’ stammered Benya.

  ‘Till what? Till Christmas?’ joked Prishchepa. ‘Till you get kissed again?’

  Spider shrugged and spat out a sunflower seed.

  Benya was trying frantically to remember his instructions: how would he fire his weapons? His Mosin–Nagant M38 carbine was slung over his back. Training seemed ages ago. He fingered the sabre, remembered its weight in his palm, but could he swing it? On to a man? His hands were shaking violently, the energy dripping out of him. He knew with a sudden certainty that he would die out there.

  They had crossed the Don several hours previously. The majesty of the great river had astounded him. Hundreds of men and horses were wrangled on to creaking old ferries, hooves thudding, guns clanking, the men quiet and breathless once they felt the rise and fall of the water. The German guns had, for some reason, eased, and as they had pushed off, there was, for a moment, a collective intake of breath, followed by an eerie stillness, a stillness more still than any he had ever felt. Crickets chirruped and bitterns boomed and he even heard the frogs croaking and the lap of the river breathing, wide and shimmering under a red sky, its waves green and foamy, and although the near bank was high, the far one was low. It was indeed the sacred river he had read about, the one the Cossacks sang about.

  ‘This is home,’ said Prishchepa and he started to sing and the others joined in:

  ‘Our dear gentle Don is adorned with youthful widows;

  Our dear gentle Father Don is blossomed with orphans;

  The waves of the Don are rich with tears.’

  An ungodly whistling put them on edge and then his comrade’s voice vanished as German shells exploded on the water, sending fountains into the air. Benya gripped the edge of the boat, knuckles white. I am going to die!

  ‘Be calm, men,’ said Zhurko. ‘These aren’t targeted yet. They haven’t got any Storches over us.’

  That’s all very well, thought Benya, but suppose the shells hit us even so? He was about to say this when he recalled he could be shot for panic-mongering.

  They had claimed their horses off the ferries as soon as they landed. It had been utter chaos in the grey-lilac light, horses bumping into each other, their snaffles and stirrups snagged. Finally Benya found Socks and rode up the riverbank with Prishchepa and the Uzbek thief, Koshka.

  ‘Cigarette?’ Captain Zhurko offered a Belomorkanal to the men. Only officers got Belomorkanals. Benya took one, just to do something. ‘There’s a lot of waiting around in war. We stand here; no one moves till I say,’ he told them. ‘We just have time for a cigarette.’

  When Benya took it, his hand was shaking so badly that he almost dropped it. Prishchepa lit it for him; his own hands were still. ‘You’re quite calm,’ said Benya.

  ‘I am too simple a soul to fear death,’ Prishchepa said. ‘Besides, I am younger. The more you know, the harder it is. I might die now. But I prefer to live.’ On the other side of Prishchepa sat Koshka, who appeared to be rigid with fear, and then Mametka, who wiped his brow over and over, eyes as big and empty as sinkholes.

  ‘This is going to be a beauty of a day. We might get a tan. Do you know I h
ad a girl in that village over there?’ chattered Prishchepa.

  ‘Shut up, magpie,’ said Spider Garanzha.

  ‘Are you Cossacks? I’m writing about the battle. For the newspaper Red Star. I got on the last ferry. I know you’re Shtrafniki but I want the public to know …’ They looked down at a gentle-faced man in uniform with a shock of black hair who was walking along the line between the horses, holding his notebook and pencil. Benya could see the men liked him, even the roughest of them: he could hear him interviewing ‘Lover-boy’ Cherkashkin, the youthful Party Secretary from Belgorod who had murdered his mistress’s husband out of passionate jealousy; even ‘Cannibal’ Delibash was answering his questions; then he was questioning the swarthy Shundenko.

  ‘Time’s up, scribbler. Get out of here. Advance is imminent,’ Mogilchuk shouted.

  Benya’s hands and legs were thrumming; sweat spread across his shirt, and a socket of fear pulsated in his belly. He stayed close to the men of his squadron but he had no idea where they were going, what they were meant to do. He recalled something about advancing under cover of the tanks, then going into a charge and, if successful, a raid behind enemy lines.

  ‘Right, lads, you’ll be entering a sector where many Soviet troops, some lost, some traitors and cowards, will be at large,’ Captain Ganakovich was bellowing. ‘Stavka orders all forces on southern fronts to be given this information: You will cooperate with our brave Soviet partisans. But there are bands of traitors fighting for the Hitlerites, and particularly in this sector, a special unit under the traitor and collaborator Mandryka. These you will annihilate on sight. Instant redemption awaits the man who kills Mandryka or any collaborationist leaders …’

  Benya had never killed a man, making him something of a novelty in a battalion where even those who hadn’t murdered anyone, like Koshka, liked to imply that they had. He knew neither how to kill nor how to die, and he told himself now that it was the not knowing that made them both frightening.