Dimitri strode into the steppe grass, the reeds were as high as his waist, the color of bare and untanned skin. He ran an open hand over their tops and recalled the feeling of silk skirts, long, clean hair, and gentle, nervous flesh. It had been a while.
He walked to the lip of the trench and stopped. He was an old horse, yes, but he only wanted the one. He looked down at her, he’d kept a watch on this one all morning from his perch on the fuel barrel. She was one of dozens toiling below his boot-tips at the lip of the trench but she stood out. She would not lean on her shovel handle and gab, she paused only to mop sweat from her brow. She assaulted the soil and heaved great heaping shovelfuls into the waiting buckets, filling them with only three or four loads of her spade. She was not lean like some hungry peasant waif but a woman, with curves and swoops in her figure, she was ample. Around her worked old men in hats and beards with shirtsleeves rolled up, and girls dressed in billowy blouses and patterned skirts with kerchiefs around braided hair. She laughed once at something one of the girls said and he’d heard her through the scraping of a hundred tools and grunts and flopping dirt. He picked up an empty bucket with a rope attached to its handle and tossed it down into the trench. It landed with a hollow thump just where he willed it, at her feet.
Without looking up, the woman righted the bucket. With a few deep stabs of her shovel, she topped it with dirt. She paused now to run her sleeve across her forehead. The bucket did not disappear the way it was supposed to. She followed the slack rope up the trench wall into Dimitri’s hands.
‘Take it away,’ she said.
Dimitri tilted his head at her now that he had her eyes on him. Her voice was like her body, deep and round. He liked it.
‘Take it away,’ she said again, knowing what the old fool over her head was doing. She made her voice an instruction, a schoolmarm to a stupid student.
Dimitri inclined his head as though she were royalty and tugged up the bucket. He dumped it at his own feet, not on the pile behind him where the dirt belonged, and tossed the pail down to her again. She raised her eyebrows and turned away to another empty bucket. She filled that, and found Dimitri at the rope of this one too, pulling it to the surface to dump the dirt again in the wrong place.
She turned on Dimitri. Even ten feet below him, her eyes were sea green.
‘You’re not helping.’
Dimitri put his hands to his hips. He pretended to be wounded by her scold.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’m not.’
Dimitri clambered down the slope of the pit. His boots skidded and he almost fell, the ditch was steep. His hurry and lack of balance made her laugh. This was her second laugh for his ears.
Dimitri tugged his shirt tail out of his pantaloons and pulled the tunic over his head. Bare-chested, he reached for the woman’s shovel. She did not hand it over. He locked on to her eyes and saw how she took him in.
‘What?’ he prodded, expecting her to comment on his slim torso.
‘You’ve got no hair on your chest,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the chest of a woman.’
Okay, Dimitri thought, good, the filly bucks. He pulled his eyes from hers and slid them down her.
‘So do you, my dear.’
She sent her face skyward, shaking her noggin at something up there, her God, a dead husband, something, and said, ‘Ha!’
She would not give up her shovel. Dimitri turned to the girl behind him, she was a teenager, and asked her if she needed a rest. The girl sighed in relief and handed over her tool.
Dimitri made a display of his strength and stamina. He dug two to the woman’s one, filled buckets, and showed impatience when they were not hauled up fast enough. He worked for fifteen minutes, almost to the point of exhaustion. He finally speared his shovel into the ground and left it. She stood behind him with a ladle of water.
He poured it over his head. He handed it back to her. She walked away to bring him another. Yes, Dimitri thought, she’s ample.
She returned with the ladle dripping. He quaffed the lukewarm water and ran a filthy forearm across his lips. Again she laughed at him.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Dimitri Konstantinovich Berko. At your service. And who are you?’
‘Sonya.’
‘Just Sonya?’
‘Yes, Private. Just Sonya.’
She did not smile when she called him Private. This was a hard one, this woman, not a silly girl from the villages. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, a well-preserved lass, even in these war years. She must be, in fact, a teacher or something like that, maybe one of those damned Communists. She was firm in her ocean eyes, even her smiles and laughter were resolute. Dimitri had the instant concern she was smarter and better born than him.
‘Yes, well.’ He made a face. ‘Just Sonya.’ He played the clown a bit for her. ‘I’m a private in this army. But actually, when there’s no war going on, I’m a hetman.’ He tapped his own chest, in the mud there from the dripping water. ‘My father was a hetman. And his father.’
Sonya pursed her lips, impressed. ‘What is a hetman?’
He narrowed his eyes. She doesn’t know. Ah, she’s too much trouble. One more go-round, then enough. Back to my tank.
‘I am a Cossack leader. In my sietch, I am the final say.’
‘Your sietch.’
‘Yes, woman. My… my community. Village. Me. The little private.’
‘The dirty little private. Are you a tanker, Dima?’ This was the diminutive of his name, the affectionate form.
‘Yes. Right up the hill there. Those tanks. The 3rd Mechanized Brigade.’
‘You’ll be fighting here, then. When it starts. Around this trench.’
‘Yes. Along the Oboyan road. The Germans are going to give it everything they’ve got to take it. But I think this trench alone will stop them. I mean, look at it. You’ve done a marvelous job. There won’t be much fighting for me to do.’
Sonya took a deep breath and looked at Dimitri with softer eyes. He noted the change and heaped on more, this time for sympathy.
‘Me and my son. We’re in the same tank.’
‘The same tank.’
‘Yes. It’s an old tradition, Cossack families go to war together.’
‘That’s splendid.’
And my daughter.’
‘Oh.’ Sonya smiled her best yet. ‘Where is she?’
‘Up there. Somewhere.’ Dimitri pointed into the sky.
Sonya’s face fell.
‘Oh, Dima, no. I’m so sorry. Ay.’ She clucked her tongue. ‘To lose a child.’
No, he thought, you goose, Katya’s not dead! She’s a pilot…
‘How did she…?’
Dimitri froze for the moment, raising a hand to wave off the incorrect notion. Sonya touched his shoulder.
‘No, no, Dima, it’s alright. You don’t have to talk about her right now. I understand. It must be so hard for you.’
Dimitri lowered his hand. He drooped his eyes to the dirt and sniffed once, faking. He left Katya unexplained. Sonya patted his neck. Katya would understand, he thought.
She pulled her spade out of the facing wall. Dimitri followed suit. Sonya seemed to want to let some silence hover, to return to work, as though she dug now with a new purpose, for the dead daughter and the brave Cossack hetman who would fight beside his son here along the dangerous Oboyan road.
She bent to her shovel. Dimitri, behind her, gave her buttocks a squeeze.
June 31
2130 hours
Dimitri stayed in the trench, digging with the women and old men, the darling of the civilians. When he did not come out of the hole in an hour to return to his tank, Andrei wandered up to the lip to check on him. Below Andrei’s feet, he saw Sonya and barebacked Dimitri with a gaggle of women around him. The dairy farmer doffed his cigarette and his tunic, too, and stumbled down the wall of the trench. He was welcomed, introduced around, and handed a shovel. Within the hour, a dozen more tankers were in the trench, swea
ting and flinging dirt and flirting like it was a holiday. In the early evening, they shared a meal with the diggers.
The air cooled with the lowering sun and the work slacked after the food. The sound of arriving trucks reached them down in the pit, come to take the laborers back to their camp miles to the east away from the front. Andrei got a peck on the cheek from the girl he’d worked beside. Some of the other tankers, unsure bumpkins, backed away, muttering, Nice to meet you, and clambered up the slope. Sonya told Dimitri, Thank you, she hadn’t laughed as much in a day for years. Thank you, Dima. He reached both hands into the water bucket and dipped water to splash his face, then grabbed Sonya in a bear hug. Her breasts against his chest stunned him for a moment, it had been all he thought about the whole day hefting the shovel. He wanted to give her something but had nothing in his pockets, so he gave her a truth. My daughter, he said, is not dead. She’s a pilot. Sonya did not take a swing at him for his gambit; instead she said, So, you are still a hetman, you have a clan. Yes, he said, proud the way she put it. Yes. You’re a good woman, he said. I am, she answered, and lingered in his arms, sea-green eyes flowing over his face. And you need to let me go.
This is when Valentin arrived at the edge of the trench.
‘Let her go, Private.’
‘Your son?’ she asked Dimitri.
‘Yes. The bastard.’
‘Go,’ Sonya said.
‘A kiss first.’
‘No. I don’t know you that well.’
‘I’ve earned a kiss.’
Valentin repeated his command. The sky behind him reddened.
‘Go, Dima. You’ll get in trouble.’
‘See. You do know me well! Kiss me, woman, and I’ll deal with the trouble.’
Sonya bent her head to his and they touched lips; the kiss was softer than Dimitri wanted but, again, he found she was plenty. He let her pull away first and open her eyes.
‘Another time,’ she said.
‘Another time, Just Sonya.’
He grabbed one more handful of her bottom and clambered away before she could consider taking a swipe at him. He flew up the trench slope to stand beside Valentin.
‘You should have gotten here sooner,’ he said to his son, looking down at all the women gathering their tools, washing their bare arms in the last of the water buckets. Then he made a face. ‘No. Perhaps not.’
June 31
2215 hours
Two boys sat cross-legged on the ground in front of the General Platov. They jumped up when Valentin strode into the glow of their lantern.
‘Sergeant!’ they said together.
Dimitri came to stand beside his son, who addressed the two newcomers.
‘Men, this is your driver. Private…’
Dimitri stepped forward before Valentin could make any more formal pronouncements. He held out his hand to each. Neither was out of his teens. More sons, Dimitri thought; Christ, more children to take into battle.
‘Dimitri Konstantinovich Berko,’ he said with each handshake. The boys had acne and nervous clasps. Dimitri felt expansive after his day in the trench with the woman, the digging made him tired in the good, old way of the farm. ‘Call me Dima. Tell me your names.’
Both were short, the way tankers must be. One was thick, the other lean. Dimitri guessed the chunky one was the loader, he had to be strong to sling the shells around inside the tank, out of the bins and into the breech. The other would be the hull machine-gunner and radioman, if the General had a radio.
‘Pyotr Semyonovich Belyayev,’ said the stumpy one. His eyes were close-set. Beneath broad shoulders hung short arms. ‘I am…’
‘The loader, yes, I guessed. Of course. Look at you. Strong as an ox, I’ll bet. Good, good. And you?’
The thinner of the two was the edgy, pinched one. Both boys had buzzed haircuts but this one looked like a match head, there was something incendiary about him.
‘Private Frolov.’ His name had to escape his mouth as though words were prisoners in this boy’s head.
‘Private Frolov? I’m not going to call out “Hey, Private Frolov, shoot those Nazi fuckers for me!” in the middle of a battle. What’s your name, boy?’
‘Urn… um…’
‘Yes?’
‘Alexander Mikhailovich Frolov.’
This one will be fun, thought Dimitri. The quiet ones always are after you put some vodka in them. He guessed the skinny one would be the harder fighter of the two when the time came. Life for the quiet ones is a fight all the time. Good. He’ll keep his head.
‘Gunner extraordinaire, da!’ Dimitri clapped Frolov on the back to see how he’d take it. The boy wavered under the smack but looked up and grinned.
‘Good, very good. Sergeant, these look like good fighters. Well done.’
Valentin eyed his father.
Dimitri spread his arms, pushing the two boys together, tucking both inside his span as though measuring their collective width and worth.
‘Alright! Pasha and Sasha. Yes. And Dima.’ He looked back at Valentin. ‘And the sergeant.’
Dimitri took up the lantern and carried it to the General. He set it on the ground and folded next to it, resting his tired back against the T-34’s tread.
‘Gather ‘round.’
Pyotr and Alexander came to sit about the lantern. Valentin stood apart. This was the third crew they’d had in a year, and Dimitri had gone through this exercise with each. Dimitri walked over to his son and took the boy’s arm, leading him away to speak privately.
‘Come on, Valya. They’re children.’
‘They’re soldiers.’
‘They’re fighters, yes. And who are the best fighters in all of Russia? Hmm?’
‘Cossacks,’ Valentin said with rolling eyes. The answer was their ritual.
‘Yes! So, you see. We have to do this, every time. Yes? Come on.’ Dimitri steered Valentin by their linked arms back to the lantern, the General, and the two waiting crewmen.
‘Good. All together,’ he said, grunting a bit while descending to the ground again. Valentin took a place up on the tank, close but above the three privates. ‘Pasha. Tell me where you’re from.’
The broad one said, ‘Lesogorsk. Near Bratsk.’
‘Ah,’ Dimitri clapped, ‘a Siberian. Are you a hunter, then? You must be.’
‘I grew up shooting ducks on the Bratskoye reservoir. And foxes in the taiga. My father and I…’
‘Excellent, wonderful. You’ll tell us more sometime. Sasha, you. Where is your home?’
The boy licked his lips. ‘Odessa.’
Dimitri looked up at Valentin. ‘You hear that! He’s from the other side of the Black Sea from us. Splendid.’
‘Did you two know the sergeant and I are Kuban Cossacks?’
The boys shook their heads and looked at each other.
‘What do you know about Cossacks? Anything?’
Pasha the stump said, ‘My mother used to scare us when we were bad. She’d say if we didn’t behave, she was going to call the Cossack and let him get us.’
‘What would the Cossack do?’
‘I don’t know. Eat us, I guess.’
Dimitri chuckled. ‘Your mother was a wise woman, Pasha. I might have eaten you and grown very fat myself. But as you can see, I’m skinny, so I never ate any children. Alright?’
Pasha nodded, like a child being assured a scary campfire story was just that, a story.
Dimitri reached to the lantern to turn up the wick. ‘Did you notice the name of your new tank? Sasha?’
Valentin, seated on the tank, sighed and this made Sasha take a moment longer.
‘General Platov.’
‘Yes. Good. I suppose you don’t know who General Platov was, so I’ll tell you.’
‘Yes,’ said Pasha, cupping his chin in his hands and digging his elbows into his bent knees. Sasha nodded. This boy did not ever seem to blink.
‘Before the War of 1812, Napoleon knew he would invade Russia. He set out to learn everythi
ng he could about the Motherland before attacking. One of the things he found out was that the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban regions were the finest riders and fighters in the world. Better than the Mongols, the British, and better than the French, of course. Napoleon needed good cavalry if he was going to build an empire, and who better than the Cossacks?’
Dimitri slapped the tank tread behind him. ‘Good old General Platov here was the hetman of the Don Cossacks. He got a letter from Bonaparte himself, inviting him to visit Paris to be His Majesty’s guest. When Platov got to France, Napoleon and all of his generals kissed his ass like he was a king himself. They showed him all the wonders of Paris, held fancy balls in his honor, even a parade! All this to get their hands on General Platov’s Cossacks. And Platov, you see, was no dummy. He knew what Bonaparte was up to.’
The lantern light reached high enough on the tank for Dimitri to see his son listening, knowing the story well but allowing the father’s gift of the telling.
‘Finally, Napoleon made his move on the General. He sat Platov down in a giant parlor of gold and silk, and said to him, “General, such a man as you should be a prince in your country. You command thousands of fighters, but you are treated with no honor by your own king. France can offer you this honor, for you and your Cossacks. Side with us, General. It would do you and your people good to become acquainted with the cultures of France and Europe.” The General kept his opinion to himself, that Napoleon had spoken as though, without French culture, his Cossacks were savages!’
Pasha and Sasha laughed. Even Valentin snickered, this was a new line Dimitri threw into the tale.
‘Napoleon made his offer. “General,” he said, “I would give anything you asked if I could have Cossacks on my side. With twenty thousand of the best cavalrymen in the world fighting with France, no one could stop us.” Platov listened, rubbed his beard, and answered, “I see no problem. This is a very easy thing to do.” Well, Napoleon could hardly believe his ears. “How can we do this, General?” he begged. “Tell me what you require.” The General stood in the grand, golden room of Napoleon and said, “It’s a simple thing. I will bring twenty thousand of my finest young riders to Paris for a few days. You will bring twenty thousand of your prettiest French girls to Paris. We will let Nature take its course, and in twenty years or so you will have your own twenty thousand French Cossacks!”‘
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