The Cowards

by Josef Skvorecky

  ‘How’re you planning to get it up to Sugarloaf?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ll drive it up,’ said Prema, and vanished around the corner. I stood beside the gun, looking it over. It had a steel shield with a sight slit and two hand grips for aiming. This was really something. You could stage a real uprising with a thing like this. Like in that picture I’d seen in Signal or somewhere of communist bandits disturbing the peace and tranquillity of Warsaw by staging a bloody uprising and up on a rooftop, his cap shifted to the back of his head and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth, behind a machine gun just like this, one guy all by himself firing away down at the street. Prema reappeared pushing Skocdopole’s red motor-cycle. It had a sidecar

  ‘You going to put it in the sidecar?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You think it’ll make it with all that weight?’

  ‘I know it will.’ We lifted the machine gun up and into the sidecar. The gun almost pulled us in after it, it was so heavy. The sidecar sagged over to one side.

  ‘Boy, I don’t know whether we’re going to make it up to Sugarloaf or not,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ve tried it,’ said Prema.

  ‘Tried it? When?’

  ‘Not with the gun, though. I weighed it and then drove up there with a load of rocks.’

  The machine gun stuck way out in front and over the top of the sidecar a bit.

  ‘Okay. Hop on,’ said Prema. I got on behind him. We could hear a tank going down the main street.

  ‘The bastard – he’s going to jump to get away from us,’ said Prema. Then he jumped into the saddle, tramped hard as he gripped the handlebars, let the motor bang and pop for a minute, and then off we went. We turned the corner towards the high school and then boomed up the street. As we bumped over the cobblestones, I could feel my submachine gun thumping my back. Some guys were running from the underpass. Prema slowed down and yelled, ‘Some more Germans coming?’

  ‘Yeah,’ one of them shouted back as he kept right on running. They’re out by the customs house – big fight out there with the Russians!’

  ‘Good,’ said Prema, and stepped on the gas. We took the corner onto the main street at full speed, using the machine gun as a counterweight. The street led straight out past Serpon’s factory to Sugarloaf, whose crown looked blood red in the sunset. I could feel the motor chugging away between my knees as houses whizzed by on both sides of the road. Up ahead and a long way off a German tank disappeared around a bend. The cool evening wind slammed into my face and the springs in the motor-cycle seat bounced like mad. Holding on to Prema’s waist, I could feel the tight-stretched muscles of his back. The gun he’d slung across his shoulder dug into my chest. And then, for the first time, it struck me that I’d really fired after all. That I’d killed somebody. We tore on down the street that was as red with the sun as if the whole block was on fire. I couldn’t worry about it. That was life, that’s all. We shot across the cobblestones, past Serpon’s factory, past the last scattered houses, then up the highway towards the woods. Looking off to the side I could see the town below us in the valley looking very peaceful and the same as always, with lights in the windows, and, above the housetops, the honey-coloured crowns of the hills. Prema slowed down and turned off on to a bumpy path. He stopped at the edge of the woods: we got off. There was a stretch of meadow between us and the highway now and at the bottom of the steeply-climbing highway lay the city glowing in the last minutes of the day’s light.

  ‘We’ll set it up here,’ said Prema. There wasn’t a soul in sight. We stood there alone at the edge of the woods beside the motor-cycle and then we lifted the machine gun out and set it down on the ground. Prema went a little way into the woods.

  ‘Good. The hollow’s right over here,’ he called. Then he reappeared and said, ‘Let’s put it here at the edge of the woods. Over by the bushes.’

  We put our shoulders against the gun and shoved it towards the woods. There was a low clump of hazel bushes growing here. That’s where we set it down. Behind the bushes there was a long shallow dip in the ground. Prema fixed the gun in position and ran back to the motor-cycle. He took two boxes of ammunition belts out of the sidecar and dragged them back to where I was waiting in the hollow. We sat down by the gun and Prema locked in the ammunition belt. It was already almost dark just beyond the bushes; I felt like I was off camping somewhere. From way off in back of the town you could hear gunfire.

  ‘Watch out, now,’ said Prema. ‘You’ll hold the belt for me. I’ll shoot.’

  I held the belt. Prema sat down behind the gun. Then there was a short loud burst and my ears popped.

  ‘Good,’ said Prema. The air was thick with the acrid smell of burned powder. Prema stayed where he was in position. We looked out over the highway. As the sun set, the highway darkened and the slope to the right of the road filled up with dusk. We sat above the road, silently waiting. From town you could hear the distant roar of tanks. Something inside me eased. Everything that had happened to me flooded through my brain and all at once I felt awfully tired. I began to feel as if I’d had just about enough of this. The roar of the tanks was coming closer.

  ‘It won’t be long now,’ said Prema.

  ‘Mmmm,’ I said. I started to think about Irena, but she seemed awfully unimportant now. After all this, I figured, Irena wouldn’t mean a thing. I’d been an idiot. After this was all over, everything would be different. If, that is, we didn’t get ourselves killed right here. My brain was worn out; scraps of thoughts blew around in my head; not one of them made any sense. The roar of the tanks grew closer and suddenly far down the highway, a big black shadow appeared like some huge bug, crawling swiftly up the steep grey road.

  ‘All right. Watch out now!’ said Prema, and he leaned over the handles of the gun. I crouched over and lifted the ammunition belt and felt the long cool weight of the bullets in my fingers. The sun had just gone down; dusk took over the countryside. The tank advanced along the dark road rapidly, its motor roaring as it came. It was about half-way up the hill when a second appeared behind it. Christ! I suddenly realized, there we were, all by ourselves. Still, there wasn’t much we could do about that. Beside me Prema sat like a statue, following the lead tank with his machine gun. It was pretty close now, and I could see SS men perched all over it. They were everywhere – up by the turret, along the sides, under the cannon – and they were loaded down with submachine guns and grenades. As they headed west through the darkening hills, the treads of the tank clattered over the road and its motor droned on monotonously.

  ‘Here goes!’ said Prema. I could sense him tightening up and then the machine gun barked. Flames lashed out of the barrel into the darkness and in a second we were wreathed in a light cloud of bitter-smelling smoke. The ammunition belt slipped through my fingers and I looked off at the highway and saw bodies falling head first from the tank and then all of a sudden the tank swerved and tilted. More shadowy figures jumped off the tank now, their arms flung out, from all over the body of the swerving tank that tilted even farther and tipped at last into a ditch at the side of the road. Then it went right on tumbling over and over, down the hillside into the valley. Its motor whined and then stopped as the huge shadow tumbled and lurched down the dark slope. Below us, a few scattered figures crept along the highway. I glanced at the second tank. It had stopped and soldiers were jumping out of it on both sides of the road. It was only about half-way up the hill and was hard to see. About all I could see was its black, sharp-edged silhouette. Flashes burst from the turret and bullets whistled above our heads, cracking into the tree trunks behind us. We lay flat out on the ground. The tank fired a few more rounds, then held fire.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Prema and he sat up and grabbed the handles of the machine gun again. I picked up the ammunition belt. On the highway you could hear a motor roaring at full speed. Prema pulled the trigger and flames started lashing out of our gun. They blinded me; the tank vanished for a second in the glare. But just then there
was a deafening explosion and a brilliant light burst on the highway. Heavy chunks of metal tore through the air. The tank split apart before our eyes and started to burn. Prema stopped firing. In the silence we could hear the faint rumble of a truck coming down the road.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ said Prema. ‘We couldn’t have knocked out …?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. We peered into the thickening dark as the flames licked up from the tank. I could make out the black shadow of a rapidly approaching truck. Shots rang out; the truck stopped. Dark silhouettes of soldiers spilled out of it.

  ‘Christ,’ said Prema. ‘Those are …’

  ‘Russians,’ I said.

  ‘Hurray!’ yelled Prema.

  The tank’s motor roared, then died. Then it started up again, then again died out. A few scattered shots cracked. We crept out of the woods and looked down. The flames lapping out of the German tank lit up a bunch of soldiers – Russians with submachine guns and Germans in camouflaged ponchos, their hands raised over their heads. A bit behind them stood a truck with a white star on the door and, in the deeper dark behind the truck, the black bulk of Russian tanks.

  ‘They got it with an anti-tank gun,’ said Prema gleefully. ‘Let’s go down.’

  Leaving the machine gun where it was, we ran down to the burning tank. In the meadow we met our first Russian.

  ‘Halt!’ yelled a voice in German out of the darkness.

  ‘Partisani!’ Prema shouted.

  ‘Ahhh, partisani!’ drawled the Russian, and then suddenly we were in the middle of a whole crowd of men. The Russians in their belted blouses and funny looking submachine guns with round drums and perforated barrel sleeves were darting back and forth in the flickering light of the burning tank. They looked fearsome. The Germans stood huddled together on the highway, their hands up. They kept glancing around as if looking for a chance to escape. There wasn’t any. More and more Russians kept coming across the field, their broad faces laughing and grinning. Every once in a while a shot cracked out, but the soldiers around the tank paid no heed. We stood there staring into the midst of it all. Then all of a sudden a civilian walked up to us. He was carrying a rifle and wearing a red band around his sleeve and a greasy cap on his head.

  ‘You’re from the brewery?’ he asked us sharply.

  ‘No,’ said Prema. ‘We’ve got a machine gun up there on the hill.’

  ‘Whaaat?’

  ‘A machine gun. We were the ones that got that first tank.’

  ‘Just who the hell do you think you’re kidding?’

  ‘The one that was ahead of this one,’ said Prema coolly, and he turned and pointed up the highway where a black space gaped between the regular white teeth of the road markers. ‘That’s where it went over.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ said the guy, and he went over to one of the Russians with wide epaulets full of little stars and he said something to him in Russian. The Russian looked at us suspiciously, then yelled something back into the truck. A spotlight switched on and started probing the slope below us, moving down across the grass until it stopped on something big and dark. It was our tank. It lay overturned in the flat stretch at the bottom of the slope, its treads in the air. The Russian shouted and the spotlight went off. Then he said something to the guy with the red armband, who turned to us.

  ‘Let’s have a look at your machine gun, boys.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Prema. We set out across the field, the guy with the red armband and three Russians following us up. It was pitch dark now. When we got to the woods, one of the Russians turned on his flashlight. Its cone of light picked out the muzzle of our machine gun.

  ‘Oi!’ said the Russian.

  The guy with the red armband just stood there. ‘How the hell did you ever get that thing up here?’ he said.

  ‘By motor-cycle. In the sidecar.’

  ‘And where did you steal it?’

  ‘We’ve had it since the mobilization. Since 1938.’

  The guy started talking to the Russian again. Then he turned back to us. ‘What’s your name?’ he said.

  I was just about to tell him when suddenly it dawned on me he probably just wants to know so they can decorate us for it, and I could just see the whole thing: the town square and the brass band and all the ceremonies and Dr Bohadlo and Berty with his Leica and, in the back, the guys from our band making wisecracks. No. I didn’t want that. Especially not the brass band. And it struck me that right up until then everything had been great – the night and the shooting and the tanks and the Russians – but afterwards, all that would be left would be the ceremonial speeches and articles in the local paper and Mr Machacek and his History of the Kostelec Uprising. No, that wasn’t for me. But then it flashed through my head that Irena wouldn’t hear about it, either, so that wasn’t any good. Irena had to find out about it. Maybe then I’d finally get somewhere with her. And I was just about to tell them my name when it occurred to me that Irena was bound to find out anyway because as soon as they started looking for us under false names everybody would know it was us because Prema would have to tell somebody sometime and, besides, nobody’s ever, since the beginning of history, been able to keep a secret in Kostelec. It’d be just that much better because we’d be spared the brass band and being decorated by the mayor and, at the same time, word would get around fast and it would give me a kind of halo. I’d be a hero – in Irena’s eyes anyway – and otherwise being a hero was something I could do without, since what did I want a medal for or an article about us in the Kostelec paper? The only reason I was eager to be a hero was so that Irena would finally go to bed with me. I knew that using a fake name now and letting the truth get known later was the cleverest way to go about it. For a minute there, though, I wondered – what if the word doesn’t get around, after all? But, hell, I thought, that’s just a risk you’ve got to take and so, after stuttering a little, I finally said, ‘Syrovatko.’

  ‘And your name?’ the guy asked Prema. Prema gave me a puzzled look and then said, ‘My name’s … Svoboda.’

  ‘You’re from Kostelec?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He jotted something down in a little notebook and then patted our backs.

  ‘Good work, boys. Report to the National Committee tomorrow. Wait a minute, let’s have your addresses.’

  ‘132 Palacky Street,’ I said.

  ‘Me, too,’ said Prema.

  The guy wrote it down and then the Russians crowded around us, slapping us on the back. They grinned and we grinned back.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ the guy said. ‘Come on, we’ll give you a lift into town.’

  ‘I’ve got my motor-cycle,’ said Prema.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well then, see you at City Hall tomorrow, right?’ And he held out his hand to Prema.

  ‘Right,’ Prema said, and shook on it. Then I shook hands with him and then with the three Russians, one after the other. We stayed up by the machine gun and watched them walk back to the highway. The German tank was still burning. The Russians were loading the German prisoners into the truck, then a few Russians climbed in after them, and the truck lights came on and it started slowly driving towards town. Part way down, it stopped again and I could see a couple of men hitching on a small long-barrelled mobile gun. Tank motors growled and three tanks, one after the other, started off. They crawled past us along the highway, heading farther west. Behind them came a few more trucks with guns hitched on behind. The German tank was almost burned out now. The Russian tanks and trucks rolled past it like black shadows and vanished in the dark to the west under the starry sky. Gradually the drone of engines receded and everything grew quiet again. Not even a single shot broke the silence now.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Prema after a minute. ‘Why didn’t you tell ’em your real name?’

  ‘I just didn’t feel like it, that’s all,’ I said. ‘They’d cart us around from one dumb celebration to the next.’

  ‘Right,’ said Prema, and
we stood there in silence again. From the west all you could hear by now was the occasional faint rumble of the departing tanks and from town nothing at all. Nothing but the usual rustle of night. It was the same kind of a night as yesterday. Betelgeuse glowed red in the sky, the air was nice and cool. We stood there at the edge of the woods, looking thoughtfully out into the dark. The revolution was over. And now, I thought to myself, life was just beginning, but suddenly realized, no, it wasn’t just beginning, it had just come to an end. My young life in Kostelec. Nostalgia and regret welled up in me. I swallowed hard, tears came to my eyes. I felt like crying and then I felt ashamed of myself. Still, something made me feel terribly, terribly sorry. What it was I didn’t know. It was the ninth of May nineteen hundred forty-five and this had probably been the very last battle of the whole war. A new life was starting. Whatever that meant. With blind eyes, I stared down towards the town lying in a darkness, a town that had turned all its lights out because everybody was afraid, and inside me all sorts of memories tumbled around in my head, memories of all those years I’d lived here, of Irena, of high school, of Mr Katz my German teacher, of all the good old familiar things, of evenings at the Port Arthur and the music we played, of student carnivals and girls in bathing suits at the pool, and then of Irena again, and I knew it was all over now, over and done with for ever, as far away now as yesterday’s wind, as those Russian tanks on the other side of the hill, as the gunfire and grenades at the customs house, as everything else in the world, and that I could never go back to it again, no matter how much I wanted to, and it seemed to me that nothing ahead could ever be as wonderful, that nothing could be that tremendous or glamorous again, and that all that was left were these memories framed in gold. Everything I’d lived through before had been lovely. But what I was feeling now – all this nostalgia and regret and despair – was silly and dumb. Still, let the mood pass and things would look up again. That’s the way it always went. I knew that. I knew damn well that nobody’s ever really happy, or happy on time, since happiness belongs to the past.