Life and Fate

by Vasily Grossman

  Suddenly furious, Byelov protested: ‘Seeing as I didn’t use force, it’s of no concern to anyone else. And as for setting an example – it’s been done before you and me and before your father.’

  Without raising his voice, but now addressing him as ‘vy’, Getmanov said: ‘Remember your Party membership card, comrade Byelov. And you should stand to attention when a superior officer addresses you.’

  Standing rigidly to attention, Byelov said: ‘Excuse me, comrade Commissar. I understand. I realize my error.’

  ‘The corps commander and I are confident of your fighting abilities. But take care not to disgrace yourself in your personal life.’

  Getmanov looked at his watch and turned to Novikov.

  ‘Pyotr Pavlovich, I haven’t got time to go with you to Makarov’s. I have to be at Headquarters. I’ll borrow a jeep from Byelov.’

  They left the bunker. Unable to restrain himself, Novikov asked: ‘Can’t you wait to see your Tamara then?’

  Two frosty eyes looked at him in astonishment. An irritated voice said: ‘I’ve been called to Front Headquarters by the Member of the Military Soviet.’

  Novikov went on by himself to visit Makarov, the commander of the 3rd Brigade and a favourite of his.

  They walked together towards a lake; one of the battalions was disposed on its shores. Makarov, a man with a pale face and improbably sad eyes for the commander of a brigade of heavy tanks, said: ‘Comrade Colonel, do you remember how the Germans chased us through that bog in Byelorussia?’

  Novikov did indeed remember. He thought for a moment of Karpov and Byelov. It obviously wasn’t just a matter of experience, but of a man’s nature. You can give a man all the experience in the world, but you can’t change his nature. It was no good trying to make a sapper out of a fighter pilot. Not everyone can be like Makarov – equally competent both in attack and in defence.

  Getmanov had said he had been made for Party work. Well, Makarov was a soldier – and he would always remain a soldier. That was his nature.

  Novikov didn’t need to hear any reports from Makarov. What he wanted was to talk things over with him, to ask for his advice. During the offensive, how could they liaise most effectively with the infantry, the motorized infantry, the sappers and the self-propelled guns? Did they agree as to the possible actions of the enemy after the beginning of the offensive? Did they have the same opinion of the strength of his anti-tank defences? Were the lines of deployment correctly drawn?

  They came to the shallow ravine that housed the battalion command-post. Fatov, the battalion commander, was taken aback to see such important visitors. His bunker seemed somehow inadequate. A soldier had just used gunpowder to light the stove and it smelt vile.

  ‘Comrades,’ said Novikov. ‘I want you to remember one thing. This corps will be assigned a crucial role in the coming engagements. I shall assign the most difficult part of this role to you, Makarov. And I have a feeling you will assign the most difficult part of your role to Fatov. You’ll have to solve your problems yourselves – I won’t go foisting my own ideas on you in battle.’

  He then asked Fatov about his liaison with Regimental HQ and with his squadron commanders, about the functioning of the radio, his supplies of ammunition, the quality of the fuel and the condition of the engines.

  Before saying goodbye, Novikov asked: ‘Are you ready, Makarov?’

  ‘Not quite, comrade Colonel.’

  ‘Will three days be enough for you?’

  ‘Yes, comrade Colonel.’

  On the way back, Novikov said to his driver: ‘Well, Kharitonov, Makarov seems to be on top of things, doesn’t he?’

  Kharitonov glanced at Novikov. ‘Yes, comrade Colonel, absolutely on top of things. The brigade quartermaster got dead drunk and went off to bed leaving everything locked up. Someone came to pick up the rations for his battalion and found no one at home. And a sergeant-major told me that his squadron commander got hold of his squadron’s vodka ration and had himself a birthday party. He got through the whole lot. And I wanted to repair an inner tube and get a spare wheel off them. They didn’t even have any glue.’

  34

  Nyeudobnov was delighted when, looking out of the window, he saw Novikov’s jeep arrive in a cloud of dust.

  He had felt like this once when he was a child. His parents were going out and he had been full of excitement at the thought of being left alone in the house. And then as soon as the door closed, he had felt terrified: he had seen thieves in every corner, he had been afraid the house would catch fire . . . He had paced back and forth between the door and the window, listening, wondering if he could smell smoke.

  Alone in the hut that served as Corps HQ, he had felt helpless. His usual ways of controlling the world had become suddenly ineffectual. What if the enemy appeared? After all, they were only sixty kilometres from the front line. What would he do then? It would be no good threatening to dismiss them from their posts or accusing them of conspiring with enemies of the people. How could he stop their tanks? Nyeudobnov was struck by something blindingly obvious: here at the front, the terrible rage of the State, before which millions of people bowed down and trembled, was of no effect. The Germans didn’t have to fill in questionnaires. They didn’t have to stand up at meetings and relate their biographies. They weren’t afraid to admit the nature of their parents’ occupations before 1917.

  His own fate and the fate of his children, everything he loved and would be unable to live without, was no longer under the protection of the great, terrible and beloved State. For the first time he thought of Novikov with a mixture of warmth and timidity.

  ‘Makarov, comrade General! Makarov’s the man!’ said Novikov as he came in. ‘He’ll be able to make quick decisions in any circumstances. Byelov will just tear on ahead without looking back – that’s all he understands. And as for Karpov – he’s a real slowcoach. He’ll need a good kick up the arse.’

  ‘Yes, cadres decide everything. Comrade Stalin has taught us to study them tirelessly,’ said Nyeudobnov. ‘I keep thinking there must be a German agent in the village,’ he went on in a more lively tone of voice. ‘The swine must have given our position away to the German bombers.’

  Nyeudobnov told Novikov what had happened in his absence.

  ‘Our neighbours and the commanders of the reinforcements are coming round to say hello. Just to introduce themselves.’

  ‘A pity Getmanov won’t be here,’ said Novikov. ‘I wonder why they wanted him at Front HQ.’

  They agreed to have lunch together. Novikov went off to his billet to wash and change his dust-covered tunic.

  The wide village street was almost completely deserted; there was just one old man, the owner of the hut where Getmanov was billeted, standing by the bomb-crater. Holding his hands wide apart, he seemed to be measuring something – as though this crater had been dug for some purpose of his own. As he came up to him, Novikov asked: ‘What are you doing, father? Casting spells?’

  The old man saluted. ‘Comrade commander, I was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1915. There was one woman I worked for there . . .’ He pointed first to the pit, then to the sky, and winked. ‘And I wondered if it wasn’t my son, the little rascal, flying by to pay me a visit.’

  Novikov burst out laughing. ‘You old devil!’

  He glanced at Getmanov’s shuttered windows, nodded at the sentry by the porch and suddenly thought anxiously: ‘What the hell’s Getmanov doing at HQ? What fish is he frying now? The hypocrite! He gives Byelov a dressing down for immoral behaviour – then freezes up as soon as I even mention his Tamara.’

  But all this was soon forgotten. Novikov’s wasn’t a suspicious nature.

  He turned a corner and saw several dozen young lads sitting on a patch of grass. They were obviously new recruits, having a rest by the well on their way to the district military commissariat.

  The soldier in charge had covered his face with his forage cap and gone to sleep. Beside him lay a heap of packs and bundles.
They must have walked quite a distance over the steppe; some of them had blisters and had taken off their shoes. They hadn’t had their hair cut yet and from a distance they looked like village schoolboys having a rest during the break between lessons. Their thin faces and necks, their long light-brown hair, their patched clothes – evidently fashioned from trousers and jackets that had belonged to their fathers before them – all this belonged to the world of childhood. Some of them were playing an old game he himself had once played – throwing five-kopeck bits into a little hole in the ground, narrowing their eyes as they took aim. The rest were just watching. Everything about them was childish except for their sad, anxious eyes.

  They caught sight of Novikov and glanced at the still sleeping soldier. They seemed to want to ask if it was all right to go on playing games while an important officer went by.

  ‘It’s all right, my warriors, carry on!’ said Novikov softly. He walked past with a wave of the hand.

  He was taken aback by the heart-rending pity they aroused in him. Their thin little faces, their staring eyes, the shabbiness of their clothes had suddenly reminded him that the men under his command were also mere children. Normally, in the army, all this was covered over by the shell of discipline, by the squeak of boots, by words and movements that were polished and automatic. Here it was transparent.

  Novikov arrived at his billet. Strangely, this meeting with the new recruits troubled him more than all the other thoughts, impressions and anxieties of the day.

  ‘Men,’ he kept repeating to himself. ‘Men, men . . .’

  All his life as a soldier he had been afraid of having to account for lost ammunition and ordnance, lost fuel, lost time; afraid of having to explain why he had abandoned a summit or crossroads without permission. Not once had he known a superior officer show real anger because an operation had been wasteful in terms of human lives. He had even known officers send their men under fire simply to avoid the anger of their superiors, to be able to throw up their hands and say: ‘What could I do? I lost half my men, but I was unable to reach the objective.’

  Men, men . . .

  He had also seen officers send their men under fire out of pure obstinacy and bravado – not even for the sake of covering themselves by formal compliance with an order. That was the mystery and tragedy of war: that one man should have the right to send another to his death. This right rested on the assumption that men were only exposed to fire for the sake of a common cause.

  Yet one officer Novikov had known, a sober and level-headed man, had been used to having fresh milk for breakfast. He had been posted to an observation-post in the front line and a soldier from a support unit had had to bring him a thermos every morning, exposing himself to enemy fire on the way. There had been days when the soldier had been picked off by the Germans and the officer had had to do without milk. On the following day the milk would be brought by another orderly. And the man who drank this milk was both good-natured and fair-minded. He showed great concern for the well-being of his subordinates. His soldiers referred to him as ‘father’. How could one ever make sense of all this?

  Soon Nyeudobnov arrived. Hurriedly and painstakingly combing his hair, Novikov said: ‘War’s a terrible business, comrade General. Did you see those new recruits?’

  ‘Yes, they’re a green lot. Second-rate material. I woke that soldier up and promised to send him to a penal battalion. I’ve never seen such slovenliness. It looked more like a tavern than a military unit.’

  In his novels, Turgenev often describes calls paid by neighbours on a landlord who has just settled down on his estate . . . That evening, two jeeps stopped outside Corps HQ and the hosts came out into the porch to receive their guests: the commanders of an artillery division, a howitzer regiment and a rocket-launcher brigade.

  . . . Take my hand, dear reader. Today is the name-day of Tatyana Borisovna and we must go to pay her a visit . . .

  Colonel Morozov was the commander of an artillery division; Novikov had heard of him several times. He had had a clear picture of him in his mind: someone red-faced and round-headed. In fact he was a middle-aged man with a pronounced stoop.

  His bright eyes seemed to have nothing to do with his sullen face; it was as though they had been placed there by mere chance. Sometimes, however, their quick laughing intelligence made it seem as though they were the true expression of the Colonel’s being; then it was the wrinkles, the despondent stoop that seemed the chance appendage.

  Lopatin, the commander of the howitzer regiment, could have been Morozov’s son – or even his grandson.

  Magid, the commander of the ‘Katyusha’ rocket-launchers, was very swarthy. He had a high, prematurely balding forehead and a black moustache on his protruding upper lip. He seemed witty and talkative.

  Novikov invited his guests to come through. The table had already been laid.

  ‘Greetings from the Urals!’ he said, pointing to some plates of pickled and marinated mushrooms.

  The cook had been standing beside the table in a theatrical pose. He suddenly went bright red, gasped and left the room. The tension had proved too much for him.

  Vershkov took Novikov aside, pointed at the table and whispered something in his ear.

  ‘Yes, of course!’ said Novikov. ‘Why keep vodka locked up in a cupboard?’

  Morozov held his fingernail against his glass, a quarter of the way up, and explained: ‘I can’t have any more because of my liver.’

  ‘How about you, Lieutenant-Colonel?’

  ‘Fill it right up! My liver’s doing fine, thank you!’

  ‘Our Magid’s a true Cossack.’

  ‘How about you, Major? How’s your liver?’

  Lopatin covered his glass with one hand.

  ‘Thank you, but I don’t drink.’

  Then he took his hand away and added: ‘Well, a symbolic drop. For the toast.’

  ‘Lopatin’s a baby. He just likes sweets.’

  They drank to the success of their common task. Then, as always happens, they discovered they had friends in common from their days at military school or the Academy. They went on to talk about their superior officers, about how cold and unpleasant the steppes were in autumn.

  ‘Well,’ said Lopatin. ‘Is the wedding going to be soon?’

  ‘It won’t be long,’ said Novikov.

  ‘There’s sure to be a wedding if there are Katyushas around,’ said Magid.

  Magid was convinced that the rocket-launchers would play a decisive role. After a glass of vodka he became condescending, sarcastic, sceptical and distant. Novikov took a strong dislike to him.

  Now, whenever he met people, Novikov tried to imagine what Yevgenia Nikolaevna would think of them. He also tried to imagine how they would behave with her, what they would find to talk about.

  Magid, he decided, would at once start to flirt, putting on airs, boasting and telling tall stories. He suddenly felt anxious and jealous – as though Zhenya really was listening to Magid’s witticisms.

  Wanting to make an impression on her himself, he began to explain how important it is to understand the men you’re fighting alongside, to know in advance how they’re likely to behave in battle. He talked about Karpov, who would need egging on, about Byelov, who would need holding back, and about Makarov, who was equally at home in attack and in defence.

  A series of rather empty remarks – as often happens with a group of officers representing different arms of the service – gave rise to a heated but equally empty argument.

  ‘Yes,’ said Morozov. ‘Sometimes you need to correct people a little, to give them some kind of orientation. But you should never impose your will on them.’

  ‘People should be led firmly,’ said Nyeudobnov. ‘One should never be afraid of taking responsibility on oneself.’

  Lopatin changed the subject.

  ‘If you haven’t fought in Stalingrad, then you haven’t seen war.’

  ‘Excuse me!’ exclaimed Magid. ‘But why Stalingrad? No one could deny t
he stubbornness and heroism of its defenders. That would be absurd. But I’ve never been in Stalingrad and I still have the cheek to say that I’ve seen war. My element is the offensive. I’ve taken part in three offensives. And let me tell you something – I’ve been the one who’s broken through the enemy line. I’ve been the one who’s entered the breach. Yes, the artillery really showed what it can do. We were ahead of the infantry, ahead of the tanks, we were even ahead of the air force.’

  ‘Come on now!’ said Novikov fiercely. ‘Everyone knows that the tank is the master of mobile warfare. That’s something there can be no two opinions about.’

  ‘There’s one other possibility,’ said Lopatin, taking up an earlier thread of the conversation. ‘In the event of success, you can take the credit yourself. But if you fail, you can blame it on your neighbours.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me of neighbours!’ said Morozov. ‘There was this general, the commander of an infantry unit, who asked for a supporting barrage. “Go on, old man, just give those heights a little dusting for me!” I asked him what calibres I should use. He called me every name in the book and repeated: “Open fire! And don’t waste time about it.” I discovered afterwards he couldn’t tell one calibre from another, had no idea of the different ranges and could hardly even read a map. “Open fire, you motherfucker!” And he’d shout out to his subordinates: “Forward! Or I’ll smash your teeth in. Forward! Or I’ll put you against the wall and have you shot!” And of course he was convinced he was a great strategist. There’s a fine neighbour for you! And often you end up being put under someone like that. After all, he was a general.’

  ‘I’m surprised to hear you talking like that,’ said Nyeudobnov. ‘There are no officers like that in the Soviet armed forces – and certainly no generals.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Morozov. ‘I’ve met hundreds over the last year. They curse, wave their pistols about and expose their men to enemy fire just for the fun of it. Why, not long ago I saw a battalion commander burst out crying. “How can I lead my men straight into those machine-guns?” he said. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “First let’s neutralize those gun emplacements. The artillery can do that.” And what do you think the general in command of the division did? He went for the battalion commander with his fists. “Either you attack right now,” he shouted, “or I’ll have you shot like a dog!” So he led his men forward to be slaughtered.’