‘You know what? Next year I’m going to grow some melons. You must come back and try one.’
The divisional commander was at home in the desert. He cracked jokes, bared his white teeth in a smile, and moved with quick and effortless steps through the deep sand. He even glanced amiably at the camels standing in harness by the huts with their corrugated-iron roofs.
Darensky found his cheerfulness irritating. In search of solitude, he decided to return to the emplacements of the 1st battery – though he had already been there during the day.
An enormous moon had risen; it seemed more black than red. Growing crimson with effort, it climbed up into the transparent black of the sky; the mortars, anti-tank weapons and the barrels of the guns looked strangely threatening in this angry light. Along the road stretched a caravan of camels; they were harnessed to squeaking village carts loaded with hay and boxes of shells. It was an unlikely scene: tractors, the lorry with the printing press for the Army journal, a thin radio mast, the long necks of the camels – and their undulating walk that made it seem as though their whole body was made out of rubber, without a single hard bone.
The camels passed by, leaving a smell of hay in the frosty air. The same huge moon – more black than red – had shone over the deserted fields where Prince Igor was to give battle. The same moon had shone when the Persian hosts marched into Greece, when the Roman legions invaded the German forests, when the battalions of the first consul had watched night fall over the pyramids . . .
Darensky, his head sunk into his shoulders, was sitting on a box of shells and listening to two soldiers who lay stretched out under their greatcoats beside the guns. The battery commander and his political instructor had gone to Divisional HQ; the lieutenant-colonel from Front HQ – the soldiers had found out who he was from a signaller – seemed to be fast asleep. The soldiers puffed blissfully at the cigarettes they had rolled, letting out clouds of smoke.
They were obviously close friends; you could tell from their certainty that whatever happened to one was of equal interest to the other.
‘So what happened?’ said one of them, feigning mockery and indifference.
‘You know the bastard as well as I do,’ said the second soldier with pretended reluctance. ‘How can he expect a man to walk in boots like these?’
‘So what happened?’
‘So here I am in the same old boots. I’m not going to walk barefoot, am I?’
‘So he wouldn’t give you new boots,’ said the second gunner. His voice was now full of interest; every trace of mockery and indifference had disappeared.
Their talk turned to their homes.
‘What do you expect a woman to write about? This is out of stock and that’s out of stock. If the boy isn’t ill, then it’s the girl. You know what women are like.’
‘Mine’s quite straightforward about it. She says: “You lot at the front are all right – you’ve got your rations. As for us, we really are having a hard time.”’
‘That’s woman’s logic for you,’ said the first gunner. ‘There she is, sitting in the rear, and she hasn’t got a clue what it’s like at the front. All she knows about are your rations.’
‘That’s right. She can’t get hold of any kerosene, and she thinks it’s the end of the world.’
‘Sure. It’s a thousand times more difficult to wait in a queue than to sit here in the desert and fight off enemy tanks with empty bottles.’
They were both well aware that there had been no tank attacks anywhere near them.
Interrupting the eternal discussion – who has the hardest role in life, man or woman? – one of them said hesitantly:
‘Mine’s fallen ill, though. She’s got something wrong with her back. She only has to lift something heavy and she’s in bed for a week.’
Once again the conversation seemed to take a different direction. They began to talk about the accursed, waterless desert around them.
The second gunner, the one lying closest to Darensky, said:
‘She didn’t write that to upset me. She just doesn’t understand.’
Wanting to take back – but not completely take back – his harsh words about soldiers’ wives, the first gunner said:
‘I know. I was just being stupid.’
They smoked for a while in silence, then started discussing the respective merits of safety-razors and cut-throats, the battery commander’s new jacket, and how you still want to go on living no matter how hard things may be.
‘Just look at the night! You know, I once saw a picture like this when I was at school: a full moon over a field and dead warriors lying on the ground.’
‘That doesn’t sound much like us,’ said the other with a laugh. ‘We’re not warriors. We’re more like sparrows.’
59
The silence was suddenly broken by an explosion to Darensky’s right. ‘A hundred and three millimetres,’ he said to himself at once. All the usual thoughts immediately went through his mind: ‘Was that a stray shot? Are they registering? I hope they haven’t already bracketed us. Is it going to be a full-scale barrage? Are they preparing the ground for a tank-attack?’
Every experienced soldier was asking the same questions.
An experienced soldier can distinguish one genuinely alarming sound from among a hundred others. Whatever he’s doing – eating, cleaning his rifle, writing a letter, scratching his nose, reading a newspaper; even if his mind is as empty as only that of an off-duty soldier can be – he cocks his head and listens intently and avidly.
The answer came straight away. There were explosions to the right of them, then to the left of them – and suddenly everything began shaking, smoking and thundering.
A full-scale barrage.
The flames of the explosions pierced the clouds of smoke, dust and sand; at the same time, smoke poured out of the flames. Everywhere people were running for cover, dropping to the ground.
The desert was filled by a terrible howl. Mortar-bombs had begun falling near the camels; they were running wild, upsetting their carts and dragging their broken harnesses along the ground. Darensky just stood there, forgetting the whistling shells, gazing in horror at the appalling spectacle.
He couldn’t rid himself of the thought that these were the last days of his motherland. He felt a sense of doom. The terrible howl of maddened camels, the anxious Russian voices, the men running for shelter! Russia was dying! Here she was, driven into the cold sands of Asia, dying under a sullen, indifferent moon. The Russian language he so cherished had become mingled with the terrified screams of wounded camels.
What he felt at this bitter moment was not anger or hatred, but a feeling of brotherhood towards everything poor and weak. For some reason he glimpsed the dark face of the old Kalmyk he had met in the steppe; he seemed very close – as though they had known one another for a long time.
‘We’re in the hands of Fate,’ he thought, realizing that he’d rather not stay alive if Russia was defeated.
He looked round at the soldiers; they were lying prone in whatever hollows they had been able to find. He drew himself up to his full height, ready to take command of the battery, and called out:
‘Where’s the telephonist? Quick! I want you right here.’
At that very moment the thunder of explosions ceased.
That night, on Stalin’s orders, the commanders of three Fronts, Vatutin, Rokossovsky and Yeremenko, launched the offensive that, within a hundred hours, was to decide the battle of Stalingrad and the fate of Paulus’s 330,000-strong army, the offensive that was to mark a turning-point in the war.
A telegram was waiting for Darensky at headquarters. He was to attach himself to Colonel Novikov’s tank corps and keep the General Staff informed of its operations.
60
Soon after the anniversary of the Revolution, there had been another massive air-raid on the Central Power Station; eighteen bombers took part.
Clouds of smoke covered the ruins; the power station had finally been brough
t to a standstill.
After the raid, Spiridonov’s hands had begun to tremble convulsively. He splashed tea everywhere if he tried to lift a mug to his lips; sometimes he had to put it straight back on the table, knowing he couldn’t hold it any longer. His hands only stopped trembling when he drank vodka.
He and Kamyshov began allowing the workers to leave; they crossed the Volga and made their way through the steppe to Akhtuba and Leninsk. At the same time, they themselves asked Moscow for permission to leave; there was little sense in their remaining in the front line among these ruins. Moscow was slow to reply and Spiridonov became increasingly nervous. Nikolayev, the Party organizer, had already been summoned by the Central Committee; he had left for Moscow in a Douglas.
Spiridonov and Kamyshov spent their time wandering through the ruins, telling one another that there was nothing left for them to do and that they had better get the hell out of it. But Moscow still didn’t reply.
Spiridonov was particularly worried about Vera. She had begun to feel ill after crossing to the left bank and had been unable to make the journey to Leninsk. She was in the last stages of pregnancy and there was no question of her travelling nearly a hundred kilometres in the back of a truck along frozen, pot-holed roads.
Some workers she knew took her to a barge that had been converted into a hostel; it was moored close to the bank, fast in the ice.
Soon after the bombing of the power station, Vera had sent her father a note by a mechanic on one of the launches. She told him that he wasn’t to worry and that she’d been given a comfortable little corner in the hold, behind a partition. Among the other evacuees on the barge were a nurse from the Beketovka clinic and an old midwife; if there were any complications, they could call a doctor from the field-hospital four kilometres away. They had hot water on the barge, and a stove. The obkom supplied them with food and they all ate together.
Although she told him not to worry, every word of her note filled Spiridonov with anxiety. The only crumb of comfort was that as yet the barge hadn’t been bombed.
If he could only get across to the left bank himself, he could get hold of a car or ambulance and take her at least as far as Akhtuba. But there was no word from Moscow. They still hadn’t authorized the departure of the director and chief engineer – though there was no longer any need for anyone at the power station except a small armed guard. The workers and engineers had had no wish to hang around there with nothing to do; they had all crossed to the left bank as soon as Spiridonov gave his permission.
Only old Andreyev refused to accept the official permit bearing the director’s round stamp. When Spiridonov suggested he join his daughter-in-law and grandson in Leninsk, he just said: ‘No, I’m staying here.’
He felt that as long as he stayed on the Stalingrad bank he still had some link with his former life. Maybe in a little while he’d be able to get to the Tractor Factory. He’d make his way through the houses that had been burnt down or blown apart and come to the garden laid out by his wife. He’d straighten the young, injured trees, check whether the things they had buried were still in their hiding-place and sit down on a stone by the broken fence.
‘Well, Varvara, the sewing-machine’s still in its place and it hasn’t even got rusty. But I’m afraid the apple-tree by the fence has had its day. It must have been caught by a splinter. As for the sauerkraut in the cellar – that’s fine, it’s just got a tiny bit of mould on top.’
Spiridonov very much wanted to talk things over with Krymov, but Krymov hadn’t once looked in since the anniversary of the Revolution.
Spiridonov and Kamyshov agreed to wait until 17 November and then leave; there really was nothing whatever for them to do. The Germans were still shelling the power station now and again. Kamyshov, who had lost his nerve after the last air-raid, said:
‘Stepan Fyodorovich, if they’re still shelling us, then their intelligence service is a dead loss. They may bomb us again any moment. You know the Germans. They’re like bulls – they’ll just carry on pounding away.’
On 18 November, without waiting for permission from Moscow, Spiridonov said goodbye to the guard, embraced Andreyev, looked for a last time at the ruins and left.
He had worked hard and honourably. His achievement was all the more worthy of respect in that he was afraid of war, was unaccustomed to conditions at the front, had lived in constant fear of air-raids and gone completely to pieces during the bombardments themselves.
He had a suitcase in one hand and a bundle over his shoulder. He waved to Andreyev, who was standing by the ruined gates, then looked round at the engineers’ building with its broken windows, at the gloomy walls of the turbine-workshop and at the smoke from the still-burning insulators.
He left the power station when there was nothing more that he could do there, only twenty-four hours before the beginning of the Soviet offensive. But in the eyes of many people those twenty-four hours outweighed all he had done before; ready to greet him as a hero, they branded him a coward and a deserter.
Long afterwards he was to be tormented by the memory of how he had turned round and waved; of how he had seen a solitary old man standing by the gate, watching him.
61
Vera gave birth to a son.
She lay in the hold on a plank bed; the other women had thrown a heap of rags on top so she wouldn’t be quite so cold; beside her, wrapped in a sheet, lay her baby. When someone came in and parted the curtains, she saw the other men and women and the rags hanging down from the upper bunks; she heard the cries of children, the continual commotion and the buzz of voices. She felt as though her head was as full of fog and confusion as the fetid air.
The hold was both stuffy and extremely cold; here and there you could see patches of frost on the plank walls. People slept in their felt boots and padded jackets. All day long the women sat huddled up in shawls and strips of blanket, blowing on their freezing fingers.
The tiny window, almost on a level with the ice, hardly let in any light; it was dark even in the daytime. At night they lit oil-lamps, but the glass covers were missing and their faces were covered in soot. Clouds of steam came in when they opened the trap-door from the bridge; it was like a shell-burst.
Old women combed their long grey hair; old men sat on the floor, holding mugs of hot water to warm their hands. Children, wrapped up in shawls, crawled about among the jumble of pillows, bundles and plywood suitcases.
Vera felt that her body, her thoughts, and her attitude towards other people had all been changed by the baby at her breast. She thought about her friend Zina Melnikova, about Sergeyevna – the old woman who looked after her here – about spring, about her mother, about the hole in her shirt, about the quilted blanket, about Seryozha and Tolya, about washing-powder, about German planes, about the bunker at the power station and her own unwashed hair. All these thoughts were somehow infused with her feelings for her baby; it was only in relation to him that they had meaning.
She looked at her hands, her legs, her breasts, her fingers. They were no longer the same hands that had played volleyball, written essays and turned the pages of books. They were no longer the same legs that had run up the school steps, that had been stung by nettles, that had kicked against the warm water of the river, that passers-by had turned to stare at.
When she thought about her son, she thought simultaneously of Viktorov. There were airfields not far away. He was probably very close. The Volga no longer separated them. Any moment some pilots might come into the hold.
‘Do you know Lieutenant Viktorov?’
‘Yes, we certainly do.’
‘Tell him that his son’s here – and his wife.’
The other women came to visit her in her little corner. They shook their heads, smiled and sighed; some of them cried as they bent over the baby. It was themselves they were crying over and the baby they were smiling at; this went without saying.
The questions people asked Vera all centred around one thing: how she could best serve her c
hild. Did she have enough milk? Was she getting mastitis? Was she suffering from the damp?
Her father appeared two days after the baby’s birth. Unshaven, his nose and cheeks burnt by the icy wind, his collar turned up, his coat fastened at the waist by a tie, carrying a small suitcase and a bundle, no one would have taken him for the director of the Central Power Station.
She noticed that when he came up to her bunk, his trembling face turned first of all to the creature beside her. Then he turned away; she could tell from his back and shoulders that he was crying. She realized that he was crying because his wife would never know about their grandson, would never bend over him as he himself had just done. Only then, angry and ashamed that dozens of people had seen him crying, did he say in a hoarse voice:
‘So . . . You’ve made me a grandfather.’
He bent down, kissed her on the forehead and patted her shoulder with a cold, dirty hand. Then he said:
‘Krymov came round on the anniversary of the Revolution. He didn’t know your mother had died. And he kept asking about Zhenya.’
An old man, wearing a torn jacket that was losing its padding, came up and wheezed:
‘Comrade Spiridonov, people are awarded the Order of Kutuzov, the Order of Lenin, the Red Star – and all for killing as many men as they can. Just think how many men have died on both sides. Well, I think your daughter deserves a medal that weighs a good two kilos – for giving birth to new life in a hell-hole like this.’
It was the first time since the baby’s birth that anyone had said anything about Vera herself.
Spiridonov decided to stay on the barge till Vera was stronger. Then they could go to Leninsk together. It was on the way to Kuibyshev; he’d have to go there for a new appointment. The food on the barge was obviously quite appalling. Once he’d warmed up a bit, he set off into the forest to find the command post of the obkom; he knew it was somewhere nearby. He hoped he’d be able to get hold of some fat and some sugar through his friends there.
Life and Fate Page 73