The major put the receiver down. He assumed that Tolya had found his new courage in vodka.
The day proved extraordinarily long, infinitely full of events. Afterwards, Tolya would feel he had more to say about this day than about the whole of his life before it.
The battery’s first salvo sounded magnificent. Everything round about froze. The steppe, the huge sky, the blue Volga—all listened intently, caught the sounds up and multiplied them with repeated echoes. Steppe, sky and river—all put their heart and soul into these echoes. They were broad and solemn as peals of thunder, full of dense sadness and sullen anger, an impossible fusion of furious passion and majestic calm.
Without meaning to, the gunners fell silent for a moment, shocked and excited by the thunder of their guns—more muted over the Volga, louder over the steppe.
“Battery, fire!”
Again the steppe, the sky and the Volga acquired voices. They threatened, complained, exulted and sorrowed; they felt the same things as the gunners.
“Fire!”
And fire duly appeared. Through his binoculars Tolya could see grey smoke enveloping the trees and vineyards. He could see grey-blue figures bustling about and camouflaged German tanks crawling this way and that way like frightened beetles and woodlice. He saw a flash of white flame, short, straight and stark—and then billows of black smoke whirling about the orchards, merging, climbing high into the sky, sinking heavily back down. And again—a sharp blade of white flame, slashing through the dense veil of smoke.
One of the gun-layers, a high-cheekboned Tatar, looked at Tolya and smiled. He didn’t speak, but his quick glance conveyed a great deal: his joy in their success; his awareness that he was not alone and that his fellow gunners were also delivering accurate fire; his appreciation that Tolya was a good commander and that there were no better guns in the world than the ones they were firing.
The field telephone buzzed. This time it was Tolya who was slow to recognize the excited, overjoyed voice of the major: “Well done, my lad! Well done! You’ve set their fuel stores on fire. Our divisional commander has just called. He’s told me to pass on his congratulations. And our infantry is advancing now. Take care not to fire on our own men.”
Along the entire front from the Volga to the Don, Red Army infantry regiments, supported by artillery, tanks and aircraft, had taken the offensive.
Dust and smoke hung over the steppe. And there was a constant din—the thunder of artillery, the hum of tanks, the drawn-out “U-u-r-a-a!” of Red Army soldiers storming German positions, the commanders’ whistles, the dry explosions of mortars, the crackle of sub-machine-gun fire and the howl of dive-bombers.
Up in the air the fighting was on an equally vast scale. There was the roar of fighter engines. Soviet planes soared almost vertically and then, like the flash of a knife, tore across the sky. They attacked Junkers approaching the battlefield; they broke up the sinister merry-go-round of dive-bombers.
Above the Volga, Yaks and LaGGs skirmished with Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. Everything about these dogfights—the manoeuvring, the shooting, the engagements and disengagements—happened too swiftly for the men on the ground to follow. And the speed and fury of these fights seemed to be determined not by the power of engines and guns, or by the speed and manoeuvrability of the aircraft, but by the hearts of the young Soviet fighter pilots; it was their passion, their audacity that was manifest in the fighters’ sudden climbs, dives and turns. A bright quivering spot, barely visible in the vast ocean that was the sky, would metamorphose into a powerful machine; people below would see bluish wings with red stars, the flames of tracer bullets and a pilot’s helmeted head—and a moment later the plane would have soared out of sight. Sometimes there would be a wild roar from the steppe as Soviet foot soldiers, momentarily forgetting all danger, leaped to their feet and waved their caps in the air to salute the victory of one of their pilots. Sometimes hundreds of men would let out a long wail as a Soviet pilot baled out of a blazing plane and Messerschmitts attacked the frail bubble of his parachute.
There was one rather startling incident. Perhaps because Tolya’s battery was well camouflaged and positioned so very far to the south, a disorientated Soviet fighter pilot mistook them for Germans. Flying low over the cliff top, he strafed the battery with a round of machine-gun fire. Three Messerschmitts promptly saw off this fighter and then, for a full twenty minutes, patrolled over the battery. Next, probably because they were getting low on fuel, they must have radioed for a relief. Three new German planes took over and continued circling over the battery, conscientiously protecting the Soviet guns from harm. At first the gunners had felt alarmed. Thinking that the Germans were about to strafe them or drop anti-personnel bombs, they kept looking anxiously up at the sky. Tolya shouted, “Comrades, they’re protecting us—they think we’re Germans. Don’t do anything to show them we’re not!” The answering peal of laughter was so loud that the Germans could almost have heard it up in the sky.
On any other day this incident would have given rise to an endless string of stories and jokes. On this first day of combat, however, it was quickly forgotten.
The battery’s success in shelling both tanks and infantry engendered the sense of elation that, on the front line, can suddenly take over from anxiety and hopelessness. German ground observers evidently made the same mistake as the pilots; they too were confused by the battery’s forward position. No one took a bearing on the battery and no one bombed or shelled it. The battery’s success, achieved at no real cost, filled everyone with supreme confidence and a sense of mocking contempt for the enemy. And, as happens at such moments, the gunners generalized from their own experience, mistakenly imagining that Soviet troops were advancing along the whole of the front, that they had broken the German defences, that in an hour or two the battery would be ordered forward and that in a day or two the Soviet armies to the north-west of Stalingrad would link up with the armies within the city. They would drive the Germans back. As always, there were men who claimed to have spoken in person with some lieutenant or wounded captain just arrived from a sector where the Germans were fleeing in panic, abandoning guns, ammunition and schnapps.
3
IN THE evening everything quietened down. Tolya Shaposhnikov rested for a while beside a telegraph pole, hurriedly eating some bread and tinned meat. His lips felt rough, as if they belonged to someone else, and the bread made a strange rustling noise in his parched mouth. His ears rang and his head felt as if it were full of cotton wool. The day had left him deeply exhausted, but this was not unpleasant. In his mind he kept hearing his own words of command, as if he were still shouting them. His cheeks were burning and even though he was almost lying down, propped against the telegraph pole, he could feel his strong, rapid heartbeats.
He looked down at the thin strip of sand by the Volga; it was hard to believe that he had been standing there only a few hours ago, feeling anxious and confused as he helped to unload cases of ammunition. Now, though, it did not in the least surprise him that his first day of combat had gone so well. He had kept calmly and confidently abreast of a swiftly changing situation. His divisional commander had congratulated him. For the first time in his life, his voice had sounded loud and clear and people had attended to his every word. If in the past he had felt inadequate, it was simply because he had not known his own strength. Now, though, this was something he could take for granted. His strength, his intelligence, his will—all these were truly his. They were a part of him, of Tolya Shaposhnikov; he had not just found them under a bush, nor had he borrowed them from someone else. If there was anything to be surprised about, it was the fact that he had not understood this a year ago, or yesterday, or even this morning.
Lieutenant Shaposhnikov was indeed still himself. To think that someone has suddenly been transformed is always a mistake. No one who really knows another person will ever say in bewilderment, “I can’t believe it—he’s changed overnight!” It is more accurate to say, “Circumstanc
es have suddenly changed, and this has allowed what was always present within him to reveal itself.”
Nevertheless, such changes remain astonishing.
Tolya imagined going along with his comrades to visit the girls in the medical battalion. He would shine in every way; he would be wittier than anyone and he would tell the most interesting stories.
At school Nadya’s fellow pupils would ask, “This Shaposhnikov in today’s newspaper—is it your brother?” And his father would show the newspaper to his institute colleagues.
The nurses in the medical battalion would say, “Lieutenant Shaposhnikov—he’s so witty! And the way he dances!”
If you lie for a long time by a telegraph pole in the steppe, you start to hear music—a complex and varied music. The pole absorbs the winds and begins to sing. Like a samovar coming to the boil, it quietly hums, whistles and gurgles. The slate-grey pole has been tempered by wind, sun and frost. The pole is a violin, with telephone cables for strings. And the steppe knows this, and likes to play music on it. It’s a joy to lean back against a telegraph pole and listen to this steppe violin, to listen to your thoughts and the rhythm of your breathing.
That evening the Volga was full of colour. It turned deep blue, then pink, and then shone like grey silk, as if covered by light, pearly dust. The water gave off a cool evening peace, while the steppe still breathed out heat.
Wounded men and women in bloodstained bandages were walking north along the shore. Half-naked figures were washing their foot cloths by the silky water, checking the seams on their underclothes for lice. Road tractors ground their way along the stones a little further inland, beneath the high cliffs.
“Air alert!” called the sentry.
The air was clear and warm, and it smelled of wormwood.
Life was so beautiful.
As it turned dark, the Germans went on the offensive. Lit by a sinister light, the world became unrecognizable and frightening. Flares dropped by German planes hung high over the Soviet positions, swaying in the sky like great jellyfish. Mute yet vigilant, they eclipsed the quiet light of the moon and stars, illuminating the Volga, the steppe grass, the gullies and vineyards, and the young poplars on the clifftop.
Tolya could hear the sullen hum of powerful Heinkel bombers and the quick chatter of Italian fighters. The earth shook from exploding bombs; the air quivered from the whistle of shells. German rockets hurled still more flares up into the sky. In their poisonous green light, the steppe and the Volga looked like a papier-mâché model. People’s faces and hands seemed lifeless, as if made of cardboard. There were no longer hills, valleys and a living river—only numbered heights, terrain intersected by gullies running west to east and a water barrier running north to south. The tender, bittersweet smell of wormwood now seemed out of place; it did not belong to this strategic planning officers’ maquette.
There was the roar of German tank engines, the sound of German infantry marching through feathergrass.
By then the Germans had located Tolya’s battery. One after another, shells tore into the vines. There were cries from the wounded; men rushed to take cover. Then the German tanks moved forward and Tolya ordered his men to their fire positions. They opened fire, but they now had to pay dearly for their easy initial successes. The battery was being targeted not only by German artillery but also by mortars, firing from hills on the far side of the gully. And there were sudden rounds of machine-gun fire, like storms of thunder or hail.
Sliced through by a shell, the singing telegraph pole fell to the ground.
It seemed to Tolya that there would be no end to this night battle. The sultry darkness gave birth to more and more enemies. The drawn-out whistle of falling bombs; repeated explosions that made the ground shudder all around him; German tanks, more and more German tanks, with their guns and machine guns; sudden salvos of shells that raised clouds of earth, leaves and pebbles and left him stunned and blinded.
And again and again, the ominous hum of the Heinkels.
There was grit and dry earth in Tolya’s mouth, rasping between his teeth. He wanted to spit it out, but his mouth was so dry he couldn’t spit. His voice had grown hoarse; sometimes he could hardly believe it was really him, shouting commands in such a deep, hoarse voice.
The harsh light in the sky faded. The darkness became impenetrable; it was only from the sound of their breathing that he knew there were men nearby. A church in the Transvolga steppe was a mere blur of white on black. A minute later the harsh light flared up again, and Tolya felt it was this dry, deathly light that was tickling his throat and drying his windpipe.
He had no strength left for anything but his guns. There was room in his soul for only one feeling, only one vague dream—to survive until morning, to see the sun.
And Tolya Shaposhnikov did indeed see the sun. He saw it rise above the eastern steppe, above the tender, pearly, pale-pink mist lying over the Volga.
The young man opened his parched mouth to call out the order, and the roar of his guns, which had repelled all the Germans’ nighttime attacks, greeted the sunrise.
•
Two paces away from Tolya there was a sudden dazzling flash. A powerful fist struck him in the chest. He tripped on a used shell case and fell to the ground. A voice shouted, “Quick, here! The lieutenant’s wounded!”
Men were bending over him, but Tolya couldn’t make sense of their looks of concern and pity. They’d misunderstood—it must be some other lieutenant who’d been wounded. In a moment he’d get to his feet, shake off the dust, go down to the Volga, wash in the cool, soft, wonderful water and resume his command.
4
A NUMBER of commanders and soldiers were waiting by a checkpoint at a steppe crossroads, hoping for a lift from a passing vehicle.
Each time a vehicle appeared in the distance, they all picked up their packs and hurried towards the traffic controller.
“What’s got into you all?” he would repeat crossly. “It’s no use all crowding up at once. I’ve told you already—there’ll be transport for all of you.”
A middle-aged major in a neat but faded tunic smiled—as if to say that he wasn’t born yesterday and was well aware that it was no use trying to teach manners to quartermasters, generals’ adjutants, admin clerks and traffic controllers.
A large post had been hammered into the ground, with arrows pointing to Saratov, Kamyshin, Stalingrad and Balashov.
East, west, north or south, the dirt roads all looked identical.
The dry, grey grass was coated in yellow dust. Kites were perching on the telegraph poles, gripping the white insulators with their talons. But the men waiting at the checkpoint knew that the roads were by no means identical; they knew very well which ran east and north, which south-west, and which towards Stalingrad.
A truck stopped by the barrier. It was carrying wounded soldiers and commanders. Their bandages were dark from layers of dust and, in places, still darker from black, congealed blood.
“In you get, comrade Major!” said the controller.
The major threw his pack inside, put one foot on a back wheel and climbed in. As the truck moved off, he waved goodbye to a captain and two senior lieutenants. The four men had been lying on the grass together, eating bread and tinned fish. He had showed them photographs of his wife, daughter and son.
The major looked around at his new set of chance companions—grey with dust and pale from loss of blood. He yawned, then said to a soldier with his arm in a sling, “Kotluban?”
“Yes,” the soldier replied. “We’d already got to the front line. Then someone decided to reposition us—the Germans had a field day.”
“It wasn’t far from the Volga,” said a second wounded soldier. “They made mincemeat of us. Everyone said we shouldn’t have been brought forward till night. In daylight, in open steppe, we were in full view of the enemy. We were like frightened hares, wondering where we could hide. It looked like none of us would survive.”
“Mortar bombs?”
&
nbsp; “Yes, fucking mortars.”
“Well, at least you’ll be getting a rest now,” said the major.
“Yes,” said the soldier, “we’ll be all right.” Then he pointed to a young man stretched out on some straw and added, “But I don’t think this lieutenant will be doing any more fighting.”
The lieutenant’s arms and legs were flopping about helplessly, subordinate to every bump and pothole the truck passed over.
“They should make him more comfortable,” said the major. “Orderly!”
The lieutenant gave the major a long, intent look. He grimaced in pain, then closed his eyes.
His sunken cheeks, the way his lips appeared almost sealed together, the severity of his expression—all made it clear that he no longer wanted to look at the world, that there was no longer anything he wanted to say or ask about. The vast dusty steppe and the ground squirrels running across the road meant nothing to him. The lieutenant didn’t care when they got to Kamyshin, whether or not he’d be given a hot meal, whether he’d be able to send a letter from the hospital or whether it was a German or a Soviet plane droning in the sky above them. He no longer cared whether the Germans had taken some height or other his company had been defending. He no longer even cared whether or not the war ever came to an end.
There he lay, gloomily sensing how the warmth of life—the one precious gift he possessed, now lost forever—was slowly cooling inside him.
Medical orderlies say of men like him, even if they are still breathing and groaning, “This one’s ready.”
That night Kamyshin had been the target of an air raid. The wounded in the truck looked anxiously at the houses with gaping windows, at the men and women gazing fixedly up at the sky, at the streets glistening with glass, and at the pits dug by half-ton bombs dropped from a height of 1,000 metres onto small houses with grey and green roofs.
The wounded, naturally, were eager to get straight onto a boat for Saratov; they didn’t want to hang about in a town like this. Carefully, as if their bandaged arms and legs were treasures entrusted to them for safekeeping, they shuffled them to the edge of the truck. Then they began their slow descent to the ground, gasping and groaning, looking expectantly at the nearby military doctor in kirza boots and a skimpy white gown with minuscule sleeves.
Stalingrad Page 80