A sudden thought flashed through Krymov’s head. Maybe it was Grekov who had shot him?
Towards evening his headache got worse and he began to vomit. He was kept at the divisional first-aid post for two days and then taken to the left bank and transferred to the Army hospital.
21
Commissar Pivovarov made his way into the narrow bunkers that made up the first-aid post. The wounded were lying side by side on the floor. Krymov wasn’t there – he had been taken the previous night to the left bank.
‘Strange he should have got wounded so quickly!’ thought Pivovarov. ‘He must be unlucky – or perhaps very lucky indeed!’
Pivovarov had also come to the first-aid post to see if it was worth transferring Byerozkin there. On his return to Regimental HQ – after nearly being killed on the way by a splinter from a German mortarbomb – he told Glushkov, Byerozkin’s orderly, that the conditions in the first-aid post were appalling. Everywhere you looked, there were heaps of bloodstained gauze, bandages and cotton wool – it was frightening.
‘Yes, comrade Commissar,’ said Glushkov. ‘He’s certainly better off in his own bunker.’
‘No question,’ said Pivovarov. ‘And they don’t even discriminate between a regimental commander and an ordinary soldier. They’re all lying on the floor together.’
Glushkov, whose rank only entitled him to a place on the floor, said sympathetically: ‘No, that’s no good at all.’
‘Has he said anything?’
‘No,’ said Glushkov. ‘He hasn’t even looked at the letter from his wife. It’s just lying there beside him.’
‘He won’t even look at a letter from his wife?’ said Pivovarov. ‘He really must be in a bad way.’
He picked up the letter, weighed it in his hand, held it in front of Byerozkin’s face and said sternly: ‘Ivan Leontyevich, this is a letter from your spouse.’
He paused for a moment, then said in a very different tone: ‘Vanya! Look! It’s from your wife! Don’t you understand? Hey, Vanya?’
Byerozkin didn’t understand. His face was flushed, and his staring eyes were bright and empty.
All day long the war knocked obstinately at the door of the bunker. Almost all the telephones had gone dead during the night; Byerozkin’s, however, was still working and people were constantly ringing him – Divisional HQ, Army HQ, his battalion commanders Podchufarov and Dyrkin, and his neighbour, the commander of one of Gurov’s regiments.
People were constantly coming and going, the door squeaked, and the tarpaulin – hung over the entrance by Glushkov – flapped in the wind. There had been a general sense of anxiety and anticipation since early that morning. In spite of – or perhaps because of – the intermittent artillery fire, the infrequent and carelessly inaccurate air-raids, everyone felt certain that the German offensive was about to be unleashed. This certainty was equally tormenting to Chuykov, to Pivovarov, to the men in house 6/1, and to the commander of the infantry platoon who, to celebrate his birthday, had been drinking vodka all day beside the chimney of the Stalingrad Tractor Factory.
Whenever anyone in the bunker said anything interesting or amusing, everyone immediately glanced at Byerozkin – could he really not hear them?
Company commander Khrenov, in a voice hoarse from the cold, was telling Pivovarov about an incident just before dawn. He’d climbed up from the cellar where his command-post was situated, sat down on a stone and listened to see if the Germans were up to any tricks yet. Suddenly he’d heard a harsh, angry voice in the sky: ‘You sod, why didn’t you give us any lights?’
Khrenov had felt first amazed, then terrified. How could someone up in the sky know his name?fn1 Then he had looked up and seen a kukuruznik gliding by with the engine switched off. The pilot was dropping provisions to house 6/1 and was annoyed there hadn’t been any markers.
Everyone looked round to see if Byerozkin had smiled; only Glushkov imagined he could see a flicker of life in his glassy eyes. At lunchtime the bunker emptied. Byerozkin still lay there, his long-awaited letter beside him. Glushkov sighed. Pivovarov and the new chief of staff had gone out for lunch. They were tucking in to some first-class borshch and drinking their hundred grams of vodka. Glushkov himself had already been offered some of the borshch. But as the boss, the commander of the regiment, wasn’t eating, all he had had was a few drops of water . . .
Glushkov tore open the envelope, went up to Byerozkin’s bunk and, very slowly, in a quiet, clear voice, began reading:
‘Hello, my Vanya, hello my dearest, hello my beloved . . .’
Glushkov frowned, but he didn’t stop reading. This tender, sad, kind letter from Byerozkin’s wife had already been read by the censors. Now it was being read out loud to the unconscious Byerozkin, the only man in the world truly able to read it.
Glushkov wasn’t so very surprised when Byerozkin turned his head, stretched out his hand and said: ‘Give it to me.’
The lines of handwriting trembled between his large fingers.
‘Vanya, it’s very beautiful here, Vanya, I miss you very much. Lyuba keeps asking where Papa’s gone. We’re living on the shore of a lake, the house is very warm, the landlady’s got a cow, there’s lots of milk, and then there’s the money you sent us. When I go out in the morning, there are yellow and red maple-leaves all over the cold water, there’s already snow on the ground and that makes the water even bluer, and the sky’s pure blue and the yellow and red of the leaves are incredibly bright. And Lyuba keeps asking me: “Why are you crying?” Vanya, Vanya, my darling, thank you for everything, for everything, thank you for all your kindness. How can I explain why I’m crying? I’m crying because I’m alive, crying from grief that Slava’s dead and I’m still alive, crying from happiness that you’re alive. I cry when I think of my mother and sister, I cry because of the morning light, I cry because everything round about is so beautiful and because there’s so much sadness everywhere, in everyone’s life and in my own. Vanya, Vanya, my dearest, my beloved . . .’
And his head began to spin, everything became blurred, his fingers trembled, the letter itself trembled. Even the white-hot air was trembling.
‘Glushkov,’ said Byerozkin, ‘you must get me back in shape today.’ (That was a phrase Tamara didn’t like.) ‘Tell me, is the boiler still working?’
‘The boiler’s fine. But how do you think you’re going to get better in one day? You’ve got a fever. Forty degrees – just like vodka. You can’t expect that to vanish in a moment.’
An empty petrol-drum was rolled into the bunker with a loud rumble. It was then half-filled – by means of a teapot and a canvas bucket – with steaming-hot river water. Glushkov helped Byerozkin undress and walked him up to the drum.
‘The water’s very hot, comrade Lieutenant-Colonel,’ he said, touching the side of the drum very gingerly with his hand. ‘You’ll be stewed alive. I called the comrade commissar, but he’s at a meeting with the divisional commander. We should wait for him to come back.’
‘What for?’
‘If anything happens to you, I’ll shoot myself. And if I don’t have the guts, comrade Pivovarov will do it for me.’
‘Give me a hand.’
‘Please, let me at least call the chief of staff.’
‘Come on now!’ Byerozkin’s voice was hoarse, he was naked and he could barely stand upright; nevertheless, Glushkov immediately stopped arguing.
As he got into the water, Byerozkin winced and let out a groan. Glushkov paced round the drum, groaning in sympathetic anxiety.
‘Just like a maternity home,’ he thought suddenly.
Byerozkin lost consciousness for a while. His fever and the general anxiety of war blurred together into a mist. His heart seemed to stop and he could no longer even feel the scalding hot water. Then he came to and said to Glushkov: ‘You must mop the floor.’
Glushkov took no notice of the water spilling over the edge. Byerozkin’s crimson face had gone suddenly white, his mouth had fallen open, and huge drops o
f sweat – to Glushkov they looked almost blue – had appeared on his close-shaven head. He began to lose consciousness again. But when Glushkov tried to drag him out of the water, he said very clearly: ‘No, I’m not ready yet.’
He was racked by a fit of coughing. As soon as it was over, without even waiting to get his breath back, he said: ‘Pour in some more water!’
At last he got out. Looking at him, Glushkov felt even more despondent. He rubbed Byerozkin dry, helped him back into bed, and covered him over with a blanket and some greatcoats. He then began piling on everything he could find – jackets, trousers, tarpaulins . . .
By the time Pivovarov returned everything had been tidied up – though the bunker still felt hot and damp like a bath-house. Byerozkin was sleeping peacefully. Pivovarov stood over his bed for a moment and looked at him.
‘He has got a splendid face,’ he thought. ‘I’m sure he never wrote denunciations.’
For some reason, he had been troubled all day long by the memory of how – five years before – he had helped unmask Shmelyev, a friend and fellow-student of his, as an enemy of the people. All kinds of rubbish came into one’s head during this sinister lull in the fighting. He could see Shmelyev’s sad, pitiful look as his friend’s denunciation was read out at the meeting.
About twelve o’clock, Chuykov himself telephoned, passing over the head of the divisional commander. He was very worried about Byerozkin’s regiment – according to the latest intelligence reports the Germans had amassed a particularly heavy concentration of tanks and infantry opposite the Tractor Factory.
‘Well, how are things?’ he asked impatiently. ‘And who’s in command? Batyuk said the commanding officer had pneumonia or something. He wanted to have him taken across to the left bank.’
‘I’m in command,’ answered a hoarse voice. ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Byerozkin. I did have something of a cold, but I’m all right now.’
‘Yes, you do sound a bit hoarse,’ said Chuykov almost gloatingly. ‘Well, the Germans will give you some hot milk. They’ve got it all ready, they won’t be long.’
‘Yes, comrade,’ said Byerozkin. ‘I understand you.’
‘Very good,’ said Chuykov. ‘But if you ever think of retreating, remember I can make you an egg-flip at least as good as the Germans’ hot milk.’
Footnotes
fn1 The Russian word khren is used in an expression meaning ‘old sod’.
22
Old Polyakov arranged for Klimov, the scout, to take him at night to Regimental HQ; he wanted to find out how things were with Seryozha.
‘That’s a splendid idea, old man,’ said Grekov. ‘You can have a bit of a rest and then come back and tell us how things are in the rear.’
‘You mean with Katya?’ asked Polyakov, guessing why Grekov had been so quick to agree.
‘They left HQ long ago,’ said Klimov. ‘The commander had them both sent to the left bank. By now they’ve probably already visited the registry office in Akhtuba.’
‘Do you want to cancel our trip then?’ asked Polyakov pointedly.
Grekov looked at him sharply, but all he said was: ‘Very well, then. Be off with you!’
‘Very well,’ thought Polyakov.
They set off down the narrow passage about four in the morning. Polyakov kept bumping his head against the supports and cursing Seryozha. He felt a little angry and embarrassed at the strength of his affection for the boy.
After a while the passage widened and they sat down for a rest. Klimov said jokingly:
‘What, haven’t you got a present for them?’
‘To hell with the damned boy!’ said Polyakov. ‘I should have taken a brick so I could give him a good knock on the head!’
‘I see!’ said Klimov. ‘That’s why you wanted to come with me. That’s why you’re ready to swim the Volga to see him. Or is it Katya you want to see? Are you dying of jealousy?’
‘Come on,’ said Polyakov. ‘Let’s get going!’
Soon they came up to the surface and had to walk through no man’s land. It was utterly silent.
‘Perhaps the war’s come to an end?’ thought Polyakov. He could picture his own home with an extraordinary vividness: there was a plate of borshch on the table and his wife was gutting a fish he had caught. He even began to feel quite warm . . .
That night General Paulus gave orders for the attack on the Tractor Factory.
Two infantry divisions were to advance through the breach opened by bombers, artillery and tanks . . . Since midnight, cigarettes had been glowing in the soldiers’ cupped hands.
The first Junkers flew over the factory an hour and a half before dawn. The ensuing bombardment was quite without respite; any gap in the unbroken wall of noise was immediately filled by the whistle of bombs tearing towards the earth with all their iron strength. The continuous roar was enough to shatter your skull or your backbone.
It began to get light, but not over the factory . . . It was as though the earth itself were belching out black dust, smoke, thunder, lightning . . .
The brunt of the attack was borne by Byerozkin’s regiment and house 6/1. All over that sector half-deafened men leapt drunkenly to their feet, dimly realizing that this time the Germans really had gone berserk.
Caught in no man’s land, Klimov and Polyakov rushed towards some large craters made by one-ton bombs at the end of September. Some soldiers from Podchufarov’s battalion had escaped from their caved-in trenches and were running in the same direction.
The Russian and German trenches were so close together that part of the bombardment fell on the German assault-troops waiting in the front line.
To Polyakov it was as though a fierce wind from downstream was sweeping up the Volga. Several times he was knocked off his feet; he fell to the ground no longer knowing what world he lived in, whether he was old or young, what was up and what was down. But Klimov dragged him along and finally they slid to the bottom of a huge crater. Here the darkness was threefold: the darkness of night, the darkness of dust and smoke, the darkness of a deep pit.
They lay there beside one another; the same soft light, the same prayer for life filled both their heads. It was the same light, the same touching hope that glows in all heads and all hearts – in those of birds and animals as well as in those of human beings.
Klimov couldn’t stop swearing at Seryozha, still somehow thinking this was all his fault. Deep down, though, he felt he was praying.
This explosion of violence seemed too extreme to continue for long. But there was no let-up; as time went by, the black cloud only thickened, linking the earth and the sky still more closely.
Klimov found the roughened hand of the old man and squeezed it; its answering warmth gave him a brief moment of comfort. An explosion nearby threw a shower of earth, stone and brick into the crater; Polyakov was hit in the back by fragments of brick. It was even worse when great chunks of earth began peeling off the walls . . . There they were, cowering in a pit. They would never again see the light of day. Soon the Germans up above would cover them over with earth, then level the edges of the tomb.
Usually Klimov preferred to go on reconnaissance missions alone; he would hurry off into the darkness like an experienced swimmer striking out into the open sea. Now, though, he was glad to have Polyakov beside him.
Time no longer flowed evenly. It had gone insane, tearing forward like a shock-wave, then suddenly congealing, turning back on itself like the horns of a ram.
Finally, though, the men in the pit raised their heads. The dust and smoke had been carried away by the wind and they could see a dim light. The earth quietened; the continual roar separated out into a series of distinct explosions. They felt a numb exhaustion – as though every feeling except anguish had been crushed out of their souls.
As Klimov staggered to his feet, he saw a German soldier lying beside him. Battered, covered in dust, he looked as though he had been chewed up by the war from the peak of his cap to the toes of his boots.
Klim
ov had no fear of Germans; he had an unshakeable confidence in his own strength, his own miraculous ability to pull a trigger, throw a grenade, strike a blow with a knife or a rifle-butt a second earlier than his opponent. Now, though, he didn’t know what to do. He was amazed at the thought that, blinded and deafened as he was, he had been comforted by the presence of this German, had mistaken his hand for Polyakov’s. Klimov and the German looked at one another. Each had been crushed by the same terrible force, and each was equally helpless to struggle against it.
They looked at one another in silence, two inhabitants of the war. The perfect, faultless, automatic reflex they both possessed – the instinct to kill – failed to function.
Polyakov, a little further away, was also gazing at the stubble-covered face of the German. He didn’t say anything either – though he usually found it difficult to keep his mouth shut.
Life was terrible. It was as though they could understand, as though they could read in one another’s eyes, that the power which had ground them into the mud would continue – even after the war – to oppress both conquered and conquerors.
As though coming to an unspoken agreement, they began to climb to the surface, all three of them easy targets, all three of them quite sure they were safe.
Polyakov slipped; the German, who was right beside him, didn’t give him a hand. The old man tumbled down to the bottom, cursing the light of day but obstinately crawling back up towards it. Klimov and the German reached the surface. They both looked round – one to the East, one to the West – to see if any of their superiors had noticed them climbing quite peaceably out of the same pit. Then, without looking back, without a word of goodbye, they set off for their respective trenches, making their way through the newly-ploughed, still smoking, hills and valleys.
‘The house has gone. It’s been razed to the ground,’ said Klimov in a frightened voice as Polyakov hurried after him. ‘My brothers, have you all been killed?’
Then the artillery and machine-guns opened fire and the German infantry began to advance. This was to be the hardest day that Stalingrad had known.