‘Yes,’ said Magid. ‘“I’ll do as I please and don’t you dare contradict me!” That’s their motto. And these generals don’t, incidentally, propagate themselves just by budding. They get their dirty hands on pretty little telephonists.’
‘And they can’t write two words without making five mistakes,’ said Lopatin.
‘That’s just it!’ said Morozov, who hadn’t heard this last remark. ‘Try sparing your men with people like that around. They don’t care about their men – and that’s the only strength they have.’
Novikov sympathized with everything Morozov had said. He’d seen all too many incidents like that himself. And yet he suddenly blurted out:
‘Spare your men! How do you think you can spare your men? If that’s what you want, then you’ve got no business to be fighting.’
Those young recruits had upset him; he’d wanted to talk about them. But instead of letting the officers see his true kindness, he burst out with a violence that surprised even himself: ‘Spare your men indeed! You don’t spare your men in war any more than you spare yourself. I’ll tell you what upsets me. It’s when we have to entrust precious equipment to a bunch of greenhorns. And then I wonder: is it really men we need to be so careful of?’
Nyeudobnov himself had been responsible for the death of more than one man similar to those who were now sitting at table. Novikov suddenly thought that this man was no less of a danger than the enemy front line.
Nyeudobnov had been watching Novikov and Morozov as they spoke. Now he said sententiously: ‘That’s not what comrade Stalin says. Comrade Stalin tells us that nothing is more precious than men. Our men, our cadres, are the most precious capital of all. One must watch over them like the apple of one’s eye.’
Sensing that everyone agreed with Nyeudobnov, Novikov thought: ‘How strange. Now they all think of me as a brute and Nyeudobnov as someone who looks after his men. A pity Getmanov isn’t here – he’s even more of a saint.’
He broke in on Nyeudobnov’s homily and barked out even more fiercely:
‘We’ve got more than enough men. What we don’t have is equipment. Any idiot can make a man. It’s another matter to make a tank or a plane. If you’re so sorry for your men, then you’ve got no business to call yourself an officer!’
35
Lieutenant-General Yeremenko, the Commander-in-Chief of the Stalingrad Front, had summoned Novikov, Getmanov and Nyeudobnov for an interview. He had inspected the individual brigades on the previous day, but hadn’t called at Corps HQ. The three of them sat in his bunker, glancing now and again at Yeremenko as they wondered what was in store for them.
Yeremenko noticed Getmanov looking at the crumpled pillow on the bunk.
‘Yes, my leg’s very sore.’
They watched Yeremenko in silence while he cursed his bad leg.
‘Your corps seems well prepared. You seem to have made good use of the time.’
He looked at Novikov as he said this, a little surprised at the corps commander’s apparent indifference to the compliment. He knew he was considered grudging in his praise of subordinates.
‘Comrade Lieutenant-General,’ said Novikov. ‘I’ve already reported to you that our ground-support aircraft have twice bombed the 137th Tank Brigade in the area of the ravines. That brigade forms part of my corps.’
Narrowing his eyes, Yeremenko wondered what Novikov was after. Did he have it in for the officer responsible, or was he just trying to cover himself?
Novikov frowned and added: ‘It’s a good thing there weren’t any direct hits. They haven’t yet learnt their trade.’
‘Very well,’ said Yeremenko. ‘But you’ll be glad of their support later. You can be sure they’ll make up for their error.’
‘Of course, comrade Commander-in-Chief,’ Getmanov joined in. ‘We’ve no intention of picking a quarrel with Stalin’s air force.’
‘That’s right, comrade Getmanov,’ said Yeremenko. ‘Well, have you seen Khrushchev?’
‘Nikita Sergeyevich has ordered me to visit him tomorrow.’
‘You know each other from Kiev, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I worked with Nikita Sergeyevich for nearly two years.’
‘Tell me, comrade General,’ said Yeremenko, turning to Nyeudobnov, ‘did I once see you at Titsian Petrovich’s?’
‘That’s right,’ said Nyeudobnov. ‘That was when he’d called you up, together with Marshal Voronov . . .’
‘Oh yes, I remember.’
‘And I, at Titsian Petrovich’s request, was temporarily serving in the capacity of People’s Commissar. That’s why I was there.’
‘So we’ve met before,’ said Yeremenko. ‘Well, I hope you’re not bored in the steppes, comrade General. Have you managed to make yourself comfortable?’
Without waiting for an answer, he gave a satisfied nod of the head.
As the three men were going out of the door, Yeremenko called out: ‘One moment, Colonel.’
Novikov went back into the room. Yeremenko half got up, leaning his stout peasant body over the desk, and said: ‘So there we are. One of them’s worked with Khrushchev, and the other with Titsian Petrovich. But don’t you forget, you damn son of a bitch – you’re the soldier, you’re the one who’s going to lead your tank corps into the breach.’
36
Krymov was released from hospital on a cold dark morning. Without even going home, he went straight to General Toshcheyev, the head of the Political Administration of the Front, to report on his visit to Stalingrad.
Krymov was in luck. Toshcheyev had been in his office – a small hut faced with grey planks – since early morning; he received his visitor without delay.
Toshcheyev, squinting constantly at his brand-new general’s uniform, turned up his nose at the smell of carbolic acid that emanated from his visitor.
‘After being wounded,’ said Krymov, ‘I was unable to complete my mission to house 6/1. I can go back there straight away.’
Toshcheyev gave him an irritated look.
‘No, just write me a detailed report.’
Toshcheyev didn’t ask a single question. Nor did he utter one word of approval or disapproval.
As always, a general’s uniform and medals seemed out of place in a simple village hut. But that wasn’t the only thing that was odd. Krymov was unable to understand why the general should seem so sullen and dissatisfied.
He went into the administrative section to obtain lunch coupons, to register his rations certificate, and to sort out various formalities to do with his mission and the days he had spent in hospital. While this was being attended to, he sat on a stool and studied the faces of the people in the office.
No one showed the least interest in him. His visit to Stalingrad, his wound, all he had seen and done, seemed quite without meaning. The people here had work to get on with. Typewriters clattered, papers rustled, people’s eyes slid rapidly over Krymov before returning to the sheaves of paper spread out over their desks.
What a lot of furrowed brows, what tension in everyone’s eyes! How absorbed they all seemed in their work, how quickly and deftly their fingers leafed through the papers! Only the odd convulsive yawn or furtive glance at the clock, only a bleary, haggard look that appeared fleetingly on one face or another spoke of the deadly boredom of this stuffy office.
Someone Krymov knew, an instructor from the seventh department, looked in through the door. Krymov went out into the corridor with him for a smoke.
‘So you’re back, are you?’
‘As you see,’ said Krymov.
As the instructor didn’t ask anything about Stalingrad, Krymov asked: ‘So what’s new in the Political Administration?’
The main piece of news was that Brigade Commissar Toshcheyev had finally – under the new system to which they were changing over – been given the rank of general. The instructor laughed as he told Krymov how Toshcheyev had fallen ill with anxiety. He had had a general’s uniform made up for him by the best tailor at the front
– and then Moscow had kept delaying the announcement. It hadn’t been at all funny. There were dark rumours that, under this new system, some of the regimental commissars and senior battalion commissars would only be given the ranks of captain or senior lieutenant.
‘Just imagine!’ said the instructor. ‘After eight years in the army political organs – to be made a lieutenant!’
There were other items of news. The deputy head of the Information Section had been summoned to Moscow; there he had been promoted to deputy head of the Political Administration of the Kalinin Front.
The Member of the Military Soviet had decreed that senior instructors were now to eat in the general canteen rather than in the canteen for heads of sections. Instructors sent on missions were to have their meal-tickets withdrawn without any compensatory issue of field-rations. The poets Kats and Talalayevsky had been put forward for the ‘Red Star’ medal – but according to comrade Shcherbakov’s new decree, awards to members of the press had to be approved by the Central Political Administration. The poets’ dossiers had been sent to Moscow; meanwhile, Yeremenko had signed the list of soldiers to be decorated – everyone except the poets was already celebrating.
‘Have you had lunch yet?’ asked the instructor. ‘Come on, then.’
Krymov said he was waiting for his documents.
‘Well, I’m off,’ said the instructor. ‘There’s no time to lose,’ he added with a trace of irony. ‘Soon we’ll be eating in the canteen for civilian workers and typists.’
Krymov got his documents back and went outside. He took in a deep breath of the damp autumn air.
Why had the head of the Political Administration received him so coldly? Why did he seem so annoyed? Because Krymov hadn’t completed his mission? Did he suspect him of cowardice? Did he doubt that he really had been wounded? Or was Toshcheyev annoyed that Krymov had come straight to him, without first seeing his own immediate superior – and at a time when he didn’t usually receive visitors? Or was it that Krymov had twice called him ‘Comrade Brigade Commissar’ instead of ‘Comrade Major-General’? Or maybe it wasn’t anything to do with Krymov? Maybe he’d had a letter saying his wife had fallen ill? Perhaps he’d hoped to be put forward for the Order of Kutuzov? There were, after all, any number of reasons why he might be in a bad mood.
During his weeks in Stalingrad Krymov had forgotten what it was like in Akhtuba. He’d forgotten the way your superiors, your colleagues, even the waitresses in the canteen, looked at you as if you barely existed.
In the evening he went back to his room. The landlady’s dog was very glad to see him. It seemed to be made up of two halves – a shaggy, reddish-brown behind, and a long black-and-white face – and both halves were equally welcoming. The shaggy brown tail wagged, and the black-and-white face thrust itself into Krymov’s hands, looking at him tenderly with its brown eyes. In the twilight it seemed there were two dogs, both of them making up to Krymov. The dog came with him as far as the door. Then the landlady appeared and shouted: ‘Get out of it, you filthy creature!’ Only then did she greet Krymov – and her welcome was as sullen as Toshcheyev’s.
His quiet little room seemed very lonely after the friendly warmth of the trenches, the grey, smoky, tarpaulin-covered bunkers that were like the lairs of animals. The bed itself, the pillow in its white pillow-case, and the lace curtains all seemed equally unwelcoming.
Krymov sat down and started to compile his report. He wrote quickly, glancing only briefly at the notes he had made in Stalingrad. The most difficult part was house 6/1. He got up, walked about the room and sat down. Then he got up again, went out into the corridor and coughed. Surely that damned woman would offer him some tea? Instead he ladled out some water from the barrel. It was very pleasant, better than the water in Stalingrad. He went back into his room and sat down for a while to think, pen in hand. Then he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
How had it happened? Grekov had fired at him . . .
In Stalingrad he had felt a rapport with the men around him. He had been at ease there; people had no longer looked at him with blank indifference. In house 6/1 he had expected to feel the spirit of Lenin still more strongly. Instead he had immediately encountered mockery and hostility; he had lost his poise and begun lecturing people and making threats. What could have made him talk about Suvorov? And then Grekov had shot at him!
Today his isolation, the condescending arrogance of people whom he thought of as semi-literates, as mere greenhorns in the Party, had been more distressing than ever. Why should he have to bow and scrape before a man like Toshcheyev? What right did Toshcheyev have to look at him with such disdain and ill humour? In terms of the work he’d done for the Party he couldn’t hold a candle to Krymov – for all his medals and high rank. What did people like him have to do with the Party and the Leninist tradition? Many of them had come to the fore only in 1937 – by writing denunciations and unmasking enemies of the people.
Then Krymov remembered the wonderful sense of faith, strength and light-heartedness he had felt as he walked down the underground passage towards that tiny point of daylight. He felt choked with anger – Grekov had exiled him from the life he yearned for. On his way to the building he had been joyfully conscious of a new turn in his destiny. He had believed that the spirit of Lenin was alive there. And then Grekov had fired at a Leninist, at an Old Bolshevik! He had sent Krymov back to the stifling offices of Akhtuba. The swine!
Krymov sat down. Every word he then wrote was the absolute truth.
He read the report over. Toshcheyev, of course, would pass it on to the Special Department. Grekov had subverted and demoralized the military sub-unit under his command. He had committed an act of terrorism: he had fired at a representative of the Party, a military commissar. Krymov would have to give evidence. Probably he would be summoned for a personal confrontation with Grekov – who by then would have been arrested.
He imagined Grekov in front of the investigator’s desk, unshaven, without his belt, his face pale and yellow.
What was it Grekov had said? ‘But you’ve suffered a lot.’
The Secretary General of the party of Marx and Lenin had been declared infallible, almost divine. And he certainly hadn’t spared the Old Bolsheviks in 1937. He had infringed the very spirit of Leninism – that fusion of Party democracy and iron discipline.
How could Stalin have settled accounts so ruthlessly with members of Lenin’s own party . . . ? Grekov would be shot in front of the ranks. It was terrible to kill one’s own men. But then Grekov was an enemy.
Krymov had never doubted the sacred right of the Revolution to destroy its enemies. The Party had a right to wield the sword of dictatorship. He had never been one to sympathize with the Opposition. He had never believed that Bukharin, Rykov, Zinoviev and Kamenev were true followers of Lenin. And Trotsky, for all his brilliance and revolutionary fervour, had never outlived his Menshevik past; he had never attained the stature of Lenin. Stalin, though, was a man of true strength. It wasn’t for nothing he was known as ‘the boss’. His hand had never trembled – he had none of Bukharin’s flabby intellectuality. Crushing its enemies underfoot, the party of Lenin now followed Stalin. Grekov’s military competence was of no significance. There was no point in listening to one’s enemies, no point in arguing with them . . .
It was no good. Krymov could no longer bring himself to feel angry with Grekov.
Once again he remembered those words of Grekov’s: ‘But you’ve suffered a lot.’
‘Have I gone and written a denunciation?’ Krymov asked himself. ‘All right, it may be true, but that doesn’t make it any the less a denunciation . . . But what can you do about it, comrade? You’re a member of the Party. You must do your duty.’
The following morning Krymov handed in his report.
Two days later, he was summoned by Regimental Commissar Ogibalov, the head of the agit-prop section, who was acting for the head of the Political Administration. Toshcheyev himself was busy with the commissar
of a tank corps and was unable to see Krymov.
Ogibalov was a slow, methodical man with a pale face and a large nose.
‘In a few days we’re sending you off to the right bank, comrade Krymov,’ he said. ‘This time you’ll be going to Shumilov’s – the 64th Army. One of our cars will be going to the command post of the obkom. From there you can get across to Shumilov’s yourself. The obkom secretaries are going to Beketovka to celebrate the anniversary of the Revolution.’
Very slowly, he dictated Krymov’s instructions. The tasks he had been assigned were humiliatingly boring and trivial – of no importance except for official records.
‘What about my lecture?’ asked Krymov. ‘At your request, I prepared a lecture, to be read to the different units during the October celebrations.’
‘We’ll have to leave that for the moment,’ said Ogibalov, and went on to explain the reasons for this decision.
As Krymov was getting up to leave, the commissar said:
‘As for that report of yours . . . Well, my boss has just put me in the picture.’
Krymov’s heart sank. So the wheels were already turning . . .
‘Our brave warrior’s been lucky,’ the commissar went on. ‘We were informed yesterday by the head of the Political Section of the 62nd Army that Grekov, together with all his men, was killed during the German assault on the Tractor Factory.’
As though to console Krymov, he added:
‘The Army commander nominated him posthumously for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. We’ll certainly squash that.’