The Scarlet Generation

by Christopher Nicole

  Over the past year it was also exciting because of its proximity to what had once been Poland. Poland had been partitioned between Germany and Russia following the brief war of 1939, as it had been, between Russia. Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, without a war at all, at the end of the Eighteenth Century. It was possible for a Russian to wonder if Poland had ever actually been meant to exist. But its non-existence had brought the borders of Soviet Russia adjacent to the borders of Nazi Germany. This was not a cause for alarm, as they were constantly told, not only by the Party faithful but by Premier Stalin himself, and Tatiana totally accepted whatever her Uncle Joe told her to believe. Thus she assumed that the Nazi-Soviet Pact, so strange, and indeed, so unnatural for either side, had been a necessary step in preserving the strength and safety of the Russian State. Besides, the facts were obvious enough: Germany was engaged in a life and death struggle with the British Empire, and was thus fully preoccupied.

  Nonetheless, where two such mighty forces actually touched each other, it was necessary to be armed, and there was a vast Soviet Army, or Front, as the Russians called it, encamped in and around Brest-Litovsk. This was always fun. Tatiana loved soldiers, or at least, watching them performing their marches and manoeuvres. In the course of time she fully intended to be a soldier herself. But until that moment arrived, she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to get too close to one; she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to get too close to anyone. Of course, these summers required a total intimacy. She had not liked the thought of that the first time she had been required to attend one, two years before. And it had been every bit as bad as she had feared. Everything had depended upon the desires, and the strength of character, of the tent captain. In her first year, Tatiana now knew she had been unlucky. She had already been at once the most attractive and the most voluptuous girl in the tent, and she had been required to submit to rape, not only by the captain, a young woman who had in any event disliked her because of her English ancestry and aristocratic background — not that she had ever known any aristocracy — but by all the other girls in the tent. Even those who had not wished to participate had been forced to do so, as part of the apparently necessary “hazing” of the new girl.

  Then there had been the boys in the adjoining camp. They had all wanted to get into the action, and a good many of the girls had been happy to accommodate them, even if pregnancy meant an abortion and then a labour company, which did not bear thinking about. Tatiana had at least been allowed to make her own decisions here, and had fought off all advances. While she had told no one, not even her mother, what had happened, she had vowed she would never return to another summer camp. But of course she had had no choice when the next year had come round. But this time she had been the tent leader — unusual at 17 but everyone knew her mother was a friend of the Party Chairman — and her tent had been a happy one. The girls had actually laughed.

  Thus there had been a queue to get into her tent. This year, in fact, she was captain of the entire woman’s camp. So if she could only accommodate 20 in her tent, who were envied by the rest, she could to a large extent control what happened in the rest of the camp. She wanted them all to laugh, this year. This year, too, she had nothing to fear from the boys, who had learned to have a healthy respect for her strength and her determination to use it. Summer camp had become a place to be happy, far happier than she could ever be at home, knowing that Stepfather was coming in every evening. As for Sophie Shermetska, she was having the best of all introductions to camp; there was no need to make an exception of her.

  Tatiana stood beside the flag as it was lowered for the evening of 21 June. On the other side of the flagpole there stood Anatole Savin, captain of the boy’s camp. Anatole was a good-looking boy of 19. Had Tatiana been the least interested in males she would have chosen him above any of the others. But he was, in any event, not a possibility for her — he was both shorter and more slightly built. Nonetheless they smiled at each other as the flag came down. “Good night, Comrade,” Tatiana said.

  “Good night, Comrade,” Anatole replied.

  Tatiana saluted — he was, technically, her superior — and then marched off to her girls. Everyone was just packing it in and retiring — it was already well past ten o’clock. She stood in the tent doorway while her subordinates tucked themselves in beneath their blankets, then put on her cotton nightdress and went back to the doorway for a last look at the night. In the distance she heard the piercing whistle of a train; the camp was not far from the Berlin-Moscow railway line, and that was undoubtedly the express, travelling from one capital to the other.

  Tatiana wondered if she would ever travel from Moscow to Berlin by express train. That was an aspect of a future of which she had no idea. The Party would decide. She turned down the tent lamp, joined in the chorus of goodnights, and slept soundly, knowing that she would awake at the first light, which would be not long past three. But she was awakened before that, by the greatest sound she had ever heard.

  Chapter 2 – The Storm

  Everyone in the tent woke at once. “Aircraft!” shouted Natasha Renkova. They gathered in the doorway to the tent, then spilled out into the utter darkness of the pre-dawn. The sky above them was black, but yet filled with sound.

  “Thousands of them,” whispered Sophie Shermetska, taking off her glasses to polish them in the hope of seeing better.

  Tatiana just stared up into the darkness. The planes were undoubtedly flying from west to east. That could only mean they were coming from Germany, and going...? All the tents were emptied now, a milling mass of some hundred nightgown-clad girls, twittering like birds. Then there were new sounds, from the west, dull, distant explosions. They stared in that direction, and saw little bursts of flame dotting the horizon. Someone screamed. “Stop that!” Tatiana snapped. “Get dressed. All of you. Get dressed!”

  The girls scattered back to their tents. Tatiana led the rush back to hers, dragged on her clothes, duty wear of heavy drawers and skirt and blouse, ankle-length socks, tough shoes. She crammed her sidecap on her head, and heard her name being shouted. She went outside and found Anatole and several other of the boys, half-dressed, clearly terrified. “What is happening, Tatiana?” Anatole asked, as if she had the answer to everything.

  “We are being attacked.”

  “But by whom?”

  “It can only be the Germans.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I am going into town to see Comrade Markowitza.” Comrade Markowitza, as Camp Commandant, should have been sleeping out here with them, but she had a lover in Brest-Litovsk.

  “I will come with you,” Anatole said.

  “And me,” Natasha Renkova said.

  “And me.” The chorus ran through the girls who were hastily re-assembling.

  “You cannot all come,” Tatiana told them. “You must not panic. Now—”

  “There is a car!” Sophie Shermetska shouted.

  “And the lights in Brest-Litovsk have gone out!” shouted someone else.

  Tatiana looked west. The glow of the town had indeed disappeared, but beyond them the flaring lights and the rumbling explosions continued. Close at hand a car was bumping its way towards the camp. She and Anatole went to meet it as it slewed to a halt. Beside the driver was Commandant Verina Markowitza. She was a rather gaunt woman in her late 30s and was wearing a greatcoat over a nightgown, and, incongruously, army boots. Her head was bare, lank black hair flopping about her cheeks. “You must abandon this camp,” she told the two young people.

  “But what is happening, Comrade Commandant?” Anatole asked.

  “The Germans have crossed the border in great strength. Oh, they will be hurled back,” Verina Markowitza asserted. “But there may well be fighting close to here. You will go to the railway station in the village, and from there you will be evacuated.”

  “Can we not stay and fight?” Tatiana asked.

  “Do not be a silly girl. You have no weapons. Get yourselves packed up and
march to the railway station. I will meet you there. Hurry now.”

  Tatiana felt like saying if you will give us the weapons we will fight; she felt utterly outraged that something like this could be happening to Russia, without warning, from a nation with whom she was virtually allied. But she decided against it: Verina Markowitza had a short fuse, and carried a cane at all times, even now; her fuse was clearly shorter than usual this morning. Instead she wondered what would happen to her stepbrother Feodor. He was actually in Berlin! “Right,” she told the girls. “Pack your bags. Then dismantle the camp. Fall in! We have to march to the railway station.”

  The nearest railway station was in a village several miles east of Brest-Litovsk; it was also three miles away from the camp, but it was where they had disembarked the previous week. The girls packed their haversacks and backpacks, took down the tents and loaded them into the handcarts, and lined up; Tatiana also had them load as much food as they had — mainly stale bread and sausage — into the carts: she had no idea when they would be able to obtain any more. By now it was growing light, and the flashes were less conspicuous. On the other hand, they could now make out huge columns of smoke rising above the town and beyond, and the noise was definitely louder. Overhead the planes still flew east.

  The boys had now fallen in as well, beside them, and as they marched off, Anatole came to walk beside Tatiana. “Are you afraid?” he asked.

  “Of course I am not afraid,” she replied, by no means sure that was the truth. But she felt more excited, almost breathless.

  “I suppose I will be taken into the Army when we get back to Moscow,” Anatole said, gloomily.

  “We will all be taken into the Army when we get back to Moscow. Hurry! There’s the train.”

  They could see it quite clearly, steaming up the track, but they still had a mile to go. Some of the girls began to run, abandoning the handcarts. Tatiana let them get on with it; she knew they weren’t going to make it. And by the time they staggered into the station yard the train was merely a puff of smoke in the distance. The people in the village hadn’t even bothered to go on to the platform. But they were packing up preparatory to moving out. “Where are you going?” Tatiana asked.

  “Into the Marshes,” a man said. “Fritz won’t rind us in there.”

  Tatiana thought that was incredibly defeatist talk, and now some of the girls began to weep and throw themselves on the ground. Some of the boys began to cry, too. Even Anatole looked close to tears, asking, “What are we going to do?”

  “Wait,” Tatiana told him. She was more concerned that the station appeared to have been entirely abandoned; even the stationmaster had disappeared.

  She summoned some of the less distraught boys and girls and had them bring the handcarts into the station yard. The village was by now as empty as the station, the people streaming to the east, carrying their bundles and accompanied by their dogs, chickens and pigs. “People?” Natasha Renkova said, looking to the west.

  “Soldiers,” Anatole said.

  They had once been soldiers, Tatiana thought. They had discarded their weapons and were streaming through the cornfields towards the east. Some came close enough to the station to see the young people, whereupon they came even closer. They gazed at the girls and licked their lips. “What are you running away from, Comrades?” Tatiana asked.

  One, a stocky little man who wore a sergeant’s stripes, pointed west. “The Germans. Haven’t you heard?”

  “You are a coward,” Tatiana told him. “Where is your rifle?”

  “Why, you little bitch —” he moved towards her.

  Tatiana picked up one of the iron tent uprights. “You are wrong, Comrade Sergeant,” she said. “I am a big bitch, and if you come a step closer, I will brain you.”

  He hesitated. “Leave them to the Germans, Sergeant,” one of the men said. “Raping this lot will hold them up a while.”

  Still the sergeant hesitated. “What do you have in those carts?” he demanded.

  “Our belongings,” Tatiana told him.

  “We’ll just have a look.”

  He moved forward, and Tatiana again raised her iron bar; she was not going to let these louts make off with their scanty food supply without fighting for it. And by now her determination had aroused the others. Anatole led several of the boys to stand beside her. “Let’s go, Sergeant,” urged the private. “Before the Germans get here.”

  “They’re coming,” the sergeant said. “If you want to survive, you’d better come along with us. But I give the orders.”

  “Get lost,” Tatiana told him.

  He gave her a stiff middle finger then he and his men hurried off, making for the distant trees. “Don’t you think we should’ve gone with them?” Sophie Shermetska asked anxiously.

  “Into the swamp? They’ll all die before the Germans get at them,” Tatiana said. “We were told to wait here.” She was happy to have orders she could obey.

  Now it was broad daylight, and they were surrounded by the sounds of battle. Above their heads the planes continued to fly east, but lower down there were other aircraft, Russians, attempting to combat the aerial invasion. The young people stared at the planes, wheeling and diving, soaring and spitting red, at the vapour trails and at machines plunging from the sky beneath plumes of dark smoke, to shatter themselves in the earth. But all the aircraft falling from the sky seemed to be Russian. When they looked west, they continued to see flashes of light and clouds of smoke. There was an enormous battle going on only a few miles away: Brest-Litovsk was a fortress. “I bet we could pick up some rifles over there,” said Gregory Asimov, pointing at the fields over which they had come in the dark. “I saw some of those fellows throwing them away.”

  “Then we would be combatants and shot by the Germans,” Anatole objected. “Isn’t that right, Tatiana?”

  Tatiana bit her lip. How she would love to pick up a rifle. But she didn’t want to be shot. Then to her great relief she saw a car bouncing along the track beside the railway line. “Comrade Markowitza!”

  Girls and boys crowded around the car. “The train went by, Comrade Commandant,” Anatole said.

  “It never even stopped,” said Sophie Shermetska, starting to cry all over again.

  “Be quiet!” Commandant Markowitza commanded. “There will be another train in a few minutes. They are evacuating the town.” Even as she spoke, they heard the wail of a siren. “Line up!” Commandant Markowitza ordered. “Prepare to board!”

  The girls and boys hastily got into line, Tatiana at one end, Anatole at the other. Now they could see the train, hurtling towards them. There were people everywhere, even sitting or lying on top of the coaches; it occurred to Tatiana that it was going to be a terrible squeeze. But there was not going to be a squeeze at all. The train raced at the station without slowing. The girls started to surge forward, and Tatiana had to drag them back from the edge of the platform. The train did not stop and the people on the roofs and at the windows shouted at the young people, but their words were lost in the rush of wind. “Swine!” Commandant Markowitza threw her sidecap on the ground and stamped on it.

  Several of the girls started weeping again. “Will there be another train, Comrade Commandant?” Tatiana inquired. Comrade Markowitza glared at her.

  “I am very thirsty,” Natasha Renkova said.

  “And hungry,” someone else put in.

  “There is a well in the station yard,” Anatole ventured.

  “May we drink the water from the well, Comrade Commandant?” Tatiana asked.

  “Oh, do what you like!” Markowitza picked up her sidecap and slapped it against her thighs.

  The boys used a bucket to pull up the water, and then knelt shoulder to shoulder with the girls, scooping it up with their hands. Tatiana wondered how clean it was, but she was as thirsty as any of them. Even Markowitza had a drink, then she surveyed them, hand on hips. “We will breakfast, then we will march into Brest-Litovsk,” she announced.

  Breakfast con
sisted of the bread and sausage. As they ate, the young people looked at each other, then beyond the trees fringing the station yard. The noise of firing was now very close, and over the town there was a vast pall of smoke. “Would it not be better to walk the other way?” Tatiana asked.

  Markowitza glared at her, and the hand holding the cane twitched. Tatiana braced herself, but before Markowitza could hit her one of the boys shouted, “Tanks!”

  They all turned to look where he was pointing and saw, coming out of the north, roughly from where they had been camped, an avalanche of steel monsters, heading straight for them, huge plumes of red dust rising behind them into the still air. “They will tell us what to do,” Anatole said.

  Markowitza glared at him in turn. But Tatiana was gazing at the tanks, and the pennons which were now becoming visible. “Those are German tanks,” she said.

  The girls gave a great wail of terror, and closed ranks as if ordered to do so, shoulder to shoulder. The boys did the same. “Quick!” Markowitza commanded. “Into the waiting room.

  “It’s locked,” Gregory Asimov objected.

  “Then break down the door!”

  Does she really think 200 of us are going to fit into one waiting room? Tatiana wondered. And anyway, what protection will thin wooden walls offer us against tanks? But the boys were already smashing the glass panes in the door, reaching through to release the bolt. Then they led the rush into the room, the girls pushing and shoving to get past them.

  Tatiana stepped away from them, and watched the tanks. Two of the huge iron monsters had stopped in a cloud of dust, not a hundred yards from the station. The others had continued on their way, wheeling to follow the railway track back into Brest-Litovsk from the rear. She stared at the two tanks, watched the guns slowly traversing to point directly at the station, straight at her. I am about to die, she thought. I am going to be blown into little bits. She was paralysed with the knowledge.

  Then the hatches of the tanks were thrown up and leather-helmeted heads appeared. The girls and boys behind Tatiana, stopping their struggle to get into the waiting room, also stared at the tanks. Markowitza came forward to stand beside Tatiana. The man in the hatch of the first tank climbed out and dropped to the ground. Above him the muzzle of the gun continued to glare at them, and now another head appeared in the hatchway. The man came towards them, taking off his helmet as he did so. He did not look at all hostile, had a pleasant face, and was smiling. “You are our prisoners,” he announced in Russian. “Lay down your arms.”