The Scarlet Generation

by Christopher Nicole

  “And her?” Natasha looked at Constantina, who had been made to sit on the ground, her hands tied behind her back.

  “I will take her with me.”

  “Then I wish to come with you too,” Natasha said.

  “And I have said you will go with Olga. That is an order. Alex, you and Elaine will come in my group. You too, Gregory; I put you in charge of the prisoner. Now, let’s move out.” Natasha looked as if she would have argued some more, but then changed her mind when Olga held her arm. Tatiana knew all about Olga’s sexual preferences; she hoped the lieutenant would keep Natasha’s mind occupied. But what was she going to do with Constantina? Why, execute her, of course. As soon as her group was away from the rest.

  Tatiana had given each group a compass direction in which to travel, so they would not get in each other’s way. Now she led her people due east, away from the encampment. Following a compass course meant that they could not seek consistently dry land, but had to splash through the various morasses, sometimes as deep as their shoulders; they had to carry their weapons, the haversacks of food and blankets, and especially the radio, above their heads, an exhausting business.

  Constantina, with her arms still bound behind her, was in most danger of tripping and drowning, but Christina and Gregory held an arm each, both to hold her up and urge her along. Elaine was another who found the going very difficult, but Alex was always beside her to help her when necessary. “Oh, to be in Moscow, now that spring is here.” he quipped.

  She managed a smile. “Oh, to be anywhere but here,” she muttered.

  They had walked for an hour when Tatiana called a halt on a hummock of dry land. Now they were entirely on their own, surrounded by the silent trees. But when they listened, they could hear the rattle of automatic fire, well into the distance. “They have found one of the groups!” Gregory said.

  “No, they have found the camp,” Tatiana said. “They are wasting bullets.”

  “Will they not be able to follow our tracks?” Elaine asked.

  “Yes. But we will keep ahead of them. These marshes stretch for a hundred miles. They can never catch up with us.”

  “How long do we cart this carrion?” Christina asked.

  Tatiana sighed. “This is far enough.”

  Constantina looked from left to right. “No,” she said. “Wait! Please..”

  “You are accused of betraying twenty of your comrades to the SS as Jews,” Tatiana said. “Do you accept your guilt?”

  “I had to,” Constantina panted. “You were there, Tatiana. You saw. They would have beaten me to death if I had not.”

  “So you caused twenty of your friends to be shot,” Tatiana said. “You were there, Gregory. Do you support the charge?”

  “She is guilty,” Gregory said. “I was there.”

  “Then let me hear your votes,” Tatiana said.

  “Death,” Christina said, without hesitation.

  “Death,” Gregory said.

  “Death,” the other Russians said.

  Tatiana looked at Elaine and Alex. “You cannot be serious,” Elaine said. “You said she would be properly tried.”

  “That has just happened,” Tatiana explained.

  “Without her even being allowed to offer a defence?”

  “You heard her defence. She was afraid that if she did not denounce her comrades she would be beaten to death. So she caused the death of twenty of them.”

  “But...” Elaine looked at Alex. “You cannot let this happen. I mean, in cold blood...”

  “I am saving her a lot of misery. If I had sent her off with one of the other groups she would be a long time dying,” Tatiana said. “Will you vote, or not?”

  Alex licked his lips. “She is guilty.” he muttered in English.

  “And you are just going to let them murder her?”

  “I think the term is ‘execute’.”

  “Well?” Tatiana demanded.

  “Death,” Alex said.

  Tatiana smiled. “Thank you. And you, Elaine?”

  “No,” Elaine said. “I cannot agree.”

  Tatiana shrugged. “It does not matter. We have a majority. Gregory! You cannot use a gun.”

  Gregory nodded and stepped up to Constantina, drawing his knife as he did so.

  “No,” Constantina gasped. “No!” She threw back her head to utter a scream, but Christina caught her round the chin from behind and she could only gurgle. She tugged on her bonds and stamped her feet, but Gregory stood beside her and drew the knife across the exposed, pulsing throat. He put so much force into the slash that Constantina’s neck was all but severed. Blood spurted out, and Christina hastily released her; Constantina hit the ground like a dropped sack. Gregory knelt and wiped the knife blade clean.

  Elaine turned away and dropped to her knees to vomit. “Move out,” Tatiana said. The group recommenced its march.

  Tatiana stood beside Elaine and kicked her in the thigh. “You had better come. The Germans will cut much more than your throat if they catch you.” Between them, she and Alex pulled Elaine to her feet and set off after the others.

  Tatiana supposed she should feel sorry for the two Americans; they had really got themselves into a situation quite outside of any experience they had ever supposed they might have. But then, she reflected, were we not all thrown into a situation we had never supposed we might have to endure, last summer? The difference was that she felt she and her people, even young girls like Natasha, had been more mentally tough than the Americans. Of course, some, like poor Sophie and Constantina, had not measured up to the strain, but they were the minority. Whereas, from what she had read and been told, all American youth was brought up to believe in the best of all possible worlds, where people who killed, or even robbed or committed sex crimes, were the great exceptions, to be shunned and locked away. To be dropped, literally, into the midst of a society where those aberrations were the norm, and needed to be practised to stay alive, must be traumatic, she understood.

  She sat with her back against a tree, her sodden blanket drawn around her, and slept, heavily. She awoke with a start at the first light. A noise? “Planes!” Gregory had been sleeping close to her.

  Tatiana rubbed sleep from her eyes. “The orders are the same as before. No one move.”

  The drone was coming closer. The group remained sitting or lying, staring up through the trees. But there were no explosions. “Those are not bombers,” Christina said.

  “They are just looking for us,” Gregory suggested. Tatiana stood up, her heart suddenly pounding. They would not have sent so many planes on a reconnaissance. She shaded her eyes, for it had stopped raining and the sun was rising out of a clear sky, and gasped as she saw the myriad parachutes, drifting downwards, to the east. Gregory was also on his feet. “Oh, shit!” he muttered.

  “What are we to do?” Christina asked. The others had also got up, as well as Elaine and Alex.

  “Do you think the others have pulled out?” someone asked.

  “Of course they have not pulled out,” Tatiana snapped. “Or those paras would not be coming in.”

  “Then we are trapped, between two forces.”

  “We must fight, now,” Gregory declared.

  Sixty men and women, against Hitler’s crack troops, Tatiana thought, both before and behind. “We must try to survive,” she said.

  Part Three - Those Who Would Conquer

  My name is Death; the last best friend am I. Robert Southey, Carmen Nuptiale

  Chapter 10 – The Survivors

  Ivan Ligachev laid the report on his master’s desk. “They are making a meal of it,” he said, gloomily.

  “Again, they would, wouldn’t they?”

  Stalin studied the prints on the desk in turn. “We do not know these were partisans. They could be anybody.”

  “That body...” Ivan tapped the photograph, “is definitely the woman Natasha Renkova. Not only has she been identified by her own family, but the Germans have named her.”

 
Stalin bent his head over the photograph. The girl was shown hanging by the neck, but her face was remarkably undistorted although she was naked from the waist up. “Barbaric!”

  “They have named other captives, who we know were members of Group One. That is a photograph of Colonel Gerasimov hanging. There can be no doubt that their claims are substantially true: Group One has been wiped out. My son,” Ivan said. “My stepdaughter. And the two young Americans! Jennie is quite distraught. As for Cromb...”

  “Jennie has been distraught before,” Stalin pointed out. “And as you say, as for Cromb...but isn’t it time the Americans learned that war is not one big boys’ adventure story? Anyway, I do not believe the Group has been wiped out, or that Feodor and Tatiana are dead. Or the Americans. Look at this report, these photographs. Colonel Gerasimov! Leader of the Partisans! Natasha Renkova! Leader of the Partisans! The capture and execution of those two has been given the greatest possible publicity. Now, Ivan Ivanovich, do you not suppose that if they had captured and executed Tatiana Gosykinya, Heroine of the Soviet Union and true Leader of the Partisans, or Feodor Ligachev, son of a Chief Secretary of the State, they would have been given even greater publicity? As for capturing two Americans serving with the Partisans...”

  “So perhaps they were not captured. That does not mean they are not dead. If they are alive, they would surely have called out on their radios.”

  “Ivan Ivanovich, you are rapidly becoming an old woman. They are alive. They are lying low because of the German presence. That they have not used their radios may be for any one of several reasons: they may have lost them, their batteries may be flat, or they may simply be afraid of giving away their positions. But the Germans cannot remain in the Marshes. Soon they will pull out, and Group One will have reconstituted itself.”

  “Then they will need assistance. Arms and ammunition. Food. Medical supplies.”

  “They will have to wait, and survive, until we have the time to help them. We have more important matters.” He stood before the map. “I believe Hitler has abandoned his attempt to take Moscow by direct assault. Oh, his men are holding, but we are holding them. It is down here I do not like.” He laid his hand on the Donbas and the lower reaches of the Volga. “He is shifting huge masses of men and materiel in that direction. That is where he is going to concentrate his big summer thrust. If he can get right through to the Caucasus oil fields, if he can secure the Volga, not only will he have gained a great victory, but it may then happen that we will be forced to abandon Moscow because retaining it will no longer have any meaning. The man is a considerable strategist. His weakness is that he attempts to do too much at the same time. Now we must stop him. Here. No matter what happens, he must be stopped here.”

  Ivan peered at the map. The city of Tsaritsyn, recently renamed Stalingrad, which was already under attack by the Germans, was certainly of some strategic importance in its position astride the Volga. He could not help but wonder if Stalin’s determination to choose this as the southern city to be held no matter what the cost had to do with that change of name.

  “I put this in your care, Ivan Ivanovich,” Stalin said. “Whatever the garrison needs, it must have.”

  “I will see to it.” Ivan hesitated. “Have I your permission to tell Cromb about your opinion on the Pripet?”

  “Of course. We do not want him becoming depressed. Convince him that his stepson is still alive.”

  “It will certainly be necessary to do that,” Ivan agreed. “His wife is in Archangel.”

  Stalin raised his eyebrows. “The Princess? Well, well! I look forward to seeing her again.” He stroked his moustache. He was not normally a sexually motivated man. He could admire, and desire, beauty, but since this impotency matter had become a problem he preferred to sublimate himself in his work. Had preferred; equally had he always found it difficult to be friends with women. Or, indeed, with anyone he did not actually employ. He adored his children, but they did not adore him. They did not seem to understand that the often terrible things he had had to do, and of which they knew had been undertaken solely for the good of the country. They considered he had been responsible for the death of their mother. And now this latest personal catastrophe...his son Iakov had been taken prisoner by the Germans after crash-landing behind the enemy lines. The Germans had promptly offered to exchange him for a specified number of German officers who had fallen into Red hands, and he had refused. Thereupon the Germans had said they would treat Iakov Stalin as an ordinary Russian prisoner of war. If only a tenth of the rumours seeping back to Russia were true, that was virtually a death sentence. Because the Russians had never signed the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners, no Russian prisoner had any rights, not even the right to live!

  But how could he, head of the state, leader in the fight against the Nazi horror, seek to obtain the release of his own son when he could not obtain the release of the millions of other sons and brothers and fathers held by the enemy? His children could not understand this. Thus he felt estranged from his own family. But he was estranged from all those around him, those who knew of the frightful cost of collectivisation and the five-year plans he had forced through so ruthlessly.

  Thus a comparative stranger, a so beautiful stranger, might provide a welcome relief. Of course Priscilla Bolugayevska-Cromb had every reason to hate him as much as anyone. When she had returned to Russia, not ten years ago, searching for her husband, she had believed what he had told her, that he had known nothing of Joseph Cromb, who had been murdered by rogue elements in the NKVD. Only after Cromb had escaped had she learned the truth. Yet she was coming back again, of her own free will! It seemed she was utterly fearless. “I should like to meet her again, Ivan Ivanovich,” he said quietly. “The Princess.”

  “Of course, Josef. If you wish it. But there is a problem.” Josef sighed. Where Ivan Ligachev was concerned, there was always a problem.

  “She has a companion travelling with her,” Ivan said.

  “I would expect her to. What is the problem?”

  “This woman’s name is Sonia Cohen. On her passport, and on her visa. On our files she is better known as Sonia Bolugayevska, although some have her down as Sonia Trotsky. Incorrectly. They were never married.”

  “That woman has returned to Russia? How?”

  “As I have said before, Josef Vissarionovich, our people in Washington are so delighted to be persona grata with the Americans they are granting visas left right and centre. Along comes a woman who is obviously Jewish, has a Jewish name, and is also very elderly, for whom a visa is requested by the wife of one of the principal members of the American mission here, in order that this elderly Jewess may travel with her to rejoin her husband...you see how it is. Nobody bothered to check.”

  Stalin began to fill his pipe. “What do you suppose she wants?”

  “As she undoubtedly knows who gave the order for Trotsky’s execution, it is my opinion that we should not wait to find out, Josef Vissarionovich.”

  “How old is she, exactly?”

  Ivan opened his file. “Sonia Cohen was born in 1877. She is sixty-five years old.”

  “Are you asking me to be afraid of a sixty-five-year-old woman?”

  “If she is capable of crossing the Atlantic in time of war then she must still be capable of squeezing a trigger or detonating a bomb. You say you would like to see Priscilla Bolugayevska-Cromb? What if she comes accompanied by her ‘companion’?”

  “The woman would be searched before being allowed admittance.”

  “Searching is not always a complete protection. I am sorry, Josef Vissarionovich, but in my opinion the only certain protection is for this woman to meet with an accident before she ever gets to Moscow.”

  “And the Princess?”

  “Well, how do we know she is not part of the plot.”

  “To assassinate me in revenge for the death of Trotsky?” Stalin said thoughtfully. “We shall see. But as I have explained, we cannot simply eliminate American cit
izens when we are so dependent upon them for the sinews of war. I will keep an eye on the situation. You may leave it with me, Ivan Ivanovich. I want you down at Stalingrad.”

  Ivan blanched. “You wish me to go down there, myself?”

  “Yes. You have the authority to overrule timid army commanders, and to requisition whatever is required.”

  Ivan swallowed. “I will leave right away. But before I go, I feel I must inform Cromb that his wife and old friend are here.”

  “I wonder if you should, at this time.” Stalin struck a match and puffed contentedly. “Does not this man Cromb constantly complain that we will not let him see what is actually going on at the front, how his Lend-Lease materiel is being used?”

  “The Americans are always complaining,” Ligachev said.

  “I am speaking about Cromb. I think it is time for you to take him up on his requests. Show him exactly how we are defending the Motherland. If necessary to the last bullet. And the last man, of course.”

  Ivan licked his lips. “You expect me to go into the firing line?”

  “Well, Ivan Ivanovich, you cannot ask Cromb to go by himself, now can you?”

  “But I cannot do this until he has seen his wife. That is why she is coming to Russia.”

  “Ivan Ivanovich,” Stalin said. “The matter is urgent. You are leaving Moscow tomorrow. Take Cromb with you. And in all the circumstances there is no necessity to tell him the Princess is actually in Russia. It would only cause distress. And when he returns it will be such a pleasant surprise for him. That is, if he does not get hit by a German bullet.”

  He watched Ivan gulp as he left the office. Ivan Ivanovich was not very bright, but he understood what he had been told to do, and he would do it, even where his brother-in-law was concerned. However, he could not be trusted with the other matter. Stalin summoned one of his secretaries. “I wish to speak with Comrade Beria,” he said.