The Scarlet Generation

by Christopher Nicole

  “And risk being sent on some kind of suicide mission because I’d put her back up?”

  “She wanted me, first, you know,” Elaine said. “And I said no.” Alex stared at here in consternation.

  “What’s upsetting you?” Elaine asked. “That she wanted me at all, or that I refused her?”

  “I would say the next time she comes at you, say yes.”

  “The idea gives you a kick, is that it?”

  “Listen, Elaine, the name of this game is survival. Survival until it is all over. Until we can pick up the mainstream of our lives again. You and me, Elaine. Together.”

  “Alex,” she said. “This isn’t ever going to be all over. Not for us.”

  So what the hell? she thought. If you can’t beat them, join them. But in her own way. Whatever plans Alex might have for their future, he was lost to her in their present; this was made abundantly clear as he spent almost every night with Tatiana. They still worked side by side on the wounded every day, but they spoke little.

  So, if she wants a fight, she can have one, Elaine thought. Both of them. Carefully she renewed the dressing round Olga’s thigh, having coated the wound with iodine. “You’re about as good as new,” she said.

  Olga, as usual, had been watching her with that peculiar intentness of hers. They were not alone, but were to one side of the hut, and could not be overheard if they spoke quietly enough. “I am glad,” she said. “I would not like to miss the next raid.”

  “Your leg will not be strong enough to take part in a raid for at least a month,” Elaine told her. And reported that to Tatiana.

  “That is a nuisance,” Tatiana said, visiting the patient. “Well, Olga, you will just have to stay and command the camp, this time.” She was planning another vast raid in quick succession to the last. “Hit the enemy while he’s hurting,” she declared. She now commanded 120 partisans, and they had all the guns and grenades and explosives they needed. They even had machine-guns. All partisan units had been commanded to increase their activities with the commencement of summer, for Russian intelligence had learned that the Germans were concentrating a vast panzer force south-east of Kiev, which could only mean an attempt to regain the ground, both physical and moral, that they had lost following the catastrophe of Stalingrad. Therefore the maximum disruption was required behind their lines.

  Tatiana made her dispositions with her usual efficiency. And again as usual she left only the three women, Christina, Olga and Elaine, and the five wounded who had not yet sufficiently recovered, in the camp; Bebrikov had been killed. “We may be gone some time,” she said. “But you may be sure we will achieve a great success.” She gazed at Olga and Elaine. “Enjoy yourselves,” she remarked.

  Almost as if she knows what I have in mind, Elaine thought, knowing she was flushing with anticipated guilt. Alex was of course accompanying the Commissar. “I think she regards me as her private physician,” he said when he came to say goodbye.

  “She certainly regards you as her private something,” Elaine agreed.

  “I don’t think now is the time for us to quarrel,” he said, gently.

  “I’m not quarrelling.” She kissed his cheek. “Take care, you big oaf.” She watched them tramp off through the trees.

  “Are you going to have his child, after the war?” Olga asked.

  “That was the idea, once.”

  “What changed your mind? Not because he is sleeping with Tatiana?”

  “You wouldn’t say that’s a reason?”

  “Every woman should have at least one child,” Olga said.

  “It does not really matter who the man slept with before — the mother that matters.” Elaine looked at her in astonishment; she had never expected to hear that philosophy from Olga. Olga actually flushed, slightly. “Oh, I mean to do that. I wish to be a mother. But being married has nothing to do with what I really enjoy best.”

  “I guess it doesn’t,” Elaine said.

  The two women gazed at each other. “Do you know, it is over a year since first wanted you,” Olga said.

  “I know,” Elaine said.

  “But you did not want me.”

  “I guess...well, it’s not something I have been brought up to.”

  “But now you wish to. To get your own back on Alexei and Tattie?”

  She was too discerning. So there was no use in pretending. “I guess. But...also to, well...find out what it’s like.”

  Olga smiled. “If you are not careful you might find yourself enjoying it.”

  “Well,” Elaine said. “That’s up to you, isn’t it.”

  Olga felt in her pocket and produced her cake of soap. “You see, I have kept this especially for us. To share.”

  *

  “They struck here, and here, and here, Herr Colonel.” Clausen indicated the places on the map. “Four lengths of line torn up; the road detonated in two places.”

  “Casualties?” Alexander asked.

  “We lost twenty-five men, with three missing. I very much fear they were captured by the partisans.”

  “And the partisans?”

  “Lost seven dead. We took no prisoners.”

  “That is not a very good rate of exchange,” Major Pritwitz commented.

  “What is so infuriating is that we do not seem able to do anything about them,” Clausen complained. “We thought we had wiped them out last year. But now they are back. They strike, and then disappear again into that morass. We shoot hostages, and it does no good. My men are suffering badly in morale, Herr Colonel. And with all the other news...”

  Alexander knew what he meant. The total defeat of the German and Italian forces in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily, all the rumours about the coming invasion of France...and the steady withdrawal of German forces in Russia following the Stalingrad debacle. The last was what mattered most, because it was here in Russia that the war would be won or lost. But he still did not doubt that it would be won.

  “One cannot expect unbroken success in war, Clausen,” he said. “There have been setbacks. There will no doubt be others. But this summer should clarify the matter here. I can tell you in confidence that the Fuehrer is about to launch another huge invasion of European Russia, just over there, to regain all the ground we have lost because of the treachery of Paulus.” He gestured at the map, at the country to the south-east of the Marshes. “He is assembling the greatest tank army in history, and he will knock the Red Army out of existence.”

  Pritwitz’s expression remained sceptical; he had heard all this before. “So, it is a case of all German forces moving forward. I know we thought we had liquidated the partisans in the Pripet last year. We made a mistake. /made a mistake,” Alexander added magnanimously. “But let us call that a reconnaissance in force. This summer we are going to do it right. Now we know what we are up against, and who we are up against. A few hundred scarecrows, nothing more. We have at our disposal four thousand men, and I have asked, and been given, the use of all of them. It is already summer. The rain has virtually ceased. We will give it another week for the ground to firm up, then we will sweep that marsh from one end to the next, slowly, step by step and bush by bush. We will slaughter every living human being that we find in there. We shall destroy these vermin, utterly and irrevocably. Major Pritwitz, I wish your dispositions on my desk tomorrow morning.” Jutta clapped.

  Alexander sat at his desk, studying the dispositions suggested by Pritwitz. He intended to lead this seek-and-destroy mission himself. Now it was simply a matter of allotting the subordinate commands. He looked up as the door opened. “Ah, Clausen. Now, I know I scheduled the advance into the Pripet for next week. But as I am sure that has been leaked, and probably to the partisans as well, I intend to bring it forward. We will commence tomorrow. You will instruct Major Pritwitz to put everyone on the alert, and give orders that anyone seen leaving the town is to be shot on sight.” He leaned back in his chair, frowning. “What the devil is the matter with you?”

  Clausen looked
ready to explode. “They have struck again, Herr Colonel. There has been a massive raid on the line north of the Marshes. They have attacked a munitions train and blown it up, torn up the line for several miles. We have suffered heavy casualties.”

  “Bastards!” Alexander said.

  “I have given orders for all operations to be suspended, and all available men to be mobilised and sent up the line.”

  “You have done what?” Alexander snarled.

  “Well...they need help out there.”

  “Cannot you see, Clausen, that this is exactly what the partisans wish us to do? Their whole strategy is based on our reactions to their attacks. Our over-reactions, Clausen. On our rushing to and fro like chickens with our heads cut off. Well, this time we are not going to oblige them. Cancel your orders immediately, and reinstate the orders for tomorrow morning. We move out at dawn.”

  “But...there will be no one there!”

  “That will be all to the good. We will scour the Marshes while they are scouring the countryside. We know they always return to their hideaway. Well, this time, when they do, they will find us waiting for them. We will make a slight change in our dispositions. I will take a thousand men into the Marshes from the west. You will take another thousand round to the north-west, and advance from there. Major Pritwitz will hold the remainder in reserve here. When the partisans return, and are engaged, Pritwitz will move up behind them. This time they will have no alternative but to retreat into open country. And once we have them in open country, we have them, Clausen. This time they will dance to our tune, not we to theirs.”

  *

  Am I damned? Elaine wondered. Well, if I am, then hell is a pretty pleasant place. Because nothing physical had changed. She looked at the same trees, the same water, listened to the same swamp noises. This was hell, the hell into which she had so carelessly wandered. But for the moment it was populated by only one devil, and it was she who made it paradise.

  She raised herself on her elbow to look down at her lover’s sleeping face. Olga was quite remarkably beautiful. Because of the natural solemnity, almost grimness, of her features, this was not apparent to the casual glance. One had to get to know Olga, to see her smile or, better, to watch her in the throes of passion, to realise the beauty that lay beneath the mask of tragic foreboding. Olga certainly had that; she lived for the present because she evaluated the future in the most sombre colours. While her figure was perfection; that had been easy to tell on first acquaintance. And now both face and figure were hers. What an amazing thought! She had never felt that she possessed another human being. Certainly she had never possessed Alex. But for all of the two years she had been in the Pripet Olga had been searching, and perhaps for a long time before that. Now she had found what she wanted.

  Elaine slid out from beneath the blanket and tip-toed to the door; in the summer heat she slept naked, as did Olga. In the far corner, Christina snuffled contentedly in her sleep.

  Christina was a dear. She was well aware of the relationship that had sprung up between the lieutenant and the doctor, but it was not her business to criticise. Perhaps she envied them. They did not bother with setting a sentry; they knew the Germans could not get at them without making sufficient noise to alert them. Besides, the enemy would presently be fully occupied trying to catch up with Tatiana.

  Elaine went outside and into the bushes, then returned and stood on the edge of the pond and stretched. It felt delightfully wanton to be standing naked in a forest. Had it not been for the wounded men in the hospital hut she thought she would not bother to dress at all, but live out this surely brief idyll to its fullest extent. But as the men were there...She turned back to the hut, then heard the sounds of someone coming through the swamp, not far away. One or at the most two. She reacted without hesitation, reached the hut in four strides, and armed herself with a sub-machine-gun. Both Olga and Christina awoke and did the same, without wasting the time to ask questions. A man emerged into the clearing; his clothes were torn, and he looked exhausted. “Stop right there!” Olga commanded.

  The man checked, looking left and right, panting, trying to decide where the voice had come from. “Are there others?” Olga asked.

  “No,” he gasped. “There is only me.”

  Olga went outside, Elaine and Christina following. The man goggled at the two naked women. Christina was dressed; Christina was always dressed. “You are from Brest-Litovsk,” Olga said. “What have you to tell us?”

  The man licked his lips. “I am so thirsty...”

  “There is water.” Olga gestured at the pond. “You can have vodka when you have told us why you are here.”

  “The Germans are coming.” The man lay down on the edge of the water and drank.

  “Go on,” Olga invited.

  “They are coming next week. A week today. The entire garrison of Brest-Litovsk, commanded by Colonel von Holzbach himself. He is going to sweep the entire marsh from end to end, if it takes him all summer. Inch by inch, until every partisan is killed or captured.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Their men sleep with our women. Orders were given that anyone trying to leave the town without a pass was to be shot on sight. Four of us tried. The other three were shot.” He had finished slaking his thirst, and knelt, staring at them.

  “Give him some vodka, Christina,” Olga said, and went into the hut to dress.

  Elaine followed, and also pulled on her clothes. “Do you believe him?”

  “We can’t afford not to. Listen, I will go after the group. I am strong enough now. They must be warned, and Tatiana must make her dispositions.”

  “Shouldn’t I go?” Elaine asked.

  Olga smiled. “Yes, you should. But can you? Would you be able to find them?”

  Elaine sighed. “I suppose not.”

  “Besides, you are the doctor, not me. Do not worry. I will find them, and return, well within the week. Four days at the most. You stay here with Christina, and nurse those men.”

  “And this man?”

  Olga gave another grin. “He can’t go back. He will have to stay with you. Enjoy him.”

  She had to be joking! Peter Petrovich was a most unprepossessing character. However, he seemed anxious to please, and willing to work, which meant that she and Christina had less to do. Elaine decided to let him sleep in the hut with them that night, if only as some protection from the mosquitoes swarming out of the stagnant water. She had a curious sense of elation; Olga had left her in command. Christina certainly did not seem to mind, and it was the very first time she had been in control of events. Not that there were any events to control, or indeed any people apart from the old woman and the man and the five wounded. But it was a pleasant feeling.

  She slept heavily, was up as usual at dawn to wash, standing on the edge of the water, as usual, enjoying the sunlight that was already piercing the foliage and listened to the distant roaring of engines.

  Distant! Only a few miles, to the edge of the swamp. She dashed back inside and woke the others. “You said a week!” she shouted at Peter Petrovich.

  “They said a week,” he protested, following her outside.

  “What are we to do?” Christina asked.

  Elaine bit her lip. Now she could hear the beating of drums and the blowing of bugles; the Germans were conducting this as if it were a shoot. But to them it was, a shoot. She could think of nothing to do, save what they had done last year, and hope to be undiscovered. She could only hope that this early sweep might turn out to be a blessing in disguise, as the Germans would surely have come and gone before Tatiana and the main body returned. But what about the wounded? Three of them could move by now, and were leaving their hospital hut to discover what was happening. “Take everything you can carry,” she told them. “And then scatter into the trees. Keep going east.” They exchanged glances, and looked at their bandages. “I’m sorry,” Elaine said. “There is nothing else we can do. When the Germans have gone, I’ll be able to tend you again.�
��

  They nodded, with resignation, Christina with grim determination, Peter Petrovich with some delight; there was a great deal of useful materiel lying around the camp. Her command, Elaine thought. At the first crisis she was telling them all to fend for themselves. But there was nothing else to do. “What about us?” asked Vladimir. He was one of the two who were still too weak to move. Elaine bit her lip. They had to die. She had to kill them, because she was their commander. That was what Tatiana would have done. Or Olga. But could she do it? Vladimir saw her dilemma. “Leave us two grenades,” he said. “One each. Please, Comrade Doctor.”

  Elaine was on the verge of tears. “I am so terribly sorry!”

  Vladimir shrugged. “You have kept us alive longer than we had expected. Now you must hurry.”

  A fine commander, Elaine thought, taking orders from her own men. But now all she wanted to do was get far away. She filled a pack for herself with food, stuffed in as much of her medical supplies as she could, belted on a revolver with cartridges, and took a sub-machine-gun with two spare drums of ammunition. She could carry nothing more. “Well,” she said to the others. “We’ll see each other when this is over. Off you go.”

  The five of them, each even more heavily laden than herself, went into the trees, while she gave Vladimir and his companion a grenade each, and saluted them. Then she went outside and looked around. There were some explosives left, and presumably if she were a properly trained guerilla she would be able to set up some kind of a booby trap for when the Germans reached the camp, but she had no idea how to go about it. My command, she thought again. The briefest command in history. She listened to shots, and instinctively unslung her gun. But the shots had come from the west, and her people had gone east. The Germans were either firing at each other or an animal. But it was time to go.

  She studied her compass, decided to head north-west, simply because that was the direction in which Olga had gone, yesterday. She made quite good progress, picking her way through the various ponds and bogs. Some birds were disturbed by her progress, but then all the birds were disturbed by the racket the Germans were creating; she did not suppose the Germans would know whether it was themselves or an enemy who was doing the disturbing. But she was carrying more weight than ever before in her life, and after a couple of hours, she needed to sit and rest. It was now mid-morning and quite hot, and very pleasant, with the sun streaming through the trees. But for the sense that she was being followed she thought she would be quite happy. Then she heard another shot, from quite close at hand — and it had come from the north of her.