Red Army

by Ralph Peters

  In the end, he could not even ask. He had been the lucky one from the entire garrison, selected for attendance at the Vystrel command course, to be followed by early battalion command.

  But Anna? Would she be waiting? Could she even consider waiting for him? And if he was posted to the Trans-Baikal? Or to Mongolia? Afghanistan, too, had been a possibility. Notions that once had filled him with visions of glorious achievement began to echo with time and distance, and he was quietly ashamed of himself. In the end, he left without asking her, without perhaps really knowing her at all. The new computers at the training school worked more often than had the earlier models, the tactical problems were simple for him, and there was much about which an ambitious officer could be optimistic. But his cowardice haunted him. During their last awkward hour, in a park that raced with fallen leaves, he had found he could not ask her. He resolved to write his feelings down. But later, he could not do that, either. All he could do was to think of her, wondering if she was teaching yet another group of young officers now, and if she ever thought of him, and whether any of her new students liked Chekhov.

  Bezarin led his column through the cluttered rear of the combat area. The road network was superb, allowing his vehicles to move with what felt like irresistible speed and compactness. He had hastily restructured the battalion’s internal order of march so that he could personally guide the deployment of the three tank companies by visual means. The combat task of the motorized rifle company was to follow and be prepared to clear overrun positions, if necessary. The battalion’s rear services trailed, with instructions to break off the road when the battalion deployed into company columns but to remain mounted and ready to follow.

  His small staff and his company commanders had worn solemn faces as Bezarin attempted to give them adequate verbal instructions. Nothing in their training had prepared them for this sudden acceleration of events. Fear showed openly on Roshchin’s face. The boyish company commander listened to Bezarin’s coaching with his mouth opened partway, revealing slightly buck teeth that made him appear hopelessly naive and immature. Dagliev, Bezarin’s most reliable company commander and a good improviser, looked ten years older from lack of sleep. The last tank company commander, Voronich, stood slouched, grumpy, as though his shoulders and spine were declaring, “This is pig shit, and we all know it.” Voronich was cynical to the point of being theatrical, but he was competent at his job. Lasky, who commanded the motorized rifle troops, looked like an orphan boy. Bezarin knew that the motorized rifle officer expected to receive the dirtiest tasks and the least thanks. But there was no time for coddling now. Bezarin did his best to answer their worried questions, even as his officers tried to phrase their queries in words that sounded as tough and masculine as possible. It occurred to Bezarin that they were a distinctly unheroic-looking group, huddling around the spread map in their filthy coveralls. The faces had a slightly lunatic appearance, broken skin smeared black and framed by hair skewed wildly in pulling their headgear on and off. Bezarin did not give them all of the details that would come into play should they become the designated forward detachment. He felt his officers had enough to work through in the little time available. But he was determined to be the commander who punched through.

  Now, speeding along the road from village to village, Bezarin felt as though nothing could stop him. Intellectually, he realized that there was great danger, especially from enemy aircraft, since the heavy air-defense weaponry remained under centralized control. The battalion had to rely on a few shoulder-fired missiles, which, in turn, required soldiers — boys — to calmly expose their bodies under combat conditions. The army gave them a few weeks training and, sometimes, an armored vest to shield their torsos. Some of the newer soldiers had never even fired a live missile. But there was nothing to be done. And emotionally, he was already in the attack.

  The column passed battery after battery of guns and howitzers, their tubes raised as if in salute from the midst of broken orchards or under hurriedly erected camouflage nets in open fields. Closer to the direct-fire battle, readily identifiable artillery reconnaissance groups marked off and surveyed still more firing positions. The road passed a medical clearing station where wounded soldiers lay in rows upon the ground. Communications vans filled a sports field at the edge of a shot-up village, and uncollected corpses littered the village streets. A lost-looking young soldier stood beside a broken-down truck, watching Bezarin’s tanks race by.

  Suddenly, the artillery preparation began. The volume of fire from the massed artillery created a disturbance in the air that was so palpable Bezarin could feel it in his stomach. The effort felt solidly reassuring. It was difficult to believe that anything could survive such a barrage. The country had opened out into dry, rolling terrain, and the impact of the artillery was partially visible along a sweeping ridge running north and south several kilometers in the distance, astride Bezarin’s line of advance. Smoke began to rise, as though storm clouds had settled on the earth.

  Bezarin knew that the lead battalion was already in its start position, waiting for him to come up on the left. The roadway traced over a small bridge. Bezarin checked his map, then looked off to the right. A shattered motorized rifle company appeared to be regrouping, and Bezarin went cold. But a moment later, he saw the company columns of his sister battalion drawn up in a grassy valley beyond the tattered subunit. Everything appeared intact and ready. The lone motorized rifle company was probably getting ready to displace after being relieved of local responsibility.

  Bezarin hurriedly unrolled his signal flags and stood erect in the turret. He stretched out his arms, directing prebattle formation, company columns abreast. Then he ordered his driver to slow down so that the trail companies could come up after crossing the bridge. In the middle distance, the wall of smoke looked dense enough to gather in your arms. Bezarin led the center company off the road, watching Dagliev hurry to catch up on the left. Dagliev’s company briefly disappeared in a depression, then reappeared exactly where it was meant to be. Bezarin looked right.

  Roshchin was on the right, on his own now. But Bezarin felt it was the best position for the boy. He would have an entire battalion on his right flank, and the bulk of his own battalion on his left. All that Roshchin had to do was execute his company drill and keep up. At least for now, Roshchin appeared to be in control. Minor obstructions staggered the progress of his company slightly, but the frontage would be approximately correct. And beyond Roshchin’s line of armor, Bezarin could see First Battalion breaking out of a line of trees and hedges from a parallel route.

  Bezarin tried to gauge the distance to the wall of smoke, then he rose again and signaled platoon columns. He ordered his driver to slow, allowing the tanks of Voronich’s company to overtake them. On the right flank, First Battalion surged visibly ahead, almost ready to assault the line of smoke. Bezarin signaled an increase in speed, hoping the company commanders were paying attention.

  The local roughness of the terrain tossed Bezarin against the rim of the hatch, and he steadied himself as best he could. The smoke and artillery fire were still a kilometer out but already felt too close. Bezarin dropped the signal flags into the belly of the tank. The next command would be given over the radio.

  As his tank crested the low ridge Bezarin saw that First Battalion had begun to pull hard to the right. He started cursing at the developing split in the assault formation, but then he saw the cause of the problem. A wind gap was opening in the smokescreen, exposing the center of the line of attack. The artillery had stopped firing smoke rounds too early. Bezarin looked to the rear, struggling for elevation, searching for any sign of an artillery observation post. The attrition within the division’s artillery establishment had been so great that Bezarin had not even received an artillery officer to direct fires in support of the battalion, but Tarashvili had promised that regiment would handle the requirement. Now the only vehicles Bezarin could see to his rear were the meandering trucks of the battalion’s rear services,
hunting for a place to tuck in for the duration of the attack. Visibility to the rear was splendid. But there was nothing to see.

  The textbook response called for Bezarin to guide his battalion to the right, to maintain contact with First Battalion at all costs. He nuzzled the microphone closer to his lips. But he could not order Roshchin into the gap. Whoever drove up between the parting curtains of smoke would be sacrificed. And, as his company commanders began to bring their tanks on line, Bezarin could not see the ultimate sense of throwing away a company, perhaps more, to briefly maintain contact that would inevitably be lost in the smokescreen. He felt his battalion surging with a life of its own, a long wave of steel moving at combat speed toward the towering gray wall of smoke. He waited for the first report of the guns.

  Bezarin glanced left to check on Dagliev. And he noticed an aspect of the terrain that his hasty map reconnaissance had not fully brought home to him. The ridgelines on which the smoke had settled threw a long spur out to the southeast. It was obvious now, on the scene, that the finger of high ground would shield any attempted British counterattack until it reached the rear of the attacking Soviet units. All the British would need to do would be to allow the Soviets to move past the spur into the trap. On the other hand, it offered Bezarin an opportunity to take the British in the rear, if they had failed to cover their extreme flank.

  Bezarin decided to take a chance.

  As he spoke his first words into the microphone British artillery fire began to crash down just behind his formation.

  The British knew.

  “Volga One, Two, Three, this is Lodoga Five. Amendment to combat instructions. Three, move left six hundred meters. Get on the reverse slope of that spur. Use the smoke. Follow it in behind the British positions.” Bezarin paused. The artillery had not yet adjusted to hit them, and Bezarin realized that the smoke was of some value after all. The British were guessing, executing preplanned fires. Then he found he could not remember the call sign for the motorized rifle troops. Exasperated, he called, “Lasky… Lasky, you follow Three. Stay close to him. Three, you get on their damned flank and roll them up. Call me if you have trouble. Acknowledge.”

  “Ladoga, this is Three. We’re losing contact with First Battalion.”

  “Damn it, I know that. Just get up on that ridge and kill everything you see. Meet me on the far slope. Do you understand?”

  “This is Three. Executing now.”

  “Volga One, Two… let’s get them. Into the smoke. Independent fires on contact.”

  “One, acknowledged.”

  “Two, acknowledged.” That was Roshchin. Bezarin could hear the nervousness in the boy’s voice.

  “Ladoga, your hatch is flapping.”

  Bezarin reached out, trying to snag his hatch cover. The jouncing of the vehicle as it moved cross-country made it difficult. A hatch could crush your hand or break an arm. Finally, he caught the big steel disk and smashed it down, fastening it.

  Bezarin felt as though he had suddenly gone underwater in the sealed belly of the tank. He always felt cut off from the real world when the vehicle was fully sealed. He leaned his forehead against the cowl of his optics. But the smoke began to shroud his vision.

  The tank jolted hard. It seemed to lift to the side. Then it stopped. The shock smashed Bezarin’s brow hard against his periscope. He began to curse his driver, just as the tank resumed movement.

  The smoke grew patchier. Bezarin’s ears rang, and he did not know why.

  More speed, Bezarin thought. Every nerve in his body seemed to want to move faster. Yet he knew that he could not afford to pull the line apart any worse than the movement to contact in the smoke would do by itself. He resisted the temptation to order an all-out charge. He feared that, in the smoke, they would soon begin killing one another if they became disordered.

  “Target, right, one thousand,” the gunner called.

  Bezarin looked right. A tank in profile, firing toward First Battalion, clearly visible in a corridor between waves of smoke. Bezarin had missed it.

  “Load sabot.”

  The automatic loader whirled into action.

  “Sabot up.”

  “Fire,” Bezarin ordered.

  The tank rocked back. The breech jettisoned its casing, and the reek of high explosives filled the crew compartment.

  The round missed.

  “Load sabot,” Bezarin shouted, forcing himself to go through the precise verbal and physical motions.

  The regimental net scratched like an old phonograph record. “This is Ural Five. I’m in trouble. Ambush. Ambush. They’re all around me.”

  First Battalion was in trouble. Bezarin half listened for a response from regiment. But none came. Bezarin realized there was nothing he could do for his sister battalion now except to fight his own fight as well as he possibly could. But it troubled him that there was no reply whatsoever from Tarashvili or one of his staff officers.

  “Range, seven-fifty.” Bezarin focused with all of his strength. The British tank sat perfectly on the aiming point. As he watched it began to swing its turret around.

  “Fire.”

  A splash of flame lit the British tank. The turret stopped turning.

  “This is Two. Ladoga, this is Two. I’ve lost two tanks.”

  Roshchin. He sounded near panic.

  “Keep moving, Two. Just keep moving. Fight back. You’re all right.” But Bezarin suspected that the boy was not all right.

  “This is Ural Five, calling any station. I need help.”

  “Ural, this is Ladoga. I hear you. But I’m in a fight myself.”

  “Ladoga, can you reach regiment? They’re ripping me apart.”

  “I’ll try. But I haven’t heard a thing.” Bezarin cleared his throat, rasping at the fumes inside the tank. He attempted to raise a regimental station. But there was no response.

  “Target, six hundred,” Bezarin shouted to the gunner as another enemy tank appeared. It was nerve-wracking to play this deadly game of hide-and-seek between the billows and eddies of smoke. “On the right.”

  “God, oh, God. They’re killing us all” It was Roshchin. Bezarin knew beyond any doubt that the boy had lost control now.

  “Roshchin,” he called. “Get a grip on yourself. Fight, you son of a whore, or they will kill you.” Bezarin remembered the loneliness and self-doubt of the boy in the early morning hours. But he could not pity him now; he felt only anger. Roshchin had a job to do, and all of their lives depended on it.

  “Five hundred… fire… selecting… sabot up… adjust to four-fifty… fire …”

  Bezarin’s tank suddenly emerged from the smoke into the painful clarity of daylight. In his optics, he could see three British tanks and four of his own in a murderous shoot-out at minimal ranges. As he watched, the tanks destroyed each other in suicidal combat.

  “Smoke grenades away,” Bezarin screamed, fumbling at his controls. “Target…”

  “Got the bastard.”

  “Three, can you hear me?” Bezarin called, his desperation rising.

  Nothing.

  “Where are you, Three?”

  Instead of Dagliev, Roshchin came back on, pleading for help. Bezarin coldly ordered him off the net. An enemy tank appeared in Bezarin’s optics, so close it seemed as though they were bound to collide with it.

  “Target left. Get on him,” Bezarin yelled to his gunner.

  “Too close.”

  “Fire. “Bezarin’s field of vision filled up with blast effects. But they had gotten the British tank first. Bezarin felt weak, almost nauseous, yet his pulse throbbed as though his heart would explode.

  “Volga One, this is Ladoga… is that your element mixed up with the British on the crest?”

  “This is One. I’m still in the smoke. It must be Two up there.”

  At the mention of his call sign, Roshchin came back up on the net. He was weeping. “They’re all gone,” he said, “everybody’s gone.”

  Bezarin’s gunner screamed. A British tank
had its gun tube aimed directly at them.

  “Point blank, “Bezarin yelled. “Fire.” He did not even know what kind of round, if any, was in the breech.

  A burst of sparks dazzled off the mantlet of the British tank’s gun. A moment later, the enemy vehicle began to pull off of its position without firing. Bezarin sensed a kill and methodically directed his gunner. The next round stopped the British tank, and smoke began to climb from its deck. Roshchin cried into the battalion net as though he had lost his sanity. Bezarin found himself cursing the boy, even wishing that the British would kill him, just to stop him from blabbering. He feared that Roshchin’s panic would become contagious.

  “Roshchin,” Bezarin said, disregarding the last radio discipline. “Roshchin, take command of yourself. You’re still alive. You can fight back. You’re all right.”

  Bezarin could not even be certain that his transmission had reached the boy, who had begun to broadcast incessantly.

  Suddenly, Bezarin lost his temper. “Roshchin, if you don’t get off that radio, I’ll shoot you myself. Do you understand me, you cowardly piece of shit?”

  For the moment, Roshchin dropped from the net. Bezarin’s driver barely avoided colliding with another Soviet tank in a last pocket of smoke. The driver halted the tank to let the other vehicle pass. Bezarin used the pause to help the gunner replenish the automatic loader’s ready rack.