by Sven Hassel
She crawls out of the alcove, and sees the garbage pail he has knocked over.
‘Was that what attacked you?’ she asks, with a sarcastic smile.
‘The counter-revolutionary swine had laid a trap in it,’ he asserts, kicking out viciously at the bucket.
‘Don’t shout so, Stefan! Come to bed, so that you can sober up before morning!’
‘Get your peasant fingers off my spotless uniform,’ he roars, trying to strike her with a wet sack. ‘Perhaps you do not know who I am? Get the hay out of your ears and listen, you peasant sow. I am a Soviet state servant, a learned man who knows all the service regulations by heart and you are a miserable counter-revolutionary who wants to get her fingers on my hard-earned kopecks!’ He throws a pot at her. ‘To Gulag with you! The skis are there in the corner!’
She rushes into the sitting-room and throws herself on the couch, weeping.
‘Howl, woman, sob all you can! That’s an old trick. Even the stupidest Soviet civil servant knows that one! You think you can get away with it by wringing out your tear ducts, but you are quite wrong. We civil servants are as hard as the walls of the mines in Kazakstan, and that you are going to learn. You leave on the next train for the mines! Gulag is longing for you! Go! Shit on a parson’s prick! I’m going to bed!’ Breathing hard he crawls into the alcove, knocking his head so hard on the frame that the whole house shakes. ‘Hit me again, you sow, and I’ll shoot you,’ he roars from the depths of the alcove. He rolls him-self up like a wet dog.
‘Stop it now, Stefan! Let me help you off with your trousers. You are soaking wet! You’ll catch cold if you go to sleep with your wet clothes on!’
‘Catch cold!’ He howls insultedly, and hangs on to his trousers with desperation. ‘Have you gone mad? Servants of the Soviet state do not get attacked by capitalist illnesses.’ Suddenly he becomes confidential. ‘Listen to me, Olga, we must all stand by one another until the war has been won, or it’ll end with the American Jews coming here and raping our women.’
‘But they are on our side,’ she cries, in amazement, hanging his dark-blue riding breeches over the back of a chair.
‘You think so do you, you Trotskyist bitch,’ he screams, feeling a pleasant anger rising within him. ‘Don’t you know that Jew Trotsky ran off to America and lent the rotten American Army our Communist hammer to crush Russia with? But you don’t know the Soviet people. We’ll do this to them!’ He tears the pillow to pieces. Feathers fly in clouds inside the alcove.
‘Look what you’ve done now!’ she weeps unhappily, attempting to gather the remains of the pillow together. ‘Where will we get a new pillow from?’
‘Have you nothing bigger to worry about. Now, when our fatherland is fighting for its very life?’ He jumps out of the alcove, seizes the brown crochet work tablecloth and throws it into the fire.
‘Have you gone mad?’ she screams, attempting to save the tablecloth from the flames.
‘No fascist coloured tablecloth shall lie on my official table,’ he yells, raging, and poking at the fire to make it burn brighter. ‘Get me my machine-pistol, woman! Quick about it! We must be ready! The Germans are coming this very night!’
‘Drunken animal,’ she sobs, going in to sleep on the couch. But first, from bitter experience, she hides the machine-pistol.
Next morning he feels terrible. His head buzzes like a beehive, and he has pains in his back. He sneezes and coughs continually. He blows his nose violently and wipes his fingers on the curtains.
In accusing silence she gets the breakfast. From experience she knows he will not say a word until well into the afternoon.
He puts on his fur uniform tunic with the broad shoulder-straps, swings the Kalashnikov over his shoulder, and knocks the bulowka with the red star down on his head.
‘I’m just going out to see everything’s in order and that there aren’t any reindeer trying to beat the red lights,’ he says, apologetically, doing his best to bring forth a reconciliatory smile.
He fights his way down the village street, against the howling storm, and vows solemnly to himself that he will not go into ‘The Red Angel’ even though his throat is screaming for a drink.
Just before he reaches the dog kennels, the Lapp Zoliborz rushes up in a sleigh drawn by a pair of reindeer.
‘Fly, Stefan Borowski,’ he yells, excitedly, ‘get back to Moscow as quick as your dogs can take you! The Germans are coming!’
Let me smell your breath, Eskimo,’ orders Stefan, putting his nose close to the Lapp’s mouth.
‘I’m not drunk, Pan Stefan. I’m as sober as God’s son on the cross! Believe me, I have met the Germans! They said many things to me I did not understand, but I could see in their mad eyes that they were coming to kill every man born of a Russian woman!’
‘If you didn’t understand their language how do you know they were Germans?’ asks Stefan, distrustful. ‘They could be one of our own Siberian patrols. You couldn’t understand them, either!’
‘They were Germans, Pan Stefan. They only hit me once, and none of them kicked me, although they were very angry. If they had been Siberians they would have kicked me, and shot me too, afterwards. These people let me go. So did the people my brother met let him go.’
‘When did you meet them?’ asks Stefan, uneasily, looking out across the hills.
‘It could be five hours ago. It was just before the storm changed to coming from the east.’
‘How should I know when the storm changed. I’m not a weather prophet. I’m a policeman! Now you’re not filling me up with lies are you, you seal-eater? I suppose you know where Kolyma is?’
‘Know all about it. My grandfather was there!’
‘Where are the Germans now?’ asks Stefan, with bated breath, holding the Kalashnikov at the ready.
‘Out on the steppe,’ explains the Lapp, pointing to the northeast. ‘Stefan Borowski, you are not thinking of shooting at the Germans? Then heaven be merciful to us! They are angry enough now when nobody is shooting at them. If somebody does shoot they will rip our village to small pieces!’
‘Come on,’ orders Stefan, with decision. ‘Let’s go to “The Red Angel” and discuss it. We must lay a plan so the Germans won’t think we are stupider than they are.’
Shenja is lolling in the canvas chair which is her pride and joy. It once belonged to a film director from the State Film Industry. They forgot it, together with other things, when they made a love picture in the village eight years ago.
‘The Germans are here,’ shouts Stefan, with despair, as he enters the door. The Lapp and I have seen them!’
Shenja is so terrified that both she and the director’s chair fall over. There is wild confusion in the bar. Even the ancient, rheumaticky bear-dog begins to bark as loud as it can.
Gregorij, who has been asleep under the table with two sledge-dogs, rushes to the window and fires excitedly into the snow, but little by little they all quieten down and begin to question the Lapp.
‘Are you dead sure they were Germans?’ asks Mischa, unbelievingly. ‘You can’t understand Finnish or German.’
‘What does that matter,’ shouts Gregorij. ‘A German’s a German even if he talks Hebrew, and you could expect even that of those treacherous swine!’
‘What did they say to you?’ asks Yorgi. ‘Now no fairy tales, understand!’
‘They said get out or come down here,’ explains the Lapp. ‘Bullets are no joking matter, and do not care who they hit!’
‘If you don’t understand German, how do you know what they were saying?’ asks Shenja, wonderingly.
‘They say it in Russian,’ says the Lapp, stubbornly. ‘They spoke a terrible lot of different languages. But you cannot be mistaken when you meet a German. Those devils are as well-read as Jews. They’re not like our soldiers, who have only learnt enough to take a machine-pistol apart and put it together again.’
‘Watch your mouth, Lapp,’ Gregorij admonishes him, sternly. ‘I am wearing my official cap, so there must be no criticism
of the heroes of the Soviet Army! In Pravda it says the Germans are as stupid as a reindeer’s backside. Are you sure it was not an NKVD border patrol you ran into?’
‘No,’ says the Lapp, firmly, accepting a big mug of vodka from Shenja. ‘They had no nagajkas to whip all the madmen who go about loose on the tundra with!’
‘What did their uniforms look like?’ Nikolaij interrogates him, with a crafty look.
‘Like all uniforms,’ answers the Lapp, throwing his arms out to both sides. ‘But believe me, they were Germans. They smoked capitalist tobacco and not machorka and they had a reindeer with them who was as haughty as a Finnish general. It would not even sniff at my reindeer, although they were Finnish reindeer once.’
‘I have seen Germans,’ shouts Puchal, rushing into the bar with a great clatter. ‘A whole army with guns and all sorts of murderous instruments.’
Where?’ asks Gregorij, objectively.
‘Five versts away, and they will soon be here. They are moving fast!’
‘Well, I’m off to the mill,’ says Kosnov, nervously, buttoning his fur coat. ‘I’ve got wheat to grind. Now the Germans are here who knows when I’ll be able to get it done. Those devils can get up to all kinds of craziness!’
‘You stay here,’ orders Gregorij, sternly. ‘You can grind your wheat with the cheeks of your arse or wait till the war’s over! I’m the chief of the military here!’ With considerable difficulty he climbs up on to a chair. ‘Shut up and listen,’ he shouts. ‘Tovaritches, the Soviet Union expects that every man will do his duty in this our district’s finest hour . . . ‘
‘Can that shit,’ Fjedor interrupts him, disrespectfully. ‘You’re not showing off in Murmansk now! Get down off that chair! Take that cap off and talk like a human being!’
Gregorij takes off his cap and settles into a chair. The wind howls amongst the beams, as if it were going to lift the whole roof off. A shadow of fear creeps through the bar-room. They drink for a while in silence, and think their own thoughts. How best to manage things for themselves when the Germans arrive.
Shenja gets to her feet and scratches her big backside thoughtfully.
‘Somebody come and help me boil some water!’ she says, moving towards the kitchen.
‘What the devil d’you want to boil water for?’ asks Gregorij, in amazement.
‘To throw at the Germans when they get here,’ she answers, with decision. ‘That’ll make ’em think a bit. They used to do it in the olden days when they got too close’
‘Not any more,’ explains Mikhail. ‘Those devils start killing when they’re two versts away. And even a big wench like you couldn’t throw boiling water that far!’
‘I’ll lay in wait for ’em just inside the door with all the women,’ explains Shenja, patriotically, ‘and soon as the Germans put their wicked faces inside we’ll throw a bucket of boilin’ Russian water straight in ’em. That ought to teach ’em to come here without an invitation!’
‘You don’t know what you are talking about,’ says Fjedor, seriously. ‘They throw all sorts of hellish machines in, before they open the door. There wouldn’t be as much as the hair round your cunt left of you!’
‘Probably be best then to kill ’em outside in the snow,’ suggests Sofija, who is sitting on the floor cleaning a double-barrelled shotgun.
‘When it’s over we’ll pile all the dead Germans up back of here,’ says Mischa, proudly. ‘Then we’ll send a message to Murmansk for somebody to come over an’ count the bodies!’
‘Shooting a German isn’t difficult,’ explains Fjedor. ‘When you hit him he spins round like a top and doesn’t know what to do. Even the cleverest get confused, when bullets start rattling around in their heads!’
‘Where are you going?’ shouts Gregorij, as Kosnow begins again to sneak towards the door.
‘I’m going to grind my corn, man! We’ve got to think of tomorrow, not just the war today. A Russian Finn told me the Germans’ll let us keep our flour, but take the unmilled grain for themselves. Them who don’t get their grain milled’ll starve to death for no reason before this winter’s over!’
‘Let’s get up to the mill and get that corn milled,’ says Polakov, cheering up. ‘Gregorij, you’re in charge of defence. You stay here and defend “The Red Angel”. If we hear firing we’ll come back and help you. We’ll surround the Germans and take ’em from behind, the way we learnt it at the Home Guard school. It’s easy as scratchin’ your arse. Even the Germans haven’t got eyes in the back of their heads. Keep on firing until you hear us shout “Cease fire!”’
‘You stay here,’ shouts Gregorij, hysterically. ‘I shit on your corn! D’you understand!’
‘Make no mistake,’ says Shenja. ‘The Germans are dangerous! Let’s harness up the dogs, and get out of here quick. Then the Germans’ll be disappointed, and there won’t be a single Soviet citizen here waiting to get killed.’
‘It is cowardly to flee,’ protests Gregorij, weakly. ‘Stalin has ordered that every fucking one of us, man or woman, is to kill the fascists wherever they are met with. And don’t think of getting taken prisoner by the fascists. They’ll cut out your liver, neat as anything and eat it raw. I’ve seen pictures of it at the Commissar School in Murmansk, so it’s not just propaganda.’
‘Then it’s about time we got going,’ thinks Shenja, pulling on her felt jacket. ‘I’m too fond of my liver to let any whoreson German eat it!’
‘You stay here,’ says Gregorij, aiming his machine-pistol at her. ‘From now on there’s military law here, and I’m the law! You’ve enjoyed the good years under the Soviet system, now you’ve got to take the bad ones with ’em!’
‘Boots and barbed wire to you, Gregorij,’ she shouts, contemptuously. ‘We know you! You’ll run like a hare soon as a German shows on the horizon!’
For a while they sit in heavy silence, drinking to get up their courage. Some of them try to get the Lapp to admit he has dreamt the whole thing. But he is firm on having spoken to the Germans.
Gregorij declares a state of emergency, and from then on all drinks are free of charge in ‘The Red Angel’. They split themselves up into small battle groups, and the Home Guard is on Red Alert.
‘Enemy contact about to occur,’ shouts Gregorij, pathetically, feeling the false courage in every fibre of his commissar body. Inwardly, he is hoping that the Germans will pass by the village, which lies in a valley cloaked in snow.
There is a violent knocking on the door. Everyone huddles close, in fear, but it is only Julia, who always knocks on doors, whether she wants to go in or out of them.
‘You’re to come home,’ she shouts, waving to Gregorij, ‘there’s somebody who wants to speak to you!’
‘I haven’t time to talk to people,’ shouts Gregorij, dismissively.
‘Don’t talk nonsense! Come home or I’ll warm your ears for you! Don’t think you’re so much, just because you’re wearing a uniform!’
Everybody is a little frightened of Julia. She is the village babuschka, 59 and can tell fortunes and cure sickness.
‘Who wants to talk to me?’ asks Gregorij, weakly.
‘You’ll see when you get home,’ answers Babuschka Julia, laconically.
‘So tell ’em they’ll have to wait,’ says Gregorij. ‘I’ll come home when we’ve killed the Germans!’
‘You’re not right in the head,’ says Babuschka Julia, and knocks on the door before she goes out.
Shenja hangs the Party Message on the board reserved for special notices:
Tovaritsch, every step in retreat is cowardly
and dishonourable. It means death!
The rattle of a machine-pistol is heard out in the storm.
In a moment everyone has taken cover under a chair or a table.
In some mysterious manner Shenja has managed to force all her superfluous pounds of fat on to the shelf under the bar.
Sofija rushes wildly out to the coal bunkers. As she runs she tears the Party badge from her blouse and thr
ows it into the stove.
Fjedor’s Home Guard amulet goes the same way as the Party badge.
‘Hard times are coming,’ they confide to one another, ‘and nobody can yet be sure who is going to win this war!’
But, shortly after, it proves to be only the fur-hunter, Sanja, who has been firing with his new machine-pistol. He looms large in the door, and bends down to look under the table where Gregorij is hunched down with his hands covering both ears.
‘Come out, comrade! The Germans are sitting out there in the snow waiting to get shot!’
Slowly they crawl from their hiding-places, and, after a few glasses, Gregorij again begins to feel himself the born battle-group commander. He decides to put out advance posts. After a long discussion, about where people are to go, they slouch off to the selected positions.
Two men drag the water-cooled Maxim machine-gun with them, but as soon as they get outside they are knocked off their feet by the storm. It is not very long before they arrive back at ‘The Red Angel’, and agree that they might just as well wait for the Germans there as risk freezing to death before they arrive. But Gregorij has learnt at the Home Guard course in Murmansk that it is most important to put out a sentry.
Nobody protests, when he proposes the Lapp as the right man for that important post. He is used to being outdoors, in all kinds of weather, and living close to nature as he does, his eyes and ears are well trained.
‘If you do this,’ says Gregorij, solemnly, ‘I will recommend you for the Workers’ Order!’
The Lapp rolls off, grinning, to keep an eye on the Germans, but the storm is too severe even for him, and soon he creeps into the reindeer stables. Before he goes to sleep he tells the reindeer to listen carefully, and to wake him if strangers come.
‘The Workers’ Order they can stick up the arsehole of a wild boar,’ he mumbles, just before he falls asleep.
The whole day passes with no sign of any Germans, and courage is coming back to the villagers. ‘The Red Angel’ has been turned into a veritable fortress. An 80 mm mortar has been emplaced behind the kitchen. True there are only two practice bombs for it, but Gregorij feels that the noise alone will frighten the Germans properly.
