by JV Love
* * *
There were crowds of people at the freight station and from somewhere in the sea of people, a man yelled Felix's name. Felix searched the figures and faces, but couldn't locate the man. Both Felix's and Dima's parents saw them off at the start of the march, so he knew the voice wasn't either of their fathers. He searched the groups of people: young boys and girls no taller than Felix's shovel, old men with canes, plump babushkas, tearful wives, and proud mothers and fathers. They all gathered in circles around men - some young, like Felix, and some twice his age - who were about to board the waiting train for the front. Before Felix could find the man, he saw Katya, and then realized the man yelling for him must be her father.
Katya ran up to Felix, wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on both cheeks. She was wearing a sleeveless dress that bared her thin, slightly tanned arms and shoulders. A few seconds later, her father arrived and shook Felix's hand. He looked perplexed when he saw Felix's shovel. "Where's your weapon?" he asked.
"This is my weapon," Felix grinned as he held forth the shovel. "And here is my bayonet," he added, pointing to the sharpened end of the handle.
"Are you serious?" Katya's father asked, arching his eyebrows. "They told me we were short on weapons, but I had no idea it was this bad. What are you going to do with a shovel?"
"He'll dig their graves for them, that's what," Dima said.
Katya rolled her eyes at the statement. "Oh father," she pleaded, "can't you do something? This is sheer insanity."
"Don't worry about me," Felix said. "We've been told we probably won't even see any Germans. And if they do show up, we'll ask them to wait until we finish our training. Ha-ha."
Katya smiled at his joke, but didn't laugh. "Aren't you terrified of going into battle with only a shovel?" she asked.
"We're not afraid of anything," Dima declared, "least of all the Germans."
"Show me a man without fear, and I'll show you a man without a pulse," Katya's father said.
Dima and Katya's father then began arguing about the role fear plays in man's life, and Felix used the opportunity to slip away with Katya. They held hands and walked toward the end of the train.
"Your father doesn't look so well," Felix said. "He's so pale."
"Yes I know, he looks awful," Katya said, her smile receding into concern. "He works non-stop now. He doesn't get any sleep and he's losing weight, and of course the war isn't going well. Every time I see him, he tells me about someone new who's been 'relieved of his duties.' I keep begging him to slow down, to take at least one night off a week to rest. And of course he agrees and promises to do it, but always comes up with an excuse at the last second."
Felix stopped and took both of Katya's hands in his. "Well, he's always been strong as an ox. He'll be all right." Felix half believed what he said. Her father was a vigorous man, but Felix had honestly never seen him look so old before. His hair, usually a mix of grey and black, was now entirely grey.
"Listen Katya," Felix continued. "We don't have much time left. They'll be calling us to form ranks any minute and . . ."
"Don't go," Katya interrupted.
"What?"
"I'm serious," she said. "Don't go. It's not right."
"Katya," Felix said, bringing her hands up to waist level and squeezing them a little tighter, "we've been through this before. If nobody goes to fight, then the Nazis win. We'll be slaves."
"Let the others fight," she said. "You don't have to."
"I do," he said. "I do have to fight."
"Why?"
"To protect people like you," he said, brushing the back of his hand alongside her cheek.
Her hands started to tremble.
"Now I know that nothing's changed so far," Felix said, "so I'm not going to ask you to promise to marry me one day." He pulled a ring out of his pocket. It had a small ruby in the middle and a petite diamond on each side. "My mother gave this to me. She said it was my grandmother's ring. I want you to keep it as a promise that you won't forget me - you know, should anything happen . . .." Felix looked into her sad brown eyes and saw tears forming.
"Oh Felix, this world is so crazy," she said. "Maybe that's why you fit in so well." She then started laughing as she cried. "To hell with your forget-me-not. When you come back, I want to marry you - with or without my father's permission."
"Don't joke about such a thing," he said. "It's not funny to me."
"Who's laughing?"
"You are."
"Ok, so maybe I am, but not about that."
Felix's face lit up. "You're serious?"
She nodded her head. "Yes, I decided life's too short to play by someone else's rules."
"Kirov Division of Volunteers! Fall in!" an officer shouted.
Felix kissed Katya quickly on the lips. "I've got to go," he said. He started to walk away, but then went back and kissed her again, this time longer.
"You'll be careful, won't you?" she asked.
The laughter was gone, as quickly as it had come, and Felix saw tears streaming down the sides of her nose. "Oh my Katya, I'll be careful," he said. And then, brushing her cheek once more, he added, "I promise." He ran to join his comrades in formation, but then remembered he still had the ring.
"Katya!" he yelled.
She turned toward him, and Felix tossed the ring over the young girl walking between them and Katya caught it with both hands. He blew her a kiss, admired her slender neck and bare shoulders, then hurried to line up next to Dima.
Fifteen minutes later, they were aboard the train and on their way to the front. Felix stared out the window for most of trip, thinking of Katya and how precious life was. That he could die in battle seemed preposterous. Life had always been fair to him, and God, or whoever was in charge, surely wouldn't do that to him. There was doubt, though, in the back of his mind because of the mystical experience he'd had when he was twelve.
It was after he had awakened from a nap. In his room, a strange being had appeared out of nowhere. Felix didn't understood who or what the being was, but it introduced itself as Ariel. It was mostly just a bright white light, but Felix could also make out the edges of what looked like a human form. It spoke with a feminine voice, telling Felix a prophecy about his life. Felix had chosen, Ariel explained, a challenging path for this lifetime.
Then, strangely enough, Felix actually remembered doing just that. He didn't know if Ariel was helping him recall it or not, but he had a fuzzy recollection of agreeing beforehand to the circumstances in which he would live his life. And he remembered too, being cautioned that the path he had decided upon was deemed high risk. It was a gamble, and there was no guarantee that he would be successful in what he wanted to do. In fact, the odds were against it.
Ariel echoed the same message to him now, saying, "If you are not strong enough, diligent enough, my love, this life will not turn out as you hoped. You will succumb to a great bitterness, loneliness, and contempt."
"And if I am successful?" young Felix had asked in response.
"If you are successful," Ariel said, shining brighter than ever, "then you will undergo a great transformation in your life under the most trying of circumstances. You will have found what you've been searching for for a very long time."
Climbing down from his bed and stepping closer to Ariel, Felix had asked, "And what is that?"
The light that was Ariel suddenly expanded, encompassing the entire room, Felix included. He was suffused with an immeasurable sense of peace and love.
"You will have found the end of sorrow," Ariel answered.
A hand-painted sign had been nailed to a tree for all to read as they disembarked from the train. It read: "Our cause is just, the enemy will be beaten, victory will be ours." Felix - one of the last ones off the train - had just finished reading it when the force of a tremendous blast knocked him to his knees. He escaped any shrapnel, but the man behind him hadn't been so fortunate. Dima grabbed Felix by the arm and jerked him to his feet. Felix was dizzy and confused
for several moments and simply ran along as best he could with this familiar figure who had helped him up.
The train ride to Batetsk had been so uneventful that the chaos they now found themselves in seemed surreal. They had been unloading from the train when they'd heard planes, and then a minute later, gunfire and explosions. German Divebombers and fighter planes were welcoming the new Soviet troops, and the men scattered to find shelter from the lethal rain of shrapnel.
Dima and Felix kept running until they reached a small house. They ran to the back side of it and leaned against the wall listening to the shouts, screams, gunfire, and explosions behind them. Once Felix caught his breath, he realized where he was and who the former stranger was.
"Dima, what do we do now?" he asked.
"We've got to get to that," Dima answered and pointed to a small hill with several trees and bushes.
Felix looked at the hill and the open field they would have to cross to get there. Katya's words rang in his ears, "You'll be careful, won't you?"
"Perhaps we should stay here until the planes leave," Felix said. "It seems a bit dangerous to cross that open field."
"We can't stay here," Dima said. "It's only a matter of time until they start shooting up this house. The trees and bushes on that hill will shield us from the sight of the planes."
Four more men rounded the corner of the house and joined them. One of them was wounded, bleeding badly from the shoulder. One of them carried an ax, another a pick, and a third held a rifle. The wounded man had no weapon.
Dima took a piece of cloth out of his pocket and handed it to the man. "Here," he said, "put some pressure on the wound."
The man, who had a long nose and looked to be in his thirties, did as he was told. "We've got to get him to a medic fast," Dima said to the group.
"It's nothing," the wounded man said.
Dima looked at the man's blood-stained shirt once more and reiterated that they needed to get him to a medic right away.
"We're going to have to make a run for it," Dima said. "I'm going to count to five, and then you guys go. Be sure to spread out. Don't bunch up and give them a target."
"Are you going with us?" one of the men asked Dima.
"No," he replied. "I'm going to find a medic."
Felix grabbed his shovel and wondered if he should carry it like a bayonet or just with his right arm the way he'd been carrying it.
"One," Dima began counting. Felix looked across the field - one hundred yards of open space, no houses, no trees, no bushes, no hills, no ditches.
"Two."
A plane flew high overhead - the roar of its engines building, and then fading away.
"Three."
Felix heard a whistling sound, and then a gigantic explosion that shook the ground they were standing on.
"Four."
Thick black smoke drifted past them, and Felix took a deep breath while he still could.
"Five!"
Felix waited for the others to start running before he himself left. He ran to the far right of everyone else, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the next person. Felix was the fastest runner of the group and reached the midway point well before the others. The sun shined brightly, the black smoke drifted aimlessly, and Felix ran desperately. He could hear the planes overhead, but didn't dare take the time to look up. He was much too focused on reaching his goal.
When he reached the small hill, he hid behind a tree and watched the others as they came in. The wounded man arrived last - holding his wound with both hands. He crumpled to the ground shortly afterward. While they waited for Dima to arrive with the medic, they watched the planes machine gun and bomb the train they had traveled in. Every couple of minutes, a few more men would join them on the hill. Felix hated them because he worried they would attract the planes.
Eventually the planes ran out of bombs and bullets and left the area. Any excitement or fervor the men had felt in Leningrad had vanished, and the wounded man had long since died before Dima finally returned.
"Where's the medic?" Felix asked him.
"Dead," Dima replied, and sat down on the ground next to him.
Gnats flew around Felix's head, and he found himself uncharacteristically annoyed and unable to block them out. The voice in his head that usually reassured him, instead whispered softly: I don't want to be here; I don't want to be doing this.
After the chaos subsided, the 1st Volunteers Division assembled to assess the damage. Over a dozen men had been killed and fifty more wounded. The train and the tracks were badly damaged, but that wasn't a major concern of the Volunteers. Their primary objective was to get to the eighteen-mile section of the Luga line that they were to protect. There, they would be able to finish their training so they would know what to do the next time they were attacked.
The long march to the front didn't go well for the Volunteers. They lost nearly twenty percent of their men - not to opposing enemy forces - but to physical exhaustion. Besides being considerably older than regular army troops, many of the men were terribly out of shape and unprepared for such a hike.
When they did finally make it to the front, they had only two days to rest and train before a surprise attack by German Panzer tanks and infantry. The Volunteers had just been given a hand grenade and a Molotov cocktail each and were learning how to throw them when gunfire and explosions in the distance interrupted their training. They were informed that the Germans were attempting to break through the line near Lake Ilmen, and they were sent there to repel the attack.
Felix and Dima's company was sent to a small village and told to dig in and prevent the Germans from coming through there. The sky was clear. It was warm and the sun was shining, and Felix felt sad that he had to spend the day like this. It was the kind of day he'd love to spend swimming in the Neva and then laying on the shore to dry off and soak up the sun.
When they got to the village, there was no fighting, though they could hear it all around them. Their commander, an engineer who had never been in a battle before, instructed them to take up positions at the end of the town. Dima pointed out that the Germans would likely attack from the other end of town and that it made sense to set up there instead, but Dima was asked to kindly keep his mouth shut and do what he was told. Felix put his shovel to use, digging a trench for Dima and himself next to a row of raspberry bushes. And there they waited with forty-two other Volunteers.
The village consisted of two dozen small houses and an old church that now served as a post office and general government building. Some of the families who lived in the houses were still there. A small group of Volunteers went around to each house ordering the men to come out and help fight. The men, mostly farmers, carried axes or old hunting rifles out from their houses and settled in with the rest of the Volunteers.
Felix and Dima had a good view down the main road of the town. The lake was to their left, and Dima said they didn't have to worry about the Germans trying to go through the narrow tract between their position and the lake.
"Where do you think they'll attack?" Felix asked.
"If they decide to come this way," Dima said, "they'll probably come down this road. It's the best terrain for their tanks."
Felix was going to ask what they were supposed to do if a tank came down the road, but Dima hushed him and pointed at the other end of town. Emerging from the trees along the side of the road were German troops. When Felix saw them, his heart dropped into his stomach and he felt nauseous. A German tank came into view and started rumbling toward them. Felix could see a black emblem with a skull and crossbones painted on its side. A few soldiers rode on the back of the tank and several more jogged along behind it.
About two dozen German soldiers, including those who had been riding on or behind the tank, moved quickly behind a couple of houses at the far end of town. The tank continued its trek down the road toward Felix and Dima and the rest of the Volunteers.
Felix looked around at the men and realized he wasn't t
he only one that was terrified. He saw Pavel, a tall, lanky Siberian, crouching behind an old outhouse. Pavel was one of the lucky ones with a gun, but even so, he hadn't been taught to use it. He'd never even shot it before.
As the tank drew nearer, their commander ordered them to shoot at it.
"That fool!" Dima muttered under his breath to Felix. "It's a waste of ammunition."
Several Volunteers stood up and shot at the tank. The bullets merely ricocheted off, and a few seconds later the tank pounded their position with its guns. The ground erupted like a volcano, and several men were killed instantly. At least a dozen Volunteers dropped their weapons and ran to the safety of the nearby forest.
Ahead of them, Felix and Dima watched as a man jumped out from behind a house with a lit Molotov Cocktail in his hand. As he stood facing the oncoming German Panzer tank, he hoisted the cocktail over his head in preparation to throw, and was promptly gunned down.
On the other side, three men stepped out from their hiding spot and threw a grenade each at the tank. Two of them had thrown the grenades too high into the air, and they landed well short of the tank. The third had thrown his underhand, along the ground, in an apparent attempt to get it to bounce its way underneath the tank. It too landed well short and exploded harmlessly in the middle of the road. Again the tank fixed its guns on the men's hiding spot - a dilapidated brick fence - and blasted it to pieces.
The battle had barely begun and already Felix had seen at least half a dozen of his comrades killed and many more wounded.
"We've got to flank that tank," Dima yelled.
Felix didn't know what he meant, but he was all for leaving the spot where they were.
"Follow me," Dima yelled to the men around them, and then leapt out of the trench for the back wall of the nearby house. Felix followed him, but the others stayed where they were. Felix understood them - too afraid to fight and too afraid to run.
