The Stalin Front

by Gert Ledig

  The Runner carried on along the log-road, reports and sunflower seeds in his pocket. He wasn’t even halfway, this wasn’t the time to stop off anywhere. The wailing over the trees got louder. He had reached the beginning of the artillery emplacements. The forest thinned out. There was the odd clearing with thick underbrush and poisonous mushrooms. The log-road came to an end here. A motor track began that turned into thick gloop when it rained. A smashed wagon by the roadside. Mouldering leather harness and the bones of a horse. Either side of the track, cardboard signs posting mysterious instructions, signifying that the telephone exchange for a howitzer battery was situated here, or that there in the clearing, almost underground, an ack-ack gun stretched its overlong barrel up into the air. At another place, crude death’s heads warned of mines.

  Suddenly something came gurgling down from the sky. The Runner threw himself flat. The explosion washed over him. An enormous net that he had taken for a pile of dry brushwood flipped up along with masses of foliage. In a pile of dust stood the barrel of a gun concealed under the netting. For an instant it was dead straight. Then it crumpled. Someone who hadn’t been hit cursed God. Someone else called for an ambulanceman.

  The Runner got to his feet, padded on. He thought: the call for an ambulanceman isn’t something you hear that much of. The track widened, the groove worn by tyres got deeper. A soldier approached. Leather satchel, dusty boots, wizened face with sunken eyes: a Runner coming back to hell after being safe somewhere for a couple of hours. A nod, a tired smile by way of reply. And on.

  The Runner quickened his step to catch up with a cart that was grinding along ahead of him. The cart was lurching about on the ploughed track. The cloud of dust it drew behind it wrapped itself round the Runner like a veil. He felt a furry taste on his tongue. The back of the cart was sheeted in canvas. A scrawny horse was between the traces. It wasn’t until the Runner reached up to pull himself on board that he saw what the cart was carrying. Under the tarpaulin, stiff hands were pounding on the crusted boards, and bare heads were nodding up and down. The passengers prodded stiff legs into each other’s bellies. They stayed in positions that no one living could endure. A couple were embracing fraternally. Others grinned at one another with stretched features. The Runner hurriedly let go of the plank again.

  He squatted in the sand till the cloud of dust had gone on round the corner. Then the clatter of approaching shells got him going again. Once more, signs flew towards him, guns, stacks of empty cartridges. Passed him on the edge of the road. Remained behind.

  At last began the field with the thistles and the patches of wet that never dried out. And then the endless rows of birch crosses. The mortuary cart stopped at the edge of the cemetery. A bunch of shavenheaded figures were busy with shovels. A few were tugging at the back of the cart. Others lugged a corpse through the grass.

  After the last row of graves the village began. Either side of the track, low huts, block houses of unfinished logs, roofed over with weathered shingles. A well with a pump handle. Beside it, on a pole, the tin banner of the battalion.

  The Runner staggered into the building. The Adjutant stood in front of a door. He pressed his hand against his steel helmet, and pulled the reports from his leather satchel.

  From that instant, the Runner began to sleep. He turned round automatically, reeled back along the corridor, put his feet like a sleepwalker on the steps going down. Half in a dream, he collapsed on to the rough wooden bench next to the well. Exhaustion covered him like a black pall. From the company command-post to battalion headquarters – mission accomplished.

  1

  The Adjutant balanced the company reports in his hand. He read the names of men who were no longer extant, deleted concepts, constituents of the past. Lost: item, 1 machine gun, serial number no longer possible to ascertain; item, 2 belts; item, 1 replacement barrel; item, 1 NCO; item, 7 men. There was little sense in submitting these reports to the CO. He and the CO were the hinges of life. The door opened: names arrived. The door closed: names departed. Here, life was given a number, and death a number. It was up to them to learn to cope with it. He had his job. What the CO had, he didn’t much care to know.

  He knocked on the door. It was lined with cardboard, no one knew why. Maybe in a bid for respectability. Or maybe the door was split, or the cardboard was to show that this was the door to the CO’s office.

  The Major sat at a desk covered with papers. You could see he was exhausted. He sniffed the mouldy smell of the building, a mixture of cold smoke, rotten wood, dirty laundry, sweat and vermin. It was a while since he’d last shaved. Two days, even a week. He was like a dead man whose beard continued to sprout. Anyone could see how long he’d been lying out. He had a glass eye, which disfigured him. His real eye looked along the four table legs in turn; at the cans full of water, at the yellowish liquid that had dead cockroaches swimming in it. He was trying to work out whether the cockroaches were getting more numerous. It was a mechanical census, he didn’t really care either way. It was a long time since he’d last attended to the stiff forms floating in the liquid.

  When the Adjutant entered the room, the Major busied himself with appearances. He registered a spider’s web on the smooth paper covering of the table. A wheel, clock weights. Clocks ticking, fast or slow, but incessantly endeavouring to shorten a life’s span.

  While he observed them tensely, as if they would reveal a secret to him, he felt like something bobbing in the water, lifeless. He felt wet on his skin. He started to swim. He felt better. When he woke out of this condition, the pain returned. It was an unendurable pain that he couldn’t do anything about. It felt to him as though he’d been living in it for ages already. It hung on his movements like lead. Incessantly the words in the telegram banged in his brain: ‘ANNA AND CHILD DEAD STOP BURIED UNDER DEBRIS OF HOUSE STOP BODIES UNRECOGNIZABLE STOP IMMEDIATE BURIAL.’

  He didn’t know where the telegram was, he had mislaid it somewhere. But he couldn’t shake off the pain. When the Major sat at his desk alone, he would think about it. ANNA AND CHILD DEAD. He stared at the dirty walls. He opened his mouth and couldn’t speak. Sweat came out on his brow. All he could remember of Anna was that she had black hair. He couldn’t put a face to her any more. And they had lived together for twenty years. For twenty years they had seen one another every day.

  He went to bed with her at night, and in the morning kissed her on the mouth. But he could remember nothing of her beyond the one thing: she had black hair. With the child, he at least had a photograph. A summer day in the garden. Flowers in the sun. Alert vivacious eyes laughing back at him. Caught in the camera lens. His dead daughter.

  The Major suppressed a giggle, and looked out through a cracked piece of window glass. The Runner was lying stretched out on the bench. The sun was going down. Clouds of midges hung in the air. Everything was the way he had expected it to be. The street, the well, the sun’s fiery disc on the horizon. A soldier walked past in strikingly white fatigues, and spat expressively in the sand. Everyone he knew was still alive. Only his daughter was dead. As though he had failed to pay a bill. Now – unexpectedly, ruthlessly – she had been cashed. That was the thanks he got, that was justice.

  He turned and issued a command: ‘I want the Runner in here!’

  ‘Yes, Major!’ replied the Adjutant’s voice. A draught picked three pieces of typing paper off the table, and deposited them on the floor.

  As the Major bent down to pick them up, he looked out through the dirty window again. He saw how the Runner, addressed by the Adjutant, picked himself up, slipped by under the window frame, and suddenly materialized in front of him in the room.

  ‘At ease,’ said the Major, purely from habit. The Runner, worn down by daily orders, was standing pretty slackly in front of him, as it was.

  ‘All well?’ asked the Major. As he did so, he thought of his dead daughter. A tragedy with unpredictable consequences. Each time, something else came along that he’d failed to think of.

  Th
e Runner said: ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘And the log-road?’

  The Adjutant hurriedly intervened: ‘That’s no longer defensible!’ He moved alongside the Runner. For a moment, they looked at one another. Two men making some sort of deal with one another. Silently, no words.

  The Major fell into a rage: ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Yes.’ The Adjutant inspected his fingernails. ‘Exposed point. No one’s fault.’ All at once, he looked up. ‘I’ll draft the memo to divisional HQ right away!’

  Outside on the street, a heavy traction engine rattled by. The floor shook. A sprinkling of dust came down from the ceiling. A piece of glass fell out of the window pane and shattered on the wooden floor.

  ‘Presumably they’re reinforcing the artillery regiment,’ observed the Adjutant.

  ‘Which one?’ The Runner’s question came out like a shot from a gun.

  The Major irritably ordered: ‘You don’t talk except when I ask you a question!’ He turned to the Adjutant. ‘Can you get me the map please.’

  The Adjutant fiddled around on the table. Under his field tunic he wore a shirt with cuff links. They were both grimy. A grey line was visible along the creases.

  With a show of indifference, the Runner looked at the map. The Adjutant’s voice was saying: ‘After all, we owe it to our men.’ His hand gestured vaguely at the table. It wasn’t clear what he meant.

  ‘Owe?’ repeated the Major. He looked at the Runner, and shook his head.

  ‘I am convinced, sir,’ said the Adjutant in a businesslike tone of voice, ‘that our point of view will be accepted.’

  ‘What do I care!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ The Adjutant spluttered in embarrassment.

  The Major repeated stubbornly: ‘I said: what do I care!’ He clasped his hands together, and felt a clammy moisture, as of someone running a temperature. He might look up the doctor. For a moment, he toyed with the notion. He’d have little trouble convincing the fellow he was ill. With a sense of aggrieved innocence he thought: and I really am too.

  ‘You want to smoke?’ the Adjutant turned to the Runner. ‘That’s fine by us!’ He felt like a diplomat, at ease everywhere – regardless of the circumstances.

  ‘Thank you!’

  The Runner awkwardly filled his pipe. When he was done, he didn’t light it. He didn’t want to take any chances. A bluebottle that had been crawling about on the stove suddenly took flight for the window. It smashed against the pane, and fell to the ground. There was a scampering as rats under the roof.

  ‘What were we talking about again?’

  ‘Counter-attack or not?’ the Adjutant replied unexpectedly. He dangled his question at the Major like a painting at an auction. Going. Going. The Adjutant had already given instructions: no counter-attack, no sacrifice.

  The Runner looked hard out of the window, and listened to every word.

  ‘But you know the orders,’ said the Major.

  ‘What orders, sir?’

  ‘To hold our position. Any enemy breakthrough is to be mopped up in a counter-offensive!’

  ‘Yes of course, of course,’ responded the Adjutant, half-apologetically. There were hundreds of orders. Orders are orders, and they have to be obeyed, but sometimes one might just slip your mind.

  The Major thought about his daughter. It was only fair if others got telegrams as well. He thought: I must get my own back. His hands still felt as wet as if he’d dipped them in water. Revenge can ease pain. He wanted to take revenge. ‘No exceptions,’ he said, and caught the Runner staring at his glass eye, as though expecting it to fall out.

  ‘Major!’ The Adjutant pointed at the map spread out on the desk. With his finger he traced a black line that led through the swamps. ‘The log-road is worthless. It’s not a road. It’s a track made out of tree branches.’ He pointed at a red cross. ‘That machine gun is in a needlessly exposed position.’

  The Major didn’t want to hear any more. He knew what was coming. The futility of the position. The narrow path through no man’s land. Thin boughs, laid side by side. No direct communication with the rest of the company. Bog squirming up between the branches. The Russian machine gun was trained on the path. A screen of foliage provided visual cover, but not protection. A continual hail of explosive rounds passed over this one and only link. As for the position itself: a tangle of uprooted trees, stumps and stripped bushes. No craters. The swamp filled any shellhole within moments. A miracle that the unit had lasted as long as it had.

  ‘And the company’s strength is way down. We need every man. How can you justify a counter-attack?’ the Adjutant concluded. He took his hand off the map. He waited for a reply. Only now did the Runner grasp what they were talking about.

  It was hard for the Major not to let on. He kept having to think of his daughter. His daughter had been killed. He mustn’t forget that. He could have said it to the Adjutant’s face. Why me? What have I done to deserve that? I never had a house built for myself in French style, like the artillery colonel. You can see it from the window. It’s down there. His gunners are living in holes in the ground. I don’t have officers’ parties every day with candelabra and white porcelain. I don’t keep a mistress. I don’t allow official trips into the back country. I’ve got nothing beyond my concern for my battalion. I never wanted this campaign. I’m a private citizen. They killed my child. I’m finished with being your guardian angel . . .

  ‘Can you justify it?’ The Adjutant repeated his question.

  ‘We’ve got replacements.’ The Major yelled: ‘Enough replacements to bring the company up to strength.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The Runner crumpled and turned pale. He recalled his hope that they would be allowed to dwindle away. Crumble. One after the other, taken back, wounded or dead. Till whoever remained would have to be withdrawn.

  ‘Replacements in platoon strength,’ said the Major, at normal volume.

  The Adjutant smiled pityingly. ‘Replacements,’ he gestured dismissively. ‘Men without experience. You were going to keep them here, and get them toughened up gradually.’

  He’s going to carry on talking to me, thought the Major, till I’m sitting at the table by myself again, and see the clocks with their weights, and hear the ticking. It would calm me down, knowing that others have had losses as well. I need to hear that, otherwise I’ll lose my mind. He clung to his resolve. ‘You do as I say.’

  ‘So, a counter-attack along the log-road?’ On the street outside, the traction engine was making its way back. It ground past. The walls quaked. Then silence.

  ‘I wanted . . .’ The Major looked at his boots with his one good eye.

  ‘Yes sir?’ asked the Adjutant. ‘What did you want?’

  ‘Nothing.’ To gain time, the Major turned to the Runner. ‘What are the enemy numbers like?’ A ridiculous question. The Adjutant didn’t say anything. The Runner merely:

  ‘No one knows.’

  ‘Hm.’ The Major was surprised at his own lack of responsibility. So far, he had always faced facts. His pain had made everything misty: his sympathy, his concern, the table with the tin cans with the dead cockroaches swimming in them; the clay stove that the kolkhoz farmer had left a bundle of rags on top of; the door with the leather hinges, through which the Adjutant had come with the telegram; tragedy and devastation. He thought: Why is it I can’t remember her? There was something amiss. You don’t just forget someone you’ve lived with for twenty years. The telegram, a blow. Either you fall to your knees and pray, and try to atone. Or else you strike back. He thought: I’ll strike back. He wanted everyone to suffer for the child: the Runner, the company in the barrier position, the whole world. And yet he felt some kind of inhibition. As though he wanted to leave himself some way out. There’s always a residue of cowardice. ‘Copy out the divisional orders,’ he commanded.

  Now he knew the way to do it. It was pretty straightforward. The Adjutant did as he was told, and he seemed to understand it too. In block capitals, h
e copied it out, word for word. The Runner watched him.

  The Adjutant held the paper up to the Major.

  ‘Enemy breakthroughs are to be mopped up by a counter-offensive.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said the Major. He passed the piece of paper to the Runner. ‘Take thirty replacements to the Front, and this memorandum.’

  ‘Sir!’ The Runner suddenly asked: ‘Is that a communication or an order?’ He held the paper up against the light. The Major turned on his heel. He looked at the Adjutant: ‘Have the men fall in!’

  The door creaked. The Adjutant’s boots crunched over the boards.

  ‘Should I wait outside?’ asked the Runner.

  The Major didn’t reply. He stepped up to the window and studied the papered-over cracks in the glass. Cracks that went in straight lines, then suddenly, almost whimsically, skipped to the side. The future was incalculable. Chance changed its direction.

  The Major looked at the village. The well stood out against the sky like a gallows. The sun was going down between the trees in the forest. It was evening. He was pleased he had paid life back. Now everything would get easier. He had to take these sort of life and death decisions.

  ‘Might I ask a personal question, sir?’ a voice piped up. The Major had forgotten that the Runner was still standing there.

  ‘Go on,’ said the Major. He still had his back turned to the Runner, and continued to study the cracked glass.

  ‘I wonder . . .’ The Runner stalled, began again. ‘I wonder – I’m only just asking . . .’ he said again. Then: ‘Could you get me relieved?’

  The Major didn’t stir. It was the first time anyone had tried asking him that.

  ‘Ever since we’ve been in this position,’ the Runner hurriedly went on, ‘I don’t know how many days it is, I must have gone back and forth a hundred times. I’m not a coward. But I can’t take much more of it. I can’t.’ He was speaking very rapidly. The melody of the path was heard in his voice. ‘I don’t know when it’ll be my turn. The heights – it’s like target practice. I’m the target. They’re all aiming at me. And the forest, with the dead and the wounded. I’m tired. Sometimes I have the feeling my lungs will tear.’