The Stalin Front

by Gert Ledig

  ‘Does that shit taste good?’ asked the Sergeant sarcastically.

  The soldier beamed: a broad, childlike or peasant beam. He looked at the faces of his enemies, and thought they were not unlike his own, different faces, but just as fearful and suspicious. Their desires were as reduced as his: a bit of food, warmth, an end to suffering. Suddenly a change came over his face. He looked perplexed, as though he had to say thank you for the consolation he hadn’t received, the blow on the skull, the gesture with the pistol. He spread out his arms. They seemed to want to take in everything. The barrier position, the plateau, the sector of the Front, the whole land, presently covered in darkness.

  The candle flame shrank. The Captain jumped. The Russian sat silently on his plank bench and smiled. But a change had taken place.

  ‘They’re planning to attack,’ the Sergeant blurted out. In his mind’s eye, he could already see figures rising up out of the trenches, a play of shadows and abeyances, a swarming human wall following a hail of explosives.

  ‘My kingdom for an interpreter,’ said the Captain, reaching back to his days as a schoolmaster, as though he might find some security there.

  ‘He’d better go to battalion headquarters,’ said the Sergeant.

  Fine, thought the Runner, back to headquarters. He forgot he’d meant never to go that way again, that he hated the plateau. Now he would manage to get away from the offensive. A present from fate. He smiled contentedly. The enemy soldier smiled too. There was nothing in the world that didn’t make sense. As he had always thought. God and a just world. The Sergeant’s voice dribbled in his ear. He didn’t listen. He already saw himself running across the plateau with the prisoner, avoiding the danger. The woods would give them shelter. The Sergeant’s face loomed towards him. A hand patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘I’ll take him back, you’re tired.’

  The Sergeant’s voice was soothing and soft.

  The Runner saw the Captain sitting in his place, swimmily saw the smile of the enemy soldier.

  ‘No,’ he protested.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the Sergeant.

  Suddenly the Runner had a vision. He saw the Sergeant leaving the shelter with the enemy soldier. They trotted out into the pitch-black night. The Sergeant had drawn his pistol, the prisoner responded to the merest pressure on his back. A sentry in the trench challenged them. ‘I’m taking him back to battalion headquarters,’ the Sergeant replied. Their shadows advanced along the saps, and brushed the bushes in the hollow. They stumbled up to the plateau. The Sergeant made the prisoner walk along in front of him. A long, long way. They walked through mud, craters, over sand. They got smaller . . .

  ‘I brought some replacements from the battalion,’ the Runner heard himself say. But the Sergeant had already left the shelter with the prisoner.

  It was dark as it always was, in the hole under the concrete underpinning. The Corporal was crouching between his two comrades. They lay wrapped in mouldy blankets on the wet earth. Their breathing rattled. The cold night wind blew through the entry. The Corporal was on watch, and, because he was tired, he lit his pipe. Everything on the plateau was quiet. There was no dull shell crump. The hammering of rifle fire was silent. The Corporal cocked his ear, but no mortars came thundering through the night. Time crept on. He waited. The unfamiliar silence irked him. It was as though there was electricity in the air.

  The Corporal stood up, and stumbling over his two comrades made his way to the exit. Slowly he pushed himself through the hole. A light breeze riffled his hair. The pylon overhead was humming. A bit of steel that shells had ripped out of its mooring left a black shadow in front of him. The wind carried a sound from the enemy positions. As though a lorry was trying and failing to get up a hill. Far left, silent sprays of tracer drifted through the night. A rain of sparks that fell into the water and went out. Only afterwards could he hear the thump of their firing.

  The Corporal reached for his flare pistol. There was fresh dew on its leather holster. The lock clicked. He stretched out his arm, and pulled the trigger. A dull thud. The flare hissed away, and a second later, it was a shooting star over the barrier position. A comet flying towards the enemy trench. There, its parachute opened. In the harsh magnesium illumination, the Corporal saw he hadn’t aimed high enough. Instead of illuminating the plateau, the fluorescent screen hung over the hollow. Ahead of him were the dead positions. Nothing stirred, not a breath of life. A graveyard in moonlight. Tree stumps like gravestones. A pool of water like an ornamental lake without water lilies. The labyrinthine windings of the trenches. The vegetation like a cemetery wall. The fluorescence sank further. On the ground, the light gradually sputtered out. The Corporal rested his submachine gun on the parapet, and waited. He took off the safety catch. The pylon was humming. His wristwatch ticked. Suddenly out of the darkness came the sound of shuffling feet. He straightaway pressed the gunstock to his shoulder. As a flash of fire passed over the hill from the artillery positions, he saw a figure. A soldier in enemy uniform was advancing towards him.

  Even before the light faded, the Corporal had pulled on the submachine-gun trigger.

  ‘Don’t shoot, comrade!’ came a yell.

  Immediately, the Corporal swung the muzzle up in the air. The soldier in front of him crumpled to the ground. Unendurable silence. The Corporal felt sweat beading on his brow. His hands shook. Suddenly the voice of the Sergeant asked out of the darkness:

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Sergeant climbed out of his crater hole, and walked up to the Corporal, who felt tempted to lower his sights a second time.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked the Corporal.

  ‘Just a prisoner.’

  ‘Handy human shield, I suppose.’

  The Sergeant was now standing directly in front of the Corporal, and could make out the submachine gun. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said after an awkward silence, but he took a step to the side, just in case. ‘Good night,’ he called out, uncertainly. Then he rounded the base of the pylon, and vanished into the blackness.

  The Corporal fetched the shovel to cover the Russian’s body with soil. The pylon hummed in the wind. The tractor noise from the enemy trench was no longer audible. Back in his hole in the ground, the Corporal lay down on the earth and chewed his fingernails in anguish.

  3

  The stable door fell shut behind Captain Zostchenko. He stopped, and stared out into the darkness. His eyes took some time to adjust. He was still dazzled by the light, and he was trying hard not to think about Sonia, who was lying inside. He couldn’t even make out the forms of the Siberian storm troop who had lined up on the tarmac. Somewhere, still masked by the night, there was some height that he would storm with them. Presumably just as the sun broke over the horizon, or at first light, and Sonia, in the stable behind him, was a memory to which he had to say goodbye, as if on command. In order to avoid thinking about her, he forced himself to think about the General’s broad epaulettes instead. That was in the course of a meeting in Nevorosk. A staff officer read out the names of the units who were taking part in the attack. Red Star, Tractor Plant Ufa, Kolkhoz Dynamo, Lenin Rocket-Launcher Unit, Trench-Mortar regiments Moskva, Marx, Robot . . .

  ‘Are you in command of the Siberians?’

  ‘Yes, comrade general.’

  ‘Are you familiar with the plan of attack?’

  ‘Yes, comrade general.’

  ‘The tanks only go as far as the German wire. Then there’s swamp. If you and your men follow the tanks, the assault will stall. That might be the end. Explain that to your men, and once you’ve made a breach in the line, don’t forget the signal for the carriers.’

  ‘Yes, comrade general!’

  Zostchenko could remember every word. As far as the German wires. Then the swamp began. That was where the plan had a little hole. Zostchenko’s battalion were to be sacrificed on the cornerstone of the enemy front. They would lose their lives in a diversionary action. Sacrificed to the g
reater good of the plan.

  In that instant, things got going. A flame jagged up into the night. It lit up the whole bowl of the sky, from horizon to horizon. The Captain stood in the middle of a ring of fire. The earth split open and spat out hot lava. There followed a thunderbolt that left him stunned, and then the artillery regiments’ salvo was under way. The rushing of the shells was like the noise of a mountain torrent. Only now did he notice the gun barrels protruding past the drawn camouflage netting. The tubes subsided, reached the lowest point, were raised up by some invisible power, spat out a new shell. Metal locks clicked.

  Zostchenko saw the artillerymen by the flashes of fire from their gun muzzles. They looked serene, as if in the performance of some sacred ritual. His eyes drunk on the fiery swarms of incandescent birds, his ears deafened by din, his nerves lashed, he screamed. He made out the sunken forms of his Siberians on the tarmac. For one moment he held off, then his voice took him away with it.

  The rolling barrage. The Captain looked into the staring eyes of the Runner and screamed. They both opened their mouths, and then the air pressure hurled them into the shelter. The red sky, the darkness, the other man’s face – everything spun at baffling speed like the numbers on a roulette wheel round an invisible centre. Their lungs had nothing to breathe. They flopped against the walls, like bundles of clothing. That was the end. Or the beginning.

  The Runner went into a dream: someone brought a bottle into the shelter, and sat down on the table. He could see the label on it, but could not read what it said. The label or perhaps the bottle was upside down. Then he felt the need to empty his bladder. But when he began to do so, he felt a burning pain in his right hand. He thought: I’m bleeding to death. He was in a cathedral. A hundred voices were singing a chorale, and the singing broke against the windows. In the middle of the church hung a gold cross. That was the peace he had always sought. His hand reached out, and he woke up. A chill inched across his back. He started. His consciousness returned, with pitiless clarity. He was gripped by fear. His fingers were gummy with blood. It was trickling out of his body into the darkness, and suddenly he understood what was happening: the arcs of shells, parabola by parabola. Projectiles calculated to land bang on the trench. A wave of steel, drilling itself into the ground, even as the next one was flying through the air, and the one after was erupting from the guns. The attack of a regiment, a division, an entire army, and the focus of the attack was just in front of his own trenches.

  The ground wheeled before the Runner’s eyes. The barrage was approaching. First the trench, then the communication saps, the shelter, then up the height, past the mast, down the other side, into the forest, the heavy artillery . . . It was always going to be that way. And now the finale was at hand.

  A wave of air-pressure pulsed through the shelter. The Runner pressed himself to the ground. He had to wait for it either to move on, or else to bury him. Two layers of tree trunks overhead, trees a foot in diameter, and on top of that at least another eighteen inches of soil. It would last, or else it wouldn’t. Sweet Jesus.

  Dirt from the ceiling. Direct hit. Splintering wood. The shelter shook. The tin shield at the entrance was like a leaf in a high wind. The space under the tree trunks seemed as though it might explode. But the Runner survived. Two layers of tree trunks held out. This time. The next shell would go straight through. The Runner thought: But there won’t be a next one. He wasn’t green any more. They wouldn’t hit the sore spot again. The barrage crept on, already it was the other side of the shelter.

  He struck a match, looked at his hand. The inside of his thumb was laid open, a flesh wound, nothing more. He felt ashamed of his panic. Next to him, the Captain was groaning. The match went out. ‘Captain?’ he asked into the darkness. The air smelled of gunpowder. Mortar shells were exploding on the timbers overhead. He tasted bitter almonds on his tongue.

  ‘Have you got a cigarette?’ asked the voice of the Captain.

  ‘Sure!’ He reached out into the darkness with his bloody hand, and stuck it in some jam. He felt nausea. Hurriedly he pulled his hand back.

  ‘What’s going on here?!’ the Captain’s voice suddenly called out.

  ‘Drum fire!’ His voice sounded whiny and reproachful. Outside, in front of the shelter, a tongue of flame licked along the trench.

  ‘I must have blacked out,’ said the Captain. Splinters and stones pattered against the tin plate at the entrance. The Runner hurriedly reported: ‘I’m wounded.’ He pulled himself into an upright position, and groped along the wall. It was shaking incessantly, like the plate over a motor. The earth was cold and damp. The shelling had reached the little dip at the foot of the hill. He could tell from the echoey explosions. Small-calibre mortar shells were coming down all the time on the beams of the shelter.

  ‘Can’t you strike a light?!’ There was irritation in the Captain’s voice. He ordered: ‘Call company headquarters!’

  The Runner felt around for the field-telephone. He groped over the ground. The table was gone. Splinters of wood everywhere. At last he had the bakelite box in his hands. The earpiece had fallen out. He cranked the handle and listened. Not a sound from the receiver. ‘There’s no connection, Captain!’ As he waited, he felt along the wires with his hands. An arm’s length away, they closed on fresh air.

  Feebly the Captain said: ‘Can’t you try and get some light!’

  ‘I can’t find the lamp!’

  ‘Good God,’ said the Captain, ‘surely you’ll be able to lay your hands on a candle!’

  Time passed. Only the storm outside continued to rage with unabated ferocity. The noise swelled and ebbed away again. The Captain had managed to find a tallow light. Once the flame was lit, it barely cast a shadow. On the ceiling, the network of branches flickered a little. Earth continued to trickle down. The Captain squatted down on the ground. He asked: ‘What’s the matter with your hand?’

  ‘Laid open. A shell splinter. Burns like fury.’

  ‘I can’t let you go over something like that!’

  The Runner nodded. ‘I know.’ He tried to smile. It was all he could do, but it came out as a contorted grin. A handful of stones came rattling through the entrance. In shock, he raised his hand.

  ‘Direct hit,’ said the Captain.

  Outside, it sounded as though heavy goods trains were repeatedly colliding. That was followed by a pause for breath, a short alarming silence, and out of the silence, a high-pitched scream. It came from the trench further forward, broke against the entry to the shelter, and died away. The death-cry of a man spread-eagled one last time, before the black blood vomited out of his mouth. The Runner stared into the flame of the tallow light, as though he’d heard nothing. The Captain made a self-protective motion with his hand through the air. Then the pair of them stared up at the ceiling, where the tree trunks were being slowly shredded by the mortars. Time trickled on. Each quarter-hour seemed to stretch out indefinitely. Once, by way of a change, it rained rockets. Large-calibre shells gonged in between. A slim stripe of light at the entrance to the shelter showed morning was breaking. It was pale and lifeless, the colour of a funeral shroud.

  Suddenly a shadow loomed at the entrance. A form reeled in. The Runner saw the bleeding stump of an arm against the filthy uniform. It was moving, as though the missing hand was still trying to find something to hold on to. A voice moaned:

  ‘Comrades . . .’

  Then he stumbled, and the Runner caught him. The other man’s blood wet his hands. He looked for a leather strap, and tied up the stump. Sweat ran down his face. The wounded man watched him as though he was working on a piece of wood. He shuddered with horror, as he tied a bandage to the lump of meat.

  The wounded man giggled. He said: ‘If I manage to get out of here, I’ll have done it.’ He added happily: ‘For good!’ The Runner gazed at the bandage, already reddening, and said nothing.

  ‘I’m going to try and make a dash for it right now,’ the wounded man assured them determinedly, and sent a hate-fi
lled look outside, at a cloud of gunpowder smoke that was just passing. ‘I want to go over the hill immediately!’ he said, sounding very determined.

  ‘Sit down!’ The Runner indicated a pallet in the corner.

  ‘No one’s got the right to detain me!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then I can go!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, then . . .’ the wounded man bit his lips, reeled, and slid to the ground. He said whitely: ‘If they attack, it’ll be too late for me.’ Shaken with pain and despair, he was convulsed with sobs. There was blood on his tunic, blood on his face, blood everywhere, only not in his lips.

  ‘When the attack’s over, we’ll take you back,’ said the Captain. His voice was uncertain. The wounded man shook his head. ‘You don’t know!’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘The company’s gone!’

  The Runner turned to look at the Captain. The mortars continued to knock against the tree trunks roofing the shelter. A lump of earth came off the wall, and smacked on to the floor.

  ‘What’s it looking like?’ asked the Captain.

  ‘Bad.’ The wounded man tried to pull himself into an upright position, couldn’t do it. The Runner pushed a tarpaulin under his head. ‘The flame-thrower . . . A direct hit. The unit were roasted.’ His breath came hard. ‘There’s just lumps of meat left around the machine gun. Matz – shrapnel in the back of his head, died on the spot.’ Pain shook him. ‘Hager’s still alive . . . but . . . we couldn’t bandage him up. His intestines are hanging out.’

  The Runner flinched from an explosion close to the shelter. When he looked up at the wounded man’s face again, it was crying silently.

  ‘All I saw of Fadinger was his hand,’ the wounded man shut his eyes. ‘It lay there in the trench as I ran back. I could tell whose it was by the ring. The pair of us wore the same ring. First, I thought it was my hand. But – I wear mine on my left hand.’ He raised his intact hand, as if by way of confirmation.