“What.”
“Pretty soon this is all going to be over, you know.”
Ilya considers this. He’s lost touch with that thought, of the war being over. In the past four months he’s done the job at hand, killing those Germans set out before him. He’s accepted promotion and leadership duties without letting those things interfere. Ilya has little faith that war will allow him to see its end, no matter how many dead pile up, no matter how faithfully he serves its purpose. After Berlin there will be more enemies. The Americans. The Poles. The Japanese. Maybe Russian against Russian. Who knows? Someone. The notion of no war eludes him.
“Before we’re done,” Misha says, “the day is coming, you know. When you’ll follow me.”
Ilya lowers his voice.
“You care, don’t you. About that sort of thing. Who follows who.”
“Yes. I thought you did too. You used to.”
Ilya looks behind Misha to the road and fields of burning tanks, he sees a man running in flaming clothes. What difference does it make, when you go into that, who goes first?
He thinks of the sixty prisoners. Which one of them died first? Did he get somewhere faster? Who fired first? Did Misha? Is he more damned or blessed for it?
Ilya brings his eyes back to Misha.
“All sorts of days are coming,” he says, hefting his machine gun. “Maybe even that one. Let’s move.”
Ilya steps away into the trees. The platoon rises behind him, splitting into quarters. Misha fades from his side.
The tramp up the rest of the hill is without incident. The men disappear into the dark, spreading among the stout sticks of trunks. Ilya moves ahead on his own.
One hundred meters from the crown of the road, a white flare rockets into the air. The men know what to do: sprint forward until the first bullets fly, gain all the free ground you can. Then drop to cover and begin your attack. On all sides of him the platoon races up the hill.
Another flare follows. Ilya lags back, to watch the assault mount on the building. The first reports of German machine guns slap at the men out of the face of the building. The platoon doesn’t answer yet. They’re still taking ground. Good. Under the flares Ilya sees what they’re up against.
The three buildings at the head of the road are arranged around a traffic circle, with a pedestal in the center that likely held a fountain or some statue until a shell found it. Each building is three stories tall. Their roofs have been sheared off by bombs. Some windowsills show soot over them like black eyebrows; they’ve been on fire, but weren’t gutted enough to keep them from being used as fortresses. There’s no way these buildings can be surrounded; the center will be a dead zone until at least one of the targets falls. Misha didn’t see a map, or he certainly would have known they were arranged in a ring.
Now the platoon opens up. The stones on one face of the facade zing with bullets. Another flare goes up. Ilya spots squads hustling left and right of the building. The windows on the top two floors disappear in a mist of dust and ricochet.
Flares shoot up from the other two buildings. Windows in them flicker with muzzle flashes. The red-spark trail of a Panzerfaust flies out of one to blow a hole in the dirt. One of the squads has headed into a cross fire. In minutes they’re forced to retreat. Without the rest of the company here to launch assaults on the other buildings, only one face of their target can be covered.
Ilya’s seen this before, in Stalingrad. Unless a storm group can attack a building from at least three angles, the defenders can concentrate their force on a few portals. With Ilya’s platoon this far out front, there’ll be no resupply of ammunition. The four squads will crowd together and slow their assault. Then, it becomes a stalemate.
Ilya rushes forward. He finds Misha’s squad firing at the building. They haven’t advanced since the first wave of bullets.
“Misha.”
Even now, Ilya is returned a strained look. He corrects himself. “Sergeant.”
“What’s wrong?” Misha is quick to think Ilya has come to reprimand him.
“I’ve got another job for you. We have to find the rest of the company, or the assault won’t work. Tell your squad to save their bullets and hold this position. If we’re not back in one hour, another team of two has to go. Tell them, then come with me.”
When this is done, Ilya leads Misha back through the ruined wood to the rock outcropping. They settle, again within sight and sound of the raging tank battle.
Misha doesn’t wait. He speaks first. “I knew you’d miss me.”
Ilya asks, “Where do you think they are?”
Misha points at the Armageddon on the hillside.
“In there. Just stuck. Shooting at shadows. Stupid bastards.”
Misha nods again as though to that unseen force that guides his luck tonight. “All right. We have to go back in there. You and me, Ilya.”
Ilya lays his machine gun beside the boulder. He pulls the rifle off his back and sets it aside too. Misha follows suit.
Ilya holds Misha’s eyes with his own. He puts no expression on his face, but gestures at the shootout, blazing hotter than it was twenty minutes ago when they passed through it.
“After you, Sergeant. I’ll follow.”
Misha scrunches his brow and waves off the suggestion. He makes no pretense about where he prefers to be in combat.
“Maybe that day isn’t here just yet, Ilyushka.” The little sergeant chuckles. “But it is coming. How about I run beside you? For once, eh?”
Ilya accepts.
Misha takes a deep breath. “Keep up, big one,” he says. Then, lifting his little rump in the air like a sprinter, Misha begins a comic bellow that mounts in volume, ”Aaaaaaaa . . .” until he’s in full cry,”. .. AAAAH!” and he takes off into the heart of the battle. Ilya lights out after him.
The next ten minutes are a miasma of heat and crashing clamor. Misha covers twice the distance Ilya does, zipping like a rabbit from rumbling tanks and torched hulks to crouching soldiers, asking every officer he crosses if the man has any idea where the rest of the punishment company is. Ilya works to keep pace. Misha has to cast one eye over his shoulder to hold him in view. It appears the tank assault is progressing, though the snarl of men and machinery causes needless slaughter against the slope. Zhukov’s body count for his poor planning and impatience will be weighty. But the Heights will fall. Soviet men and tanks will charge this hill until they do; there’s no shortage of either, and no lack of will in the Red Army to count the losses.
The rest of the company is found, just as Misha predicted, caught up in the advance on the hillside next to the tanks, exchanging fire with Germans they can’t see or reach. The company suffered the confusion of the whole assault on the Heights. Misha speaks to the company captain, with Ilya looming behind him, and explains the situation at the northern edge of town where the platoon has been stymied, reminding him of the mission. If they don’t secure the approach into Seelow, these tanks won’t be able to enter even after they take this road.
The company has already lost a dozen of its men. The captain seems glad to get them back on their assigned task, to have something else to do with his troops than cling to this pitch and fire into the night, waiting to get sliced up by swirling shrapnel or exploded bits of tanks. The remainder of the company is firmed up and rushed through the battle. Ilya falls toward the rear, his stamina for the run draining. Misha lopes behind him. On the way Ilya sees at least three more of the company go down.
On the other side of the tank battle, Ilya and Misha pick up their rifles where they left them at the rock. Heading through the scorched trees, Ilya straggles to the back of the unit. Misha fades from the pack to walk with him.
“You look beat, Ilya.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’re a plow horse. You’re not made for all this running around.”
“What are you then?”
“Me? I’m a rat. Scurry all night long.”
The little man’s scar do
es look like one long rodent’s whisker.
“Ilya, I’ve got another idea.”
“More exploding barrels?”
“Something like that. I don’t think it’s in the street-fighting manual. But then, you are the manual.”
Misha laughs and skips aside at this, mocking that Ilya might reach to throttle him. He leaves Ilya to walk alone in the rear and jogs to the front of the company.
At the rim of the trees, the captain halts their march. The three buildings wait in night silence. The slugging between them and the platoon has stopped. Ilya senses the gun barrels trained out of every window, enemy nerves pulled taut, fingers on many triggers. The company sits in a circle around Misha, who stands on his knees to tell them his plan.
“How many flare guns do we have?”
There are six here, three more with Ilya and Misha’s platoon. They count eight flares to each gun.
“That’s plenty,” Misha says. “Here’s what we’ll do.”
The scheme unfolds. Ilya thinks it’s excellent. The company will arrange itself in squads on all possible sides of the three targets, covering every approach except for the inner traffic circle. At a signal—one green flare fired straight up—all nine flare guns will be trained on the busted windows of the buildings. The Germans are expecting nighttime tactics from their Red attackers. Misha’s intent is to blind the defenders not with darkness but blazing, smoking little comets bouncing off their walls, and even some lucky shots lying at their feet. Under cover of this barrage of hot light and haze, every gun will open up against all three stories on three sides each.
Next, two men per building will rush, hopefully unnoticed, not straight at the banks of windows but on the diagonals. When near enough, they’ll toss grenades in the closest first-floor windows and dive for cover at the foot of the walls. With the explosions, one squad each will storm forward, take the ground floor of their designated building, then hold while the rest of their platoon charges behind them. Then they can clear the buildings from the inside.
The captain makes assignments. The eighty-plus soldiers disperse around the perimeter. Ilya and Misha creep back to their platoon, which they find bunched together, waiting. Misha explains the coming strategy. While he talks, the men check their store of flare guns and flares. They split again into squads, dissolving left or right into the night to take up firing positions. Misha’s squad stays put around him.
Misha points at a young private, a thin boy who looks fast, a scurrier like Misha. Ilya has barely noticed him before.
Misha motions the soldier close. “Anton Danielovich. Get out two grenades.”
Ilya feels a flush of shame. Misha knows the lad’s name and Ilya knows no one’s name in the platoon. The men come and go so fast, from such odd and different circumstances, all of them tainted. Ilya rarely speaks to them. He leads in combat from the front, they come behind or they don’t. Outside of battle he keeps to himself. His only conversation for a month now has been with Misha, and that happens less and less frequently. Ilya confesses to himself he has never dropped the disdain he felt as an officer for these men of the punishment battalion, the drunkards and recalcitrants and cowards. He’s held himself at a distance from them for several reasons, distracted by ghosts, but he admits now he’s avoided them partially because they reflect his own hard fall from grace. Ilya, the good and elite soldier, has always held himself blameless of whatever these men are guilty of. He couldn’t accept his presence among them. He looks at young Anton Danielovich and thinks again about who follows whom in war.
First man or last. King or pawn. War and death don’t care. There’s only one line and everyone’s in it.
And innocence? Guilt? These are suspended while bigger themes are played out. War doesn’t determine who’s right or wrong. Just who’s left.
He pulls the strap of his submachine gun up over his shoulder, crisscrossing the rifle already there. He takes from his own belt two grenades, hefting one in each hand.
“Anton Danielovich,” he says. “Which side would you prefer, left or right?”
The boy is startled. The lieutenant has never spoken to him, to anyone but Sergeant Bakov.
“Sir,” the boy begins, his nerves tripping him, “I ...”
“He’ll go right.” Misha puts his hands over Ilya’s mitts to grab hold of the grenades. “I’ll go left.”
Ilya opens his hands. Misha takes the burdens.
Ilya says, “I’ll bring the squad right in behind you, Sergeant.”
“Do that,” Misha says, “Lieutenant.”
A minute later a single green flare arches into the sky.
In the following seconds the three German-held buildings are swallowed in streaks of red and yellow light. The scene is an explosion in reverse, with all the concussion and fire flowing inward instead of out. Many flares strike the stone walls of the house in front of Ilya. Most fall to the ground to emit spumes of smoke and searing, colored light. One by one, a few lucky torches sail past those defenders spot-lit in the windows, to glimmer and fume at their backs. Ilya sees heads turn in the windows, hands come up to shield eyes, and Misha and the fast-looking boy take off.
The company opens up against the building, mixing bullets with the flying flares. This is repeated around the circle of three buildings. Ilya sweeps his PPSh over the stone face in front of him, the submachine gun leaps like an engine in his hands. The rest of the squad does the same, beating chips out of the stones. Ilya doesn’t aim, just moves the barrel to spray as much firepower as he can. His eyes are on Misha.
The little sergeant is quick and smart. Under the dripping sparks he runs fifty meters in a serpentine path at the corner of the building. Ilya can’t tell if Misha’s drawing fire, but the man doesn’t slow. When he’s close enough, Misha hurls one grenade through a first-floor window. The bomb detonates with an immediate burst: Misha must have set the charge while running to make sure it couldn’t be thrown back out. He doesn’t dive for cover but runs right through the explosion and pitches the last grenade into another opening. This time the fuse is delayed seconds and Misha hits the dirt beneath the blast.
Ilya sets his legs under him. The squad behind him tautens at his sides. The rest of the platoon left and right continue to batter the building. The last flares erupt out of the guns. Ilya surges forward.
Ahead of him is fifty meters of flat ground, a sidewalk, then a half-dozen steps rising to the back door. He turns his weapon on the door, knowing he won’t hit it much with this running aim, but hoping to knock down whoever’s behind it and splinter it enough to drive through with his shoulder. He bounds up the steps, continuing to fire at the door, perforating it near the frame and hinges. At the last moment he takes his finger from the trigger and turns sideways. He accelerates his last strides and plunges at the door with all his weight. The barrier gives and goes down, taking Ilya with it. Slanting to the ground, he fires into the swirling dust and glaring light, striking the shadow of a man with his hands up.
Ilya rolls fast on the fallen door to catch who might be behind him, but the dust and smoke are too great to see through. He fires another blind burst into that side of the room, then scrambles out of the way for the rest of the squad to tear in after him. Once in the building, the men split up, just as Ilya schooled Misha and Misha taught them, the lessons of the Stalingrad storm groups. They move first with grenades in hand, tossing them down halls and into rooms before rushing in. Two men guard the foot of the stairs to keep the defenders bottled up on the higher floors. Once the first level is clear, they’ll regroup and go in strength against the rest of the enemy.
Ilya walks behind the squad, pleased with their execution. Outside, the rest of the platoon keeps up the drumbeat against the upper floors. More men flow across the busted transom. Ilya’s collarbone aches. He works the stiff shoulder.
Dying flares illuminate a dozen German bodies on the first floor, killed by Misha’s grenades. At least twenty men from Ilya’s platoon are now in the building. Explo
sions sound farther in the interior. The first floor will be secure in a few more minutes. The rest of the Germans are trapped upstairs. Five men of the platoon point their guns up the stairs, screaming in Russian: Drop your weapons! Come down, hands up! The Germans scream back. No one understands the tongues, but everyone here knows this fight is decided. That doesn’t mean no one else will die.
Outside, the squads stop firing. The yelling inside the house halts. Ilya hears the rhythm of grenades and rifle fire from the other buildings around the circle. Each one plays out a different violence.
Misha steps in through the doorway. The last fading flare bathes him in scarlet. Smoke trails off him, his scar glows redder than his face. Misha looks like a demon.
There is a big, smoldering hole in the chest of his padded coat.
He drudges up to Ilya, gritting his teeth with every step.
The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] Page 45
