Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  Katerina was not so shy, and all the girls from the boardinghouse were in the congregation, as well as several workers from the Putilov plant.

  Afterward there was a party in the girls’ room at the boardinghouse, with beer and vodka and a violinist who played folk tunes they all knew. When people started to get drunk, Grigori slipped out and went to his own room. He took off his boots and lay on the bed in his uniform trousers and shirt. He blew out the candle but he could see by the light from the street. He still ached from Pinsky’s beating: his left arm hurt when he tried to use it and his cracked ribs gave him a stabbing pain every time he turned over in bed.

  Tomorrow he would be on a train west. The shooting would start any day now. He was scared: only a mad person would feel otherwise. But he was smart and determined and he would try his best to stay alive, which was what he had done ever since his mother died.

  He was still awake when Katerina came in. “You left the party early,” she complained.

  “I didn’t want to get drunk.”

  She pulled up the skirt of her dress.

  He was astonished. He stared at her body, outlined by the light from the streetlamps, the long curves of her thighs and the fair curls. He was aroused and confused. “What are you doing?” he said.

  “Coming to bed, of course.”

  “Not here.”

  She kicked off her shoes. “What are you talking about? We’re married.”

  “Just so that you can collect your allowance.”

  “Still, you deserve something in return.” She lay on the bed and kissed his mouth with the smell of vodka on her breath.

  He could not help the desire that rose within him, making him flush with passion and shame. All the same he managed to say a choked: “No.”

  She took his hand and pulled it to her breast. Against his will he caressed her, gently squeezing the soft flesh, his fingertips finding her nipple through the coarse fabric of her dress. “You see?” she said. “You want to.”

  The note of triumph angered him. “Of course I want to,” he said. “I’ve loved you since the day I first saw you. But you love Lev.”

  “Oh, why do you always think about Lev?”

  “It’s a habit I got into when he was small and vulnerable.”

  “Well, he’s a big man now, and he doesn’t care two kopeks for you, or for me. He took your passport, your ticket, and your money, and left us with nothing except his baby.”

  She was right, Lev had always been selfish. “But you don’t love your family because they’re kind and considerate. You love them because they’re your family.”

  “Oh, give yourself a treat,” she said with irritation. “You’re joining the army tomorrow. You don’t want to die regretting that you didn’t fuck me when you had the chance.”

  He was powerfully tempted. Even though she was half-drunk, her body was warm and inviting beside him. Was he not entitled to one night of bliss?

  She ran her hand up his leg and grasped his stiff penis. “Come on, you’ve married me, you might as well take what you’re entitled to.”

  And that was the problem, he thought. She did not love him. She was offering herself in payment for what he had done. It was prostitution. He felt insulted to the point of anger, and the fact that he longed to give in only made the feeling worse.

  She began to rub his penis up and down. Furious and inflamed, he pushed her away. The shove was rougher than he really intended, and she fell off the bed.

  She cried out in surprise and pain.

  He had not meant it to happen, but he was too angry to apologize.

  For several long moments she lay on the floor, weeping and cursing at the same time. He resisted the temptation to help her. She struggled to her feet, staggering from the vodka. “You pig!” she said. “How can you be so cruel?” She straightened her dress, covering her beautiful legs. “What sort of wedding night is this for a girl—to be kicked out of her husband’s bed?”

  Grigori was stung by her words, but he lay still and said nothing.

  “I never thought you could be so hard-hearted,” she raved. “Go to hell! Go to hell!” She picked up her shoes, flung open the door, and stormed out of the room.

  Grigori felt utterly miserable. On his last day as a civilian he had quarreled with the woman he adored. If he died in battle now, he would die unhappy. What a rotten world, he thought; what a lousy life.

  He went to the door to close it. As he did so, he heard Katerina in the next room, speaking with forced gaiety. “Grigori can’t get it up—too drunk!” she said. “Give me some more vodka and let’s have another dance!”

  He slammed the door and threw himself on the bed.

  { III }

  Eventually he fell into a troubled sleep. Next morning he woke early. He washed and put on his uniform and ate some bread.

  When he put his head around the door of the girls’ room he saw them all fast asleep, the floor littered with bottles, the air foul with stale tobacco smoke and spilled beer. He stared for a long minute at Katerina, sleeping with her mouth open. Then he left the house, not knowing if he would ever see her again, telling himself he did not care.

  But his spirits lifted with the excitement and confusion of reporting to his regiment, being issued with a gun and ammunition, finding the right train, and meeting his new comrades. He stopped thinking about Katerina and turned his mind to the future.

  He boarded a train with Isaak and several hundred other reservists in their new gray-green uniform breeches and tunics. Like the rest of them, he carried a Russian-made Mosin-Nagant rifle, as tall as himself with its long spiked bayonet. The huge bruise that the sledgehammer had left, covering most of one side of his face, made the other men think he was some kind of thug, and they treated him with wary respect. The train steamed out of St. Petersburg and chuffed steadily through fields and forests.

  The setting sun was generally ahead and to the right, so they were going southwest, toward Germany. That seemed obvious to Grigori, though when he said it his fellow soldiers were surprised and impressed: most of them did not know in which direction Germany lay.

  This was only the second time he had been on a train, and he was reminded vividly of the first. When he was eleven his mother had brought him and little Lev to St. Petersburg. His father had been hanged a few days earlier, and Grigori’s young head was full of fear and grief, but like any boy he had been thrilled by the ride: the oiled smell of the mighty locomotive, the huge wheels, the camaraderie of the peasants in the third-class carriage, and the intoxicating speed with which the countryside sped by. Some of that exhilaration came back to him now, and he could not help feeling that he was on an adventure that could be exciting as well as terrible.

  This time, however, he was traveling in a cattle truck, as were all but the officers. The wagon contained about forty men: pale-skinned, sly-eyed St. Petersburg factory workers; long-bearded, slow-talking peasants who looked at everything with wondering curiosity; and half a dozen dark-eyed, dark-haired Jews.

  One of the Jews sat next to Grigori and introduced himself as David. His father manufactured iron buckets in the backyard of their house, he said, and he went from village to village selling them. There were a lot of Jews in the army, he explained, because they found it more difficult to get exemption from military service.

  They were all under the orders of a Sergeant Gavrik, a regular soldier who looked anxious, barked orders, and used a great deal of profanity. He pretended to think all the men were peasants, and called them cowfuckers. He was about Grigori’s age, too young to have been in the Japanese war of 1904-1905, and Grigori guessed that underneath the bluster he was scared.

  Every few hours the train stopped at a country station and the men got out. Sometimes they were given soup and beer, sometimes just water. In between stops they sat on the floor of the wagon. Gavrik made sure they knew how to clean their rifles and reminded them of the different military ranks and how officers should be addressed. Lieutenants and captai
ns were “Your Honor,” but superior officers required a variety of honorifics all the way up to “Most High Radiance” for those who were also aristocrats.

  By the second day, Grigori calculated they must be in the territory of Russian Poland.

  He asked the sergeant which part of the army they were in. Grigori knew they were the Narva Regiment, but no one had told them how they fitted into the overall picture. Gavrik said: “None of your fucking business. Just go where you’re sent and do as you’re told.” Grigori guessed he did not know the answer.

  After a day and a half the train stopped at a town called Ostrolenka. Grigori had never heard of it, but he could see that it was the end of the railway line, and he guessed it must be near the German border. Here hundreds of railway wagons were being unloaded. Men and horses sweated and heaved to maneuver huge guns off the trains. Thousands of troops milled around as bad-tempered officers attempted to muster them in platoons and companies. At the same time tons of supplies had to be transferred to horse-drawn carts: sides of meat, sacks of flour, barrels of beer, crates of bullets, artillery shells in packing cases, and tons of oats for all the horses.

  At one point Grigori saw the loathed face of Prince Andrei. He wore a gorgeous uniform—Grigori was not sufficiently familiar with badges and stripes to identify the regiment or rank—and rode on a tall chestnut horse. Behind him walked a corporal carrying a canary in a cage. I could shoot him now, Grigori thought, and avenge my father. It was a stupid idea, of course, but he stroked the trigger of his rifle as the prince and his cage bird disappeared into the crowd.

  The weather was hot and dry. That night Grigori slept on the ground with the rest of the men from his wagon. He realized that they constituted a platoon, and would be together for the foreseeable future. The next morning they met their officer, an unnervingly young second lieutenant called Tomchak. He led them out of Ostrolenka on a road that headed northwest.

  Lieutenant Tomchak told Grigori they were in 13 Corps, commanded by General Klyuev, which was part of the Second Army under General Samsonov. When Grigori relayed this information to the other men they were spooked, because the number thirteen was unlucky, and Sergeant Gavrik said: “I told you it was none of your business, Peshkov, you cocksucking homo.”

  They were not far out of town when the metaled road ran out and became a sand track through a forest. The supply carts got stuck, and the drivers soon found out that a single horse could not pull a loaded army wagon through sand. All the horses had to be unhitched and reharnessed two to a cart, and every second wagon had to be abandoned at the roadside.

  They marched all day and slept under the stars again. Each night when he went to bed Grigori said to himself: Another day, and I’m still alive to take care of Katerina and the baby.

  That evening Tomchak received no orders, so they sat under the trees all the next morning. Grigori was glad: his legs ached from yesterday’s march, and his feet hurt in the new boots. The peasants were used to walking all day, and they laughed at the weakness of the city dwellers.

  At midday a runner brought orders commanding them to set out at eight A.M., four hours earlier.

  There was no provision for supplying the marching men with water, so they had to drink from wells and streams they came across on the way. They soon learned to drink their fill at every opportunity, and keep their standard-issue water bottles topped up. There was no means of cooking, either, and the only food they got was the dry biscuits called hardtack. Every few miles they would be called upon to help pull a wheeled cannon out of a swamp or sandpit.

  They marched until sundown and slept under the trees again.

  Halfway through the third day they emerged from a wood to see a fine farmhouse set amid fields of ripening oats and wheat. It was a two-story building with a steeply pitched roof. In the yard was a concrete wellhead, and there was a low stone structure that seemed to be a pigsty, except that it was clean. The place looked like the home of a prosperous land captain, or perhaps the younger son of a nobleman. It was locked up and deserted.

  A mile farther on, to everyone’s astonishment, the road passed through an entire village of such places, all abandoned. The realization began to dawn on Grigori that he had crossed the border into Germany, and these luxurious houses were the homes of German farmers who had fled, with their families and livestock, to escape the oncoming Russian army. But where were the hovels of the poor peasants? What had been done with the filth of the pigs and cows? Why were there no tumbledown wooden cowsheds with patched walls and holes in the roofs?

  The soldiers were jubilant. “They’re running away from us!” said a peasant. “They’re scared of us Russians. We’ll take Germany without firing a shot!”

  Grigori knew, from Konstantin’s discussion group, that the German plan was to conquer France first and then deal with Russia. The Germans were not surrendering, they were choosing the best time to fight. Even so, it would be surprising if they were to give up this prime territory without a struggle.

  “What part of Germany is this, Your Honor?” he asked Tomchak.

  “They call it East Prussia.”

  “Is it the wealthiest part of Germany?”

  “I don’t think so,” said the lieutenant. “I see no palaces.”

  “Are ordinary people in Germany rich enough to live in homes such as these?”

  “I suppose they are.”

  Evidently Tomchak, who looked as if he was barely out of school, did not know much more than Grigori.

  Grigori walked on, but he felt demoralized. He had thought himself a well-informed man, but he had had no idea that the Germans lived so well.

  It was Isaak who voiced his doubts. “Our army is already having trouble feeding us, even though not a single shot has yet been fired,” he said quietly. “How can we possibly fight against people who are so well organized that they keep their pigs in stone houses?”

  { IV }

  Walter was elated by events in Europe. There was every prospect of a short war and a quick victory for Germany. He could be reunited with Maud by Christmas.

  Unless he died, of course. But, if that happened, he would die happy.

  He shuddered with joy whenever he remembered the night they had spent together. They had not wasted precious moments sleeping. They had made love three times. The initial, heartbreaking difficulty had in the end only intensified their euphoria. In between lovemaking they had lain side by side, talking and idly caressing one another. It was a conversation unlike any other. Anything Walter could say to himself, he could say to Maud. Never had he felt so close to another person.

  Around dawn they had eaten all the fruit in the bowl and all the chocolates in the box. Then, at last, they had had to leave: Maud to sneak back into Fitz’s house, pretending to the servants that she had been out for an early walk; Walter to his flat, to change his clothes, pack a bag, and leave his valet instructions to ship the rest of his possessions home to Berlin.

  In the cab on the short ride from Knightsbridge to Mayfair they had held hands tightly and said little. Walter had stopped the driver around the corner from Fitz’s house. Maud had kissed him once more, her tongue finding his in desperate passion, then she had gone, leaving him wondering if he would ever see her again.

  The war had begun well. The German army was storming through Belgium. Farther south the French—led by sentiment rather than strategy—had invaded Lorraine, only to be mown down by German artillery. Now they were in full retreat.

  Japan had sided with the French and British allies, which unfortunately freed up Russian soldiers in the far east to be switched to the European battlefield. But the Americans had confirmed their neutrality, to Walter’s great relief. How small the world had become, he reflected: Japan was about as far east as you could go, and America as far west. This war encircled the globe.

  According to German intelligence, the French had sent a stream of telegrams to St. Petersburg, begging the tsar to attack, in the hope that the Germans might be distracted. An
d the Russians had moved faster than anyone expected. Their First Army had astonished the world by marching across the German border a mere twelve days after mobilization began. Meanwhile the Second Army invaded farther south, from the railhead at Ostrolenka, on a trajectory that would close the teeth of the pincers near a town called Tannenberg. Both armies were unopposed.

  The uncharacteristic German torpor that allowed this to happen soon came to an end. The commander in chief in the region, General Prittwitz, known as der Dicke, the Fat One, was smartly fired by the high command and replaced by the duo of Paul von Hindenburg, summoned out of retirement, and Erich Ludendorff, one of the few senior military men without an aristocratic “von” to his name. At forty-nine, Ludendorff was also among the younger generals. Walter admired him for having risen so high purely on merit, and was pleased to be his intelligence liaison.

  On the way from Belgium to Prussia they stopped briefly on Sunday, August 23, in Berlin, where Walter had a few moments with his mother on the station platform. Her sharp nose was reddened by a summer cold. She hugged him hard, shaking with emotion. “You are safe,” she said.

  “Yes, Mother, I’m safe.”

  “I’m terribly worried about Zumwald. The Russians are so close!” Zumwald was the von Ulrichs’ country estate in the east.

  “I’m sure it will be all right.”

  She was not so easily fobbed off. “I have spoken to the kaiserin.” She knew the kaiser’s wife well. “Several other ladies have done the same.”

  “You should not bother the royal family,” Walter reproved her. “They already have so many worries.”

  She sniffed. “We cannot abandon our estates to the Russian army!”

  Walter sympathized. He, too, hated the thought of primitive Russian peasants and their barbaric knout-wielding lords overrunning the well-kept pastures and orchards of the von Ulrich inheritance. Those hardworking German farmers, with their muscular wives and scrubbed children and fat cattle, deserved to be protected. Was that not what the war was about? And he planned to take Maud to Zumwald one day, and show the place off to his wife. “Ludendorff is going to stop the Russian advance, Mother,” he said. He hoped it was true.