Blood Red Army

by David Bishop

  He ran after the others, but I risked a look back at the retreating vampyr. The six who had gone to Constanta's aid were changing into bats. I watched as they rose into the air, all clutching him in their talons, supporting his weight between them. They flew slowly away across Ivanovskoe, keeping close to the ground, staying in the shadows cast by the buildings.

  "Zunetov! I said come on!" Eisenstein shouted back at me. I hurried after him, retrieving my entrenching tool on the way.

  The area of no-man's-land between Ivanovskoe and the Russian front line was a barren stretch of corpse-strewn earth about a hundred metres wide. To the east no-man's-land straddled the Neva River as it rolled towards Lake Ladoga, but the section we had to traverse was dry and arid. The ground was pitted and scarred by the thousands of bombs that had hit the area since the front line stabilised eleven months before. Broken, rotting bodies were splayed across the dirt, evidence of all those who had fallen while fruitlessly trying to shift the front line in either direction. There were few animals near the blockade but occasional flocks of black crows would come to pick at the carrion left behind by war. The worst part of no-man's-land was the smell: putrefying flesh and sickly fear prickled the nostrils, turning the stomach.

  Across this wasteland of death we ran, crouching low to hide our presence for as long as possible. It was only a matter of time before the vampyr alerted the German snipers, or one of the lookouts posted along the front line spotted us. You could not conceal eleven people crossing so wide a strip of open ground, even in the murky light of dawn. So we ran from crater to crater, collecting in the shelter of hillocks created by bomb blasts before venturing onwards.

  I was at the rear of the group with Eisenstein, trying not to watch him too closely but unable to tear my eyes away. He had been bitten but not killed by the vampyr... What did that mean? Would he suddenly transform into one of those creatures? Would he become like that enemy soldier we saw, with a glazed expression and no will of his own? Or could he find a way of resisting the taint of the vampyr? I did not know the answer to those questions then. Even if I had known, I'm not certain I'd have had the will to do what was necessary. Despite what so many people claim, hindsight never offers a perfect vision of the past, only a clearer view of your mistakes.

  We were halfway across no-man's-land when a shout went up from the German front line, alerting others to our presence. Suddenly the air was alive with bullets, round after round shooting past us, thudding into the dirt and the deceased. One of the German patrol died in that opening salvo, his helmet flying from his head as a round exploded into his brain. Another bullet punctured Antonov's right lung, though we didn't know it at the time. He collapsed on top of Borodin who was unable to sustain all of Antonov's weight. There was a snapping sound and Borodin screamed in agony, his leg crushed beneath him.

  Haustein shouted to his comrades on the front line, begging them not to shoot, but it did no good. They paused firing for a few moments to hear his plea, then resumed the fusillade with greater vigour than before. Eisenstein cursed loudly, crawling across to where Sophia was cowering beside her equipment.

  "Call Brodsky for help! Tell him we've got the intelligence he wanted, but we need covering fire if we're to make it back alive!"

  Sophia activated the cumbersome radio, calling for help from the Red Army, but no reply came. "I'm not getting anything, Grigori!" she shouted. "I'm not even sure if this thing is still transmitting properly!"

  "Then we'll have to do this the hard way," he replied. "Uralsky, I want headshots on three of their shooters, one from each lookout. That should persuade the others to keep down temporarily. Everybody else, get ready to run!"

  I relayed his orders to Haustein and the other Germans. The gefreiter nodded, taking an ammunition clip from the still-bleeding corpse of a comrade and slapping it into his own machine pistol.

  Uralsky finished reassembling his rifle, then snapped off three quick shots in succession. They were rewarded with a trio of cries and an abrupt decline in firing from the German positions.

  "Now!" Eisenstein shouted. The Germans emerged first, haring towards the Russian edge of no-man's-land with Strelnikov close behind them. I helped Sophia to her feet, grabbing one side of the bulky radio while she took the other. Eisenstein rolled Antonov off Borodin and Uralsky helped the big man up. As I passed Borodin, I saw him unscrewing the cap on a German stick grenade. Sophia and I paused, looking down at his crumpled body; his right leg folded over awkwardly on itself.

  "Go," Borodin urged. "There's nothing you can do for me."

  Eisenstein looked back at the German lines. A squad of infantrymen was coming out into no-man's-land after us. "Are you sure?" he asked Borodin.

  The youngest of our squad nodded. He looked down at his fingers as they closed around the blue bead that activated the grenade. "See? My hands aren't shaking any more. I can look after myself. Go!"

  Sophia tugged on the radio, dragging me after her. We stumbled towards the safety of our front line, Eisenstein close behind us. The ground jumped and twitched round our feet as clumps of dirt were thrown up by the German bullets peppering the surface. Ahead of us Uralsky was staggering beneath Antonov's weight, the two of them lurching slowly forward. I looked beyond them to the fleeing Germans and Strelnikov, before something further ahead caught my eye.

  Twenty metres away Yatsko was standing on top of the Red Army trenches, a PPSh in his arms and one finger closing round the trigger. Brodsky was standing behind him, a pistol aimed at Yatsko's head.

  "Look out!" I shouted futilely over the barrage of noise around us.

  Yatsko opened fire, his body vibrating from the recoil of his submachine gun as it spat dozens of rounds at us. Then I was falling, pushed to the ground by Sophia as she threw herself down on top of me. For the second time in quick succession the wind was knocked from my body, leaving me gasping for breath on the ground. I could do little else but watch the terrible slaughter around me as it happened.

  The two Germans who had been leading the charge were the first to die, cut to pieces by Yatsko from a few metres away. A spray of blood burst from Strelnikov's head as a bullet ripped through one ear, sending him diving for cover. Haustein was spun round by a round hitting his right shoulder, before another shot through his left thigh and he collapsed screaming in agony. Antonov collected three more bullets in his body and fell face first in the soil, dragging Uralsky down with him.

  I didn't see what happened to Eisenstein since he was still behind me, but I heard his body slam into the ground as he dived for shelter. In less than a minute Yatsko emptied a seventy-one round drum of ammunition at us, grimacing as he butchered the members of his own squad. I heard the captain bellowing at him to reload and resume firing.

  An explosion shook the ground behind me, accompanied by several startled cries. Then a rain of earth and blood and body parts showered on us. I glanced back to see a small, smoking crater where Borodin had been. Having infiltrated several kilometres into enemy territory, we were now dying one after the other, mere metres from our own front line. The irony was bitter indeed, like the taste of the adrenaline flooding my mouth.

  Sophia tried her radio again and got a crackling, static-laden reply. "What is your position?" a voice asked.

  "We are trapped in no-man's-land, less than twenty metres from the Russian front line," she replied. "We have the intelligence Captain Brodsky wanted, but one of his men is shooting at us. Yatsko's already wounded three of our squad and killed two of the prisoners we were bringing back for interrogation."

  "I'm sorry, but your transmission is..." the voice replied, before fading away.

  "They're gone," Sophia said. "It was as if someone turned the receiver off!"

  "Then we'll have to find our own way out of this," Eisenstein said, crawling forward to our position. "Borodin's stopped the Germans from coming for us, but we have to deal with Yatsko if we have any hope of getting home."

  "Let me," I said, reaching for my PPSh.


  "No," Eisenstein replied, stopping my hand. "Brodsky is forcing him to fire on us. There's another way. Uralsky!" The sniper rolled over to face us, hugging his rifle to his chest like a lover. "Can you get that gun out of Yatsko's hands?"

  "My pleasure," Uralsky replied, a rare smile on his thin lips. He rolled back towards our trenches and took aim. The first shot hit Yatsko's left hand as it was fixing another drum of ammunition into his submachine gun. A moment later a second shot removed the tip of Yatsko's right thumb. He fell over backwards, cursing at the heavens.

  "Now what?" Uralsky asked.

  "Help me with Antonov," Eisenstein replied, already running forward. Together he and Uralsky got the big man up on his feet and dragged him towards our trenches. Sophia followed them with the radio while I went to Haustein's side. He was bleeding badly but he would survive. I looped his left arm over my shoulder and got him upright. To one side Strelnikov was still hugging the ground, blood streaming from his ruptured ear.

  "Strelnikov, give me a hand!" I called, but the poisonous little man made an obscene gesture and crawled across the dirt to the safety of our front line. The Germans were still firing at us from their side of no-man's-land, but we were beyond their range. From the seventeen who had begun the journey in Ivanovskoe, only eight of us made it to the Russian front line. Out of those eight, only three of us were not physically hurt: Uralsky, Sophia and I. Captain Brodsky had exacted a terrible price for his revenge.

  Chapter Ten

  Once we were safely behind our front line, Uralsky went to find a medic while Sophia and I tended to our injured. Strelnikov's wound was superficial, though he moaned about the pain worse than anyone else. Haustein's shoulder was shattered, but the other bullet had passed through his leg without hitting any bones or major arteries, so it had a good chance of healing. Antonov was in a terrible state, his body riddled with bullets. His laboured breathing sounded more like a death rattle, and he floated in and out of consciousness, his eyes rolling about in his head.

  Eisenstein did not look at his friend, concentrating his energies on dealing with Yatsko instead. He found the trigger-happy killer nearby and dragged him back to face us, to see what harm his bullets had caused. But Yatsko refused to be shamed by the consequences of his actions.

  "I was acting under orders from the captain," he insisted, nursing his wounded hand. "Brodsky said the only way any of you could make it back from enemy territory would be by collaborating with the Germans. When I saw those three fascists coming back with you, I thought maybe he'd been right. The captain ordered me to open fire on anyone who failed to reply properly when challenged."

  "How could they?" I protested. "The Germans don't speak Russian. Besides, they had already surrendered to us!"

  "Then why didn't you call ahead and inform the captain?"

  "We tried," Sophia retorted, pausing from her efforts to get a little water into Antonov's mouth. "But somebody deliberately switched off the transmission."

  "That's a serious accusation," the captain snapped as he marched towards us. "I hope you have evidence to back it up, otherwise you could face a charge."

  "Not much of a threat," she replied, "since I'm already in a penal company."

  "Perhaps you would prefer to try your hand at defusing unexploded German bombs?" Brodsky asked. "The disposal squad always needs fresh recruits." Sophia was going to answer but thought better of it, turning her attention back to Antonov. "I thought not," the captain concluded, glaring arrogantly at her.

  Yatsko shook himself free of Eisenstein's grasp and strode towards Brodsky, holding out his wounded hand. "This is your fault. Uralsky shot the end of my thumb off."

  The captain shifted his gaze to our marksman. "Is this correct?"

  Uralsky nodded.

  "Why did you fire upon one of your comrades?" the captain asked him.

  "Because I told him to," Eisenstein volunteered. "Yatsko opened fire on us first, wounding Antonov, Strelnikov and our German prisoner, Haustein. He also murdered two further prisoners, men who could have given us valuable intelligence about the enemy's plans."

  "I thought you already had this intelligence."

  Eisenstein found my knapsack and pulled the fistful of German documents from inside it. "We have these, taken from the intelligence HQ to which you sent us. But the prisoners could have given corroborating testimony."

  Brodsky nodded towards Haustein. "You still have one prisoner. That should be more than sufficient to verify whatever is in these papers. As for Yatsko," the captain turned to face him, "he should be suitably disciplined for overstepping the orders I gave him."

  Yatsko's face fell. "I did what you told me. Nothing more, nothing less."

  Brodsky smirked. "However, as Miss Gomorova has noted, he is already part of a penal company and his offences are not sufficient to justify having him executed. Since Yatsko does not yet seem to understand the value of following orders, perhaps he needs some experience in giving them. Once his wound has been seen to, he shall lead the shtrafroty on all future combat missions."

  The captain swivelled on his heels and strode away. Eisenstein ran after him, protesting at the capriciousness of this decision, but Brodsky refused to listen. Yatsko followed them, no doubt in search of a medic to treat his hand since none of us was likely to volunteer our services.

  By now I had finished bandaging Haustein and Strelnikov's wounds, so I tried to help Sophia with Antonov. "How is he?" I asked. She showed me the copious bleeding coming from most of his wounds. The blood leaked through the dressings, refusing to be staunched. The ragged holes where the bat had sunk its fangs into Antonov's flesh were the worst. No matter what Sophia pressed against the wounds, crimson stains seeped through within a few seconds.

  "I can't stop his bleeding," she whispered. "I think the vampyr must have infected him with something that thins the blood and stops it from clotting. If he wasn't so strong, Yuri would have died out on no-man's-land."

  Antonov's eyes opened and he stared directly at me, his lips moving but no sound escaping them. I leaned closer, trying to hear what he had to say.

  "When I die," he whispered in the faintest of voices, "make sure I don't come back... as one of those... things." Then he lost consciousness again, perspiration beading on his pale face, angry red welts spreading around the holes in his neck.

  When I told Sophia what he had said, she nodded her agreement. Fetching her canteen of holy water, she tipped a little of the clear liquid over Antonov's neck. He thrashed and twitched, then lay still, the tortured look on his face easing, the muscles relaxing into a smile.

  "Rest now," she said in a soothing voice. "You're safe. Nothing can hurt you anymore."

  I saw her blink back the tears forming in her eyes. Both of us knew she was lying.

  Eisenstein returned a few minutes later, the set of his face telling us all we needed to know about his conversation with the captain. He made sure Strelnikov and Haustein were recovering from their wounds before kneeling beside Antonov. Eisenstein gently laid a hand on the dying man's face, brushing the blond hair from his eyes.

  "Rest easy now, old friend. Your war is over." He paused. "I know how much you miss having a good night's sleep. Now you can get all the sleep you want. When I see you again, we'll both be in a better place."

  Antonov gave no sign of having heard Eisenstein's quiet words, but his breathing slowed and then, gradually, stopped altogether. The muscles in his face relaxed and he was gone. Eisenstein did not speak, but I saw his lips moving silently and thought he must be saying a prayer. He pulled the Star of David from inside his shirt and kissed it, his eyes closed. I looked away, not wanting to intrude on his grief. Besides, I was struggling with my own feelings.

  Uralsky approached us, carrying Antonov's hammer and a wooden stake. "I will do what must be done for him," he volunteered.

  "Give them to me," Eisenstein insisted. "He was my friend." Uralsky handed over the tools and Eisenstein positioned the stake above Antonov's heart. He dre
w back the hammer, ready to smash it home, but could not bring himself to deliver the blow. His eyes slid from the stake to Antonov's kindly face, his head shaking in disbelief.

  "Do you know what crime Yuri committed to get sent to this squad, what terrible wrong he did to become one of the shtrafroty?"

  I shook my head. I had wondered about what Antonov had done many times, but never dared to ask. In truth, Antonov had been such a kindly soul, I did not want to know what he had been guilty of, in case it hurt my opinion of him.

  Eisenstein looked at us gathered round Antonov's body. "Nothing. He didn't do anything wrong - no crime, no offence, nothing. He volunteered for this shtrafroty, the first man ever to do so, because I had been sent here. He wanted to keep me company, he said. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't listen. Yuri said we all had to die of something, but he'd rather die with his best friend at his side then all alone on some battlefield."

  "He was everyone's friend," Sophia said, quietly taking the hammer and stake out of Eisenstein's hands. "Let Uralsky do this." We all watched as the sniper drove the wooden stake into Antonov's chest. He did not explode into dust, for he was not yet a vampyr. Yuri Antonov was spared that fate. We buried his body instead, laying a simple cross on his chest to make certain.

  Afterwards, Eisenstein told Haustein that the captain was sending for Red Army intelligence officers to interrogate him. "They will not treat you well and for that I am sorry. But we have a few hours before these men arrive. What can you tell us about Constanta and his kind? Any information you share with us may make a difference and help us in the battle against these creatures."

  Haustein grimaced when I relayed what had been said. "I will tell you what I know," he said. "Though I fear it will not help you. It did me and my comrades little good..."

  Reiner Haustein had been a fervent and enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth when the war broke out in 1939. He tried to enlist in the Wehrmacht twice before he was old enough to be accepted, and finally received his uniform on his eighteenth birthday - the same day Hitler's forces launched Operation Barbarossa. Within two months the young soldier found himself on the front line with Army Group North marching swiftly towards Moscow, convinced that his group would sweep into the Russian capital long before Christmas. But the rainy season had slowed German progress and his unit was sent further north to help bolster the siege of Leningrad. It was not glamorous, but it was a vital part of the war effort, their officers told them, and they should be grateful to make such a contribution. Then the winter came and nobody spoke of gratitude anymore, only of the cold.