They shook hands. Baluev thought that he had a firm handshake, but Boyev had a grip of iron.
They immediately established the easy relationship that was normal on the front line.
“So where’s your regiment?”
His regiment! He himself had scarcely had a look at it yet. He replied: “Who positioned your guns in this direction?”
Boyev’s face broke into a sardonic smile: “Couldn’t do it any other way. That was the order.”
He explained the situation, as far as he knew it.
Though the moon was out, they needed the flashlight to check the map.
“Petersdorf? Yes, that’s where they’ve stuck me, or my headquarters at least. It’s close enough to run a line to you here. And I’d come here to use your OP.”
Still, this wasn’t much of an OP, on flat ground with no cover.
“Right now I’ve got about two hours to spare. I’d best get on with my own reconnaissance. Where are the Germans? Where’s the best place to put my forward troops?”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know that!
Boyev was called to the radio. He squatted beside it.
Baluev ran the bright spot of light across the map. If this whole lake is ours, there’s no point putting anything here. We have to be farther forward.
Boyev returned and in a deep, quiet voice, away from the soldiers, he passed the news on to Baluev.
“That’s quite possible,” said Baluev without hesitation, immediately accepting such a situation. “He’ll want to come at us on the first day, before we’ve set up any defenses. He’s pushing forward just because he’s desperate.”
And then we’d have our front line right here.
How soon could he manage to bring up at least a company?
Boyev, with his heavy guns, has a much bigger problem.
But he’s not panicking.
Baluev admitted sincerely: “I haven’t been at the front for a year. I’m just amazed to see how we’re doing in the fourth year of the war. Just as before, they won’t make us lose our nerve.”
This was only the fourth day Baluev had been in Prussia, but already he had the full sense of being on the front line.
“Still, I’ll take a walk up forward, to the right of the lake. I’ll let you know what I find. And when I’ve picked a spot for my headquarters, I’ll have a line laid back to you.”
They had been together in this bare field for no more than a quarter hour. Now they were parting until a telephone line could be laid and they renewed contact. It might well be that they would never see one another again. It was always like that.
“What’s your first name?”
“Pavel, Pavel Afanasych.”
“I’m Vladimir Kondratych.”
They shook hands warmly.
Baluev went off with his scouts.
Clouds covered the moon.
~ * ~
16
Baluev had survived even his service in the Second Shock Army in the spring of ‘42, and he had escaped from German encirclement. But then he’d rotted on the Sozha River bridgehead for the whole of November ‘43 and was wounded just two hours before the German withdrawal, when they were already pulling back their troops. His wound was such that he could return to duty after two months in the hospital in Samara. And then, off to the Academy for a year.
Now there were few people in the Academy who hadn’t been under fire or been battered by the war. Everyone there knew the price to be paid to keep up the fight. Still, that year of study had been a different world: War had now been elevated to something clear, beautiful, and rational. And it was difficult to keep from thinking that in a year or so, the war might be over. Maybe they’ll get by without me.
It hadn’t ended. But how close the end was now! He had tried to catch up with the troops all through northern Poland and Prussia. He hitched rides with anyone going his way and in regimental command vehicles crammed with troops of every sort. When he did catch up to them, he was happy to enter once again the familiar world of the front line. And at such a sublime moment—the capture of East Prussia! (And on a front that was so broadly extended . . .)
They walked across the broad expanse, breaking through the crust of the snow. The two scouts followed in silence.
He used his compass to find his way.
If something was about to start, then Petersdorf wouldn’t do; it was in too much of a salient. And how could he manage to get, if not a company, then at least a platoon to string out for protection of the guns near Adlig?
Could even a single company make it here in time? And if they did, they’d be worn out. Could we even get them back on their feet again?
We just have to hold out through this one night; then things will be better tomorrow.
Now look at that: Over on the left, about four or five kilometers to the northeast, a small red glow had silently come up and he hadn’t even noticed when it began. It was a fire, and it was still burning. He couldn’t hear any firing.
He stopped and looked through his binoculars. Yes, it was a fire. Burning evenly. Was it a house?
A fire doesn’t break out in a war without a reason. It breaks out because there’s some action there.
Can the Germans be there already? Or did some of ours make it that far and just were careless?
They walked on, eastward.
Then he remembered the dream of his mother. Baluev’s mother died young, so young! And Baluev, now twenty-eight, had been dreaming of his beloved mother for many years now. She had been unhappy, but in his dreams she was always smiling. She never came near to him, though. She would appear briefly, then go away and reappear a moment later; she would be sleeping in the room next door and walk past, nod and smile at him. But she never came close.
Whether it was from the dreams themselves, from something he’d read, or from the stories of others, Baluev had formed the idea that when his time came to die, Mama would draw near and embrace him.
That was what he dreamed last night: he felt Mama’s breath on his face and her very firm embrace—where did she get such strength?
Everything in the dream was so warm and so joyous. But when he woke up he recalled the omen . . .
~ * ~
17
The snarling of tractors violated the dead silence that had continued to reign all around as the four gun-howitzers of Six Battery withdrew from Klein Schwenkitten. Using no headlights, they moved back along the same tree-lined road by which they had come a few hours earlier. Behind the shell trailers came the battalion kitchen and the three-ton supply truck; they had been sent back as well (along with the German deserter).
Lieutenant Gusev, as usual, was sitting in the cabin of Second Platoon’s lead tractor. This withdrawal displeased him: whatever the tactical considerations that led to it, it looked like a retreat. And now he would have no part in any sudden rush into battle.
Oleg Gusev lived with the constant awareness that he was not merely a junior lieutenant but the son of a famous general. And he wanted to justify being his father’s son with every day of his life in the army and with every one of his actions in the army. He would have been devastated had he in any way shamed his father. So far his only decoration was the Order of the Fatherland War, Second Class, a nice shiny medal. (His father made sure that his son was not being given any preferential treatment.)
The move was easy enough, just a kilometer and a half, and here was that same reinforced concrete bridge across the Passarge that they had crossed yesterday. One after another, the tractors pulled the massive guns up the steep incline beyond the bridge. There was some problem over there, something in the way up ahead. Then the tractors again began to snarl at full volume and moved on.
Oleg jumped down and went ahead to see what was happening.
Kandalintsev was talking to some tall colonel in an astrakhan hat. The colonel was very excited and, apparently, wasn’t even aware that he was holding a pistol in his hand. He had drawn it, obviously, to make sure that his
orders would be followed. He demanded that the guns be deployed here immediately, facing east and ready to fire—over open sights. Farther back, behind the colonel, the muzzle of an SU-76 self-propelled gun jutted into the air like a crane. A few soldiers sat on the vehicle or stood nearby.
Kandalintsev calmly explained that 152-millimeter guns were not intended for firing over open sights: they took more than a minute to reload and they were not anti-tank weapons.
“We haven’t got anything else,” the colonel shouted, “so shut your mouth and get moving!”
The issue wasn’t the pistol he was holding. When you’re in action and your own commander isn’t there, you have to obey the senior ranker at your location. And after crossing the river they had lost contact with their own commander.
In fact, it made little difference, since they had intended to take up a position about two hundred meters beyond the river. The only thing is, Kandalintsev coolly and sensibly explained to the colonel, there’s not much room here by the bridge and not enough frontage to position four guns. The colonel, despite his excitement, gave some heed to the senior lieutenant and ordered him to position only two guns by the bridge, one on either side of the road.
There was nothing else to be done. Shouting orders in a commanding voice didn’t come easily to Kandalintsev, and he simply said: “Oleg, put one of your guns on the left, and I’ll put one of mine on the right.”
They began turning the guns around and unpacking the assemblies. Gusev put his third crew, under Sergeant Petya Nikolaev, at his position. Kandalintsev assigned his first crew, with Senior Sergeant Koltsov, a man also nearly forty and a Don Cossack. The remaining guns and trucks moved back another two hundred meters, where the dark shapes of the farmstead of Pittenen and its outbuildings could be seen.
It was time to check on the deserter again.
Kandalintsev felt strange when he placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and said: “Gut, gut, everything will be gut. You’re coming with us. Now get some sleep.”
~ * ~
18
If two meters of the telephone line were missing, it could not have been cut by accident. Obviously, this is the Germans’ home ground; they know every pathway in the area; they’ve got their own guides and their own reconnaissance and they can hide in all those patches of forest. We’ll never spot them, but they’re watching us.
Boyev had never been in a situation quite like this. He had made river crossings while being bombed, had sat in an OP on some deathly bridgehead while German artillery and mortars dropped shells around him, and he had lain in a shallow, hastily dug slit trench while the bullets of a raiding party hummed over his head. But he had always known that he was a part of his own brigade of guns and a trusty neighbor of the infantry, and that sooner or later a friendly hand, a telephone wire, or an order from a commander would reach him, and that he’d also have a chance to contribute his own ideas.
But here—what was going on? Not a sound, not a shell; instant death wasn’t flying over his head; nothing was clear. There were no infantry and wouldn’t be any before morning; in fact he’d be lucky if they arrived by morning. And his own headquarters seemed to have died some time around midnight. What had happened? Had their radio broken down? But they had spare radios.
Once again clouds had obscured the moon; and the moon, in any case, would soon be setting. There was no sign of life in the snow-covered field; visibility was very poor. He had one of his battery commanders right at hand, and two others on his flanks, sitting mutely in the shallow pits they had dug and waiting—for what? The Germans might begin their attack at any moment, yet he had heard no tractor or truck motors, which meant that they were not bringing up their artillery. But what if they move around our flank on foot and go straight for our guns? They’re defenseless.
What’s the point of staying here? There’s nothing to shoot at. Why are we still here?
Boyev had already withdrawn one battery without authorization. Still, he could justify that. (Yes, that’s an idea: Kasyanov no longer has a line to his battery, so he might as well make tracks back to his guns across the river. He gave the command.) But should he pull the other two batteries back across the river as well? Now that would be a completely unauthorized change of position, a retreat. And there’s a sacred principle in the Red Army: Not one step backward! An unauthorized retreat—in our army? Not only did he have no appetite for that, it was simply not possible. That would mean betraying his country. He could be tried for it and even face a death sentence or at least a punishment battalion.
So there was nothing he could do.
Common sense clearly told him to retreat, of course, to pull back his battalion.
What was even more clear was that this was totally forbidden.
You might be killed, but at least it won’t be by your own people.
He’d had no word from Baluev since he left. But bits of news were coming in. From his battery commander on the left: a single horseman was spotted about three hundred meters down the small road to our front, going east. Nothing more could be made out. And they didn’t have a chance to fire at him.
So, are the Germans using some local people as messengers or for reconnaissance?
Boyev called the commander of the sound-ranging battery via this same OP on his left and the battery’s listening post. With two or three connections between them the audibility was only so-so. The battery commander reported that there were Germans right across the lake and they had fired on his advance listening post and killed one soldier.
“Sasha, can you see or hear anything else?”
“Now I can see the glow of two fires over to my left.”
“Are any of our troops in your area?”
“Nobody. We’ve set up in a regular palace here.”
“I’ve got some news for you: they might come at us at any time. You’ve deployed your ‘boxes.’ You’d best bring them in before the shooting starts.”
“Should I really do that?”
“What do you think you’ll pick up on them?”
Toplev reported that now he could see the glow in the sky to his left. Ural still wasn’t responding. Were they sleeping, or what? But surely not all of them could have fallen asleep? Toplev was young and on the puny side. If the Germans went round our flank they could bypass the guns. He told Toplev to rouse all the gun crews and not let anyone sleep; distribute the carbines and the grenades. Be prepared to defend the guns from a frontal attack. Maintain contact and keep reporting.
Ostanin arrived: “Comrade Major. I’ve found a good farm about five hundred meters from here. It’s deserted. Should we move?”
Was it wise to move now? By the time we’ve laid down the lines something more might be happening.
~ * ~
19
Another half-hour passed.
The glow in the sky on the left and to the north had grown larger. Now there were three fires nearby and something larger a good distance away. But no shelling—no artillery, no mortars. Rifle fire probably wouldn’t be heard.
Nothing was happening on the right, where he had removed Kasyanov’s OP, but that low ground curving around gave a lot of cause for concern. Then Ostanin returned from the hollow just forward and said that there was no way he could stay there any longer. There were two or three shapes moving around on the slope opposite. He could almost certainly have picked them off but he held back.
~ * ~
He was right, most likely. With local guides, the Germans here can find every path and byway. And using the low spots in front, they could bring up a whole battalion and their sleds as well.
The visibility was getting poorer all the time. When you sent someone off on an errand, you could make him out—more by guesswork than anything else—for about a hundred meters; then he vanished.
Was that a mass of infantry out there in the darkness, not making a sound? That’s not how an attack is made on today’s battlefield; it’s impossible. Organizing such a silent attack is even m
ore difficult than organizing a noisy one.
Still, in war anything is possible.
If the Germans have been cut off for a whole day, why wouldn’t they want to launch an attack?
His thoughts were whirling. Where was brigade headquarters? How could they abandon him this way?
He could not retreat. But he might not be able to hold out until morning either. Staying here was pointless, though. He had to save his guns.
Should he risk pulling back another battery? This would not be seen as just a maneuver: it was an unauthorized retreat. But for the moment, at least, he could do something: Load the binocular telescope, the radio, and any spare spools of cable on the sled. And turn the sled to face the battery. He told Myagkov: “Take the extra drums for the sub-machine guns. Issue all the grenades we’ve got.”
Apricot Jam: And Other Stories Page 16
