One Soldier's War In Chechnya

by Arkady Babchenko

  ‘Don’t Kisel,’ I implore. ‘You don’t want to get on that helicopter. Maybe you really are going to bake buns in Beslan.’

  ‘No, no,’ he stammers, and starts to babble. ‘Don’t you see, no-one will stay, we’re all going there, every last one of us. Forget about buns, there are fifteen hundred of us here, what are we going to do, swamp the country with buns? This is a transit field, either in or out, and they brought us here today to send us to Chechnya. We were born and raised to be sent there today and I want to be with you when we go.’

  ‘Me too,’ says Vovka. ‘I’m coming with you to see the major.’ Kisel, smart cookie that he is, had it all sorted out in his head in a moment. I sniffle unexpectedly and my eyes moisten. It’s good that we are together again.

  The three of us approach the major who is still sitting on the ground and laying out files. Another small pile lies separately from the bulk of them, maybe five at the most, and I spot my name on one.

  I report to the major. Without raising his head he barks: ‘A team of five people are to be posted in Mozdok as I said. Wait here, an escort officer will come for you. That will be all.’

  Just like that, the major had switched everything round. Now it seems I am the one staying. I’ve had enough of all the confusion.

  ‘Comrade Major... Comrade Major, permission to speak. There are three of us.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There are three of us - me, Tatarintsev and Kiselyov.’ I realize that the major won’t change anything now, and that he couldn’t care less who flies and who stays, but maybe he could find a way to replace me. I’m not asking to go to the rear, on the contrary.

  ‘This is nonsense,’ he says. ‘I spent plenty of time with you soldiers and I know that friendship means nothing to you lot. The only people you really care about are the ones from your home region, and you don’t have any here, Babchenko. There’s just you, so why should you care where you serve?’

  ‘Comrade Major, please... ’

  ‘Is there something you don’t understand, soldier? You’ll remain right here in the unit where I have put you! Stand down!’

  ‘But sir... ’

  ‘Not another word!’

  Kisel and Vovka hover nearby on the prickly grass, looking like little kids in the middle of this field. They are downcast, and maybe for the first time ever Kisel is at a loss for words. I go over and hug him.

  ‘Bye, Kisel.’

  ‘Bye,’ he says. ‘I’m glad I managed to give you those chords. At least you have something to remember me by.’

  Vovka unpins the merit badge from his chest, a blue shield with an oak sprig and the number three in the centre, and hands it to me.

  ‘Here, have this. You may as well hang onto it.’

  I give him my own badge.

  ‘Pity it worked out like this,’ I tell them.

  ‘Yes it is,’ says Vovka.

  ‘Yep,’ says Kisel.

  I feel an acute sense of loneliness. What will I do without them?

  Another helicopter comes in to land above us. Lowering our heads, we watch it descend. It’s probably ours, or rather theirs. Now they’ll get on it and fly away, and I’ll be left here, all on my own.

  I walk away, looking back at them as they stand on this field,

  hands in their pockets, heads bowed - big, stocky Kisel and sunburnt, skinny Vovka. I know we won’t see each other again. It’s all some kind of a crime.

  We are led to a truck and we line up in pairs facing the back of it, waiting for the order to climb on.

  ‘It’s the same Ural,’ says Loop, who is standing at the front. ‘Lads, it’s the same truck they use to collect the bodies.’

  He turns round and looks wide-eyed at each of us, like he’s waiting for us to mutiny, or call off the whole trip and send him home. He still hasn’t sobered up from the mug of spirit he drank and his drowsy eyes now seem extra large.

  ‘How do you know?’ someone asks.

  ‘I remember that hole in the canvas,’ he replies, pointing at a large rip like a starfish. ‘There’s no mistaking that.’

  We look at the rip and stand there not knowing how to react. Our escort officer strides up.

  ‘All aboard!’ he commands without stopping, and we climb into the Ural.

  I seem to detect the stench of death but really it’s just a normal truck smell of diesel and grease, nothing else.

  The tarmac suddenly slips away behind us as the truck drives off and the runway recedes steadily into the distance until it is hidden behind some trees.

  Suddenly, through a gap in the leaves, I think I can see Vovka and Kisel, still standing in the middle of the field and waving. Just in case it’s them I wave back, but it does little to comfort me. They were my friends and now they are gone. And so is the runway and the waiting, and that fear bearing down on me and seizing my throat. Now there’s no more war. I have left it all behind and that is that. I feel sorry for Kisel and Vovka but it’s more of an abstract sense of pity, like childhood memories, not really pity even, more like a kind of melancholy.

  I feel like a deserter but it’s as if a weight has lifted from my shoulders. My God, I’m not going to be loaded onto that helicopter! The worst bit is over and now the main thing is to get as far away as possible from that runway. I hold onto the metal canopy arch, trying not to fall to the floor where dead people have lain.

  12/ Mozdok-7

  The truck door slams and the driver’s feet scrunch on the gravel.

  ‘We’re here, out you get,’ he says, opening the tailgate.

  There are six of us in the back. Me, Loop, Andy, Osipov, Ginger and Vic Zelikman. We had got settled in beneath the dark tarpaulin and we didn’t want to get out.

  ‘What are you sitting around for, assholes!’ the driver yells. ‘Do I have to throw you out myself?’

  We do as we are told and I jump out first. Our truck is parked in the middle of the parade ground. Everything is as it always is: a rostrum, barracks round the edge, a canteen and a few scrawny trees. A few older conscripts study us as they stand smoking in a porch. It’s baking hot.

  At the side of the parade ground soldiers are working away, dressed like our grandfathers were in the Second World War, in khaki tunics and broad riding breeches. There are lots of them, shovelling out gravel, their faces stupefied and submissive as they work away steadily, like prisoners of war in a concentration camp. A pall of dust rises in the air and settles on their bare feet. Some of them have toes streaked in blood, clotted trickles run across their dusty skin and coagulate on the ground. But no-one looks up from his work and the only sound is the swish-swish of the gravel.

  We stand in the middle of the parade ground, the dust settling on our new uniforms and shining boots. I notice this out of the corner of my eye and think to myself that from this point on my boots will always be white.

  ‘Why are they barefoot?’ Ginger asks. ‘Lads, why are they barefoot?’

  ‘Bloody hell, what is this place?’ whispers Zelikman. ‘Is this the army?’ Zelikman is short-sighted and looks like a small cowering pony, so terrified is he of being knocked about; during the six months of training he hadn’t got used to beatings and to his status of trash. And we were going to get beaten all right, well and truly; you could tell straight away that the army practice of dedovshchina, the violent bullying of new recruits by older soldiers, was engrained here. Back over the ridge in Chechnya something awful was happening, and the fate of these soldiers here bothered no-one.

  ‘What did you expect? This isn’t a training camp but a regular service unit,’ Loop says, looking round him, clearly ill at ease.

  A captain comes over to us.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he says and leads us along the parade ground.

  We follow him silently in pairs while the barefooted soldiers keep shovelling gravel. The captain takes us to headquarters, beyond the barrack block in the far corner of the grounds.

  Eight ‘Butterfly’ staff vehicles covered in camouflage
netting form a small thoroughfare and the place is pretty crowded. There are some lightly wounded soldiers in fresh bandages, and we hear them talking about combat bonuses, travel expenses and death payments. One lieutenant with his arm in a sling is trying to find out something about one-off disbursements for wounds. He grabs everyone who passes him by the sleeve, almost shouting and stammering heavily from shell shock, a tuft of cotton wool crusted brown with blood protruding from his ear. But each time he is unable to finish his question, waves his hand and wanders off. He seems drunk, his eyes have a crazed, vicious look and sometimes he stumbles sideways. Dirty fingers with uncut nails stick out from under his bandages, and the lieutenant rubs and flexes them, his face creasing with pain.

  The captain takes us to one of the Butterflies where they will add us to the list of the unit’s personnel so that we’ll get our food allowance.

  ‘Look,’ says Loop, touching my sleeve.

  In the open area between headquarters and the parade ground there are two light tanks hidden by tarpaulins. One isn’t completely covered, and we see a broken caterpillar track dangling and scorched roller wheels, their black rubber curled up like bits of pork crackling. The turret has been torn off altogether.

  ‘Did you see?’ Loop asks me. ‘Do you think they...?’

  I don’t think anything. I start to feel sick.

  Night falls. We have been sitting on stools by the open window of a barrack block since the captain brought us here from headquarters and told us to wait. No-one else comes for us and so that’s what we do, but we have no idea what we’re waiting for. Probably the order to turn in - it’s already nine thirty in the evening. Apart from us the barracks are empty, no soldiers, no officers.

  ‘Man, am I hungry,’ says Osipov. ‘I wonder if they’ll give us breakfast tomorrow.’

  ‘They aren’t supposed to give us anything,’ answers Loop, all-knowing in matters of army food. ‘We get our allowances only a whole day after we arrive, so that will be supper time tomorrow.’

  We have no idea what they are or aren’t supposed to give us, but we are so hungry our navels feel like they are stuck to our backbones.

  A strong smell of grass wafts through the window and cicadas chirp rhythmically. The steppe starts right by the barracks and reaches almost to the ridge, which we can hardly see now against the black sky. During the day helicopters flew there in pairs, and now heavy attack planes are heading off on night bombing raids. They are bombing Chechnya round the clock and the sound of the explosions is audible even here. Sometimes we can see the flashes too.

  Loop sees planes taking off at night for the first time in his life and he’s spellbound. The nozzle lights shoot faster and faster along the strip, the roar drowns out everything else and the plane takes to the air; it circles over Mozdok, waiting for the wingman, and sets off for Chechnya. I think to myself that that’s someone’s death taking flight; all of these pilots must have killed at least one person and they will kill many more, maybe now, maybe tonight.

  The evening ‘stroll’ begins in the regiment. One lone company, obviously undermanned, maybe forty guys at most, leaves its barrack block and marches up and down the square. It’s the same lot who were shovelling gravel barefoot earlier. They still don’t have boots; instead they are wearing army issue slippers, a piece of rubber with two leatherette straps sewn together in a cross shape. They are very uncomfortable and since they are not meant for marching, they rasp your feet raw.

  ‘Company!’ commands the drill sergeant and the company marches three steps forward in response. Their slippers slap weakly on the square and give no clear marching rhythm, flying off the feet of some of the soldiers and landing on the edges of the square, leaving them to carry on barefoot.

  ‘Halt!’ yells the sergeant. ‘Don’t you pricks even know how to march in time? Well now I'm going to teach you... Company!’ Once again they take three steps and again it’s a mess. Half of them are now barefoot and the soldiers stamp with their bare heels on the tarmac.

  ‘Company!’ the sergeant shouts again, and the soldiers stamp their heels on the square with all their might, grimacing from the pain.

  ‘The swine, they’ll rip their feet to shreds like that,’ says Osipov. ‘The bones will rot and it won’t heal later.’

  He knows what he’s talking about; his feet have been rotting for six months and each fresh issue of underwear is a torment for him. His long johns stick to his flesh and he has to tear them off. By the evening half a cup of pus and lymph has collected in his boots. But they won’t put him in hospital because we all have it, rotten feet are part of army life, and streptodermatitis is a constant torment. Zelikman, Loop and I have pusy sores all over our feet, but Osipov has no skin left on his at all, from his heels up to his knees.

  ‘Why are there so few of them?’ Zelikman asks.

  ‘There’ll be even less soon,’ Osipov mutters darkly. ‘That bastard will land half the company in hospital.’

  ‘Sing!’ the sergeant orders, and from the ranks a beautiful voice rises above the marching company. The boy sings well and obviously has talent, and it’s odd to hear this perfect voice in the middle of the deserted square with half a company of tattered, barefoot soldiers marching.

  ‘Shall we go for a quick march too?’ Zelikman asks. ‘What if they’ve lost us? What if the regiment commander appears now for evening roll call?’

  Since there are hardly any officers in the regiment right now, it seems very unlikely that anyone might be even remotely interested in us. But just in case, we decide to go down to the square, on the off-chance that someone is keeping an eye on the evening stroll from headquarters. The five of us march for a few minutes on the square, which is empty now that the infantry company has finished.

  ‘Hey, you lot, come here,’ someone calls from a doorway.

  ‘Now we've gone and done it!’ Loop hisses at Zelikman. ‘Now they are going to string us up. We should have stayed put and kept our heads down! We aren’t going anywhere, turn back towards the barracks.’

  We ignore the shouts, pretending we think they are meant for someone else, and we quickly go back to the barracks. We hear laughter behind us.

  We run up to the second floor, wash quickly without switching on the light and bed down for the night. There are no sheets under the blankets and no cases on the pillows, and the mattresses are so dusty that our arms and faces are immediately covered in grime.

  I dream about helicopters circling silently in the air above Moscow, over my home in the Taganka district, and showering down clouds of silvery packets. People excitedly reach up to catch them and my mother is also standing on the balcony with her arms outstretched. She wants to catch one with my face on it but it keeps jumping around like a butterfly, and I flutter off to the side. I smile. ‘Mum, what are you doing? Those aren’t packets, those are bags with bodies in them. Can’t you see how many of us dead guys there are? There’s a war going on down there and you don’t even know - why’s that?’ I ask. ‘I do know,’ she says. ‘You got killed already.’ - ‘No, I’m still alive. Remember I wrote to you that I was still alive and that they weren’t going to kill me? I’m still in the barracks, Mum, I’m fine There are lots of us here, I’m not on my own, and everything is OK, see for yourself.’

  The barracks fill with noise, doors slam, and people go to their billets, switching lights on, fiddling with weapons.

  I sense all of this through my sleep and think it must still be a dream. ‘You see Mum, these ones are all dead, they were in Chechnya. But I’m still in Mozdok, I’m alive... ’

  The next moment someone kicks me off the bed and I land on the floor. Osipov lands on top of me right after.

  ‘Get up, bastard!’ someone shouts above us.

  We leap to our feet like madmen and draw ourselves to attention. Osipov immediately gets punched in the jaw and I get a kick in the ear. As I fall I manage to glimpse Zelikman having his head smashed against the bed frame, then I get punched in the solar plexus and I h
it the floor, completely dazed and gasping for air.

  The first time I really got beaten up was on 9 May. Victory Day. All hell was let loose in our barracks that time. The reconnaissance boys kicked us out of our beds and beat us the whole night. Towards morning they got tired of that and ordered us to do squats on the floor. ‘You, count,’ Boxer told me, and I started to count aloud. Osipov and I did more than the others -384. We sat down, pressed up tightly against each other, and our mingled sweat ran down our legs, dripped onto the bare floorboards and soon formed a pool beneath us. Andy also dripped pus and blood into the mix as his sores opened up again. We carried on for an hour until Boxer got bored of this and knocked us down with two sharp punches.

  From that day onward I got beaten by everyone, from privates to the deputy regiment commander, Colonel Pilipchuk, or Chuk, as we called him for short. The only person I didn’t get beaten by was a general, maybe because we didn’t have any in our regiment.

  It’s night. I am sitting on the barracks porch, smoking and watching the attack planes accelerating and taking off on the runway. There’s no way I can go back to the barracks - by evening I'm supposed to bring Timokha 600,000 roubles that I don’t have and have no way of getting. I get 18,000 roubles a month, but the most I can buy for that is ten packs of cheap cigarettes. Inflation is rampant in the country and money is worth less and less all the time, just as our lives are.

  Yakunin and Ginger know where there are 600,000 to be had but they won’t tell. They’ll get out of here soon; anyone who manages to lay his hands on money will get away from this regiment, this lousy runway where smoke-scorched helicopters land all the time. We are inseparable from this field and I have already realized that sooner or later we will all end up on it, waiting to fly to Chechnya.

  Fourteen members of our company are AWOL, absent without leave. Young conscripts flee in their droves, heading straight from their beds into the steppe, barefoot and wearing only their long johns, unable to withstand the nightly torment any longer. Even our lieutenant, who was called up for two years after he graduated from college, did a runner. There are only eight of us left, us five and three local boys - Murky, Pinocchio (or Pincha) and Khariton. We live together in the reconnaissance company, and the recon regard us as their personal slaves and do what the hell they like with us.