Today Timokha doesn’t kick me out of bed as usual, but shakes me by the shoulder.
‘Come on, open up the armoury.’
‘Timokha, I don’t have the money,’ I say sleepily. I’ve only had about an hour and a half of sleep tonight, no more. ‘I’ll get it tomorrow and bring it to you, honest.’
‘Yeah, yeah, you’ll bring it tomorrow. Go on, open up.’
I’m the company’s duty soldier and today I have the armoury keys.
‘What, do you want me to issue you with a weapon? Are you going to Chechnya?’ I ask, finally understanding what’s going on.
‘Yes, to Chechnya, open up.’
Generally the armoury room should only be opened up in the presence of an officer and strictly only with the authorization of the regimental duty officer. If you need to draw or deposit weapons the duty soldier calls headquarters and says: ‘Requesting permission to open the armoury room for such and such.’
‘Permission granted,’ replies the duty officer, who deactivates the alarm system on his control panel. Then he sends an officer who, together with the duty soldier, enters the room with the weapons. That’s how it’s supposed to be, but we have no alarm system, the armoury is secured with one simple padlock and the keys are always with the duty soldier. No officer ever comes to check.
The armoury is a small room in the middle of the barracks, stuffed with crates full of weapons and ammunition. Whenever we take over watch duties from each other we’re supposed to count the number of weapons and sign for them. Today I’m in charge of the entire arsenal. The crates hold 48 assault rifles, 30 disposable rocket launchers, 12 sniper rifles, 4 RPG-7, grenades, bayonets, tightly stuffed bullet belts, silencers and other military junk. Packs of cartridges lie piled in the corner, uncounted, but every time we sign for 12,627 rounds. Yesterday I too signed for all this weaponry allegedly received from Smiler but it means nothing; any older conscript can get the keys from me and take whatever he wants from the armoury.
Timokha, bow-legged Sanya and a few other guys go into the armoury with me. I sit down behind the table and open the logbook for weapons issue. I am ready to enter the number of weapons they’ll take out on their assignment.
But no-one wants anything issued. The recon fuss around, open up all the crates in turn, put two Fly launchers on the floor, a few ammo belts, some grenades and packs of 5.45 calibre rounds. They stuff it all in a sports hold-all, two of them carry it between them by the handles and they quickly take it out of the barracks. Only Timokha and I are left in the armoury.
‘You didn’t see anything, got it?’ he says.
‘Yes,’ I say, but I haven’t really got it and I pass him the book. ‘Here, sign, I’ll add the serial numbers of the Fly launchers afterwards.’
Timokha gives me a sharp punch to the jaw, then kicks me in the stomach, and I double up.
‘Idiot,’ he spits. ‘You didn’t see anything! You write these Flies down as combat issue, you know how to do that?’
‘Yes, I know,’ I groan back at his boots. He hit me so hard I can’t straighten up. He leaves. Panting, I crawl behind the table and open the issue book. I look for blank lines for the previous days. I find one and enter the two stolen launchers into the space. Now it looks as though these launchers went to Chechnya on 10 February, and beside the entry is Yelin’s signature; he took receipt of them. No-one will try to ascertain what happened to them after that, and someone could have fired them already. Either way, Smiler will take over the armoury from me tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow I’ll take it back from him.
I don’t bother about the cartridges and grenades. I shut the book and leave the room.
No good came of trying to sell those bullets. When Smiler and Khariton carried their bag of stuff into Mozdok they ran straight into Chuk’s enormous belly. He bundled them into the corner of a Butterfly and gave them such a hiding that they had trouble remembering their own names.
Smiler came off a lot worse, Chuk beat him and screamed: ‘OK, this piece of shit is a radioman, but you are in recon!’ He yelled. ‘Why did you run into me, eh? Are you mad? What if there’d been a regional commission here, what would you have done, walked slap-bang into the commander? Or if you ran into Chechens? How are you supposed to go on a recon mission, eh? How will you fight, you asshole?’
Even the commanders don’t regard us radiomen as people: the communications company of the 429th motor-rifle regiment is the most shat-upon unit in the whole of the North Caucasus military district. You can use us to carry water, kick us black and blue with your boots, make us conjure up money, break our jaws, fracture our skulls with stools - there’s no end to the fun you can have with us. We just groan and do what we are ordered.
Back in civilian life, when people used to tell me stories about army bullying, I thought I couldn’t live like that, I’d never survive it. Ha! What choice do I have anyway? You either hang yourself or take it in the face - that’s your entire choice.
Now Khariton and Smiler are sitting in headquarters writing a statement. No-one has any use for it though; no-one will take the matter any further. Because then they’ll start checking up; the FSB intelligence service will show up to investigate how the bag with the cartridges wound up in the possession of two idiot soldiers, someone will get busted in rank or locked up in jail. Who needs all that? It’s far easier just to beat them up back in the barracks. Timokha and Boxer will give them another working over and that will be an end of the matter. A smashed-up face is a whole lot better than twelve years’ hard labour in a camp.
I pass by the lit windows of the Butterfly. Smiler’s face is badly busted up, blood is seeping from his lips and dripping onto the statement he’s writing, and he wipes it off with his sleeve. Chuk stands in the corner. I notice all of this fleetingly as I pass and go to my army car. I’ll sleep here tonight.
The next evening the recon guys manage to sell the launchers and one bag of stuff. They get back from Mozdok late at night with a bag full of food and drink, not to mention a whole packet of heroin, and they start their party in the storeroom.
I am called in there and, as an accomplice to the whole ruse, they pour me a glass of vodka.
‘Good lad, you did well, get this down you,’ says Timokha.
He’s already done a hit and his eyes gradually glaze over so he can barely see me. A candle burns in the storeroom, a blackened spoon lays on the table. Boxer is sitting with his arm tied tight by a tourniquet, the end of which he holds in his teeth, while Sanya injects the dose.
I drink. It’s that revolting local vodka they’ve bought in the boiler house, and apart from everything else it’s warm. They
give me a piece of bread with some sprats, and then pay no more attention to me. After shuffling around for a while I leave the room.
Loop, Zyuzik and Osipov are already in bed, covered in blankets. Murky and Pincha are pottering around somewhere, Khariton is on orderly duty.
‘So what are they up to in there?’ Loop asks.
‘Pissing it up; they even poured me a drink,’ I answer.
‘Oh shit!’ says short-sighted Zyuzik and squints. ‘That means they’ll beat us again tonight.’
‘Maybe we should get out of here,’ Loop suggests. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
That would be the best thing for us to do, of course, but we would have to go out into the corridor, and then we’d run into the recon there.
We doze until midnight, half listening to the conversation in the storeroom and waking every time we hear shouts coming from there. Later the drunken, wasted recon tumble into the corridor.
‘Radiomen!’ Boxer yells, glassy-eyed and teetering as he walks into our billet. ‘Radiomen, up you get!’
He tips Zyuzik out of bed and starts to hit him, then Osipov. The beating continues.
Loop and I lie in the dark, covered from the head down by blankets, watching the strip of light from the corridor.
Someone is shooting right under our window, two tracer round
s fly into the sky and we hear loud swearing. There are weapons lying on the beds, grenades, and webbing waistcoats, their pockets stuffed with magazines. We try not to move.
Boxer hits Andy over the head with a stool; he groans and falls to the floor, foam bubbling from his mouth.
‘What are you moaning for, as if a shell’s blown you to pieces?’ Boxer shouts. ‘Have you ever even heard a shell explode? Get up!’ he screams and kicks Andy in the stomach with his boot. Andy doesn’t react and it seems like Boxer will beat him to death. He’s capable of it. They all are. They have already tasted killing and they are stronger in spirit than we are. Our lives are worth nothing to them; they have seen many others like us lying dead in the dirt, ripped trousers hanging in threads from blue legs, mouths gaping, and they don’t doubt the same will happen to us. What does it matter where we die, here or there?
Someone whips me between the shoulder blades with a belt, and the unexpected blow sends me flying onto the floor. Loop lands on top of me.
‘Get up!’ someone yells above us.
I rocket to my feet and immediately get a heavy, booted kick in the stomach. I feel a heaving inside but no pain. The blow was hard but slow, dulled, and just scooped me up and sent me flying a couple of metres like a kitten.
‘Take him to the sick bay,’ Boxer says, motioning to Osipov.
There’s no-one about in the regiment now, the square is empty and there are no lights on in the barrack blocks. The sick bay is closed. Andy comes round and seems to have concussion.
‘It turns out we were in heaven back there in training,’ Loop says finally.
Only towards dawn do we return to the barracks.
We are on muster. We stand there being dressed down by the regimental commander as he tells us about bullying. Beside him, eyes turned to the ground, stands a new recruit, a ‘spirit’, with huge bruises under his eyes. He feels like a snitch; they somehow manage to beat us here in such a way that we even feel guilty. And the recruit is now in terror of the night to come - he knows that he’s done for.
‘You are supposed to be soldiers,’ the commander says. ‘All of you are soldiers, why do you beat each other up? All of you deserve to have monuments erected to you for what you are doing there in Chechnya! Every one of you is a hero, and I bow before you. But it’s a curious thing, you’re heroes over there and here all we have are drunks and shit-heels! I warn you now, stop beating the young ones! I don’t want to have you jailed, but so help me God, this had better be the last beating! Next time I’ll press charges, I swear on my honour as an officer. I’ll start locking people up, regardless of the medals they may have, you’ll get the full treatment from me: ten years behind bars.’
Behind our backs we hear the crash of broken glass and the splitting of wood and we turn round. A young recruit flies out of a ground-floor window and hits the ground with a grunt, covering his face with his arm as bits of glass and wood scatter around him. He lies there without moving for a few seconds, then jumps to his feet and runs out of sight. A drunken face looms at the window and shouts after him:
‘I’ll kill you, you little shit!’
The regimental commander watches the scene in silence and dismisses us with a wave of his arm.
Today the company officers appear for the first time. Apparently we do have some; they were just in Chechnya and we didn’t know about them. The commander of the company, Major Minayev, and the sergeant-major, Warrant Officer Savchenko, had brought back a burnt-out armoured carrier from there. Now right outside our window stand two wrecked BMPs, two armoured cars drilled full of holes, and a burnt-out carrier. Who died in them we don’t know.
Minayev and the sergeant-major spend half the day boozing in the storeroom and then summon us. On the table stand a half-empty bottle of vodka, bread, tinned food and onions. The major is draped over a pile of jackets in the corner, and Savchenko is sitting on the windowsill, surveying him impassively.
‘See,’ he says, rapping himself on the leg with a metal rod, and nodding to the drunken major. ‘Never drink with Major Minayev. You can drink with me, or Warrant Officer Rybakov, if he calls for you, or with Lieutenant Bondar, but never drink with the company commander.’
You can tell that the sergeant-major is a regular soldier. He is about thirty-five, not too tall, and his features are slightly elongated, bony - a tough-looking face. His camouflage uniform fits him perfectly. The most striking thing about his dress is the cap with a huge brim that towers on his head, his pride and joy.
He gets off the windowsill and plops down in the major’s chair, throwing his legs up on the table.
‘So,’ he says, looking up at us from under the brim. ‘First of all, I want to congratulate you on joining the 429th, holder of the awards of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Kutuzov and some other guy, the Kuban Cossacks’ motor-frigging-rifle regiment. Or, to put it simply, “Mozdok-7”. I am the sergeant-major of the radio company, Warrant Officer Savchenko, and you will now serve directly under me. Well, and under Major Minayev, of course,’ he adds, nodding towards the pile of rags. ‘There are about fifteen more people in the company, ten of whom are on government assignment, restoring constitutional law in the republic of Chechnya. The major and I have just come back from there and, God willing, you’ll go there as well. Five more soldiers of this fine radio company are wandering around somewhere. I haven’t seen them for a while, maybe they went AWOL, who knows. So let’s just say this regiment is not exactly exemplary. and God knows, your company sure is shitty. See your major sleeping there!’ He raps the metal rod on the table, almost breaking the bottle. ‘So if there are any problems in the barracks with our neighbours, the recon company, tell me and I’ll tear them all a second one. Well, I imagine you’ve already got the idea. Judging from your face, you certainly did!’ he says, motioning to Osipov’s purple cheeks. ‘Don’t just pee in your pants, give them some back, OK?’
‘Yes sir,’ we answer feebly.
‘That’s good. Now, who’s got good handwriting?’
I step forward.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Babchenko.’
‘What’s your name, I asked?’
‘Babchenko,’ I say louder. Is he shell-shocked too, or what?
‘Have you got a first name?’
A first name? No-one ever calls us by our first names here. Everyone is known by their surname or their nickname, it’s just easier. There aren’t enough first names in Russian for that many soldiers.
‘Arkady,’ I answer.
‘Raikin?’ he jokes, referring to the famous comedian. I’ve heard this too many times before but I smile all the same.
No sir, Arkady Arkadyevich Babchenko,’ I say, adding my patronimic name.
How about that, you’re Arkadyevich too, eh? With that name you’ll never need a nickname. You’re going to have rough ride here, Arkady Arkadyevich from Moscow. Sit down. We’re going to write a report. The rest of you can go.’
I sit behind the table and the sergeant-major starts to dictate:
‘On 7 June armoured carrier BTP-60pb was destroyed as a result of a direct hit from an enemy rocket launcher on a
company observation point. The carrier’s crew was not harmed. The enemy was dispersed by return fire from our tank and machine-gun. As a result of the fire, the following equipment was destroyed... ’
He pulls a list out of his pocket, takes a deep breath and rattles off: ‘Thirty-two pairs of felt boots, seven wool blankets, eighteen sets of winter underwear, twenty-two jackets, two P-141 radio sets, spare batteries... ’
There are twenty-seven different types of item in all. Everything that has been ruined, stolen or just mislaid in the company during the entire war is written off as lost in this carrier fire. It turns out that every vehicle that has been burnt was stuffed full of junk; every dead soldier was wearing three pairs of boots and eight sets of equipment. It’s a simple way of doing business every time someone is killed.
As it happens, the carrier wasn’t
knocked out by the enemy; one of our guys set fire to it while drunk. A student who was just about to be demobilized from our company fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand. He barely managed to escape with his life. The sergeant-major and the student tried to get away with it by towing the carrier into the undergrowth and firing a rocket at it, but the story still reached the commander’s ears. Now the student owes the state money. A whole lot of money. Even after everything was written off as lost or worn out, the sum was still four hundred million roubles. If you take into account his soldier’s pay of 18,500 roubles a month, his demobilization is going to be postponed for quite some time. He has already done an extra three months but his active service still hasn’t earned much, not even the price of one tire.
‘Right, what else?’ he asks me when we finish the list.
‘Don’t know, Sergeant-Major.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know? Are you telling me nothing was stolen during this time? A fine lot of soldiers you are Arkady Arkadyevich. So you didn’t pinch anything from the armoured car?’
‘Not a thing.’
‘You don’t say. Well, let’s go and have a look.’
We go to the vehicle and it turns out that it has no generator, no carburettor, battery or pumps, and other bits and pieces are missing too. To put it more simply, apart from its hull, all that’s left is the engine, the steering column and its four wheels. We come back to the storeroom and I include the missing items in the report. The sergeant-major has a drink and takes a few sprats from the jar with his fingers. He pushes it over to me.
‘Want some?’
I can’t refuse. This is payment for my work. I eat the sprats, and shoot a few glances at the vodka, but he seems to have no intention of giving me a drink.
‘Finished, Sergeant-Major,’ I say eventually.
He reads it through.
‘Good,’ he says approvingly. ‘Only take out that bit about the tank - it comes across too literary.’
We hardly see Major Minayev in the company. Sometimes he spends a few days sprawled drunk in the storeroom, urinating right where he lies, and then he vanishes for days on end. We take our orders from the sergeant-major. He’s a good guy and an excellent commander. Sometimes he spends the night in the barracks, and on those days no-one beats us. With him around a more or less normal life descends on our company.
One Soldier's War In Chechnya Page 7
