‘Are you out of your minds or what, you idiots!’ He is afraid that in the noise someone will deliberately shoot at him or the battalion commander.
We go back to the dug-out. The infantry keep hammering away for half the night. They are far away and the chief of staff doesn’t run over to them in his slippers.
I suddenly feel pissed off. Just my luck! I’m the only one from the whole battalion to cop a smack in the mouth tonight. No, it’s time to go and join the infantry. We may be better off for biscuits, but as they say, the further from the commander and closer to the kitchen you are, the more intact you’ll remain.
I stow my boots away and crawl into my sleeping bag, stretch
out and wiggle my toes. The sleeping bag’s pleasant synthetic liner gives the illusory effect of a clean sheet.
‘So, Happy New Year then, Arkady Arkadyevich!’ I congratulate myself.
‘Happy New Year,’ I answer, and contented I fall asleep.
I dream about Paris.
16/ Alkhan-Yurt
A vile drizzle had been falling since first light. The sky was full of heavy, black clouds, low and cold, and we crawled out of our dug-outs with disgust that morning.
I sat in front of the little army stove with my jacket slung over my shoulders, idly poking at the fire with a cleaning rod. The damp boards wouldn’t catch and acrid smoke snaked through the dank tent, settling in a grimy layer in my lungs. The wet, miserable morning smothered my thoughts like cotton wool and left me feeling listless. Lazily I poured some diesel oil into the stove in the hope that the wood would catch. Otherwise I’d have to grope around in the half-light for the axe, which had been trodden into the swill somewhere, and go and split some slippery woodchips.
We had been wading in slush for a week now. The cold, the damp, the dank mist and constant mud killed our spirits and our platoon was gradually falling into apathy. We’d let ourselves go, and didn’t worry about our appearance any more.
The mud was everywhere. Greasy Chechen clay churned up by tanks stuck to our boots in great lumps and immediately got trodden through the tents. The clay lay in clods on the bunks and blankets, found its way under our jackets and ate into our skin. It got caked onto the headphones of the radio set, bunged up our rifle barrels and was practically impossible to clean off. No sooner had we washed our hands than they were dirty again, all we had to do was touch something. Numbed and covered in a layer of clay, we tried to move around as little as possible, and life ground slowly to a halt, frozen together with nature, concentrated only inside the jackets that we piled onto ourselves to try to keep warm. None of us had the strength any more to crawl out of our tiny worlds to have a wash.
The wood began to burn. Red flickers gave way to a steady white heat, the iron stove crackled and shot out sparks, and its effect radiated in waves through the tent.
I held my blue, cracked hands to the stove, which was now glowing red at the sides. I basked in the warmth, clenching and unclenching my fingers as I watched the dancing flames.
Someone threw back the tent flap and it gave a squelching wet sound. I shuddered as a wave of cold air hit my feet. A soldier stopped at the entrance, without closing the flap after him, and started to clean the clay off his boots with a sapper’s shovel. I barked at him angrily:
‘Think you’re in a tram? Shut the door.’
The flap slapped back again and the platoon commander came into the tent.
He was about twenty-five, maybe only a couple of years older than me, but I felt more grown up than this boyish, gleeful commander with his large protruding ears. He’d only reached the front line a month earlier and he hadn’t yet had his share of knocks.
There were two peculiar things about him. First, no matter what he did, nothing seemed to work out for him, or it worked out the wrong way. For this he was regularly hauled over the coals when we were on parade, and was known in the regiment simply as ‘Villain’. The chief of staff joked that Villain alone brought us more losses than all the Chechens put together. The other thing about him was that every time he came back from a meeting he had to give us something to do. Chirping happily in his child’s voice as if he had just been given a sweetie Villain would rattle off jobs for us, his growling malcontent subordinates, and then kick us outside, sending us along the line to look for a break or off to bury cables or whatever.
He glanced at me, went over to his trestle bed, threw himself down onto it and lit a cigarette. A greasy clod of clay slowly separated from his boot, like an iceberg breaking off from a shelf, dangling briefly from a blade of grass before dropping into someone else’s boot that was drying by the stove.
Exhaling a stream of smoke, Villain stared at the ceiling. Here we go, I thought to myself as I watched the platoon commander. He looked like a kid who knows a secret and can’t keep it to himself any longer; any moment he’ll tell me, even if I don’t want to know. He always has to have something to bother us with, the dick, and every time he has to make a big song and dance out of it.
Villain took a couple more puffs, looked over as if seeing me for the first time and said happily;
‘Get ready. You’re going with the staff commander to Alkhan-Yurt. The Chechens broke out of Grozny, six hundred of them, and the interior ministry troops have them surrounded in Alkhan-Yurt.’
‘If the interior ministry have them surrounded then let them finish the job,’ I said without looking up. I continued to poke away in the stove. ‘Mopping up operations are their business, what’s that got to do with us?’
‘They’re using us to close a gap,’ Villain answered cheerfully. ‘In a swamp. The 15th are already there and they’ll be to the right, the interior troops are on the left, but in the middle there’s no-one, so that’s where they’re sticking us.’ Then he looked serious as a thought came into his head. ‘Take the radio and two spare batteries. Make sure you wear your body armour, battalion commander’s orders. If you need to, you can take it off there.’
‘Is this something serious?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are we going for long?’
‘I don’t know. The Kombat said until sometime this evening, then you’ll be relieved.’
Three carriers stood ready in front of the command tent. Glum infantry sat like humps on the top of two of them, shielding their heads from the rain with their ground sheets.
The staff commander, Captain Sitnikov, sat on the lead vehicle with one leg dangling into the command hatch; he was shouting something and waving his arms. Amid the bustling around headquarters, I detected nervousness. The closer I got to the command tent, the faster I walked, succumbing to the general rhythm of activity. Taking the radio off my back I went up to the first vehicle and reached out for the handle, about to climb on.
‘So, are we ready to start then, Comrade Captain?’
‘In a minute - we’re just waiting for Ivenkov.’
I was glad that Sitnikov’s orderly hadn’t yet arrived.
I stayed on the ground; I was in no hurry to climb up onto the wet armour. As we waited for Ivenkov I banged the mud from my boots against the wheel, delaying the moment when I’d have to take off my gloves, grab the wet handle and clamber up the slippery carrier - it even looked cold.
I banged my rifle butt on the armoured side a couple of times: ‘Hey, driver!’
‘What?’ A grubby driver-mechanic I didn’t know stuck his head out of the hatch and looked down at me with unfriendly eyes.
‘Give me something to stick under my backside - the armour’s wet.’
The driver disappeared back inside and rummaged around. A minute later a filthy cushion flew out of the hatch, tumbled down the side of the vehicle and landed in a small puddle right at my feet. Swearing, I picked up the cushion with two fingers and tried to wipe it on the side of the carrier. Clay smeared itself across the fabric. I swore again and threw it back on top of the vehicle.
Ivenkov raced out of his tent and ran over to us, wide-eyed. He was hugging a ‘
Bee’ incendiary rocket launcher and a Fly missile to his body with both arms, and the weapons banged against his legs as he ran. I quickly climbed up onto the carrier, took the weapons and radio from Ivenkov, and held out my hand to him. We plonked ourselves down back to back on the filthy cushion.
‘Move out!’ shouted Sitnikov, and with a jolt the driver set the vehicle rolling in the direction of Alkhan-Yurt.
The rain grew heavier. With its engine groaning, the carrier crawled along a narrow track flattened down by vehicles. Great clods fountained into the air from beneath the wheels, thumping down on the armour, and sending small lumps into our faces and down our necks.
But most of it landed on the 9th platoon’s vehicle, which was driving right behind ours; I smiled as I watched the infantry swearing at the idiot behind the wheel. Then someone tapped the driver on the head and he let the carrier fall further behind ours.
A helmet was spinning round on top of the carrier and it struck me on the hip. I caught it, drank the rain that had collected inside and put it on. At least my hat would stay clean now.
Ivenkov jabbed me in the back with his elbow.
‘Hey, Arkady!’
‘What?’
‘Got any smokes?’
‘Yeah.’
I reached inside the breast pocket of my flak jacket and felt around a long time for cigarettes and matches among the stale biscuits, cleaning spirit, cartridges and God knows what else, and finally I produced a crumpled packet of Prima. I took out two cigarettes and passed one to Ivenkov. Turning towards him, I shielded the flame with my palms and we lit up.
The cigarette quickly grew damp in my wet hands. Spitting out bits of tobacco that had stuck to my lips, I pulled the helmet lower and huddled deeper into my jacket. I wrapped the rifle sling around my arm and pinned the radio to the carrier with my leg. I put one earpiece onto my left ear to monitor the airwaves and moved the other one round to the back of my head. There was nothing on the air. I called ‘Pioneer’ a couple of times and then ‘Armour’, but no-one answered, so I switched off the radio to save the battery.
Grey Chechen fields flowed slowly past, covered by storm clouds and fog, with no beginning or end, breeding melancholy in our ranks. A fine drizzle ran down our helmets and faces and under our collars, while mud from the wheels spattered us from below.
I was already wet through and filthy. My damp gloves didn’t retain any warmth and stuck unpleasantly to my hands, and the stiff collar of my jacket smeared more dirt on my cheeks. Behind me, the armour plating cut into my back.
This is all nonsense, just some idiotic dream, I thought to myself. What am I doing here? What am I, a Muscovite, a twenty three-year-old Russian lad with a degree in law, doing in this, strange field thousands of kilometres from home, practically in a foreign land, in a foreign climate and in this foreign rain? How did I get here and why? Why do I need this rifle, this radio this war, this greasy Chechen clay muck instead of a clean warm bed, neat and tidy Moscow and the white snow of our beautiful winter?
No, I’m not here, by all normal and logical laws I shouldn’t be here, in this alien place where I have no business to be. What does Chechnya have to do with me for God’s sake, and where is it anyway? This is definitely a dream - what bollocks!
Or is Moscow the dream? Maybe I’ve spent my whole life since birth rattling around on this armoured carrier, steadying myself against a handle with my foot, with a rifle sling wrapped round my arm?
I got out another cigarette.
It was amazing how quickly I’d got used to riding on the carrier. At first I used to grab at all the handles and protrusions I could get my hands on, and still I got thrown all over the place on top like a sock in a washing machine. But in just a week my body had found its own optimal position and now I could sit on any part of the moving vehicle, even the gun barrel, hardly holding onto anything and never falling.
The carrier was leaping around from side to side through potholes and puddles, while Ivenkov and I smoked in a comfortable, half-reclining pose, idly dangling one of our legs off the side, no sweat. The only thing that bothered us was the bloody rain and mud.
I called out to Ivenkov, who turned round with an inquiring look. I had to shout in his ear.
‘Hey, Ventus, where are we going? You hang round at the command post all the time. You know what’s going on.’
‘Somewhere near Alkhan-Yurt.’
‘I know that, but what’s going on there? What does Sitnikov say?’
‘There are Chechens there. Basayev. They got out of Grozny along a branch of the river, six hundred of them, and ran into the interior ministry troops at Alkhan-Yurt. They’ve got them hemmed in there.
‘Oh for...! Yes, I know that! What I want to know is, what do we have to do? Take Alkhan-Yurt?’
‘God knows. Doesn’t seem like that. Right now we’re going to set up an ambush. The interior troops will engage and pressure them from that side and they’ll come out towards us, and then we’ll chop them to pieces.’
‘What, with one platoon?’
‘We have a mortar crew following and then our infantry’s already in place there, the 9th or the 7th company, I don’t remember.’
‘Well that’s quite a plan. Seems like it’s going to get pretty hot there.’
‘Seems so.’
Finally we came to the end of the field. After the last winding bend, our track brought us out onto the highway.
The carrier coughed and jerked and began to gather speed, its engine whining. The lyres spewed off great lumps of clay that had caked onto them, and then hummed on the asphalt. The mud fountain petered out.
I got out a rusk, broke it in half and gave a piece to Ventus. We chewed.
Beneath our wheels rolled the Caucasus Federal Highway, the same one I used to hear about all the time back in civilian life. Its very name, the Caucasus Federal Highway, used to fascinate me; it sounded good to the ear, it had an imperious ring to it, like the ‘Emperor of all Russia’. Not just Tsar, but Emperor. And not just a road, but a Federal Highway.
Now here I was driving on it and I saw that there was nothing federal or imperious about it at all; it was just a normal, provincial three-lane road that had not been cleaned or repaired for a long time. Pocked with craters and covered with branches, it looked pathetic, like everything else here in Chechnya.
To the left I could glimpse the wrecked houses of Alkhan-Yurt. On one half-destroyed white building with minarets on each corner, someone had written in metre-high, green-painted letters ‘RUSSIANS ARE PIGS.’ Underneath, in equally large letters, someone had written in coal, ‘KHATTAB IS SCUM.’ I jabbed Ventus in the side and pointed at the inscriptions. We grinned.
The carrier slowed down and turned into a track, crossed a huge puddle and stopped by the side of the water next to a wagon which was surrounded on all sides with sandbags. A homely trail of smoke drifted lazily from a chimney pipe that stuck out through a piece of plyboard covering the window. Soldiers thronged around a kitchen.
Sitnikov asked after the company commander. Some of the soldiers pointed at the wagon. He told us to stay put and jumped down.
I stood up, stretched, and looked for familiar faces among the group by the kitchen. I didn’t recognize anyone, so I went up to the wagon to have a smoke and get the latest news.
Near a hand basin I spotted an old friend called Vasya looking downcast. He had a towel thrown over his shoulder, his white body was shining, and he was kicking around empty water bottles that lay in the mud
I went up to him and we greeted each other and hugged.
‘So, Vasya, how’s life with you then?’
‘Crappy. Some son of a bitch sniper set up somewhere in the forest and started shooting away at us. Half an hour ago they hit us with mortars as I was coming back from the kitchen. I’d just dived into a ditch when a shell landed slap-bang in a puddle two metres away. They covered me with mud, the bastards.’ Vasya wiped his head with his palms and showed me his clay stained fingers
. ‘See? You could plant a potato on my head. Bastards! And there’s no water.’
Vasya went off towards the kitchen to look for someone, booting an empty bottle as he went. ‘Where the hell is Petrusha. He’s slow as a snail, he is...’
I smiled. Vasya looked really funny: he was white and half-naked but with a dark, weathered face and his hands so covered in mud they looked like gloves. I followed him
‘OK, take it easy. So are you in the infantry now then, Vasya?’ ‘Nope. They gave us to the 7th as reinforcement - we’re over there,’ he said, nodding towards a large, unfinished house about fifty metres from the company’s positions. The barrels of the anti-tank company protruded from its brick-filled windows. ‘Got yourselves set up nicely, I see. Is Misha with you?’
‘Yeah, right, nicely set up. There’s no roof, no floor, just bare walls. We put up a tent inside and blocked the windows but it’s still cold, the chill comes straight off the bricks. And we’re already sick of getting shelled. We’re the nearest to the forest and we get hit more than anyone. No, Misha isn’t here. His transmitter broke down so he’s at the repair company. So what are you doing here, I thought you were in comms?’
‘I am. I’m here with Sitnikov,’ I said, nodding at the carriers.
‘So why are you here?’
‘To loot. I hear the looting here’s great. Posh houses, leather couches, apricot jam...’
‘Really? The officers are pigs. They don’t let us loot, they just help themselves to the leather couches. Bastards. The Kombat caught two guys carrying a mirror and boy, did he give them a seeing to. Just for a mirror! How else are we supposed to shave?’ ‘Were they your guys?’
‘No, some moron infantry. I mean, what did they get? A mirror, a couple of chairs and a blanket. There’s not much left here to take anyway, it all went ages ago. There’s not even any food.’
‘Where do you go then?’
‘That way, left down the highway. That’s where the interior troops are. Now they have a nice life! Their houses only got hit recently and aren’t as trashed; there’s still stuff in them to take. What are you after?’
One Soldier's War In Chechnya Page 17
