The commander was a dry, muscular guy with a long, high-cheekboned face and a resolute, cruel disposition; he never doubted the correctness of his actions and was prepared to kill readily, and even happily. Now he stood by the army car studying Alkhan-Kala through his binoculars. He called me over;
‘Tell the Kombat I’m ready to fire. And check the coordinates. Now we’ll give these bastards a good going over.’
I called up Pioneer.
‘Slab to Pioneer, do you receive me? Please confirm coordinates.’
‘Pioneer to Slab. Abort shoot, I repeat, abort shoot and return to base.’
‘Please repeat. How abort?’
‘Slab abort shoot and move out.’
I took off the headphones, not understanding anything, and looked at the mortar commander: ‘Are we waiting for something, Comrade Captain?’
‘How do you mean waiting?’
‘Our orders are to abort firing and return home.’
‘Home? You must have misunderstood. Tell them I am in position and ready to fire. Ask if the earlier target coordinates remain, or are there new instructions?’
The soldiers stood round listening to our conversation, smoking, and looking at me expectantly. I knew that they loved their work. They were sent to the front line more often than anyone else, to reinforce other units. And when they returned they were excitable and talkative. The mortar crew was like a separate unit. While we in the battalion sat stuck in our dug-outs in the second line of defence, dying of boredom, the mortar guys raced around Chechnya doing their thing, fighting and shooting at the enemy and revelling in it all. And they prided themselves in their work, saw themselves as real military daredevils. They would only hang out with each other and were basically strangers in the battalion, living separately from the rest of us. It was a truly battle-ready unit with a brutally entrenched hierarchy, and they carried out orders unquestioningly, regarded their commander as a god and trusted him implicitly. He reciprocated the trust and would fuss around them, find food and organize steam baths for his unit. Eventually he was able to use his authority to shape his battery the way he thought an army should be, and he didn’t let other commanders near his soldiers, teaching them like good dogs to heed only his instructions.
Right now they were waiting for the commander to give them their orders, and they could not understand what the delay was. And he in turn was waiting to hear his orders from me. He couldn’t grasp why there was a hold-up either.
I called up Pioneer again, and once again I heard the order to abort. ‘He says abort,’ I told him with a shrug.
The commander boiled over.
‘Who does he think I am, some kid he can send running back and forth like this? First we’re supposed to shoot, then we’re not!’
He suddenly fell silent and turned to his soldiers. His face darkened.
‘Take aim! Fix on old coordinates!’
The soldiers ran to their positions and spun the handles of the sights.
‘First crew standing by!’
‘Second crew standing by!’
The commander didn’t answer. He was glued to his binoculars, studying Alkhan-Yurt in silence as if he was trying to make out Chechens there.
An infantry lieutenant appeared from the trenches of the 7th, came over and stood beside the commander, who still didn’t respond. The lieutenant adjusted his rifle on his shoulder and stood for a while in silence, also looking at the village. Then he asked:
‘Are you going to fire?’
‘I thought I’d loose a couple of rounds off.’
‘Our guys are there,’ the lieutenant said, nodding towards the woods and beyond, to where the marsh was.
‘Where?’ The commander tore his eyes away from the binoculars and looked at him inquiringly.
‘Over there, beyond the woods. The marsh starts after that and our platoon is there.’
‘Is that right? And I have orders to fire on there. So now what?’ ‘I don’t know. There are Chechens in Alkhan-Kala, but it’s pretty quiet there now.’
‘I see... Well, it’s a bit far to Alkhan-Kala, we wouldn’t hit it -it’s not as if I have field guns.’
The commander turned to the mortar crews and said in a calm, cooled-off voice, all traces of irritation now gone: ‘Abort shoot. Let’s pack up.’
While the grumbling crews covered up the mortars and loaded them back on the army cars, the commander and infantry lieutenant lit up and chatted. I went over too, got a light and stood beside them. It was the usual soldier’s chitchat.
‘So, what happened yesterday?’ the mortar commander said, frowning at the platoon leader through a cloud of smoke. ‘I heard the Kombat overdid it a bit here, is that right?’
‘Yeah, he ran into some Chechens and got fired on while he was on his way to the same marsh.’
‘What was he going there for?’
‘No idea.’
‘He was relieving us,’ I said. ‘We were there with the 9th and he brought us our replacements.’
‘So what happened then?’ the commander said, looking at me expectantly.
‘Not much... A bit of shooting and then we all went our separate ways. Their recon came out of the village and ran into us. First a sniper started up and then they dropped a few mortar rounds on us.’
‘Anyone killed?’
‘No.’
‘Just some locals,’ the infantry lieutenant said. ‘They came to us from the village today and asked us not to shoot, said they were going to hold a couple of funerals. An eight-year-old girl and an old man. As soon as our lot started firing here they tried to shelter in a basement but they didn’t make it.’
The lieutenant recounted this calmly, as if he were talking about burning his porridge at breakfast.
‘A cannon shell went through the house wall and blew up inside. The girl died instantly and the old man died in hospital in Nazran.’
I looked in silence at the platoon leader, my eyes fixed on his calm face. I felt my cheeks suddenly flush with heat! Shit, that’s all I needed. I remembered the firefight, how the infantry lay down on the embankment in the clearing and how two bursts flew from the village. And how I had shouted: ‘There he is, the bastard!’ although I wasn’t sure if there was anyone at the window. But to lie there under fire was too terrifying, just as it was too terrifying to get up from the ground and run towards the shots from the village. And so I shouted.
There was no-one at the window, that much was clear after the first bursts. The Chechens had made their presence felt and pulled out. But the Kombat still ordered the carriers to shoot up the village because he was afraid and wanted to buy his life with the lives of others. And we had eagerly carried out the order, because we were also afraid.
But if I had not shouted out the Kombat would have given the order to fire on the village a minute later, and the girl and her grandfather would have managed to find shelter in the cellar.
Yesterday I murdered a girl. I suddenly felt sick. And there was nothing I could do about it: there was nowhere to go and beg forgiveness. I had murdered them and it was irrevocable.
Now I would be a child killer my whole life, and I’d have to live with this. Eat, drink, raise children, be happy and sad, laugh and cry, be ill, love. And...
And kiss Olga. Touch this pure, radiant creation with hands that have murdered. Touch her face, eyes, lips, breast, so tender and vulnerable, and leave greasy traces of death on her clear skin. These hands, these damned hands! I should cut them off and discard them - I will never get them clean now.
I stuck my hands between my knees and started to rub them on my trouser legs. I understood that this was psychosis, madness, but I couldn’t help it. It seemed my hands had become sticky, like when you’ve eaten food in a dirty cafe in the sun. Murder had stuck to them, the vilest kind of murder, and I couldn’t get it off.
I didn’t even notice when we arrived back at the battalion. I don’t know how I got to my tent and sat down next to the stove. I only came to my
senses when Oleg handed me a mess tin with porridge:
‘Here you are, eat this; we saved it for you.’
‘Thanks.’
I took the tin and absently started to wolf down the cold porridge. Then I stopped.
‘Remember how the Chechens hit us by Alkhan-Yurt yesterday? You know what... it turns out we killed a girl when we fired back. An eight-year-old girl and her grandfather.’
‘It happens. Don’t think about it, it’ll pass. If you’re going to put yourself through the mangle every time it happens, you’ll go out of your mind. People here kill and get killed. They kill us, we kill them. I’ve killed too. It’s just war. Our own lives aren’t worth a thing here, let alone someone else’s. Don’t think about it, at least not until you get home. Right now you’re still too close to her. She’s dead and you’re alive, but you’re both still rotting in one place - only she’s below ground and you’re above it. And the difference between you may only be one day.’ ‘Yes, just one day. Or maybe one night.’
I put down my mess tin and spoon with a clank and walked out of the tent without saying anything, closing the flap behind me.
The night was amazingly clear. The universe had sunk onto the field and embraced us soldiers like babes in arms - eternity favours those in battle.
It would be cold tomorrow.
I thought about the skirmish of the night before, the girl, her death. I imagined how she and her grandfather were making their way down to the cellar when the shooting started. It was gloomy in the house. The old man opened the hatch into the cellar and held out his hand to her, getting ready to help her down the stairs. And then a tornado erupted around them, smashing through the wall, bricks spinning in its wake, drowning their screams in a huge roar and flash as the shells exploded inside. She was killed immediately as the blast tore into her belly and she fell face down in front of him, her innards blown up the wall behind her. Her head was wrenched round and snapped back on her slender neck. Her eyes were still open, the dead pupils showing from under her eyelids. And the old man was injured. He crawled up to her through a stream of her blood and shook her lifeless body and howled and cursed the Russians. And then he died in Nazran.
For the love of God please forgive me. I never wanted this to happen.
I slipped the safety off my rifle, cocked it and stuck the barrel into my mouth.
Another day ended.
The next morning we left that field. The temperature had dipped during the night and snowfall had thrown a clean, white mantle over everything, covering it in crystals of frost. Chechnya had gone white-haired overnight.
The regiment formed on the highway in a giant column that stretched for a kilometre. I sat motionless, my rifle sling wound round my wrist and both of my hands tucked into my sleeves. I was already freezing cold; my wet jacket had turned stiff and frozen, and it stuck to the top of the carrier. We had a long drive ahead, at least four hours in convoy.
The communications carrier stood right opposite the turning to the marsh, from where the vehicles of the 7th were slowly withdrawing onto the highway. I recognized Misha’s carrier, and there was Vasya, sitting up on top, hemmed in on all sides with anti-tank rockets. I waved at him and gave him a crooked, joyless smile. Vasya waved back.
The fighting had stopped during the night and left Alkhan-Kala quiet again. It seemed we must have nailed the last Chechens, although no-one had any news to this effect. Basically we never got much news at all, and it was often only through the television that we found out what had happened to our regiment, or to ourselves. But the fact that we were pulling out meant it was all over here. Maybe they even got Basayev.
The column set off and we headed towards Grozny. The platoon leader said we’d now be taking up positions opposite the cross-shaped hospital, the one that had been nicknamed ‘purgatory’. And evidently we would be the ones to take it.
To hell with the hospital.
To hell with all of them!
The main thing for me was to survive and to think about nothing. I had died here, or at least the person inside me had, together with a last glimmer of hope in Nazran where the old man had died. And a different soldier had been born in my place, a good one - empty, devoid of thought, with a coldness inside me and a hatred for the whole world. With no past and no future.
But this stirred no pangs of regret, just a sense of ruin and anger.
May they all go to hell.
I did not know what lay ahead: the storming operation in Grozny; the cross-shaped hospital; the mountains; Sharo-Argun; Igor’s death - Igor was killed in the mountains in early March -and the sixty-eight other dead guys. I didn’t know yet that the battalion would have its ranks cut down by half in one night, or that Yakovlev would be found gutted in that awful cellar, and the hatred and madness and that damned hill... And there were still four months of fighting ahead of me.
But I kept my word: I only thought about that Chechen girl once more the whole time I was at war, and that was in the mountains when a boy of about eight got blown up on a minefield.
We took him on a carrier to a helicopter. I placed the boy’s shattered leg across his knee, the white bandages contrasting unnaturally against the backdrop of black Chechnya, and I held it there when we hit ruts, while the boy’s unconscious head bounced up and down with dull thuds on the armour, bang-bang, bang-bang.
17/ The Storming Operation
It's quiet. Day has broken but the sun still hasn’t risen and the cloudless sky in the east is illuminated by pink reflections. That’s bad - it’ll be another bright day perfect for snipers.
We sit in the cellar of the command building, warming ourselves by a fire and devouring our dry rations. We’re a bit scared, jittery; it’s as if we’re suspended in weightlessness, just temporary life-forms. Everything is temporary here: the heat from the fire, breakfast, the silence, the dawn, our lives. In a couple of hours we will advance. It’ll be a long, cold, hard slog, but still better than the uncertainty we face now. When it starts everything will be crystal clear, our fear will abate and yield completely to the strong nervous tension that is already starting to overtake. My brain is already lapsing into soporific apathy and the urge to sleep is strong. I just want it to start. I am woken by a rumbling that squeezes my ears. The air shakes, like jelly on a plate, the ground trembles, the walls, the floor, everything. The soldiers get up, keeping close to the wall, and peer out of the window. Only half awake, I don’t understand what's going on and I jump up, grabbing my rifle.
Have the Chechens started shelling us, I wonder? One of the lads turns round and says something. He is speaking loudly, his throat visibly straining to force out the words, but the noise muffles like cotton wool and I can’t hear anything. From his lips I read the words: ‘It’s started.’
It’s started. Now I really am scared. I can’t stay in the gloom of this cellar any more. I have to do something, go somewhere, anything but stay sitting here.
I go out onto the porch and the rumbling intensifies so much that my ears hurt. The infantry press themselves against the walls and hide behind the carriers, all of them in helmets. The commanders stand at the corner of the HQ. house: the Kombat, the guys from regiment headquarters, all craning their necks as they look round the corner in the direction of Grozny, where the explosions are coming from. My curiosity wakens and I too want to see what’s going on. I go down the steps and have only moved ten paces when a sturdy piece of shrapnel the size of a fist slams down at my feet and lies there, hissing in a puddle, its jagged blue-charred edges flashing up at my eyes. Right after comes a shower of hundreds of tiny pieces of shrapnel bouncing off the frozen clay. I shield my head with my arm and run back into the building, tripping and flying inside as I cross the doorstep. I have no more desire to go outside and I make my way down to the basement, to a breach in the wall where light is shining through. A crowd stands at the opening, half of them inside and half outside, exclaiming from time to time: ‘Wow, look at that, they’re giving them a right pound
ing! Not half! Where did they get anti-aircraft guns? Look, there’s another one!’ I look out cautiously and see soldiers standing with their heads tipped back as they gaze into the sky. I go up to a platoon commander I know and ask what’s going on. He motions upward and shouts above the roar: ‘The Chechens are firing anti-aircraft guns at those Sukhoi jets bombing the city.’
Sure enough, the black clouds of explosions are erupting around a tiny plane spinning in the clear sky, first above it and to the right, and then closer and closer. The plane goes into a dive to escape the barrage and then returns and rakes the area with its rocket launchers before flying off.
Everyone suddenly crouches down and somehow I end up on the ground when a burst of heavy machine-gun whips through the air, followed by an explosion, and once again metal showers down from the sky, clattering on armour, walls, helmets.
We hear swearing and shouts: ‘Those morons in the artillery can’t shoot for shit, falling short again!’ Beside me hunches Odegov, our mortar man. For some reason he’s grinning as he shows me a thumb-sized piece of shrapnel: ‘Look, this just hit me in the back!’ he tells me.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No, it stuck in my flak jacket!’ he marvels, turning round. Between his shoulders there is a hole in his jacket.
‘Odegov, that’s a bottle of vodka you owe me!’ A day before the storming operation, when he was pulling the metal plates out of his jacket to lighten it, I advised him to leave the Kevlar plating since it doesn’t weight much and would protect him from flying shards. And so it did - the plating saved his spine.
The next salvo rushes overhead and the shells fly into the city. You can’t see anything down there because of a large embankment in the road ahead blocking the view. I go up to the second floor and run into the Kombat who’s leaning over a map on the table discussing something with the company commanders. The Kombat glances at me and I make like I’m busy with something and duck out of sight into the next room. Yurka, the 8th company commander’s orderly, is there sitting in a rocking chair, smoking and looking out of the window like he’s watching TV. Another rocking chair beside him is empty. I wait round the corner for ten minutes and nothing happening, no sniper fire, so I join him and light up. And there we sit, rocking gently, watching the bombardment while we smoke, as if we’re at the cinema. All we’re missing is popcorn.
One Soldier's War In Chechnya Page 24
