Red Sky at Noon (The Moscow Trilogy)

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  ‘When you shoot, please at least aim at something,’ said Captain Zhurko. ‘Seventy per cent of shots fired in battle are totally unaimed …’

  They had all laughed then; now Benya had forgotten how to shoot, how to breathe …

  Zhurko rode up and down. ‘Remember, fellows,’ he said, repeating his catchphrase to each squadron. ‘If you’re scared, don’t do it. If you do it, don’t be scared!’

  Benya’s panic boiled a hot broth in his gorge. The crump of shells – for a moment flying high over them from the German side – was shaking the earth as if a giant was stomping towards them. A boom, then another, made Benya jump, his ears almost bursting, the afterblasts buffering the air. The regimental artillery, 76-mm howitzers, were positioned right behind the horsemen and now they began to fire over them; then the 122-mms …

  Then came the revving of engines, and nimble BT-7 tanks – Betushkas – motored past them; Benya knew they were out of date and now he could see them rumbling, stalling, grunting and pumping out black smoke. It was starting.

  Panka was riding up the ranks, ladling out their hundred grammes of vodka into the metal mugs that hung from their saddlebags. He handed one to Benya and watched him drink it: ‘It’s always sunny in the saddle,’ said the old Cossack as Benya knocked it back, still sure he was going to die.

  ‘Squadrons. In file formation: forward!’

  Oh God, this was it! Benya thought of his mother, just his mother, and he actually said ‘Mama’, and he wished he was anywhere but here. He didn’t even believe in God, hadn’t prayed since he was a boy, but now he was reciting the Shema in Hebrew. The fear of death was so visceral that Benya looked behind him, the muscles in his thighs tensing so he could dismount and just run, run, run to safety, down to the Don. He could swim to safety. He was not made for this! But then he saw Mogilchuk standing behind the NKVD blocking squads, their machine guns set up right behind the artillery. They were ready to shoot down any cowards, the entire brigade if necessary …

  ‘Squadrons!’ cried Melishko, riding in front of them on his twenty-hand horse, Elephant, a steed big enough to carry a knight in full armour. ‘Prepare to advance at the walk. Wait …!’ The artillery tossed another volley over their heads. Benya saw the shells explode far ahead of them, smoke rising, debris in the air – could they be real? Melishko’s words were lost but Zhurko repeated the orders; as did the sergeants all along the line: ‘Wait for agreed signals to lope then on the order: charge!’

  Benya’s skin was squeezing him like a shell, and he knew he could not fight. But Prishchepa, humming a song, was riding forward, and so was Spider and the entire line. Between the thuds of shells he could hear the Cossacks were all singing together.

  ‘Squadrons! Draw sabres!’ There was a flash of blue steel along the line as eight hundred blades were drawn. The sight, accompanied by the haunting Cossack harmonies, was so rousing that for an instant wild optimism overcame Benya’s fear. He thought of Borodino and Waterloo and found that he had drawn his own blade and that the shashka was heavy in his hand. Just yards ahead, Melishko thudded forward on Elephant, those plough-horse hooves tossing clods of turf into the air, gaining speed.

  Zhurko was behind him, his sword raised.

  ‘Prepare to gallop, bandits!’ Melishko shouted and Zhurko, twisting round to face them, called out:

  ‘Not yet! Hold it, hold it!’

  Sliver Sock’s three-beat gait was making Benya bounce around in the saddle. In vain, he tried to steady himself as he held his sabre over his head but it was too heavy. He felt himself falling, until a hand steadied him and Prishchepa was right beside him, laughing in the wind, head back. Benya just had time to think that a single German machine gun could finish them all in one minute before they overtook the Betushka tanks (two had stalled already), and he heard the cry: ‘Charge, men! To the gallop!’

  ‘Forward, you motherfuckers, or I’ll shoot you down! Za Rodina, za Stalina! For Stalin, for the Motherland!’ cried Ganakovich, waving his pistol unconvincingly.

  ‘For the fucking Prosecutors!’ shouted the Shtrafniki as one.

  Keeping pace with the horses on either side of her, Silver Socks lengthened her stride and began to gallop, the surge of muscular power sending Benya bouncing around in the saddle once more. ‘Stay on, fucker, stay on!’ he grunted, holding on to the reins and Silver Socks’s mane for all he was worth.

  Melishko turned in his saddle: ‘Enemy sighted!’

  And Benya saw them. A compact mass of riders, maybe thirty of them, shirtsleeves rolled up, red caps, and swords flashing, riding straight at him. He could see their faces: all wore uniforms with red ties. A dark-skinned man on a limber grey, black eyes and low brows, nostrils flared, was concentrating hard on him, no one else, just him, riding at him, sword raised – Benya understood the brutal simplicity of war; this man wants to kill me – but then he galloped right past. Benya hung on to Socks. Around him was the clash of steel on steel as another rider in a red cap came at him, but he swerved past him too. A third flew at him, shouting – Benya could see the blackheads on his nose, that was how close he was, he had black eyelashes – and this time Prishchepa spun round in his saddle and brought his sword down on the man, missing the top of his head but slicing off his ear. Benya thanked God that no one had reached him yet. He tried to stay close to his Cossack friends but this time a bulky rider, smiling under a black moustache, was right in front of him, his bay horse foaming, and before Benya could pull on Socks’s reins to avoid him, he had drawn a pistol and was raising it.

  There was a loud thump as Spider Garanzha rode his horse right into him, knocking him to the ground. Benya did not see what happened next, because a blow hit him so hard on the chest that he almost fell off Socks and surely he was wounded, even dead? Someone had struck him with a sabre but it must have been the flat side for he was unharmed; the sword had hit the pommel of his saddle and glanced off, grazing Silver Socks on the neck. He saw blood, and it was this that outraged him. This man had wounded his Silver Socks, his beloved Budyonny chestnut.

  ‘You bastard!’ Benya shouted, swinging his sword at his opponent. He was thin-faced, sunburned, perhaps Benya’s age, and now Benya saw fear in an enemy’s eyes and he feasted on it as he swung the sword just as he had been trained: parry, withdraw and strike. The sword smashed into the man’s face, slicing right through his cheekbone, tearing his face in half. There was a sound like the fracturing of an eggshell and the slurp of the yolk and Benya saw his opponent’s teeth flying up to scatter like a broken pearl necklace. By the time he realized that he had wounded him, even perhaps killed him, the man was on the ground, his riderless horse galloping into the distance, and Benya was charging on with Prishchepa, Smiley and Little Mametka, all using their quirts on their mounts.

  Seconds later, he and Prishchepa faced two enemies, riding at them together; one was unhorsed and Benya brought his sword down on the man on the ground with unrealized strength, cutting deep into him. Blood sprayed up at him, red heat cooling on his face, a coppery taste in his mouth. How delicate a thing is a man, he thought, how much softness there is to spoil. He heard singing and he realized it was his own voice, joining in with the Cossacks. He was changing; a switch clicked within him, as if he was a new animal who bore little resemblance to his usual self, a crimson-sprayed Jew on a Russian Pegasus riding the hot wind.

  Silver Socks pricked her ears and slowed suddenly, turning her head to the left. Once again, Benya saw the crimson on her neck but then she rallied, leaped forward, her gallop stronger than before. A squadron of four riders was heading towards him, wearing field-grey tunics – German uniforms – but they weren’t Germans. One or two had raised their sabres, the others held up their carbines like Red Indians. ‘Brother Cossacks, join us,’ one of them called over. ‘The war’s lost, brothers! It’s not our war!’

  Cossacks fighting on the German side. And then, dropping their reins, they started firing at them. Benya managed to swerve behind his comrades. By hesita
ting for an instant, Silver Socks had saved his life.

  ‘Motherfuckers! Traitors!’ Prishchepa turned his mount and slid over to one side, behind his saddle, as the shots rang out; then, holding his pommel, he swung back into the saddle and raising a pistol, shot one of them right in the face.

  The horses were suddenly packed against each other and Benya and the others were fighting with everything, hands, swords, everyone terrified and angry, the horses foaming in the heat. Benya drove his sword into a man until he felt it hit the spine, not so soft after all, and the man started to slip backwards off his horse, hands flailing for the reins, mane, finally tail, anything. In panic, with the man’s blood running down his sabre on to his hands, Benya spurred Silver Socks and she reared up and jumped out of the tangle with Benya just keeping his seat.

  ‘Onwards! We’ve surprised them!’ Captain Zhurko was still riding ahead of them, now shooting with his Papasha sub-machine gun. Cannons opened up on each side. Shells whined and landed to their left and right, and starbursts of earth, flame and turf exploded over him. Benya looked back. The Betushka tanks were burning, and men were jumping out of the turrets which vomited jet-black smoke. Benya had the impression of torn horses on their sides, legs still treading the air with men staggering around them, but his squadron galloped on, untouched somehow. They were approaching an enemy position, but the soldiers there saw them and turned and ran; so did those at the next enemy position and suddenly they were riding alongside running men.

  Benya came up behind one, a man in a helmet with a cockerel-feather plume who was running like a mechanical doll, and he brought down the sabre on his head, splitting it right open like a melon. He heard singing and it was him singing again loudly, at the top of his voice. Riderless horses joined him galloping forward; they were Russian horses, Budyonnys and little Kalmyk ponies – and one dragged the body of a Shtrafnik by the boot; it was his comrade Skakun with his hands bouncing above his head. Benya passed abandoned tanks: one was a Betushka, but two belonged to the enemy – although the markings weren’t German. He saw his Uzbek comrade Koshka overtaking him, out of control, holding on to his horse’s mane, reins flying, google-eyed with panic. Silver Socks’s hoof crashed down with a crunching pop on to the head of a fallen man but Benya didn’t look back.

  More men were running before him; the Cossacks were yahooing and ululating like banshees; yet more enemies appeared out of trenches and golden fields and ran for their lives. One turned to point a rifle at him but Silver Socks leaped forward and Benya brought down his sword, hitting his enemy’s neck, cutting deep; this killing had its own queer wantoness that made him thirst for more. Two boys wearing helmets with feathers raised their hands to him. As Benya was about to slash one of them, he fell to his knees and cried out: ‘Mama, Mama!’ The other boy was young, much younger than Benya, with a long nose and big teeth and sheepish eyes and he remembered thinking their voices were beautiful, their faces were tanned and dark, and their uniforms were baroque. Feathers and red ties and fezes. Fancy dress! The boy stopped crying ‘Mama!’ and was pointing a pistol at Benya until, in a swish, the arm was gone, his torso cloven from shoulder to ribs in a throb of blood. Spider Garanzha raised his dripping blade and waved it wildly at Benya as if to say: You see, the Splitter!

  They were still riding forward but they were cantering now. The horses were foaming, their coats dripping sweat. They came to a stream, the horses stopped to drink and some of the men jumped into the water.

  ‘Get on your horses – no dismounting. Now! Keep advancing, keep moving,’ Zhurko yelled at them.

  Now they loped more easily, crossing cornfields, riding through sunflowers. What time was it? They had charged in the early morning but now it seemed much later. The sun burned high. Each field they came to there was an enemy position but, at the sight of them, the men, wearing feathers in their hats, jumped up shouting and ran away. Benya and Garanzha galloped after them, Benya swinging the sabre. What damage cold steel could do, he thought. Enemies still fled, dropping helmets, mugs, boots, pans, until riven by steel they fell and didn’t rise again.

  The guns were quieter behind them, Benya noticed. Still fritzing with adrenalin, he was almost jumping out of his skin with exhilaration. ‘This is how victory feels!’ said Prishchepa, whirling his shashka over his head, flicking out a spray of sweat. The sky seemed to Benya to reflect a blast of energy. It was as blue as the sea, a sea upside down.

  They rode on and on, under the scorching sun, over fields full of broken young men lying amongst the ripened wheat.

  The words those fleeing boys were shouting sounded so graceful. It was not German, or Hungarian; could it be Romanian? No, you idiot, realized Benya, it was Italian. They had been chasing Italians.

  ‘Halt!’ Zhurko pulled his reins and held up his hand. The squadron managed to stop on a slight spur, though Koshka went straight over his horse’s head on to the ground and lay there whimpering.

  ‘Look!’ Sergeant Panka rode up to Zhurko. ‘A church tower, captain. A village ahead.’

  ‘Form into two squadrons, sergeant,’ said Zhurko. ‘You take Squadron One to the east. Squadron Two, come with me. Let’s go!’

  They rode down the street feeling as light as a pack of wolves on the hunt.

  II

  An old Cossack woman is cooking a goose for a hundred men in the house by the church, a pot meant for the Italian soldiers who had been occupying the village until hours earlier. The old man beside her sleeps in an alcove with its scarlet rugs and tassels; her children are packed together like puppies in a basket. She’s toothless with sunken cheeks and she sucks her gums as she watches the men who’ve just ridden in, her eyes as murderous as sickles. If they expected a warm welcome at this liberation, they do not find one here. Benya understands there is no welcome amongst broken people – even if their liberators are fellow Russians.

  It’s early afternoon. It’s too hot to move yet everyone is moving. To Benya the village seems bright and rich. After years of a life in black and white, in prisons, Camps, military training, every moment in this village will be imprinted on Benya’s mind forever, like the first film you ever see in colour. They clop down the street, standing high in their stirrups, yahooing loudly, singing songs, brandishing swords still streaked with blood and grass. Ahead of them, a dead horse, then a man with rosy cheeks and open eyes but missing the top of his head, a dome of creamy matter still immaculate and quivering in its fragility: these are just some of the sights that overwhelm him. The village seems a land of plenty; it radiates the heat of freedom with its colourfully painted cottages, eggshell blues and fiesta reds, and some of the girls have dressed up in white blouses and skirts in red and green, woven with white hems hung with bells. The horsemen follow the swing of the girls’ hips with their eyes. They smell the food, hear the ringing water of the stream. It is a time that will live in the men’s memory in the perpetual present, a time of wonder divided into jagged but discrete scenes.

  The Shtrafniki find olive oil and chocolate and even eggs. There’s wine and vodka and the men start drinking immediately. These Italians have things Benya hasn’t seen since he was in Madrid. And what uniforms they have left strewn around: helmets with feathers and peaks and bonnets. The place is fragrant from the cooking. The Italians left in a hurry when the Shtrafniki galloped right into the village, that’s for sure. There’s coffee ground in a helmet, real coffee, and plates of polenta and vermicelli that are still warm. There is a dead man in the yard and Smiley is pulling off his boots and trying them on. ‘These’ll do,’ he says.

  Someone has already tossed the pockets of the dead Italian, spilling love letters in playful italic writing and sepia photographs of a beautiful woman posing with a chocolate-box-ish background in a studio in some small Italian town. The letters are spread into a fan-shaped collage that reduces the story of an entire life to its pathetic essentials: a body, an ID card, a photo of a family. Finis. We killed them without even bothering to find out who they were, think
s Benya.

  After swigging some water and swallowing a piece of cheese, Benya walks his horse to a stable where the vet Lampadnik and the farrier Tufty Grishchuk are checking the horses. He hands Silver Socks to Lampadnik, worried about her neck. ‘Oh dear. Doesn’t look good. Sorry, Benya,’ Lampadnik says.

  ‘What do you mean?’ says Benya, suddenly worried.

  ‘What do you think?’ asks Lampadnik, turning to Panka.

  The old Cossack touches the neck carefully, checks his finger. ‘She is still bleeding.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Lampadnik is cautious and shy. Doubt is sketched on his long face with horsey teeth, and Benya knows he has been tentative since he was sentenced to ten years in the Camps in 1937 for ‘Trotskyite wrecking’ after two horses died of croup.

  ‘Golden, be calm. Let me do this,’ says Panka, his teak-coloured face grave. ‘I have some old twine in my saddlebag and, Lampadnik, you scald some tree bark. Ask the woman for some honey.’

  Benya holds Silver Socks, who is pouring sweat, and talks to her while Panka finds the twine in his saddlebags and quickly binds Socks’s upper lip to distract her and then washes the wound in water, then with the juice of scalded bark. He threads the twine through the eye of a knitting needle and sews up the gash in Socks’s neck with lightning dexterity, pulling it tight, applying more of the scalded bark and painting on the honey. ‘A poultice, you see?’ and then he releases the horse’s mouth. Socks is still shivering but her eyes are different, relieved somehow.

  ‘There,’ says Panka, stroking her muzzle. ‘You’re going to be fine. I’ll watch her. Golden, go and get some grub and sleep. It’s always sunny on the steppe, eh?’

  Outside the Cossacks in the squadron cheer Benya and rub his shaven head with its spiky grey-blondness. ‘I saw him swing his sabre,’ they tease him.

  ‘I thought he could only lift a pen,’ says Spider Garanzha.

  ‘The Jew has it,’ says Panka.