And then, from his right, Gorenko saw that the Germans had trapped them almost at the same time that they opened fire. The initial bursts killed the man beside him. He turned to fire, and found his gun jammed. The closest German came at him with his bayonet, deciding quickly that he had an opportunity to save ammunition. Gorenko rose to a squatting position, slipping as he tried to get to his feet.
Then, Kupinsky, bellowing as he ran, fired at the Germans. Two behind fell, but the one with the bayonet hesitated only for a moment when he was hit. Then he continued to chase the stumbling Gorenko. As he rushed, pointing the bayonet at Gorenko's chest, Kupinsky was there, jumping over the sprawled figure of his friend and impaling the German on his own bayonet, then firing one more round to make sure the man was dead.
“Are you hit?” Kupinsky asked, bending over the now-kneeling Navy officer.
“No, I am fine,” he replied. “Only my pride is damaged, but it is better to be alive.” He stood up, looking directly into the eyes of the man who had saved him. “I owe you something that is not easy to repay. I made a mistake and you saved me.” He extended his hand in simple gratitude.
He never forgot the stark look on the other man's face. “No, my friend, you owe me nothing except perhaps to try to keep me alive also. I, too, want to return to my family after this is over.” He smiled at Gorenko and turned away, giving instructions to his men, who had salvaged a wounded German.
They returned silently to their basement hovel, leaving their prisoner with Intelligence. They found lukewarm tea left by some officers now sleeping in another corner. Leaning against the wall, legs stretched out in the dirt and dust, Gorenko stared at his hands. They were shaking, the one that held the tea less so because it had something to grasp. He put the tea down, folding his hands to still them. Unable to calm himself, he shut his eyes and said, "I have fought both at sea and on land for almost two years and have never come so close to death, that I know of. Usually, I was behind the hand-to-hand fighting, and I never saw the people I killed or those who tried to kill me. But today, I saw that man's eyes. He wanted to kill me so badly, and I had no idea why he felt that way. Perhaps it comes with command, or the fact that the Navy does not see the people we fight at sea as human beings.
He looked over at Kupinsky, who said nothing. He went OH. “I have organized and commanded a sailor's army for all of this time, when our ships were of little value to the homeland. We do not call ourselves Marines because we expect to be back to our ships so quickly. We were back to them once, after Odessa, when we were part of the Azov Flotilla. Then came Sebastopol. And I fought again with my men there, through the winter.” He paused, separating his hands to pick up the tea. “We fought their tanks in the streets. My men threw themselves under those tanks, with their last grenades, so that they would save one city block. And yet, I never came face to face with the men who wanted to kill me. And today, if you had not been behind me, I would have seen him do it.” He looked over at the other man. “When this is over, I shall go back to my ships, perhaps. But I want very much to do something for you. I feel inside that I must.”
Neither man spoke, nor did they look at each other. Finally, Kupinsky reached over, placing his hand on the other's arm. "My friend, there is almost nothing we can do for each other in this hellhole, except try to survive. If we make it, then we are indeed lucky. What you can do for me can only be done if I die, and I think I have as good a chance as anyone else to die.
“I have a family in Leninsk. Perhaps you have never heard of it?”
Gorenko shook his head.
“It's only about forty kilometers to the east of here on the railroad. I have a small house, if the Germans have not bombed it. And I have a wife and a son, if they have not been killed in the air raids. If they have tried to write me, I have no idea. Mail hardly ever Gome's to Stalingrad, and they will not risk soldiers to carry mail. I have tried to write to them whenever possible to let them know the husband and father is still alive. Perhaps they have gotten some of the letters, perhaps not. As you know, there has been no mail for two weeks, because of the planning for the offensive.”
He stopped for a second to light another evil-smelling cigarette, then continued. “My boy, Alex, is ten years old.” He looked at Gorenko and smiled. “He is a good boy. Very smart. . Perhaps he will grow up to be a sailor like you, instead of an infantryman like me. Then, he won't have to look into the eyes of the people he kills, if there are more people who invade our homeland,” he added as an afterthought. “If I am killed, will you go to Leninsk? Find my family, if they are alive? See what you can do for them. I think if we are successful in our offensive, then we won't have to worry about the Germans again. If they take this city and cross the river, then we are lost. I will then try to get to them. But, if something happens to me, will you go to them? Tell my son we fought together against the Germans and that you and his father were friends. I don't want him to forget his father. Tell him why we are ready to fight to the last man. His mother understands only that we have been invaded, but not why we have to stand together.” He smiled at Gorenko. “Would you do that for me?”
“We will stay together, my friend, the soldier and the sailor, and we will talk about this on cold nights during the winter when we are old men at our dachas. But, yes, I will go to your family if something happens to you, if that will make you happy.”
The following morning, November 19, Georgi Kupinsky was one of the first to die leading his men at Mamai Hill. Pietr Gorenko buried the body under a pile of bricks and mortar himself, so that it wouldn't be added to the growing stacks of dead, frozen in horribly grotesque positions.
Admiral Gorenko turned from the window. So long ago, he thought. I haven't seen death staring at me since then, yet now I'm sending Georgi's son, my son, in that direction. And there are no longer invaders in the homeland as we feared then. Now, they are thousands of miles away, yet only minutes from invasion if they desire.
He became aware of what had jarred his thoughts. “Come,” he called in the direction of the door, caring little how long this next intruder had been patiently waiting.
This time it was not an aide, but one of the many Captains First Rank on his staff. The man was still in his bridge coat, which carried water droplets of melted snow from the outside. He inclined his head slightly in greeting, removing his hat. “Admiral, I have just come from the American Embassy. Admiral Collier came out when he saw me. He wishes to speak with you immediately. As you know, they have no outside communications.”
“Did he say that?”
“No, sir. There was no need. Admiral Collier understands the situation.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Just that the ambassador would accompany him. They request the normal courtesies of a meeting. He asked you to name a time.”
Gorenko smiled inwardly. There was no change in his facial expression before the younger man. “Thank you for coming to me. There is no message to return. I shall contact him when I am ready.” He silently dismissed the other by turning his back and walking slowly to the window. The snow was starting again.
Gorenko had returned to Moscow before the end of the war. His first office wasn't far from the one he now occupied. After Stalingrad, he had gone back to sea and had been promoted to flotilla commander before they sent him to the staff position in the Kremlin.
He had been able to bring Alex with him. The boy's mother said anything was better than the hunger they faced in that May of 1945. The boy was then two years older than the first time they had met. He was taller at twelve but had probably not put on a pound since their first meeting.
It had been mid-January, and the icy winds sweeping down from the steppes brought unending misery to the hard-pressed peasants. Somehow Gorenko had survived the counteroffensive. Chuikov had attacked on each of the three fronts around the city and had surrounded Paulus. The Germans would not surrender, convinced that von Mannstein would come to their aid. They chose slow annihilation un
til Paulus could no longer accept the slaughter. When it became apparent that the worst was over, Gorenko had been released to the Navy. Medals were awarded to the leader of the sailor army and his men. There was even a celebration. Somehow the remnants of the 62nd Army had found the vodka, and they stole enough pigs from the peasants to honor the sailors in proper army style.
And then he had kept his promise to Georgi. Rather than go back toward the Black Sea with his men, he had first crossed the frozen Volga and gone east—to Leninsk. There were no trains. He had ridden partway with the army and then managed the rest of the way in the various wagons that carried what little the people still had.
Leninsk had been a poor town, but when he arrived it was a nothing town. The planes had bombed it often, for no reason he could ever determine. The major buildings were destroyed. The people lived in hovels thrown together from the remains of their homes. But he had found the Kupinsky family, still with half a house. It had suffered a near miss, and its survival justified some of the neighbors moving in with them. If it had been his home, he would have gone back to the front, he thought.
He had first seen the boy sitting on top of a dirty pile of snow. The child was dirtier than the snow and dressed in rags, but saw the military man coming and had stared at him. When the boy saw that the uniform was not quite the same as the regular infantry he had stood up, eyeing the stranger more closely. He watched the man come up directly in front of him and then saluted gravely in a little-boy manner. Gorenko returned the salute.
The child said nothing, and the man finally asked, “Could you tell me if this is the Kupinsky home?”
A shy nod was his only answer.
“Is your mother at home?” Another nod. “Are you young Alexander Kupinsky?”
The boy nodded and smiled. “Yes.” He saluted the man again. “Do you know my father?”
This time it was Gorenko who nodded without speaking.
After staring at the officer before him for just a second, tears began to form at the corners of the boy's eyes. “He's dead, isn't he? I don't have a father any more, do I?”
The passing seconds seemed like hours as he looked down at the child. “I will be your father now,” he had said firmly, his eyes reflecting the man who had saved his life in the streets in Stalingrad.
He had taken the boy's bony hand in his own and led him into the house. He gave the woman money for herself and the child, and had sent more whenever he could during the war. Once in 1944, he was able to visit, when the trains were running again. And the following year, when the war ended, she had let him take the boy back to the capital city with him. There was nothing she could offer the child in Leninsk, and she could barely sustain herself. She asked only that Alex be sent home to visit each summer if the commander had the money to do so. Each summer, he did return to his native town to see his mother, and each time he brought money from the man, who was now an admiral.
Alex became a member of Gorenko's family in those early years in Moscow. He was treated as a son, just as he had been told on that wintry day in 1943, and loved as one also, for there were no other children. He was allowed to enter one of the Nakhimov schools because of Gorenko, even though he was older than the others. When he was seventeen, he was entered in the Frunze Higher Naval School. He would not be an infantryman dike his father.
Gorenko remembered the vacations the boy had, when he returned to his adopted family full of new ideas from the school. It was not an easy life, but few Russian young men his age had any idea what it meant to be easy. The two talked late into the nights of the navy and what young Alex would do when he was graduated. Many of the discussions were serious, about Russian history, and strategy, and the great military thinkers such as von Clauswitz and Mahan. Alex was not just smart. He had a brilliant, challenging mind, and the Admiral treasured these evenings.
Alex wanted to learn at any time of day or night. He forgot nothing. History was one of his favorite topics, and he sensed the struggles of the Russian people more from Gorenko than from the books. He learned of the many nations that had invaded their homeland at one time or another, and how they were always defeated by the stolid army and the Russian winters. When their armies were desperate and there was no food and they had only the clothes on their backs, then the winds blew from the north and the snow came. And the Russians had time to recoup and fight again.
Now, in the twentieth century, Gorenko taught his son how Russia would expand. No longer would they be invaded from every direction. They would expand their sphere and become a major force in the world. They would not join other countries, but they would have other nations turning to them. Always, a prime factor in this dream was Gorenko's desire to change his Navy from a homeland defense force to a blue-water fleet, commanding the oceans of the world.
He taught Alex the lessons of war. The first thing he would accomplish was, the building of a submarine force. It was necessary if you were to protect your own supplies and deny them to your enemy. First you had to defend yourself, then you could take the offense. The undersea fleet would be followed by a surface force second to none. He remembered explaining to Alex that more than 20 million Russians had died during this last war, more than any other country, and never again would it happen if they could command the seas. Alex learned about seapower at the feet of the man who understood the American, Mahan. Each time they talked, Alex was reminded that the country that controls the oceans of the world controls the countries of the world. The necessity for intellect in the military was constantly driven home to Alex, now a young man, as he graduated from Frunze. As much as Gorenko hated the Germans, he told many stories of the General Staff methods that the Russians now emulated. It was always a good lesson to see how a small state like Germany could invade a large one like Russia. Only the best and the brightest reached the top, and that's where Alex would go.
In the mid-fifties, Gorenko became Commander in Chief of the Soviet Navy. Alexander Kupinsky had by that time exhibited his abilities both in the naval schools and on board ships. He was chosen for submarine training. He joined the fleet that his stepfather had created in less than ten years. Submarine command was Alex's dream, and Gorenko was sometimes hurt that he could not express to his comrades the pride he felt in the young man. Alex would have to make it on his own, without help from the Admiral.
It was after his first submarine tour, when Alex had returned to Moscow for a few days' leave, that they had one of their few arguments.
“I don't believe that you can extend your Navy throughout the world unless you can adequately service it. Any naval vessel should be able to survive on its own, but only if it is kept supplied. You taught me that yourself when we were reading Mahan!”
“We are ready now,” Gorenko had replied. “We are thin perhaps, but our bases around the world make up for our lack of service ships.”
“And if our bases are closed?”
“That should not happen again,” the older man had growled. “We are too strong now. Our missiles are too much of a threat.”
“We also have no aircraft carriers. Remember Mahan said you have to not only control your own seas, you must project your power, and in his time there were no aircraft carriers or even airplanes.”
“That will come,” was the reply. “I will not be caught like Hitler was. I will go to the oil fields and supply bases, and I will have a service force second to none.”
“That is fine to say now. But how do you plan to support our submarines when they cross the oceans?”
At that point Gorenko had risen from his chair angrily. He did not accept criticism easily, especially from the only person that he had perhaps ever loved. The conversation was cut off.
The next morning, the Admiral was his old self. He told Alex he would have him sent to the Grechko Naval Academy for further study after his first sub command. In the spring of 1962, after an early promotion, Alex Kupinsky received his command, a submarine being made ready for a deployment to the Western Atlantic.
Sam Carter stretched lazily in his bridge chair, glancing down at the flying fish leaping gracefully through the air alongside the Bagley. His captain's chair had been returned to the open starboard wing after a brief tropical downpour. He looked across at Lake Champlain, noting activity on the flight deck a thousand yards off his port bow. The mighty elevators had already brought a dozen tracker aircraft to the flight deck, and he could see them being wheeled into position for takeoff.
“Looks like they're getting ready to launch, Bob,” he remarked to his operations officer who was standing OOD watch. He looked back over his shoulder to the flag on the Bagley's mast. “I'll bet we come about thirty degrees to port for launch. What do you think?” It was always a mental game.
Collier, looking up at the flag, nodded his agreement. “Can't argue with that, Captain.” And to his junior officer of the watch, he said, “What will our course to station be if the carrier turns about thirty degrees into the wind?” Both Collier and the captain knew within a few degrees, from their years of experience, but every junior officer had to develop these same instincts.
“Bridge . . . this is CIC,” came a voice from a pilothouse speaker. “The last flight of trackers is returning to the carrier soon. We just picked it up over their tactical circuit. I expect they'll have another launch before they retrieve. That means they will reorient the screen anytime.”
The JO, who had just gone to his maneuvering board to begin plotting the solution to their assumed station, looked out to Collier for a response. Instead, Carter turned to him from his chair. “Ask Combat what the course to our new station will be.” He paused for a moment, then winked at Collier. “And ask him how long it will take to get there, Mr. Stritzler.”
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