CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In the Volkhov Prison, 1943
SLONKO WAS DEAD, BUTnothing was resolved about Alexander's fate. He was transferred to Volkhov and had to deal with a more malicious class of idiot. He found himself in a different state of mind after he learned that Tatiana had escaped the clutches of the Soviet Union. His relief was mingled with an unrelenting melancholy. Now that he knew she was irrevocably gone, he didn't know who to rail at first, the person who interrogated him or the guard who pointed a rifle at him. But he hated himself most of all.
She was gone--that washis doing.
Volkhov, like Leningrad and unlike Morozovo, actually had two prisons--one for criminals, one for politicals. The distinction was fine, and Alexander was being housed in the prison for criminals. They seemed to have better cells. He remembered his few days in Kresty after his arrest in 1936 before he was put on a train to Vladivostok. The cells had been small and odorous. In this prison in Volkhov the cells were bigger, had two bunks, a sink, a toilet. The cell had a steel door with a barred window, which was opened briefly to pass through his tray of food.
There was bread and oatmeal and occasionally meat of unknown origin. There was water, tea once in a while, and Alexander received vouchers which he could trade for tobacco or vodka.
Alexander kept his vouchers, of which he got two or three every day, and did not use them. Vodka he had no use for. Tobacco was a different story. He thirsted for tobacco. His mouth, his throat craved the burn, the smoke; his lungs craved the nicotine. But he forbade himself tobacco. His desire for nicotine slightly dulled his thirst for Tatiana; slightly numbed the aching emptiness in his body left by her absence. It had been about five months since his back was ripped open in the Battle of Leningrad; only twitching nerve endings remained around the raised, ridged scar that had managed to heal at last.
Alexander saved his tobacco vouchers and paced. He kept his uniform, he kept his boots. His sulfa drugs were long gone. The morphine had gone to Slonko. His rucksack was gone. He hadn't seen Stepanov since the night of Slonko's death, so he couldn't ask what had happened to his ruck, which, though filled with many stupid and replaceable things, had one thing in it that was neither--Tania's Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
wedding dress. As if he could bear to look at it anyway. He could hardly bear to think of it.
Six paces from one wall to the other, ten paces from the front door to the back window. All day, while the sun was up, Alexander ran the length of the cell, and when he could not think anymore he would count the steps. One afternoon he paced 4,572 steps. Another he paced 6,207. Between early breakfast and early lunch and late dinner, Alexander walked between his prison walls, walking out Tatiana, living out the darkness. He had no foresight and no hindsight. He could barely tell what was right in front of him. Alexander didn't know what was ahead of him in the coming years and maybe if he had known, he would have chosen death in those gray pacing days, but because he didn't know, he chose life.
Finally he got his military tribunal. After a month of pacing in his cell and collecting ninety tobacco vouchers, he went before three generals, two colonels and one Stepanov. He stood before them in his uniform, wearing his visor cap--his better-looking officer's cap having been given over to his wife.
"Alexander Belov, we are here to decide what to do with you," said General Mekhlis, a thin, tense man who looked like a weathered crow.
"I'm ready," said Alexander. It was about time. A month in one cell. Why couldn't the Lazarevo month with Tatiana have passed as slowly?
"Charges have been brought against you."
"I'm aware of the charges, sir."
"Charges that you are a foreigner, an American, disguised as a Red Army officer with the purpose of sabotage and subversion during the worst crisis our great country has ever faced. We are faced with our extinction at the hands of the Germans. You understand why we cannot allow foreign spies to infiltrate our ranks?"
"I understand. I have a defense."
"Let's hear it."
"All the things you just mentioned are baseless lies. They were presented to you to besmirch my character. My record in the Red Army since 1937 speaks for itself. I have been nothing but a loyal soldier, I have obeyed my superior officers, I have not shied away from any conflict. I served my country proudly against Finland and against Germany. In the Great Patriotic War, I have participated in four attempts to break the blockade on Leningrad. I was wounded twice, the second time nearly mortally. The man who accused me of foreign provocation is dead, shot by our own troops while trying to escape the Soviet Union. I will remind you that man was aprivate in the Red Army. He was a rear supply man for the border troops. His attempted escape constitutes nothing less than desertion and treason. Are you taking the word of aknown deserter from the Red Army against the word of one of your decorated officers?"
"Don't tell me what to think, Major Belov," snapped Mekhlis.
"I wouldn't presume to, sir. I was posing a question." Alexander waited. The men behind the table conferred with each other briefly while Alexander stared out of the window. There was open air outside those windows. He breathed in. He had not been outside in so long. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Major Belov, are you in fact Alexander Barrington, son of Jane and Harold Barrington who were executed for treason in 1936 and 1937?"
Alexander blinked; that was his only reaction. "No, sir," he said.
"Are you the Alexander Barrington who jumped off a train headed for corrective camps in 1936 and was presumed dead?"
"No, sir."
"Have you ever heard of Alexander Barrington?"
"Only through these charges."
"Are you aware that your wife, Tatiana Metanova, has disappeared and is presumed to have escaped with Private Chernenko and Dr. Sayers?"
"No. I am aware that Dr. Sayers was not escaping and that Private Chernenko was shot dead. I am aware that my wife is missing. Comrade Slonko, however, told me before he died"--Alexander coughed once loudly for emphasis--"that she was in NKVD--NKGB, I mean--custody. He told me she had signed a confession implicating me as the man Comrade Slonko had been looking for since 1936."
The generals exchanged a surprised look.
"Your wife is not in our custody," Mekhlis said slowly. "And Comrade Slonko is no longer here to defend himself. Chernenko is not here to defend himself."
"Of course."
"Major Belov, how do you explain the actions of your wife? Does it seem at all peculiar to you that she would leave you here while escaping--"
"Wait, if I may, General. My wife was not escaping. She had come to Morozovo with Dr. Sayers at his request and with the permission of the Grechesky hospital administrator. She was under his supervision."
"I think that even under his supervision, your wife was not allowed to leave the Soviet Union," said Mekhlis.
"I'm not entirely convinced she has. I have been hearing much conflicting information."
"Has she been in touch with you?"
"No, sir."
"That doesn't trouble you?"
Blink. "No, sir."
"Your pregnant wife has disappeared, has not contacted you and that doesn't trouble you?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"No, sir."
"The patrol units who checked the accompanying nurse's identification all adamantly deny that she had Soviet papers. While they cannot remember her name, they're sure her documents were with the American Red Cross. This does not bode well for you or your wife."
Alexander wanted to point out that it boded better for his wife, but kept silent. "My wife is not on trial here, is she?" he asked.
"She would be if she were here."
"But she is not on trial here," Alexander repeated. "You asked me if I was Alexander Barrington, the American, and I told you I was not. I don't know what my wife's whereabouts have to do with the accusations against me."
"Where is your wife?"
"I do not know."
"How long have you been married?"
"A year this June."
"I hope, Major, you keep track of the men under your command better than you have kept track of your wife."
Blink.
The generals studied Alexander. Stepanov's eyes never left him.
Mekhlis said, "Major, let me ask you something. Why would anyone accuse you of being an American if it weren't true? The facts that Private Chernenko provided us with were too detailed to be made up."
"I'm not saying he made them up. I'm saying that he is confusing me with another man."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"But why would he point the finger atyou , Major?"
"I don't know, sir. Dimitri Chernenko and I have had a difficult relationship over the years. Sometimes I thought he was jealous of me, angry at me for succeeding so far beyond him in the Red Army. Perhaps he wanted to hurt me, to sabotage my progress. He also may have had unrequited feelings for my wife. I'm fairly certain of it. Our friendship had cooled considerably in the years before his death."
"Major, you are exasperating the high command of the 67th Army."
"I'm sorry for that. But all I have is my record and my good name. I don't want both dishonored by a dead coward." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Major, what do you think will happen to you if you tell us the truth? If you are Alexander Barrington we will confer with the proper authorities in the United States. We may be able to arrange a transfer for you back to America."
Alexander laughed softly. "Sir, with all due respect, I'm here on charges of treason and sabotage. The only transfer that will be arranged for me will be to another world."
"You're wrong, Major. We are reasonable men."
"Surely, if all it took was for me to say I am from America, or England, or France in order to be transferred back to the country of my choice, what would stop any of us?"
"Mother Russia, that's what!" exclaimed Mekhlis. "Your allegiance to your country."
"It is that allegiance, sir, that is stopping me from telling you I am an American."
Mekhlis took off his pince-nez and looked Alexander over. "Come closer to the table, Major Belov. Let me take a good look at you."
Alexander stepped forward until he was at the edge of the tall desk. He didn't need to straighten up. He was already straightened. Unwaveringly he stared into Mekhlis's face. Mekhlis stared silently back and finally said, "Major, I will ask you one more time, but before you hastily reply as you have been doing, I am going to give you thirty minutes to think about your answer. You will be taken outside, and then brought back here and asked one last time. These are the questions I am putting before you. Are you Alexander Barrington, son of Jane and Harold Barrington of the United States? Were you arrested for crimes against the Motherland in 1936 and did you escape while en route to your final destination in Vladivostok? Did you, under the false name of Alexander Belov, infiltrate the officer ranks of the Red Army in 1937 after graduating from secondary school? Did you attempt to desert the Red Army and escape through Karelia during the war with Finland in 1940, only to be stopped by Dimitri Chernenko? Have you been a double agent during your seven years in the Red Army? No, no, don't answer. You have thirty minutes."
Alexander was led out of the room and outside, outside! He sat on the bench while two guards stood either side of him, while the breezy warm May wind blew around him. He realized he would soon be turning twenty-four. He sat while the sun shone and the sky was blue and the air smelled of distant lilacs and blooming jasmine and lake water.
Then Came the War, 1939
As part of the Leningrad garrison, quartered at the Pavlov barracks--formerly the barracks that belonged to the Tsar's Imperial Guards--Alexander was responsible for patrolling the streets, for sentry duty over the Neva, and for the fortifications of the Finland?Russia border. Vladimir Lenin had whored half of Russia in March 1918--Karelia, Ukraine, Poland, Bessarabia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia--to ensure survival of the fledgling communist state. The Karelian Isthmus had been given up to Finland.
After Hitler and Stalin divided Poland in September 1939, Stalin received assurances from Hitler that a "campaign" against Finland to reclaim the disputed land would not be seen as a sign of aggression against Germany. In November 1939, Stalin attacked Finland to get the Karelian Isthmus back. No matter how much the command insisted on it, Alexander refused to call the war with Finland a campaign with Finland. A campaign was two grown men driving around the country shaking hands with the electorate and then going to the polls. Any time you tried to take territory with tanks and rifles and mortars and the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
lives of men it ceased being a campaign and became a war.
Alexander's first battle was fought in the swamps of the vast Karelian forest. Unfortunately, Komkov had been completely right about Dimitri. In battle, Dimitri turned out to be a fainthearted, yellow-bellied, miserable, craven coward, words Komkov shouted straight into Dimitri's cowering face before tying him to a tree to prevent him from deserting. Komkov would have shot him but Alexander stayed his hand, regretting it every minute since.
Even without Dimitri's help, the Soviets managed eventually to overpower the unconquerable Finns. When it was over, Alexander counted the Finnish bodies. There had only been twenty Finns in the woods. Now all twenty were dead, which was good, but to kill them they had sacrificed 155 Red Army soldiers. Twenty-four came back to Lisiy Nos with Alexander. Twenty-four plus Dimitri. Komkov did not come back.
In 1940, the Finns sent more troops into southern Karelia and took back the trees and the thirty meters the Soviets had won, and another twenty kilometers besides, and the lives of thousands more Soviet men. Alexander found himself in charge of three platoons of strangers and his orders were to push the Finns from the Karelian Isthmus, back to Vyborg. Vyborg needed to be in Soviet hands, according to the Red Army--and according to Alexander, since penetrating the border there would leave him only a few hundred kilometers from Helsinki, Finland. Him and Dimitri. Despite everything, he would honour his promise to Dimitri. Alexander felt their opportunity for escape was close.
During the last days of the so-calledcampaign , in March 1940, Alexander served under Major Mikhail Stepanov, a stoic commanding officer with impenetrable eyes. Alexander was given a mortar and thirty men, including the commander's young son, Yuri, to clear the area in the swamps near Vyborg. Thirty rifles and three light mortars just did not do the job against a well entrenched Finnish army. Alexander's platoon was unable to penetrate enemy lines, and neither could the five other platoons that stretched inland from the Gulf of Finland.
When Alexander finally returned to the rear at Lisiy Nos with only four of his thirty men, Major Stepanov asked about his son. Alexander told him that he didn't know what had happened to Yuri. He knew that Yuri's battle buddy had been killed. Alexander volunteered to go back into the swamps by himself to bring back Yuri Stepanov. The major instantly agreed and ordered Alexander to take one more man with him into the forest.
Alexander took Dimitri. He also took his ten thousand dollars, and they set off with nothing but his money and their rifles and grenades into the marshy lands near the gulf without any intention of coming back to the Soviet Union.
They found Yuri Stepanov.
"God, he's alive, Dima," said Alexander, turning Stepanov over. The soldier could barely breathe. Alexander pushed Stepanov's tongue down with his fingers to help the boy breathe better. "He's alive," he repeated, looking up at Dimitri.
"Yeah. Barely." Dimitri glanced around. "Come on, let's go. We don't have much time. We need to get going. It's perfect right now. Quiet."
Alexander cut open Stepanov's uniform to see where he was hit. He saw blood over the young man's torso. The blood was viscous and brown. Alexander couldn't tell how much blood Stepanov had lost. Judging by the pallid look of him, quite a bit. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Mumbling, Yuri Stepanov opened his eyes and his hand reached up to touch Alexander. He tried to say something but couldn't.
"Alexander!" Dimitri exclaimed. "Let's go."
"Dimitri!" Alexander exclaimed, not even looking up. "Stop your shouting and let me think for a minute. Just for one minute, all right."
He continued to crouch in the marsh by Stepanov's side, listening to the boy's labored breathing, looking at the boy's gray face. Thirty meters away was the unprotected Finnish border. Thirty meters away were the low-lying bushes near the gulf coast. Thirty meters away was a country other than the Soviet Union. And in that country was the sea that would take Alexander to Stockholm, and in Stockholm was a building where Alexander would go to beg for his freedom. And afterward...Alexander could see the whitewashed shingles, the whitewashed clapboard of the Barrington houses in between the cinnabar sugar maples. He could smell Barrington. He breathed deeply in, his lungs hurting. He would save himself, he would save Dimitri who helped him see his father, he would breathe the air of home once more.
He had expected to fight, he expected to freeze, to fire his weapons and to suffer, to swim, to sleep knee deep in mud, to die if he had to, to kill men who stood in his way. He did not expect this--a wounded son and a waiting father.
Alexander took another breath. It was not Barrington anymore. All he smelled was the organic, slightly stale old blood, the metal of the weapons, the burnt sulfur odor of gunpowder. And all he heard was Yuri Stepanov's lungs laboring through each breath.
Alexander would be leaving a young man to die. He would be leaving a father's son to die. He would be buying his freedom with this boy's death. Alexander crossed himself. This is God's test, he thought. To show me what I'm made of.
Alexander grabbed Stepanov by his arms and legs and lifted him off the ground. "Dima, I have to bring him back."
Dimitri paled. "What?"
"You heard me."
"Are you out of your f*cking mind? You can't go back. We are not going back."
"I am."
A silent scream came from Dimitri in the quiet woods. Drip, drip, trickle, crackle, birds gone, crickets gone, drip, crackle and Dimitri's mute fury. "What are you talking about?" he hissed. "We didn't come back for him. He was a ruse. We came here to continue forward."
"I know we did," said Alexander. "But I can't."
"This is war, Alexander! What? You're suddenly going to care about each of the thousands of men you let die under your command?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"I didn't let them die," Alexander said.
"We're going forward." Dimitri grit his teeth.
"Fine," said Alexander. "If you're going, then let me give you half of my money. You will get yourself to Stockholm one way or another, and from there you will know what to do. You will get yourself to America."
"What are you talking about? What do you mean,me? You mean us."
"No, Dimitri, I told you. I'm going back with Yuri. But no reason for you to go back."
"I'm not going without you!" Dimitri nearly shrieked through the woods, his voice pitched high.
"All right," said Alexander. "Let's go back while he is still alive."
Dimitri didn't move. "If you tell me you're returning to Lisiy Nos, then bringing Stepanov back will be the last thing you will do as a Soviet soldier."
With Stepanov flung over his shoulders, Alexander came up very close to Dimitri and said, through his own grit teeth, "Dimitri, are you threatening me?"
"Yes," Dimitri said.
Alexander backed away a step and looked at Dimitri with grim resignation. "Well, I'll tell you what," he said slowly, "you go ahead and do what you like. Go ahead and inform on me. Then it's even more important that the last thing I do is save another man's life."
"Oh, f*cking hell!"
"We're going to have another chance! Look at what we found in these woods. We'll be able to come back here again. This is our first chance, not our last. We'll come back here and we'll escape. If you're threatening me with the NKVD, then you will never yourself get out of the Soviet Union. You'll rot here. I'll be dead, but you'll be here for the rest of your life." Alexander paused. "Mark my words, Europe is going to war with Hitler. We'll have another chance, but not if I'm dead. So what will it be? If you want to run, you'll keep your mouth shut long enough for me to get us out." Alexander paused. "Don't be an ass. Let's bring the boy back to his father."
"No!" said Dimitri.
"Then do what you f*cking like." Alexander was done speaking. Without waiting for Dimitri to catch up, he turned around and started walking. He heard Dimitri's sullen footsteps in the distance behind him. Dimitri was a coward, and as a coward perhaps he could shoot another man in the back, but not when the man had promised to someday carry him on it.
They returned to base after hours of slogging in the dismal swamp. It was nearly dark, but the first thing Alexander saw by the line of the pines was Mikhail Stepanov, standing with one of the NKVD border guards, looking for them through the trees. His legs shaking, Stepanov walked towards Alexander and was barely strong enough to ask, "Is he alive?"
"Yes," said Alexander. "But he needs a doctor." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Mikhail Stepanov took his son from Alexander and carried him to the field tent where he laid him on an empty cot and sat by him quietly, as they got a transfusion into Yuri, and some morphine too, and even some sulfa drugs. Together Stepanov and Alexander washed Yuri's body, and the doctor stitched up the three bullet wounds. Yuri had been too long in the woods with metal in his body. The wounds were infected.
Alexander went to get something to eat and to have a smoke, and then came back and sat by Stepanov's side. Yuri had come to a bit, and was faintly talking to his father. "Papochka," he said, "I'm going to be all right?"
"Yes, son," said Stepanov, holding Yuri's hand.
"I was lucky. It could have been so much worse." Yuri glanced at Alexander. "Right, Lieutenant?"
"Right, Private," said Alexander.
"Mama will be proud of me," said Yuri. "Am I going to fight again?"
He saw Major Stepanov's stricken face. Alexander said nothing for a moment. "Whereis his mother?" he asked at last.
"Dead since 1930," replied Stepanov.
"Papa?"
"Yes?"
"Areyou proud of me?"
"Very proud, son."
They sat by Yuri like this, the two warriors, listening to Yuri's labored breathing, watching his slowly blinking eyes.
And then the breathing was no longer labored, and the eyes were no longer blinking, and Major Stepanov hung his head and cried, and Alexander, unable to take it, walked out of the medic's tent.
He was leaning against a supply truck, smoking, when Stepanov walked outside.
"I'm sorry, sir," said Alexander.
Stepanov extended his hand to Alexander. "You're a fine soldier, Lieutenant Belov," he said, in a tight voice. "I have been in the Red Army since 1921, and I will tell you right now--you're a fine soldier. Your refusal to retreat, to leave your dead behind, where does it all come from? Don't say you're sorry. Because of you, I said goodbye to my only child. Because of you he will be buried. He will have rest. And I will, too." Stepanov did not let go of Alexander's hand.
"It was nothing, sir," said Alexander, lowering his head.
The Winter War ended days later on 13 March, 1940. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
The Soviets never did regain Vyborg.
In Front of Mekhlis, 1943
The question before him was who he was. His time was up. He knew. Standing up, he remembered verse of Kipling's "If," almost as if his own father were speaking to him.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings,
and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
and lose, and start again, at your beginnings,
and never breathe a word about your loss.
They called for him, and when he was led back before the tribunal, he was almost cheerful.
"Well, Major, have you thought about it?"
"Yes, sir."
"What is your answer?"
"My answer is that I am Alexander Belov, from Krasnodar, a major in the Red Army."
"Are you the American expatriate Alexander Barrington?"
"No, sir."
And then they were all quiet. Outside was a fresh May day. Alexander wanted to be outside again. The faces on him were somber, unblinking. He became somber and unblinking himself. One of the generals was tapping a pencil against the wooden desk. Stepanov's eyes were discreetly on Alexander and when their glances locked, Stepanov nodded lightly.
Finally General Mekhlis spoke. "I was afraid that would be your answer, Major. Had you said yes, we would be talking to the U.S. State Department. Now the question before me is what do I do with you? I have been given complete authority over the disposition of your fate. My colleagues and I have conferred while you were outside. The decision before us is a difficult one. Even if you are telling the truth, the accusations against you rest on your shoulders along with all your bars and follow you in the Red Army wherever you go. The swirl of rumor, of suspicion, of innuendo, it doesn't end. It won't end. And if makes your job as an officer so much harder, and our job of defending you against other false accusations, against men afraid to fight under your command, so much harder."
"I'm used to challenges, sir."
"Yes, but we don't need them." Mekhlis raised his hand. "And don't interrupt, Major. If you're lying, however, all the same things apply, except now we as a government and a protector of our people have made a terrible mistake and will be made to look foolish and humiliated when the truth is eventually revealed. And you know one thing about truth--it always comes out in the end. Do you see how, whether you are lying or telling the truth, you are tainted property to us?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"If I may, General," interjected Stepanov. "We are fighting a frantic war in which we are losing men faster than we can conscript them, we are losing weapons faster than we can make them, and we're losing ranking officers faster than we can replace them. Major Belov is an exemplary soldier. Surely we can find something for him to do in the name of the Red Army?" When Stepanov encountered no argument, he continued. "He can be sent to Sverdlovsk to make tanks and cannons. He can be sent to Vladivostok to mine iron ore, he can be sent to Kolyma, or to Perm-35. In any of those places he can remain a productive member of Soviet society."
Mekhlis scoffed. "We have plenty of other men to mine iron ore. And why should we waste a Red Army major on making a cannon?"
Alexander imperceptibly shook his head with amusement. Well done, Colonel Stepanov, he thought. A moment from now you will be having them beg for me to remain in the army, whereas a moment ago they were ready to shoot me themselves.
Stepanov continued on Alexander's behalf. "He is not a major any longer. He has been stripped of his rank upon his arrest. I see no problem with sending him to Kolyma."
"Then why are we still calling him Major?" Mekhlis puffed.
"Because he remains what he is even if the bars have been removed from his shoulders. He has been a commanding officer for seven years. He commanded men during the Winter War, he has fought to keep the Germans on the other side of the Neva, he has manned the Road of Life, and he fought alongside his men in four Neva campaigns last summer trying to break the blockade."
"We have been made aware numerous times of his record, Colonel Stepanov," Mekhlis said, painfully rubbing his forehead. "Now we need to decide how to dispose of him."
"I suggest sending him to Sverdlovsk," said Stepanov.
"We cannot do that."
"Then reinstate him."
"We cannot do that either."
Mekhlis was silent for a while, thinking. After a heavy sigh, he said, "Major Belov, near Volkhov in the valley between Lake Ladoga and the Sinyavino Heights there is a railroad that is getting bombed by the Germans from their hilltop positions several times a day. Are you familiar with it?"
"Yes, sir. My wife helped build that railroad after we broke the blockade."
"Please don't bring up your wife, Major, it's a sore subject. In any case, that railroad is vital for getting food and fuel to the city of Leningrad. I've decided to sentence you to a penal unit in charge of rebuilding the railroad along a ten-kilometer stretch between Sinyavino and Lake Ladoga. Do you know what a penal battalion is?"
Alexander was silent. He knew. The army was filled with thousands of men sent to storm bridges without cover, to cross rivers without cover, to build railroads under fire, to go first into battle without artillery support, without tanks or rifles for each man. In penal battalions, the men were given alternating Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
rifles. When the man next to you fell, you picked up his rifle, unless it was you who fell. Penal battalions were Soviet walls of men sent before Hitler's firing squads.
Mekhlis was silent. "Anything to add, Major? Oh, and you are formally relieved of your rank."
"That's fine. I'm being asked to be part of a battalion, not to command the men, correct?"
"Incorrect. You are being ordered to command the men."
"In that case, I have to keep my rank."
"You cannot keep your rank."
"Sir, with all due respect, I cannot command a squirrel, much less hardened and fearless men in a penal battalion constantly under threat of death without authority bestowed on me by the Red Army. If you want me to be in charge, you have to give me the tools required to command men. Otherwise I will be no good to the Red Army, no good to the war effort and no good to you. The men will not obey a single order from me, the railroad will remain unbuilt, and supply people and soldiers will perish. You cannot ask me to remain in the army--"
"I'm not asking you, I'm ordering you."
"Sir, put me in a penal battalion, certainly, but do not ask me to be in charge. I will be an NCO, a sergeant, a corporal, whatever you decide is fine with me. But if you actually want to use me to the army's advantage, I must keep my bars." Alexander was unflinching when he said, "Certainly you as a general understand that better than anyone. Have you forgotten General Meretskov? He sat in the dungeons of Moscow waiting for his execution. The powers-that-be decided he should command the Volkhov front instead. So he was promoted to general and given an army instead of just a division. How do you think he would have fared commanding his army as the peasant he actually was? How many men do you think he would have been able to send to their deaths if he had been a non-commissioned corporal instead of a commissioned general? Do you want to get the Germans out of Sinyavino Heights? I will get them out for you. But I must keep my rank."
Mekhlis was staring at Alexander with frank, resigned understanding. "You have worn me out, Major Belov. You will be sent to Sinyavino in one hour. The guard will escort you back to your cell to collect your things. I will demote you and allow you to keep the rank of captain, but that is all. Where are your medals?"
Alexander wanted to smile but didn't. "Taken from me before the interrogation. I'm missing theHero of the Soviet Union medal."
"That's unfortunate," Mekhlis said.
"Yes, sir, it is. I also need new BDUs, new weapons, and new supplies. I need a knife, and a tent--I need new gear, sir. My old gear has disappeared."
"Have to keep better track of your equipment, Major Belov."
Alexander saluted him. "I'll keep that in mind. And it's Captain Belov, sir." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html