CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Alexander and the Germans, 1943
THESOVIET MEN WEREstill dying at Sinyavino, and the Germans remained in the hills.
Alexander would send more and they would get killed. Lieutenant-colonel Muraviev, in charge of both the penal and the non-penal battalions, had no interest in hearing from Alexander. "It's a penal battalion," he said. "Do you know the meaning of that, Captain?"
"I do. But let me ask you, I haven't taken math since secondary school, but at the rate of thirty men a day, how long will I keep my two hundred men?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"I know the answer to that one," Muraviev exclaimed. "Six!"
"Yes. Not even one week. The Germans still have three thousand troops in the hills, while we have virtually none."
"Don't worry. We will get you more men to send to the railroad. We always do."
"Is that the goal? To let the Germans use our men for target practice?"
Muraviev narrowed his eyes. "I've been told about you. You're a troublemaker. You're forgetting, you're in charge of apenal battalion. The safety of your men is not my concern. Just fix the railroad and shut up."
Alexander left without saluting Muraviev. Clearly he needed to take matters into his own hands. He didn't wish for another man like Stepanov to guide him. He wished for three men a tenth of Stepanov to let him do as he knew best. Well, why would Alexander's men mean anything to Muraviev? They were all convicted criminals. Their crimes included having had mothers who had been in musical groups that corresponded with people in France, even though the musical groups had been long defunct and even though the mothers had been long dead. Some of them had been found in churches, before late last year when Stalin had admitted, according to Pravda, that he himself believed in a "kind of God." Some of them unwittingly shook hands with people who were about to be arrested. Some of them had rooms next to people who had been arrested. Ouspensky said, "I was one of those people. I had the bad luck to be bedded next to you, Captain." Alexander smiled. They were walking to the armaments tent. He had asked Ouspensky to come with him. Alexander was going to requisition a 160-millimeter mortar.
The previous dawn, Alexander had climbed up behind the bushes on the slopes that led to the railroad and watched his men become fodder for the German bombs. With a pair of field binoculars he observed where the three German bombs came from. They were a good two kilometers away. He needed the 160-millimeter mortar. Nothing else would reach.
Of course the commissar's office didn't want to give it to him. The desk sergeant said the penal battalion was not entitled to one, and the order to requisition one had to come from Alexander's commanding officer, who was Muraviev and who with a flat snicker refused.
"I've lost a hundred and ninety-two men in seven days. Do we have enough convicts to repair this road?"
"Orders are orders, Belov! The mortar is going to be needed by the company storming Sinyavino Heights next week."
"Your men intend to carry a three-ton weaponup a mountain, Colonel?"
Muraviev ordered Alexander out of his tent.
Alexander had had enough. He called one of his sergeants, Melkov. In the evening, Melkov, who tolerated vodka best in the battalion, got the armament guard good and drunk, so drunk in fact that the guard--when he fell asleep in his chair--did not hear Alexander and Ouspensky open the creaky door of the wooden weapons facility and wheel the mortar out. They had to wheel it a kilometer in the dark. Meanwhile Melkov, taking his assignment very seriously, sat by the armaments guard and every fifteen minutes poured more vodka down his throat. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
Right before five a.m., seven of Alexander's men used themselves as bait on the railroad.
Through his binoculars, Alexander watched the origination point of the first bomb from the hills arch its whistling way into the tracks. His men ran, escaping unharmed. It took both Alexander and Ouspensky to load the detonation explosive chemical rocket bomb into the breech. "Now just remember, Nikolai," said Alexander as he pointed the cannon to the hills. "We only have two bombs. Two chances to blow up the Fritzes. We need to return this damn thing in twenty minutes before the changing of the guard at six."
"You don't think req will notice the two biggest bombs gone?"
Alexander watched the blue morning hill through the binoculars. "After we blast the f*cking Germans, I really don't care if anyone notices the missing bombs. I bet they won't notice. Who do you think keeps an inventory of this stuff? The drunk guard? Melkov is taking care of him. He is also taking thirty sub-machine guns for our men."
Ouspensky laughed.
"Don't laugh," said Alexander. "You'll disturb the delicate balance of the charge. Ready?" He lit the fuse.
The fuse burned for two seconds, there was recoil straight down into the ground, which rumbled as though it were an earthquake fault line, and the first bomb whistled out of the barrel, in an arc through the air. It flew a kilometer and a half; Alexander watched it fall into the trees and burst. By the time it reached its target, the second bomb was already on its way. Alexander didn't even look to see where the second one landed. He had already begun to dismantle the mortar. Leaving Ouspensky in charge of the remaining men, he wheeled the heavy artillery back to the requisition house and managed to attach the lock and throw the keys back to the unconscious guard at two minutes to six. "Well done," he said to Melkov as they hurriedly walked back to their tents for morning inspection.
"Thank you, sir," said Melkov. "It was my pleasure."
"I can see that," Alexander said, smiling. "Don't let me catch you drinking so much again. Or you're going straight to the brig."
The requisition guard remained unconscious for another four hours and was summarily taken off guard duty for gross dereliction. "It's a good thing for you, Corporal, that nothing was missing!" Muraviev hollered.
The guard's punishment consisted of serving a week under Alexander's railroad repair command. Alexander said, "You're lucky the Germans have been quiet the past two days, otherwise you'd be going to your death, Corporal."
While the Germans were regrouping, Alexander's men fixed the railroad tracks unharmed, and five trains with food and medical supplies made it through to Leningrad.
After that the Germans resumed shelling the Soviet soldiers, but not for long because Muravievgave Alexander the mortar. Having exposed the German position and after a few more mortar attacks on the Sinyavino area, a battalion of the 67th Army stormed the hills, leaving Alexander's men down below on artillery support. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
The battalion did not return, but the Germans stopped shooting at the railroad for good.
In the fall of 1943, the 67th Army ordered Alexander's penal battalion--shrunk to two minimal companies, 144 men in total--across the river Neva south to Pulkovo, to the last holdout of the German blockade ring around Leningrad. This time, Alexander received some artillery--heavy machine guns, mortars, anti-tank bombs, and a case of grenades. Each of his men had a light machine gun and plenty of ammunition. At Pulkovo, for twelve days in September 1943, Alexander's 7th battalion, with two others and a motorized company, bombarded the Germans. They even had some airpower helping them, two Shtukareviches. It was all to no avail.
The leaves fell off the trees. Sergeant Melkov was killed. It got cold, another winter came, the fourteenth winter since the Barringtons came to the Soviet Union. Alexander continued to push his way up the hill day after bloodied bitter day. He received new men--200 of them. The eastern side of the hill was liberated from the Germans in December 1943.
Up on a Pulkovo hill, Alexander could look north and see in the distance the few twinkling lights of Leningrad. And in the near distance during a clear winter day, he could see the smokestacks of the Kirov factory, which continued to produce arms for the city. If he looked through his binoculars, he would be able to see the Kirov wall, in front of which he could see himself standing day after day, week after week with his cap in his hands, waiting for Tatiana to run out of the factory doors.
He didn't need to stand on the Pulkovo crest to see it.
New Year's Eve, 1943, Alexander spent in front of a fire near his officer's tent with his three first lieutenants, three second lieutenants, and three sergeants. He drank vodka with Ouspensky by his side. Everyone seemed optimistic about 1944. The Germans were on the way out of Russia. After the summer of 1943, after Sinyavino, after the Battle of Kursk, after the liberation of Kiev in November and Crimea just a few weeks ago, Alexander knew that 1944 was going to be the last year the Germans would be on Soviet soil. His mission was to proceed westward with his penal battalion, to push the Germans back into Germany--at all costs, at whatever the cost.
That was Alexander's New Year resolution--to make his way west. His only hope lay there.
He allowed himself another drink. Someone, already drunk, told a bad Stalin joke. Someone cried for his wife. Alexander was almost certain it wasn't him. On the outside he tried to be fashioned of concrete. Ouspensky clinked a glass of vodka with him and finished off the bottle.
"Why can't we get furlough like other soldiers?" Ouspensky complained, drunk, sentimental, disheveled. "Why can't we go home for a day on New Year's?"
"I don't know if you've noticed, Lieutenant, but we're fighting a war. Tomorrow we sleep away the hangover and on Tuesday we're in battle again. The German blockade around Leningrad will be lifted completely this month. The Nazis will leave our city and it will be because of your efforts."
"I don't care about the f*cking Nazis. I want to see my wife," said Ouspensky. "You've got nowhere to go--that's why you want to push the Germans out of Russia." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"I've got somewhere to go," said Alexander slowly.
Studying him carefully, Ouspensky asked, "You have a family?"
"Not around here, no."
For some reason this made Ouspensky only more glum.
"Look on the bright side, Nikolai," said Alexander. "We're not among the enemy, right?"
Ouspensky said nothing.
Alexander continued. "We drank a whole bottle of vodka in a few hours. We had ham, some smoked herring, some pickles, and even some fresh black bread. We told jokes, we laughed, we smoked. Think how much worse it could be." Alexander wasn't going to let his mind go down the corridors of its own torture chambers.
"I don't know about you, Captain, but I've got a wife and two small boys I haven't seen in ten months. Last time I saw them was right before I got shot. My wife thinks I'm dead. I can tell my letters aren't getting to her. She is not replying to them." Ouspensky paused and wavered like a sapling.
Alexander said nothing. I have a wife and a child I've never seen. What's happened to her, to the baby? Have they made it anywhere? Are they safe? How can I live not knowing if she's all right?
I can't.
I can't live not knowing if she is all right.
Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night...nor for the arrow that flieth by day...
Ouspensky drank straight from a newly opened bottle. "Ah," he said, waving his hand. "Hell with it. Life is so f*cking hard."
Alexander took the vodka bottle from Ouspensky and drank from it himself. "Compared to what?" he asked, taking a smoke, inhaling the acrid fumes into his constricted throat.
"Tania, let's get drunk."
"Why, what for?"
"Let's smoke, get drunk, celebrate your birthday, our wedding, and be really rowdy." He raises his eyebrows.
"You're a goose. My birthday was a week ago." She smiles. "We celebrated already. You married me. Remember?"
He grabs her off the pine needle ground.
She throws her arms around him. "All right, all right, I'll drink a little vodka with you." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
"Not a little. An unconscionable amount. We'll raise our cups..." He pours for the two of them near the fire in the clearing. She is kneeling on the blanket, expectantly. He kneels in front of her. "And we'll drink to our wonderful life."
Tatiana raises her cup. "All right, Shura. Let's drink to our wonderful life."