THE FIRST DAYS had been easy. There were no Germans to be seen – no live ones, anyway. They’d seen bodies – bloody streaks of flesh and fabric pressed into the road they travelled on, identifiable only by the scraps of grey uniform, or crumpled shapes curled along the base of a pockmarked wall. Each time they saw an enemy corpse, she thought it was a good omen. One less who might shoot back at them.
The only fighting seemed to be happening elsewhere. The gunfire they heard was always at a distance. The roads were crowded with their own men moving forward, carts, wagons, trucks, artillery and infantry from several divisions all mixed together – an army on the move, smiling as often as not. Everyone had been expecting a hard fight – so why shouldn’t they be? And it wasn’t as though they were fooling themselves either – everyone knew they’d be fighting soon enough.
Whenever possible, Major Raskov took to the fields. The going was quicker away from the traffic and it was perfect countryside for them – flat, but not too flat. There was plenty of cover for a good driver to manoeuvre across the open spaces. Raskov pushed them hard – and Headquarters pushed him hard in turn.
But each time they reached their latest objective, either the fighting had moved on or it had never begun. They would have kept going, but often as not they had to wait for their fuel tenders to catch up with them – their diesel tanks empty even if their ammunition racks were still untouched.
On the afternoon of the third day, however, they were given orders to move to a town to the north-west where the Germans were making a stand. No one knew whether there were really Germans there or not – but the battalion moved quickly all the same. The infantry clinging on to the turrets, bouncing as the tanks rolled and bumped over anything in their path.
When they ran into a retreating German column on the way, it was as much of a surprise to them as it was to the Germans. As they came over the top of a rise Polya saw Raskov’s tank – about forty metres to their right – stop, its turret turning and then firing. Meanwhile, Lapshin was shouting.
‘In the dip, on the road. Fascists. Fifty metres forward then stop.’
She pushed the tank down the slope and did as she was told, hearing the turret turning as she did so. Almost as soon as they stopped, the tank shuddered as Lapshin fired the big gun and the tank was full of the smell of cordite. Avdeyev, sitting beside her, was firing the machine gun and she still hadn’t seen them.
‘Forty-five degrees right. Thirty metres.’
Again she did as she was told and now she saw them – stretched out along a country lane not more than a hundred metres ahead. There were only a few trucks – an artillery unit to judge from the guns being towed behind them. Apart from the trucks, the transport was mostly horse drawn, the flatbed wagons loaded with wounded men and equipment.
There was no time for the Germans to unlimber their cannon, no room to turn in the road and no cover even if they’d been able to. The soldiers who could scattered, but it was too late. How could they not have heard them coming?
Did the battle last even a minute? It had been a blur – she remembered the screams as Galechka had rolled up onto one of the carts full of wounded men before it had folded flat beneath her weight. She didn’t like to think about that. Anyway, the cart had been in the way and she knew as well as anyone that they had to catch the infantry before they reached the wood on the other side of the small valley. She remembered the faces of the soldiers running towards the trees, looking over their shoulders to see how close they were behind, eyes black with fear, mouths open as they screamed – falling as the machine guns mowed them down. If they’d taken any prisoners, she hadn’t seen it.
They lost one tank to a Panzerfaust but it didn’t burn and the crew made it out all right so no one complained. The victory was so quick and complete that they were moving on again almost immediately – although somehow Avdeyev found enough time to weigh down his wrist with three fine German watches.
When they reached the town they’d been sent to, it was a different story. It spanned a river and the bridge was still standing, so they were ordered to attack straight away with what infantry they had. But the Germans were dug in with anti-tank guns and Panzerfausts and the first attempt cost them four tanks – two of them in flames. After that, they kept their distance and worked alongside the infantry towards the river, house by house, street, by street through the course of the night. Each company took its turn, while the others stood back in support, catching some sleep if they could – two crews on, two off.
And just before dawn it had been their turn again and they’d broken through. Although she didn’t remember much about that either – except Major Raskov’s burnt-out tank on a crossroads, blackened bodies the size of children around it in the melting snow. And the blast when the Germans finally blew the bridge – not that it mattered as the river was fordable.
When they reached the other side, the battalion was down to twenty-one tanks – out of thirty-two – and Lapshin was now commanding their company, which had lost four of its own eight tanks.