‘EAT.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
She wasn’t. The smell of burning flesh and diesel still filled her mouth. Her throat was raw from it. Each time she swallowed she felt as though she were swallowing the dead.
‘Eat, Polya. Eat, or I’ll be upset.’
She looked up at Lapshin. He was sitting on the other side of the table in the cottage’s kitchen, with only a candle to light his face. She could see the concern in his eyes, even in the way he held the chocolate out to her. American chocolate. It looked small in his large hand.
‘Sometimes you need to have something to take your mind off unpleasant things, Polya,’ Lapshin said. He peeled off the paper wrapper and broke the bar in two. He handed her the larger piece.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, taking the chocolate all the same. She took it to please him. For the same reason she broke off a square and placed it in her mouth. He was watching her, waiting for her to eat some of it. She chewed.
‘It tastes good,’ she said.
She wasn’t telling a lie.
‘Do you want something to wash it down?’
He held up a German canteen and shook it from side to side. It was half full.
‘Water?’
‘Schnapps. German schnapps. Buryakov gave it to us in exchange for a watch.’
‘You gave Buryakov your watch?’
‘No,’ Lapshin said, smiling and pulling back the cuff of his jacket to show his watch safely where it should be. ‘Avdeyev did.’
‘Avdeyev’s watch?’
She found she was frowning. Why would Avdeyev swap his watch for schnapps?
‘Not Avdeyev’s own watch, Little Polya. Some German’s watch. He doesn’t want you to feel bad about that thing. None of us do. These things happen. War isn’t a tidy business where only soldiers get hurt.’
‘I should have seen them.’
‘They shouldn’t have been there. What were they thinking? If it hadn’t been us, it would have been someone else. One of ours or the Germans. There were bullets and shells flying all over the place. What could we have done anyway? The road was narrow and that German gunner knew his business.’
Polya reached across for the canteen and unscrewed the cap. If Avdeyev had given up a watch for it, she had no choice.
‘Thank you.’
‘Anyway,’ Lapshin said, ‘I gave the order. So it was my fault, if anyone’s.’
‘I was the one driving.’
‘Under my direction.’
She hesitated, not wanting to say aloud what he must already know. That sometimes she ignored his feet on her shoulders. She saw his slow smile.
‘So you admit you don’t always obey my orders,’ he said. ‘At last, I have an admission. I should have you sent to a penal unit.’
They’d stopped for the night in a small village – she didn’t know where they were. All she knew was that once again they had to wait for supplies to catch up with them. They’d been in and out of action for most of the last forty-eight hours and Galechka’s white paint was chipped and scraped all over, her fuel tank nearly empty, and they’d fired off nearly all of their ammunition in one action or another. There were only fourteen tanks left out of the thirty-two that had crossed the Vistula and Lapshin was now second in command of the whole battalion. He’d many other things to be doing – and yet he was making time to talk to her. A silly little girl.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m better now. I was just tired.’
And cold. And filthy. She looked down at her overalls. They were almost black with dirt. That was the problem with tanks. There was the oil, the grease the ammunition came in and the fact you could never take them off, even when you slept. It was unpleasant but everyone was the same. She couldn’t expect to be different just because she was a woman. Especially as none of the men had burst into tears at the blood that was sprayed all over Galechka’s front armour.
‘It wasn’t the cart that upset me.’
She stopped herself, considering the statement. Of course the cart had upset her. They’d rolled right over it – they’d come to a crossroads and a German cannon had blasted a shell at them from less than fifty metres, so close they heard it scrape along the side of the turret. Lapshin had told her to get the hell out of there – down the road to the left. The only problem was the family of refugees that was in the road ahead of them, a huddle on their cart. For an instant she’d been face to face with the mother. She’d been looking straight into her hatch – a blonde woman. It was hard to tell what she had looked like because she’d been screaming, turning to try and shield two children, wrapped up in scarves and hats so that only their eyes were visible. Polya could have reached out and touched them if she’d wanted to. And then they were gone – all of them, and the wagon as well. Galechka just rolled over them.
‘It was Yermakov,’ she said in a quiet voice.
In the same village as they’d killed the woman and her children, Yermakov’s tank had gone up like a match. And they’d been stuck behind it, twisting back and forth and from side to side while Yermakov and his boys roasted, their ammunition exploding inside until it blew the turret off. She’d been sure they were going to be hit next, the heat of the flames had made Galechka’s metal hot to the touch, but she’d managed to ram them through some carriage gates and into a courtyard that had led to safety.
Lapshin took a drink from the canteen.
‘Here’s to Yermakov.’
She nodded and reached across to take another sip, feeling it burn her throat – but in a good way. Not like – well, she didn’t like to think about Yermakov and his flaming tank. She would put all those thoughts away now. She’d faltered, that was true. But no one, not even Lapshin, hadn’t shown themselves to be human at one time or another. Her moment of weakness was behind her – she was stronger for it, she was certain.
‘Back to work, then, Little Polya. The supply vehicles will be here in an hour. We need to be ready to move in two.’
He reached across the table and took her hand. It felt tiny in his – which wasn’t really the case. But it felt that way. And when he squeezed it tight and held it for longer than was necessary, it was as though he squeezed all the breath out of her as well.
She sniffed and dried her eyes and smiled and – whether it was the schnapps, or the chocolate, or Lapshin’s fingers wrapped around her own – she found she felt much better.