The train journey was rudely and brutally interrupted by one solitary German plane. Vlad and his classmates stood together in awe as the sound of the engine grew louder, deafening them just before their carriage was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Anton instinctively leapt from his seat just as the old man was knocked sideways by bullets that left hundreds of tiny holes in the roof above them – he was dead before his riddled head hit the warm spot left by Anton’s behind. The brakes shrieked in protest as the driver pulled hard and fast, dragging the battered train to a stop while any number of men were bellowing to one another, ‘Get outside, quick as you can!’ All the boys could do was follow everyone else.
It must have made an impressive sight, the train vomiting its hordes of passengers out on to the side of the track. Leo instantly assessing the wisest course of action, grabbed Vlad and Misha, assuming Anton to be close by, and made for the ditch, alongside everyone else. The ditch was the only cover around, the landscape doing what it could to provide some sort of shelter.
The plane crissed-crossed the afternoon sky, shooting and darting the fire that was coming from Russian guns in the near distance. Vlad flung himself in the dip, hurting his nose as his face smacked hard against the ground. His friends pressed around him, their heads bobbing to watch the train being punctured some more. A man in uniform ordered everyone who could hear him, ‘Keep your bloody heads down and dig in!’ With that, men began to claw at the earth so that they could burrow forwards.
However, there was no need. It proved to be a temporary interruption. The pilot grew bored and sped off to greener pastures, in search of more Russians to kill. The older and more experienced soldiers waved goodbye, with one man shouting out, ‘That’s it? Now that you’ve had your fun, you’re just going to leave us?’ His companions roared with laughter, relieving the tension of the previous few minutes.
Vlad, Anton and Leo joined in, standing up slowly to rub the dirt from their uniforms. Misha stood too, a little apart from the others, hoping the smell of his urine was lost in the chaos. Seeing the embarrassment in his friend’s eyes, Leo smiled, and shrugged his shoulders, pretending that he too had wet himself. Misha was desperate enough to believe him.
The order went out, ‘Collect any dead!’
Men poured back onto the train, finding three bodies, including the old man’s. Not knowing what else to do, the boys took up their former positions, standing exactly where they had been before the plane’s arrival, ready to be of assistance should they be needed. Misha gingerly felt the front of his trousers, while the other two pretended not to notice.
Anton made a lunge at the corpse of the elderly passenger but lost out to two tough-looking soldiers who were in no need of his help. He stood watching them as they easily picked the body off the seat and moved to the door, nodding his head as if he was well pleased with their work. Finally he got his reward when one of the soldiers felt him staring and barked, ‘Go and get some planks of wood from the bunks in the next carriage. We’ll use them to cover the body.’
Three hasty burials were performed while the driver readied the train for the rest of the journey. Misha, trying to hide his upset, whispered, ‘But who was he? We don’t even know his name. What about his family?’
Leo and Vlad exchanged glances, Vlad offering, ‘I suppose his relatives will assume the worst when he doesn’t return home.’
Misha nodded unhappily. ‘The other two, were they from this carriage?’
Neither of his friends answered his question.
Staring out the window, at the freshly dug graves, Misha made a request, ‘If that ever happens to me, make sure someone tells my mother,’ adding almost apologetically, ‘and I’ll do the same for you two and Anton.’
Leo glanced at him and away again, and said, ‘Yep, it’s a deal!’
Vlad barely realised he had been about to say something like ‘Don’t be daft, nothing bad is going to happen to us.’ Because, isn’t that what you say to your friends when they are worried about something? Instead he found himself thinking, this is it, we’re soldiers now.
Anton reappeared, failing to hide how proud he was that he had been singled out for his assistance. He nodded coolly at his classmates, obviously not wanting them to affect his new-found independence, and sat back down on his bloodied seat. Glancing quickly behind him, towards the door, he edged himself along, making room for the men he had helped. When the door was closed and the train heaved into action, with no sign of his funeral companions, Anton concentrated hard on not looking disappointed.
Leo, always the quickest to poke fun, asked, ‘Oh dear, Anton! Did you leave your new friends behind?’
He was completely ignored. Anton, to his relief, spotted his fallen newspaper on the floor and bent down to retrieve it, flicking away the coagulating drops of blood that blotted out some of the headlines, pretending once more to be utterly absorbed in current affairs while Misha continued to look haunted by the immediate future.
There were no more attacks and only a little over an hour left until their final destination, not that the boys knew that. The train began to slow down for the second time. Misha started, expecting to hear another plane, while Leo said quickly, to reassure him, ‘We must be here.’ Vlad would have preferred the train to keep moving. He didn’t feel ready to arrive anywhere yet. Even Leo rubbed sweat from his forehead and avoided looking out the window for more information.
If Leo, Vlad and Misha were already feeling a little overwhelmed, it was nothing compared to their feelings as the carriage doors were pulled open. The scene that met their eyes was, quite simply, mad. There were hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, all moving in different directions. They had to queue to get off the train, trying not to trip over each other. Anton had somehow managed to end up standing beside them. His three classmates were too distracted for it to occur to them that maybe, just maybe, Anton was suddenly feeling as shy and awkward as the rest of them.
Vlad could smell burning and checked the carriage to see if there was something on fire. Seeing him wrinkle his nose, Leo muttered, ‘It’s coming from outside.’
A few minutes of slow, shuffling steps later and, finally, they were able to jump down from the train. The next thing was to find their sergeant. Misha practically stood on Vlad’s foot, in his determination to remain as close as possible to him. Vlad couldn’t help noticing the strain on his friend’s face.
The silent group of four took a moment to watch the other soldiers, who looked like they knew each other and knew exactly what they were meant to do. Anton tried to find some of his earlier confidence. He took a deep breath and stuck out his chest, not realising that his innocence was all too obvious as he turned his head, this way and that, like a child in a toy shop.
He spoke first, ‘Come on, then!’
‘Where?’ asked Leo, who was not prepared to allow Anton even to pretend to boss them around.
Anton shrugged in honest confusion. ‘There must be a sign somewhere,’ he offered.
‘Oh, like “Welcome Anton, come right this way”.’ Leo’s nervousness was making him bad-tempered.
‘Don’t be silly, that’s not what I meant!’ Anton’s nervousness, on the other hand, was making him patient and, well, nicer than usual. Everyone ignored him, which didn’t seem to bother him in the least.
‘Hey, you lot!’
The boys guessed correctly that this welcome was directed at them. Their four heads swivelled in different directions, to find the source of the voice. Anton was the first to meet the tired face of Sergeant Batyuk, a plump man, with greying stubble dotted across his two chins. His uniform was in need of a wash.
‘Are you lot Batyuk’s ducklings, then?’
They were unsure how to answer this. Only Anton gulped, ‘Sir?’ The man laughed, briefly and loudly. Actually, it was more like a few sharp snorts, one after the other. ‘I’m Sergeant Batyuk and you’re my new recruits, yes?’
Delighted that he knew the answer to this question, Anton bellowed, ‘Oh, yes, sir! We are, sir!’ He raised his arm to make a joyous salute.
The other three straightened their backs, but kept their arms clamped down either side of their torsos.
‘At ease, lads. You’re not going anywhere just yet. As you may have guessed, you are not in Stalingrad.’
Sergeant Batyuk must not have realised that this was a surprising piece of news to his young audience. Not one of them had ever visited Stalin’s favourite city before and, therefore, had no reason to believe that they hadn’t reached their famous destination. The sergeant continued furnishing them with information that he believed was already obvious to them. ‘So, we’ve a bit of a walk, about forty miles in all, but we won’t be making a move until it’s dark and a hell of a lot cooler than it is now.’
It was a hot September afternoon, though the boys hardly noticed the sweat stains under their arms or the beads of sweat on their foreheads. As far as they were concerned, normal stuff like noting the weather was for another time, another place.
Vlad felt like he was in a completely different country, far, far away from anything he had ever known. He also felt a little bit ashamed of just how glad he was that Leo, Misha, and yes, even Anton, were standing next to him.
The sergeant issued their orders, ‘I want you boys to walk about twenty minutes in that direction. You’re digging trenches against enemy attack from the air. Meet me back here in two hours. Got that?’
All four boys nodded quickly and replied in unison, ‘Yes, sir!’ Then they jumped as the train sounded out that it was on its way back again, for more soldiers, with a loud blast of steam.
Their sergeant rolled his eyes, and said, ‘You chicks will have to toughen up because it’s going to be very noisy from here on in. Okay? If nothing happens over the next two hours, you’ve had an easy start.’ As he turned away, he snorted one more time, ‘And I sure hope you can all swim because God only knows what tonight is going to be like, for the crossing.’
Misha couldn’t help himself; he had to know more, ‘The c-crossing, sir?’ Immediately, his cheeks glowed red and he panicked over opening his mouth.
However, the sergeant had run out of time and smiles, snapping, ‘Go and dig trenches. That’s all you need to know, for now.’
Anton, rather stupidly, saluted the sergeant’s back, while his comrades began to walk in the direction they had been told to. They had barely gone a few steps before Anton passed them by, purposely taking long strides so that he could lead them, or they could follow him. Vlad heard Leo mumble something awful but chose to ignore it. Instead, he pointed to a sign post that read, ‘Lenisk’. ‘Well’, he said, ‘At least we know where we are now.’
‘In relation to what?’ smirked Leo.
Vlad shrugged his shoulders and laughed. ‘I have absolutely no idea!’
There were posters everywhere, on lamp-posts and trees, urging people to join in the fight for Stalingrad, making them feel they were part of something important, that they were needed just as much as anyone else. This newfound confidence, however, was no match for their corporal, who appeared to take a violent dislike to the boys as soon as he laid eyes on them. ‘OH NO! As if I hadn’t enough problems to deal with, now I have to babysit kids!’
His greeting confused the boys because he didn’t look that much older than them. Still, he did have his followers, who laughed with him, or for him. It was hard to tell.
Anton hoped to clear up any misunderstanding, ‘Sir, Sergeant Batyuk sent us to …’
‘Yes, dearie, I know. I know everything, don’t I! That’s my job! Now, the four of you drop your gear over there and grab a shovel over here. Then I want you to dig a great big bloody hole beside your things, as fast as possible.’
It was fortunate that none of them had any questions since the corporal stalked off almost as soon as he finished talking. Anton shrugged off the rudeness, able to accept that this was what being a soldier involved. Misha, however, looked like he was going to cry, while Leo silently removed his coat and bag, dropping them to the ground, where they had been instructed, before going over to a sad pile of ancient, mucky shovels. He grabbed four and brought them back, handing them out without saying a word. Anton pouted, as if annoyed that he hadn’t been able to fetch his own shovel. He was painfully aware that the other soldiers, who were taking a quick break, were passing around cigarettes while lazily watching the new recruits.
Vlad felt exhausted, although he knew it wasn’t because he was actually tired; it was because he did not want to be here at all. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was half past four: half past four in the middle of nowhere, on a day that seemed to have no end in sight. He detested not knowing the little details, like when was dinner time, where would they be sleeping tonight and what time they would have to get up tomorrow morning. These questions buzzed around his head, like warring planes, as he dug and dug, alongside the others, into the soft, cool earth.
‘Cheer up, comrades. Things could be a lot worse, you know. You could be dead!’
These cheerful words did not actually bring a smile to the boys’ faces but at least the young man who said them did not look at them with scorn in his eyes. Vlad and Leo nodded over at him, while Anton smiled knowingly. Misha was the only one who pretended not to have heard them. No doubt he was determined not to have the mean corporal shout at them again. He kept digging as if his life depended on it, which, one would suppose, it did.
The German airplanes continued to bombard the Russian army as often and as hard as possible. Jumping into a trench, or any kind of deep hole, was about the only thing a fellow could do to save himself from being blown into a million little pieces, like shattered glass.
The man scanned the sky overhead. ‘No sign of Gerry yet. Maybe he’ll leave us alone today.’
Anton practically jumped into the air, so excited was he to be able to contribute to the conversation, ‘We already had a run in with … er, a Gerry. Our train was attacked a while back.’ To his credit, he paused before saying ‘a’ before ‘Gerry’. It must not have sounded right in his head either, and he blushed slightly, not looking the least bit surprised when some of the men repeated it and shook their heads in disbelief.
The first man laughed pleasantly and discreetly gave Anton a lesson, ‘Ah, Gerry couldn’t possibly stay away from us; they would miss us too much. If you ask me, they’re waiting for tonight, when we’re sitting pretty in the middle of the Volga River.’
Leo asked, ‘Is that “the crossing”?’
Vlad expected the man to crow over their innocence and was relieved when he, instead, introduced himself as Leyosha and nodded, ‘Yes. Once we’re finished here, we’ve a bit of a walk to the banks of the Volga.’ He paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead before continuing, ‘Stalingrad is on the other side. The truth of it is, my friends, from that point on we will be taking our lives in our hands.’
His friend groaned, ‘Ah, best not to think too far ahead, comrades.’ He opened up his box of precious cigarettes and generously offered them to the boys. All but Anton politely refused.
Leyosha asked, ‘You seem to know one another well?’
Vlad, eager for normal conversation, answered, ‘We were all in school together.’ And then he stopped, hoping that Leyosha wouldn’t question him further about this, believing that it was probably best not to talk about Mr Belov and the walk to the registrar’s office. Still schoolboys at heart, neither he nor his friends realised that school would be the last thing their army mates would want to know anything about. How would school hold any interest for a soldier?
Leyosha exhaled a smoky circle and said, ‘It’s good to have your friends around you in times like this.’
His mates nodded in agreement. Because they appeared to know what they were talking about, Vlad was prompted to ask, ‘Have you been in the army long?’
Sending his cigarette butt into the mud beside him, Leyosha prepared to start digging again, gesturing to the boys that they’d better make a start, that the break was over. ‘Long enough. We were in Moscow for the last while.’
Anton was delighted to be standing in front of real soldiers who had actually taken part in combat. ‘Hey! You’ve fought before. How was it?’
From the look on Leo and Vlad’s faces, Anton’s question was one that they had been about to ask too, and were now hugely grateful, for once, that Anton had beaten them to it.
Leyosha spat as he kept digging, saying out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Please, friend, don’t ask silly questions.’
They worked steadily for the next two hours, with no visits from ‘Gerry’. The boys were very grateful on hearing it was time to eat. They put down their shovels and joined Leyosha and the others, as they took their places on the ground to eat the dinner of bread and boiled potatoes.
Leyosha took the opportunity to introduce his friend Maksim, who seemed a lot older than him. After shaking their hands, he stretched himself out on the ground, supporting himself on his elbows. He chewed his bread and threw out a question: ‘Do you know what they say about the Volga?’
Vlad shook his head.
Maksim answered his own question, ‘They say it mirrors the Russian soul.’
Having yet to see the Volga River, and feeling rather inadequate about life in general, Vlad could only smile politely at this. Still, he liked how it sounded.
Leyosha said rather proudly, ‘Maksim is a poet’.
Before the boys could react to this, Maksim put up one hand in protest. ‘Used to be. Used to be.’ He grinned. ‘Unfortunately, writing poetry doesn’t put food on the table so, now I’m a farmer.’
Leyosha winked and leant forward to whisper loudly, ‘His wife insists, you know. She slapped the poetry out of him, good and proper.’
Maksim laughed and put up his fist, pretending to be insulted, before explaining, ‘It’s his lovely sister I’m married to, for better or worse.’
Misha thought for a moment and then put two and two together: ‘You’re brothers-in-law.’
The two men beamed at him, Maksim saying, ‘Full marks to the red head!’
Sergeant Batyuk passed by with the corporal, deep in conversation. Amidst all the laughter, eating and chatter from the different groups around the area, each soldier found himself glancing at the two men, wondering what they were talking about. Anton sat up a little straighter, perhaps hoping that he would stick out from the crowd, as a soldier with great potential.
‘So,’ said Leyosha, ‘this will be your first time to do battle?’
Four heads nodded, though Anton’s nod wasn’t as obvious as the others. Vlad added, ‘To be honest, it will be our first time to see Stalingrad too. Have either of you been there before?’
It was Leyosha’s turn to nod. ‘Yes, I was lucky enough to work for a time in one of the factories. I’m telling you, comrades, you’ve never seen the likes of it. Imagine the most elegant apartment blocks stretching high into the sky, all painted pure white. Everywhere you look there are trees; they line the widest streets in the world. I’ve stood behind visitors and heard them remark on the huge amount of trees, flowers and grass, an unexpected sight for a large industrial city. In the centre is the Park of Sculptures, where I used to sit on my favourite bench to eat my lunch and watch the pretty girls walk by.’ He stopped to remember more. ‘I saw the most beautiful buildings, the universities, the opera house, the libraries – I mean, I was never the bookish type yet there was something about the city that made you feel better about yourself.
‘But you know what I loved the most about Stalingrad? It was such a mixture of all sorts of people, from ordinary workers, like myself, to all these fancy students, who would take the best tables in the cafes and sit for hours over their coffee, books all over the table, debating some philosophical or mathematical question.’
Maksim flicked bread crumbs off his trousers. ‘Sounds like the perfect place to be a poet.’
‘Well,’ sighed his friend. ‘You’ll find out soon enough, I suppose.’
Leo spoke, ‘We heard about the Luftwaffe bombing the city for two weeks solid.’
Leyosha swallowed the last piece of his bread. ‘I can’t picture an entire city in flames, and certainly not one as busy and modern as this one.’ He sniffed the air. ‘But that’s what we can smell as we sit here.’
The boys looked puzzled.
‘The smell of burning in the air?’ shrugged Leyosha. ‘That’s Stalingrad.’