We were stationed in dugouts not far from the village of Dolgoye near Velikiye Luki. There was only thick forest around us, and a kilometre away we could see a low hut. An old woman and a young girl lived there. Among our number there was a platoon commander – a man from Podolsk named Ivan Barkalov – the only chap whose name I still remember. He was already over 30, married with two children; he arranged to see the girl in the evenings. As part of our officer’s rations we received an 800-gram tin of American sausage, which we normally shared between two of us. Once Barkalov approached me and said: ‘Look, do me a favour, give me your tin. I am going to be their guest, they are starving.’
‘Take it, let them have it.’
Next morning he came back, returned the tin and burst out laughing. I asked him: ‘Why are you neighing like a horse? Why didn’t you give it to them?’
‘She’s bonny. She fell asleep too soon. I woke up in the morning, took the tin and left.’
‘What kind of a scoundrel are you! Go and give it to her!’
‘No, I won’t. If you want to, do it yourself.’
New Year’s Eve passed without any celebrations. It was snowing heavily and we were freezing in our chilly dugouts. At the start of 1944 we were advised that the brigade would be heading to Narofominsk26 for reorganization, and by mid-January the brigade had arrived in the camp near the town. We were lodged in small dugouts: eighteen officers in one, rank and file in another, and the HQ in a third. That was all that remained out of the whole brigade. Here I clashed with Barkalov again. The kitchen was placed in a separate dugout, which we had to walk to with our mess tins. After meals we would put them on a shelf fixed on a wall. Once Barkalov, lounging on his bunk, said to one of the officers:
‘Listen, bring me my food. I don’t feel like walking.’
‘Am I your batman?!’ The guy was outraged, ‘I’m not going to bring you anything.’
‘Then I will shoot a hole through all the mess tins.’
‘Stop fooling around!’
‘You reckon, I ain’t got no guts for it?’
‘Maybe you ain’t.’
Barkalov pulled out his pistol and shot as many rounds as there were into these mess tins, the more damaging because he was shooting from a distance of three paces – it was impossible to miss. I saw red and threw myself on him. We had a massive brawl: I still have a scar on my upper lip from his head-butt. Of course, the guys dragged us apart. Nobody reported the incident; we worked out some story about what had happened to the mess tins, and they were replaced.
It was announced that the brigade was to be disbanded, and the 4th Special Motorcycle Regiment would be formed in its place. While confirmation of staff and personnel selection for the various positions was being made, the officers were left to their own devices. An attempt to organize drilling failed; we frequently attended dances in Narofominsk.
As usual, when there’s nothing to do, people begin to do odd things. The zampolit, Kibalnik, began to court a cute young medic, aged about 22. She wouldn’t give in. He watched her every step, set up a guard post near the medics’ dugout and personally instructed the guards not to allow anyone in and not to let her out either. Once he found her missing from the unit and raised the alarm as if it were an emergency: a vehicle was sent to Narofominsk to pick up the officers who had gone there for a party. The girl, feeling this pressure and uninterested in the zampolit, found herself a junior lieutenant and went out with him instead. Kibalnik began to bully this officer, slandering him in front of the brigade commander, and accusing him of indecent behaviour and having relations with this woman. Fortunately, the brigade commander sorted it out considerately. Soon afterwards, the unit was disbanded: the girl was commandeered in one direction, the junior lieutenant in another, but Kibalnik never won her.
In March I was summoned to the brigade HQ and offered the chance to take the role of company commander in the motorcycle regiment. I categorically rejected it, saying peremptorily: ‘I know nothing about motorcycles and have never fought on them. I’ve been a tankman and will stay one! What kind of war could be carried out on motorbikes?!’ (I couldn’t imagine how you could fight on motorbikes.)
‘We’ll give you a platoon then,’ the brigade Chief-of-Staff replied.
‘All right, no objections.’
Kolya Maximov was summoned straight after me. He also rejected the motorcycle platoon commander’s position, saying that he wanted to stay a tank commander. The two of us and three or four other officers departed to a reserve officer regiment of the BTMV27 headquarters based in Moscow, where it was recommended that I be awarded the Order of Patriotic War and promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant.
We arrived in Moscow in the middle of April. Kolya showed me the city and introduced me to his family, who lived in an apartment on Gogol Boulevard, where we stayed. I got to know his sister; she was born in 1927 and was married – her husband had been badly wounded near Stalingrad and became a first-category invalid,28 and later on he worked as a driver. We walked around Moscow, although there was limited time to do that. I visited some of my acquaintances and friends; I remember that I began to think at that time about studying at the academy. Seeing us off, Kolya’s mum said: ‘Once the war is over, and if you stay alive, come back here. Stay with us – you won’t need any boarding house.’
On 30 April we joined the reserve regiment. We arrived at the barracks in Pestchanaya Street, and found a note on our beds: ‘Report to the regimental HQ and get directions to Nizhniy Tagil ready for arrival of tanks.’ We did just that, receiving our travel documents and train tickets at HQ before heading off to Nizhniy Tagil without waiting around for May Day. My sister worked in Perm then, and my mum was in Osa, but it would have taken about eight hours to get to her by bus, and almost a day by river boat. We changed trains at Perm, and I stayed for some time in the train station, thinking: ‘What’s the point of trying to see them? There are lots of kids, my dad’s the only man who works, and I’ve got nothing but dry ration.’ Later on, my mum rebuked me for travelling past and not calling in. She said: ‘Only you would do that, no one else.’ Indeed, I could have called in: there was a fair bit of time, and on top of that I could have pretended to be sick – I could have worked out an excuse! But I thought differently and didn’t go to see my family.
We loaded our tanks onto 60-ton open trucks in Nizhniy Tagil. Wooden blocks were put under the tracks and fastened down by iron brackets. The tanks were tied down at the front and at the rear by thick guy ropes which were hooked to rings on the trucks and crooks welded to the tank armour. Tank tarpaulins were spread above to create a tent, under which we could relax during the journey. The company was boarded in a freight carriage kitted with bunks. We slept on them and used them as benches. The weather was like summertime: we often stood by the open carriage door and, leaning on the guardrail, watched the fields and meadows flying past us, with women and teenagers working in them; seeing the train, they would stop work, stand upright and wave to us.
The train rolled along the ‘green street’. We would stop occasionally to change the engine and engineers, and during these short moments the companies had time to eat in a dry mess. Flag stations29 and larger ones crowded with people flashed past us. Everywhere we saw busy trade, often involving food or second-hand clothes. There were a lot of disabled people: some on push carts, some with crutches or with a sleeve stuffed into a pocket. Men in military uniform who were heading home were pushing their way through the crowds too. Men would also often come to the station to meet and see off military trains, hoping to see someone they knew or send regards to comrades in their former units.
We had been strictly ordered to stop anyone from getting on the open trucks or to board ‘fellow travellers’. But there were many people trying to return home, having been driven away by the war. They would sneak onto the open cars by whatever means possible and hide under the tarpaulins. When such stowaways were discovered, it was enough just to see the ragged, pathetic looks of a once-beautiful girl, to see the anguish, sadness and fear in her eyes, and no one could bring himself to put her off. Shivering from cold and fright, enduring the miseries of such a trip, people were simply returning to their homes. Some had with them – heavens knew where and how they had been procured – grain and potatoes so that they could sow them in the spring and feed themselves and their families. That was a harsh time . . .
The train commander appointed me as the orderly officer for the journey. I checked the guards, the posts, reported for handover and took up the duties. By the morning I desperately wanted sleep, but fought against drowsiness as best I could. I felt the train stop. I opened the carriage door slightly, and the pleasant coolness of the morning air brushed my face. I jumped down onto the embankment and looked around: we were standing in a siding. Ahead of us a lonely signalbox loomed, and next to it was an ageing woman in a woollen jacket tied with a belt.
I stretched my muscles until my joints cracked and did my habitual arm exercises, warming myself up, and then walked along the train. The ‘passengers’ slept close to the tanks on the open trucks: some sat, some lay on their sacks. I felt sorry for these people, and I wasn’t tormented by any feeling of guilt for breeching regulations. Suddenly a thin boyish figure flashed along one of the platforms. A teenager, moving from one group of people to another, was looking out, probing and searching people’s sacks. I bent down, carefully sneaked under an open car – and the skinny figure rushed behind a tank. So it was a thief! The boy noticed me, snatched something, jumped off the car and took to his heels. ‘Stop!’ I shouted. But this only urged him forwards and, holding a bag to his chest, he speeded up. I rushed in pursuit, becoming inflamed by fury: ‘You bastard! Just you wait, I’ll give you a hiding!’ I was in good shape, and it wasn’t hard for me to catch up with the boy. I grasped him by the collar of his worn-out and oversized jacket, raised my hand to give him a smack, but then saw the boy’s eyes. There were horror and hatred in them. He shrank back and hunched up, awaiting a blow. My hand dropped involuntarily.
‘Oh, to hell with you,’ I said. My fury vanished as if by magic. ‘Well? What were you afraid of? Who were you running away from? What are you doing on the train?’ I kept asking silly questions, although I knew well what he was doing and what his situation was.
The boy stayed silent, panting. He was shuddering from head to foot.
‘Hey, let’s go to the carriage, quickly, we’ll sort everything out there. If the train takes off, we will be left behind.’ The boy wretchedly plodded behind me. I picked up the bag the boy had thrown away while running; it was a postman’s bag.
The train uttered a long and strident shriek and jerked backwards, before dragging the carriages forward with a rumble, and slowly started to gain speed. Some soldiers from a heated carriage stretched out their arms, snatched the boy on the run, and then grabbed me. An old woman with a weathered face, dressed in a black railway-type overcoat, was smiling, having raised a white signal flag, and following the train with her eyes. The train gathered speed. The boy, having shrunk into the corner, was still panting and gazing round, startled.
‘Well, little hero, let’s clarify thoroughly who you are, where you’re from and what’s the reason for your visit,’ I started conciliatorily, hoping to see some reciprocal trust. The boy stayed silent.
‘All right,’ the watch commander, Lieutenant Alexashin, interjected, ‘let’s give him something to eat. Look, he’s just emaciated – it’s clear he’s hungry.’
Without waiting for the company commander’s consent, he took a mess tin with some leftover buckwheat gruel and handed it over to the boy, before bending over his backpack to get some tinned stew and bread. The boy didn’t have to be talked into it – he pounced on the gruel, scooping it out of the mess tin by hand and hastily stuffing it into his mouth in big lumps; he swallowed it almost without chewing, choking and belching. He ate the gruel in seconds and then stared at the tankmen surrounding him with bleary eyes. Lieutenant Alexashin stood nearby, shaking his head at this cheerless scene.
‘You’re obviously starving, old chap,’ he said, and put down the tin of stew and bread in front of the boy.
The boy didn’t touch it, and then the driver – Roy, a sergeant and the head of a large family – started crying and hugged the boy on his skinny shoulders. The others sat around, shocked. Everyone felt unbearably sorry for this lonely chap.
I asked again:‘Well, now let’s introduce ourselves. Tell us, who are you and where are you from?’
The boy thought for a minute, as if trying to make up a story, but then began to talk disjointedly: ‘I’m from Moscow. From the Zatsep district.’
‘How come, dear fellow, did you leave the capital of our Motherland so easily?’ I asked semi-jokingly.
‘What was I supposed to do over there? I want to fight.’
‘Look at the warrior!’ Zarubin giggled.
‘Ignore him, keep going,’ I said, adamantly.
The boy, who introduced himself as Nikolka, told us that his father was killed at war in 1941, and his mother had also died. Nikolka used to live with his elder brother, who had gone to the front too. His brother’s wife, downtrodden by poverty, disliked the boy: she made him look after her kids, hit him remorselessly and continuously reproached him for using her food and shelter. This last accusation hurt the boy’s pride the most. He couldn’t put up with the humiliation and took to the streets, where he got mixed up with a bad crowd and began to provide for himself through petty theft at the Zatsepskiy market. After several arrests by the milice30 and another row at home, Nikolka headed to the front. He would get a place on one train, then on another, but each time he was condescendingly listened to, fed, given food for the return trip, but never taken along. Thus he’d been roaming throughout Russia and Ukraine from the rear to the front and back again.
‘What’s in your sack?’
‘I pinched it – I have to live.’
‘And what kind of bag is this one?’ the lieutenant said, opening it up.
‘Look, there’s a lot of letters in it. People wait for any news from the front, and you stole it and chucked it away,’ I said, with harshness in my voice. ‘That is heartlessness, lad, and you should be punished for it.’
The boy shrank back again, becoming gloomy, and again looked like a cornered beast. Silence fell, and the voice of the poor devil squeaked, barely audibly: ‘Uncle, I won’t do it no more, just take me to the front.’
‘To the front?’ I muttered thoughtfully. ‘The front is banned for you, we’ll hand you over to the commandant at the next station, then he will send you back to Moscow to your brother’s place, if you told us the truth.’
The boy became silent for a while, then drying his eyes with dirty fists, he began to talk us out of it, sobbing:
‘Uncle, I can’t go back to Moscow, no way! Can’t go back to that kikimora31 – take me to the front instead.’
I felt uneasy.
‘Vasya, let’s take him! He’s my fellow townsman!’ Kolya Maximov stood up for him.
‘Look at him, you’re too kind! How can we take him? If we do it this once, then all boys will want the same.’
I became pensive and after a short pause said, addressing no one in particular, ‘Sink or swim! I’ll take you, Nikolka, whatever happens next. But, remember, don’t let anyone see you until we reach our unit. You, Zarubin, put him in your tank at the next stopover, and let him live in it. En route hand the mailbag to the postman on the twelfth or ninth open truck.’
‘I remember where they were,’ the joyful Nikolka muttered, ‘I will hand it back myself.’
At a border-guard post we hid the boy in one of the shell crates and thus carried him to the front-line zone.
By the time our train arrived at the front the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts had reached the Jassy–Orgeev–Dubossary line stretching south along the Dniester to the Black Sea. Both sides had suffered heavy losses and were exhausted; the troops needed rest and reinforcement. So, by the end of May 1944 a relative lull had set in on the front. The 18th Tank Corps was withdrawn into reserve, and the 170th Tank Brigade was relocated to the area of Larga–Movilenii–Potenjenii. Tanks and machines were regrouped and consolidated, locations for troops, HQs and rearguard units were defined, and the engineering and camouflage work on defence positions commenced. By the end of June this work had been completed. Advanced maintenance of tanks and machines had been finalized too. All tanks had been refuelled and oiled; ammo stocks had been replenished. Each battalion allocated a platoon to guard the hill ‘195.0’ and observe the enemy; the crews were replaced once a week at night.
On 11–12 June the brigade received twenty-two tanks with crews from the Chelyabinsk Tank Plant. On 17 June our train arrived from Nizhniy Tagil with twenty-one T-34-85 tanks. When we reached the battalion and the stowaway was found, a row ensued. Ivan Morozov, an authorized officer from the Battalion Special Department, was the most zealous, believing that our actions constituted a crime. Combat Otroshenkov summoned me and seriously reprimanded me. However, he quickly calmed down after thinking over my arguments and said to the zampolit: ‘Look, Ivan, why wouldn’t we keep the boy here? We shall have our own “son of a regiment”.32 Go and see Negrul, maybe he will take pity on the boy.’
Captain Postovalov walked me and Nikolka to the dugout of the political department of the brigade, and ordered us to smarten ourselves up and wait while he went in to see Lieutenant-Colonel Negrul. Soon I was summoned. The head of the political department scrutinized me and then said quietly and reluctantly: ‘You, lieutenant, begin your service in our brigade on the wrong foot.’
Having thought for a while longer, he went on: ‘What would you have me do with you?’
I was silent.
‘So . . .’ Lieutenant-Colonel Negrul sighed heavily. ‘You wait here, I will see the combrig to get his advice.’
The three of us waited together, silent, awaiting the decision. Nikolka slumped, afraid that he would be sent back. Then we heard a yell from the HQ van: ‘Postovalov! Walk your swindlers over here.’ We entered a very tidy compartment; a shortish, young, handsome colonel with pleasant grey eyes and a kind look was sitting at a table. Postovalov announced our arrival.
‘Well, my heroes, tell me how you managed to cheat the border guards? They claim that they wouldn’t let even a mouse sneak across the border.’
I reported briefly and articulately. The combrig enjoyed the story; he laughed heartily and then said, after a short hesitation: ‘Georgiy Ivanovich, we can’t send the boy back, can we? Give Prokopenko instructions, let him assign the boy to the 1st Battalion as a kitchen boy and put him down for all allowances.’
The head of the political department agreed, and I felt relieved. Postovalov started joking, teasing Nikolka, but the latter suddenly started to be obstinate: ‘I don’t want and won’t work in the kitchen! Am I a lackey, or a ladle? I want to be a scout!’
I was perplexed by Nikolka’s outburst. Moments before, he had been ready to do any job, but now he wanted to be a scout. It took me a great deal of effort to talk him into obeying the order. The brigade tailor sewed him a military uniform, adjusting a field cap to fit. The bootmaker made him nicely-fitting jackboots out of duck skin. Soon Nikolka became one of the most popular people in the battalion. He turned out to be a capable and smart chap, taking part in scouting near Budapest, and was awarded the medal ‘For Valour’.
A short while later, I was unexpectedly summoned by Captain Prokopenko. I was perplexed and trying to guess what might be in store. Why would the brigade quartermaster need me? I reported to his dugout. Prokopenko greeted me, walked up to me, examined me from all sides with a grin and then said: ‘I thought you would be unable to report.’
‘Why unable?’ I asked, confused.
‘Because I assume you and the officers of your platoon are naked. It is stated in your clothing allowance papers that all uniforms have been written off.’
At that moment I guessed why I had been summoned. When we were on the road, a driver called Kotov – a habitual ex-offender and expert in document forgery – managed to draw stamps on a sheet of paper using a simple compass, a pen and chemical ink with sugar. It turned out that the guy had written off the uniforms of all the officers of the platoon! Prokopenko was certain that the stamps were authentic, but couldn’t understand how it could have happened.
I quickly worked out a version of events: ‘Comrade captain, our uniforms were written off upon arrival from the front to the reserve regiment, but they had no time to issue us with new ones and said that we would get them at the front.’
‘That is true, but your uniform looks too good, and it would be a pity to write it off. All right, go and get new stuff.’
I rushed out of his dugout as if scalded: ‘This time the danger is past, but no more jokes with this sort of stuff – it is a punishable offence!’ And I told Maximov: ‘Unfortunately our service in this brigade has begun with far too many summons from our superiors . . .!’