In the lee of the tank, Zostchenko was firing his submachine gun at the hammering machine gun in the haze. The explosions of the hand-grenades blinded him. Then he heard a rattle against the steel treads of the caterpillar tracks. He had to throw himself on the ground.
He saw that the tank’s first shell was too high, but the second winged into the heart of the machine-gun nest. The tank commander had slumped back into his turret, with a wound to the head. To Zostchenko it was all like a bad dream. Ten or twelve of his Siberians were caught in the wire with contorted limbs. In front of him fog, next to him the tank. As from a great distance, he heard the hum of the motor. He was ringed by his Red Army men, but he was alone as always. Lieutenant Trupikov hunkered in a hollow, all set to leap out. Zostchenko failed to realize they were all waiting for him, for him to set an example. He wasn’t in the real world.
Soloviev had stood next to him, blinking his eyes, the way he always did. Was about to say something to him. He could see it from his eyes, his mouth. His whole face told him. But then he hadn’t said it, his eyes had just grown round with shock. As if he had trodden on a piece of glass with bare feet. Not too alarmed. No expression of fear. A disagreeable surprise, nothing too terrible. And it was like that that he had received death. Zostchenko didn’t know where he was hit. Soloviev sat down. Not quite like a man sitting down, but not like a man wounded either. Surprised, but content. He was already dead.
Zostchenko had watched everything, surprised and incredulous. How a man could die like that. Unprepared. Not even finish what he was thinking, or say the words his lips were forming. Where was the conclusion, the high point? Strange that the question should have come to him from Soloviev. Others had died as well. Before his very eyes. Strangers, just as strange to him as the Red Army fellows who stood around him, waiting. Waiting for what?
It was time to stand up, to make his way through the wire. Towards the layer of haze. Barbed wire. A fine drizzle . . . Just like the other time . . .
Murmansk. The harbour. The dock with iron posts and barbed wire. A soldier in the fog. His rifle barrel sparkled with raindrops. He himself, a little boy, wet through and shivering. But he was a soldier, and couldn’t quit his post. Over there, in the whitish haze, the other man. Chill wind off the sea. Far off, the dull boom of a foghorn. Up and down, beside the barbed wire. A little boy in a sailor suit, playing soldiers, dreaming, soaked, going home with a temperature. Mama undressed him. Mama didn’t ask. Mama held his hot little hand, and looked at him. The little boy didn’t want to be left alone. He pressed Mama’s hand to his lips. He clasped it hard, and Mama waited till he fell asleep . . .
Zostchenko climbed over the last loop of wire, his Siberians at his side. His boots sank into the marsh. He stuck to the ground, only advanced slowly. Brown puddles. Green patches of moss that hadn’t received any shelling . . .
. . . The cemetery at Murmansk. Brown puddles. His shoes sank into the mud. Mama’s black coffin, covered by a moss-green drape. Four men with indifferent expressions. The bearded priest. Strangers comforting him. Mama, dear Mama. Take me with you. Don’t leave me . . . Mama didn’t hear him. All that was left: a heap of loose earth . . .
Loose earth. Zostchenko saw craters, saw the shot-up machine-gun nest. He saw as through a pane of glass. He climbed into the trench, trod on a board. In front of him a crate with open lid. Munitions belts spilling out of it . . .
. . . On the wet platform. In front of him lay his suitcase, with open lid. Clothes spilling out of it. Lots of strangers. Everyone stared at him as he stood by his suitcase. Somebody laughed. No one helped him cram the things back into his suitcase. Then the train approached deafeningly. People start to mill around. He wants to pack up his things quickly. Gets a shove. Everyone surges forward. No one takes care. A little boy in a washed-out sailor suit tries to stoop to his suitcase. Is swept away. His clothes are trampled underfoot. A mucky boot-heel drills into Mama’s photograph . . .
Zostchenko hurried along the trench. Stepped over dead German soldiers. Behind him Lieutenant Trupikov. A narrow sap opened up, in the direction of the hill. Zostchenko emptied a magazine of his submachine gun into it. In front of him a shot-up tank dangling over the trench. The sap changed direction. A form huddled on the ground. Had its hands up above its head. Zostchenko took aim. His fingers were lame. He let Trupikov take care of it. Trupikov’s pistol barked out. The German soldier in front of him collapsed, hands still extended in surrender. Trupikov passed the signal pistol to Zostchenko. A purple flare went up, and a shower of stars came down . . .
. . . But when the shooting star fell through the leaves and on to the forest floor, then it wasn’t a shooting star any more, but a little white tunic with gold-feathered wings. The child took the tunic, and lo, the child became an angel. It didn’t feel the cold any more, and nor was it alone any more either. It floated up to join the other angels in heaven. God had called it home, just as He calls all people with pure hearts home. And that’s why you should watch that your heart remain pure . . . Mama turned off the lamp, and in the darkness, kissed him on the mouth . . .
The trench divided. A wide sap led back; a narrow trench, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through, forked right. Ahead, a machine gun was hammering away. Zostchenko took the right fork. He had to get round the back of the enemy gun. That was his duty. Trupikov led a detachment on along the sap. Zostchenko followed the windings of the trench, between damp, lofty earthen walls . . .
. . . The bare lofty walls of the orphanage. The corridor had lots of corners in it. Water oozed out of the whitewashed walls. He had to walk alone through gloomy passages. His heart fluttered. He panted for breath. Shadows clawed at him. But he had to walk on. The male nurse had said so. Blows and punishments make men out of little children. Fear of pain, fear accomplishes much. Fear preserves order. Fear without end. The little boy walked barefooted on the cold stone flags. Above him the dormitories with three hundred children. Three hundred freezing little bodies on straw mattresses. Three hundred orphans hungry for love. The little boy had to walk, because he had been ordered to . . .
The trench had collapsed. Shells had flattened the walls. Zostchenko climbed up out of it. His uniform was sticky with sweat. He stood panting in the haze, on the shell-ploughed earth. All round him the cratered field. In front of him in the fog the chattering enemy machine gun. He is exactly behind the gunner. If it weren’t so foggy, he could shoot him now. The mists part. He can see the labyrinth of the trenches. In all the places where he had run along the trench, he can now see green helmets moving. Little round pots going by, as at a shooting-stall . . .
. . . Round targets were pulled past on wires. Green targets, with a black circle in the middle. A hurdy-gurdy squeaked and scratched. Cadet Zostchenko shot at the targets with an air-rifle. Next to him stood a girl with black hair. Sparkling eyes, pouting mouth. Cadet Zostchenko didn’t hit anything, because he was too excited. The girl Sonia laughed. He blushed. His uniform stuck to his skin. The girl led him away. Her hand was cool, the hand of a woman . . .
Back where Zostchenko had climbed into the trench, men were surging forward. They formed up into a row that emerged from the fog. Pairs of Red Army men were lugging tree trunks, staggering under the weight. They dropped them into the soft marsh, and vanished again into the fog by pairs. A silent mime. A rhythmic coming and going: a carpet for the tanks. The carrying detail’s task had been performed. The monsters came ploughing up. The first tank slashed open the wet ground, rolled on to the uncertain timbers. Behind it the forms of others. They felt their way on to the trunks. Crept cautiously forward. Already the first had reached the trench, had solid ground under its caterpillar tracks. And the second. The third in line started to teeter. Its tracks churned up the trunks. Some flipped up into the air. Zostchenko heard the splintering of wood. Chain links ground on emptiness. For seconds. Then the tank sank. Its gun barrel tilted up. Frantic revolutions of the tracks, grabbing for grip. The tank dug itself a grave, sank ever deeper into the marsh. Only the muddy turret now was above ground. The black colossus sank. Its twin exhausts spat out a last stream of mire. The tank immediately behind followed it into space. The third too was unable to help itself. The gonging tone of colliding steel plates. Three tanks drowned in the marsh. Shreds of fog drifted past. An eerie, blotted picture. Only two of the black monsters remained, slicing wildly across the labyrinth of trenches, towards the hill . . .
. . . Two people. The girl Sonia, a woman, really; and cadet Zostchenko, who was a Captain. Not even the war was able to separate them. Was she still lying in the straw, in the stables, among the low, steaming horses? . . .
From out of the haze something flashed in his direction. A hot ray laid open his hip. He jerked backwards, his fingers cramped, agony on his face. Why could he not hear the machine gun any more? A shadow flew at him. Tough, dirt-encrusted fingers throttled him. His shocked eyes opened on a grimace. Warm breath struck his face and knocked him back. Which was the greater – the searing pain in his hip, or his fear? He didn’t know the answer.
The soldier saw that his enemy was no longer stirring. He got up. His bayonet was crimson. He wiped it on the ground, and put it back in its sheath. The tin of fuses that he had been about to open with it lay there in the trench. He looked without comprehension at the twisted form. An officer. Still breathing. Blood trickling out of the wound. A red enamel star flashed on his breast. His helmet had slipped back. Hair stuck with sweat, fingers cramping and taut. Submachine gun under his right arm. The soldier kicked it away. He knew from experience that that was necessary.
The soldier leaned against the trench wall. His knees shook. Every movement of the enemy officer hurt him. He felt the pain in the man’s hip. He felt like screaming. Without taking his eye off the man’s face, he reached for his carbine. Then the Russian slowly opened his eyes, and at that instant the soldier knew he wouldn’t do it. The man’s eyes looked astonished. They seemed incapable of understanding.
The soldier lowered his rifle, and propped it against the trench wall. He knelt down, and stroked the hand of the wounded man. The machine gun was still hammering away in the fog. The soldier thrust his arm under the Russian’s head, took him under the knees, lifted him up. Reeling, he dragged himself and his burden back along the trench, in the direction of the machine gun.