THE 13TH Guards Division completed the crossing at dawn on 15 September. Rodimtsev reported only minor losses: in spite of heavy mortar and artillery fire, they had successfully crossed to the west bank.20
Rodimtsev himself embarked a little later, in the afternoon. The signals-battalion boat set off at the same time, only a few metres behind him.
Everything shone and sparkled: the ripples in calm backwaters; the waves where the river’s two streams met below Sarpinsky Island; the medals and the gold star on the young general’s chest; the empty yellow can, lying on the bottom of the boat, that they used for bailing out water. It was a crystalline day, rich in warmth, light and movement.
“Vile weather!” said the grey-haired, pockmarked artillery colonel sitting beside Rodimtsev. “If we can’t have rain, they could at least let us have a little haze. As it is, the air’s like glass. The only good thing is that the sun’s in the Germans’ eyes.”
The German gunners, however, did not seem bothered by the sun. With their second shot they scored a direct hit on the boat carrying the signals battalion.
There was one survivor. He had been sitting at the bow. The blast sent him straight into the water and he managed to swim back to the east bank. Everyone else was drowned. All that remained of them was a lone side cap rocking on the water and a mess tin with flaking green enamel, its lid firmly closed.
When this lone signaller reached the shore, a small car sped down to the sand and General Golikov, the Stavka representative at Front HQ, ran down to the water and yelled, “Is the general alive?”
The signaller was shaking the water out of his heavy sleeves. Deafened by the explosion and overwhelmed by the miracle of his own survival, he stammered out, “I’m the only one left. I was thinking we were sure to be hit—and then it happened. Heaven knows how I’m still alive. I didn’t even know which way to swim.”
Only an hour later was Golikov informed that Rodimtsev had crossed safely and reached his command post.
This temporary command post was located five metres from the shore, among heaps of brick and charred logs, in a shallow pit covered by sheets of corrugated iron.
Rodimtsev and Divisional Commissar Vavilov, a stout, pale-faced Muscovite, stumbled a little on the many stones. Outside the command post stood a soldier in well-worn boots, a sub-machine gun across his chest.
As he went in, Rodimtsev bent down and asked, “What about communications with the regiments?” He had been worrying about this both during the crossing and while still on the east bank.
Major Belsky, the chief of staff, looked up. Adjusting his side cap, which had slipped to the back of his head, he reported that there were good communications with two of the three regiments. The third had disembarked further north and communications had yet to be established.
“And the enemy?” asked Rodimtsev.
“Still attacking?” asked Vavilov, sitting down on a large stone to get his breath back. Seeing the calm, workaday look on Belsky’s face, he nodded in satisfaction; he admired Belsky, both for his imperturbable good nature and for his capacity for hard work. Belsky was the subject of many fanciful stories. One such story had a German tank positioned on top of the HQ bunker, slowly crushing it with its tracks, and Belsky, half crushed himself, shining his flashlight onto the map and drawing a neat diamond, with the note: “Enemy tank on divisional command post.”
“Belsky the bureaucrat,” people liked to joke.
And now, with his feet on the floor of the pit and his chest at ground level, he pushed aside a sheet of corrugated iron and looked at Rodimtsev. His eyes calm and serious, he seemed no different from a week earlier, when he came to report to Rodimtsev on clothing allowances.
“The man’s worth his weight in gold,” Vavilov said to himself, as he listened to Belsky’s report.
“I’m setting up our new command post in a sewer,” said Belsky. “It’s big—we’ll almost be able to stand upright. There’s flowing water, but I’ve ordered the sappers to put in some decking. And the main thing is we’ll have ten metres of earth over our heads—quite something.”
“Quite something,” Rodimtsev repeated thoughtfully. He was studying the city plan Belsky had just handed him. The positions occupied by the division were already marked in.
The regimental command posts had been set up twenty or thirty metres from the shore. The battalion and company command posts, along with the guns and mortars, were located in pits, in a gully and in some bombed-out buildings on top of a cliff. There were also small infantry units nearby.
Aware of the danger to which they were exposed, the soldiers were determinedly constructing bunkers or digging trenches and foxholes in the stony soil.
Rodimtsev had no real need to study the city plan—the positions of the artillery pieces and the two infantry regiments were all clearly visible even from the edge of the water.
“Long-term defensive positions,” said Rodimtsev, gesturing towards where the soldiers were working. “And you didn’t even say a word to me.”
“We don’t even really need telephone cables,” said Belsky. “We can shout out orders to the regimental command posts—and they can pass them on to the battalions and companies.”
He looked at Rodimtsev and broke off. Seldom had he seen him looking so grim.
“Nice and cosy,” said Rodimtsev. “All huddled together, and only a few steps from the water!”
Rodimtsev began to pace about the shore, which was littered with slabs of stone, charred logs and sheets of corrugated iron.
A number of paths led up the steep, stony slope into the city, towards the tall windowless buildings on the cliff above them.
It was relatively quiet, with only the occasional mortar bomb whistling past, making everyone lower their heads. Now and then a yellow-grey Messerschmitt would fly low over the Volga, letting out bursts of machine-gun fire and tapping insolently away with its small quick-firing cannon.
Most of the men, however, were used to the sound of machine guns and mortar bombs. It was the silences that terrified them. Everyone in the division, from General Rodimtsev to the rank-and-file soldiers, understood that they were positioned on the main axis of the German offensive.
The young HQ commandant appeared and brightly reported that the new command post was now fully equipped.
Rodimtsev scowled and snapped out, “What’s that round hat on your head? You look like you’re on your way to a village wedding. Where’s your side cap?”
The smile disappeared from the man’s broad face. “Understood, comrade Major General,” he replied.
Rodimtsev set off towards the new command post, accompanied by his staff.
Soldiers were bustling about, carrying logs, planks and bits of metal towards their trenches and bunkers. “Anyone would think they’re beavers,” Rodimtsev said to Vavilov, who was already out of breath again. “Who else constructs long-term defences right by the water?”
Ten metres from the shore was the dark mouth of a sewer. “Here we are,” said Vavilov. “Our new home.”
The west bank of the Volga must have seemed a terrible place indeed on this radiant day. As they said goodbye to the sun, the clear sky and the splendour of the river, as they entered a black pipe where the walls were covered in mould and the air was stale and musty, Rodimtsev’s staff began to look calmer and to breathe more freely.
Soldiers from the commandant’s company were carrying in tables, stools, lamps and boxes of documents; signallers were sorting out telephone cables.
“You’ve got a magnificent command post, comrade General,” said an elderly signals officer, who had been passing on Rodimtsev’s orders to his battalion commanders ever since the defence of Kiev. “We’ve made a special place for you, a kind of office, here on these boxes. There’s even some hay, in case you want to lie down.”
In reply, Rodimtsev nodded sullenly.
He walked along the pipe, tapped on the wall and listened to the murmur of the water underfoot. Then he turned towards Belsky and said, “Why bother with telephone cables? Here we all are in our bathing huts—we can just call out to one another.”
Belsky understood that something was troubling Rodimtsev, but he kept respectfully silent; it was not for him to ask questions of his commander.
Seeing the grim look on Rodimtsev’s face, Vavilov began to frown too.
Nobody in the division knew more than Vavilov about men’s strengths and weaknesses. He knew that many people were watching Rodimtsev. He could imagine only too easily what signallers, telephonists, messengers and adjutants would soon be saying in regimental and battalion command posts: “The general just keeps pacing about. He hasn’t sat down once.” “He’s in a rage with everyone—he’s even given Belsky an earful. He’s on edge, well and truly on edge.”
All this made Vavilov angry. Rodimtsev should have been more careful. He should have known that his subordinates would now be whispering, “Things are looking bad. We’re done for—no doubt about it.” But then Rodimtsev was clearly not blind to such matters. Vavilov had often admired his ability to respond to anxious looks with a casual smile. On one occasion, when a messenger reported, “German tanks are advancing towards the command post,” he had calmly replied, “Prepare the howitzers for direct fire. And now let’s get on with our dinner!”
Once the field telephone was in order, Rodimtsev called Chuikov and reported that the division had crossed.
“You must understand,” said Chuikov, “that we have to attack. There’s no time for the division to rest.”
Thinking there wasn’t much chance of anyone resting at a time and place like this, Rodimtsev replied, “Understood, comrade General!”
Rodimtsev went out into the fresh air, sat down on a stone, lit a cigarette, looked at the faraway east bank, and fell into thought. As at earlier critical moments in the war, he felt both calm and burdened.
In a soldier’s side cap, with a green quilted jacket thrown over his shoulders, he was sitting at a distance from the general bustle of the human anthill. Aged thirty-seven, though he looked a great deal younger, he appeared to be gazing at the world around him with a kind of absent-minded sadness. Few people would have taken this lean, good-looking, fair-haired soldier for the major general in command of the first division of reinforcements to enter the half-occupied city.
During the hours that Rodimtsev had been out of contact with his division, the life of thousands of men, like water seeking the easiest path downhill, had followed its own, entirely natural course.
Wherever they are—waiting for a train at a railway junction, sitting on an ice floe in the Arctic Ocean, or even when they are fighting a war—people do what they can to make themselves warm and comfortable.
This is everyone’s natural desire. Much of the time, this natural desire and military necessity are in harmony. Soldiers dig pits and ditches to shelter their bodies from splinters of steel, and then they lie down in them to shoot at the enemy. Sometimes, however, this life instinct—this instinct for self-preservation—crowds out all other concerns. A man digs a pit or a trench, lies down in it for protection and forgets about his rifle. In his simplicity he imagines that he has been given a sapper’s spade for only one purpose: to protect himself from bullets and shrapnel.
Sitting on a large stone, Rodimtsev took a cursory look at the reports from the regiments about the successful construction of their defensive positions.
From the perspective of the self-preservation of the division, of the self-preservation of individual regiments and battalions, these measures were entirely rational. But even a man as clever as Belsky appeared not to have grasped that, at a time like this, the self-preservation of an individual division, deployed a few metres from the edge of the water, was not what really mattered.
“Belsky!” Rodimtsev called out. A moment later, he said, “This position you’ve taken up here on the shore—we need to give it a bit more thought.” He paused, to give Belsky time to think, then continued, “What can we do? One regiment’s completely cut off from us. We’ve no communications with them worth speaking of. And here we are, five metres from the water. What’ll happen if we have to defend ourselves? Can’t you see? We’ll be drowned—drowned in the river like a litter of puppies. First the Germans will flatten us with their mortars, then they’ll drown us.”
“What are we to do, comrade General? What’s your decision?” Belsky asked in his calm, quiet manner.
“What are we to do?” Rodimtsev asked quietly, as if infected by Belsky’s habitual calm. Then, loudly and emphatically, he went on, “We must attack! We must break into the city! We’ve no other option. They’re stronger than us in every way. We have only one advantage—surprise. We must make the most of it.”
“Absolutely!” Vavilov joined in, already imagining that this was what he had been thinking himself. “They didn’t send us across the Volga just to dig pits!”
Rodimtsev looked at his watch.
“Two hours from now I shall report to the army commander that I’m ready to advance. Summon the regimental commanders. I need to prepare them for their new task: to advance at dawn! Our reconnaissance data is non-existent. Set divisional intelligence to work immediately. Contact army intelligence. Where’s the enemy front line? Where are their artillery pieces? Check communications with our artillery on the east bank. Prepare every unit to attack, not to defend. Distribute plans of the city to every commander and commissar. In a few hours they’ll be fighting in the streets. There’s no time to waste.”
He was speaking quietly yet authoritatively, as if pushing Belsky gently in the chest.
Vavilov shouted to his orderly, “Call the regimental commissars. They’re to report immediately.”
Rodimtsev and Vavilov caught each other’s eye. They both smiled. “Not long ago,” said Rodimtsev, “we used to go for a quiet walk in the steppe at this time of day.”
All the human activity round about at once began to change direction. Rodimtsev had put in place the first stones of a dam intended to divert his men’s energies down a different channel. A few minutes ago he had been sitting alone on the shore, apart from the general bustle. Now he was imposing his will all around him—and not only on his own staff and his regimental and battalion commanders. There was no one—no platoon commander, no rank-and-file soldier—whose actions Rodimtsev had not redirected. Bunkers and trenches were no longer a matter of urgent concern.
More and more often, in regimental and battalion command posts, men were repeating, “The general confirmed”; “The general countermanded”; “The general forbade”; “Number one says we must act fast”; “Number one will be coming to check.”
And the soldiers were working things out for themselves. It was only too clear that, in the course of the last hour, something important had changed.
“You can put down that spade—we’re done with digging. Now we’re all being given more ammo.”
“Have you lot been given Molotov cocktails? We’re getting two grenades each. And the guns are being moved forward.”
“Rodimtsev’s here now. We’re to storm the city.”
“Know what Rodimtsev just said to our major? I heard from a signaller. He yelled, ‘Think I brought you all this way just to dig pits?’”
“The first platoon are all getting their hundred grams—and two bars of chocolate.”
“Hmm. If they’re doling out chocolate, we’re in trouble. We must be about to attack.”
“Fifty extra cartridges each.”
“Seems we’ll be attacking at night. I don’t like it. How’ll we know where we’re going?”
At twilight, Rodimtsev, accompanied by two sub-machine-gunners, set off along the shore, right by the water’s edge, to report to Chuikov.
It was quiet, with only the occasional sound of a few rifle shots—probably sentries afraid of the gathering dark, wanting to drown out the sound of falling stones and the repeated creak of sheets of tin.
An hour and a half later Rodimtsev returned, with Chuikov’s signature on the order for the offensive. By then the darkness was total.
Silence set in. Night spread out over the Volga in all its splendour: with the deep blue-black of the sky; with gently lapping waves; and with swift breezes that brought in turn the steppe’s dry heat, the stifling air of the streets and the moist, living breath of the river.
Millions of stars gazed down at the city and at the river, listening to the murmur of water against the shore, listening to people’s grunts, sighs and whispers.
Rodimtsev’s staff left their huge sewer. They looked at the river, at the sky, and at the silhouettes of Belsky, Vavilov and Rodimtsev himself. The three men were sitting by the water on a log half covered in sand.
All three were thinking similar anxious thoughts, glancing at the broad barrier of water and trying to make out the Transvolga steppe beyond it.
Rodimtsev took out a cigarette, lit it and took several drags.
Belsky asked quietly, “How was it, comrade General, with our new commander?”
Rodimtsev appeared not to hear, and Belsky did not repeat his question.
Rodimtsev drew a few more times on his cigarette, then tossed it into the water. Vavilov said quietly, “Here’s to our housewarming party!”
Seemingly lost in thought, Rodimtsev said, “Yes, precisely. And so life goes on.”
One might have thought that each man was in a world of his own, not taking in what the others were saying, but they did, in fact, understand one another very well.
All three had been fighting since June 1941. Together they had been through countless hardships and looked death in the face many times. Together they had seen cold autumn rain, hot July dust and winter snowstorms. They had talked about so many things that now they barely needed to speak. A word, half a word, even a brief silence was enough.
Then Rodimtsev answered Belsky’s question: “Well, there’s no doubting he’s a commander. Maybe it’s because they’ve been bombing him all day, but he certainly has a temper on him.”
They listened for a long time to the silence, perhaps sensing that it was the last silence they would hear in this city.
Still gazing out at the river, Rodimtsev then said something very surprising—the last thing a subordinate expects to hear from his commander immediately before an offensive: “I feel sad, Belsky. I’ve never felt so sad before. No, not even when we lost Kiev, or at Kursk. We’ve come here to die, it’s only too clear.”
Some dark object slid down the river, painfully slowly, and there was no knowing whether it was a boat without oars, the swollen corpse of a horse or part of a barge destroyed by a bomb.
Behind them the burned-down city was silent. The men gazing at the Volga looked round every now and then, as if sensing some oppressive presence observing them out of the darkness.