BATU
A Short Story
By Erich von Neff
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Published by:
Copyright © 2015 by Erich von Neff
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Dedicated to Olziit Sodnompuntsag who fought in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol and
to all the Mongols who fought in World War II.
Synopsis
Batu is a short story about a Mongolian sheep herder who is drafted in the Soviet People’s Army. Batu and other Mongols fight under General Belov in the battles of Moscow and Kiev.
Because of the winter weather, trucks, tanks and guns are all but useless. Batu and his cavalry unit fight much as their ancestors had fought under Genghis Khan. Indeed, they reconquer some of the same territory as when Genghis Khan’s son, Ogodei, had ordered his son, Batu, to the west “Take a reconnaissance in force.”
Contents
1. The Ger
2. They Entrain
3. Nurse Jama
4. The Outskirts of Moscow
5. Captain Waldteufel
About the author
The Ger*
Winter 1941
The wind blew across the steppes. Sometimes rushing ahead, sometimes slackening. It blew from one direction, north, playing a high pitched note, another high pitched note, then another note, like the morin khuur.**
Batu lay with right knee up his hands behind his head, looking up at the roof of his ger. Across from him his wife nursed their two month old baby. He looked over at his son drinking eagerly from his wife’s exposed breast.
If his son was anything like his wife, he would make a fine horseman when he grew up. He could see her now riding over the steppes, her black hair streaking behind her, being blown this way and that.
People said she was too impetuous, too full of fire, to be a good wife. But Batu saw it differently. These characteristics she would pass on to her sons. For Batu knew he would bear sons, she was that kind of woman. Even the shaman said she could only bear sons. Not that he wouldn’t have welcomed daughters. He would welcome their laughter and wild ways, and they would remind him of her, though he knew this was not to be.
Batu listened to the wind, to the morin khuur, sometimes it was one clear note, sometimes it shifted and changed. Sometimes it was a whole symphony, though Batu knew nothing of such things. Batu continued watching his son whose eyes were now closed as he was being rocked slowly by his mother who was singing softy almost to herself.
Suddenly, Batu cocked his head, in the distance he could hear horse’s hooves. For those of us with unkeen ears they would have been entirely inaudible. Batu wondered who it could be. His brother’s wife was due. But surely that announcement could wait. He looked again at his wife who briefly frowned, still she continued singing, the baby’s eyes blinked open then closed. Batu could now tell that the horse was unfamiliar to him. His wife looked up at him. Batu shrugged his shoulders. He would wait. He had decided that whoever it was, was not an enemy. There would be no need to harm himself.
Batu stepped outside the ger, partly to stretch his legs. He could have waited until the horseman was just outside, then invited him in. But Batu was curious, it had been a long winter, he had not had many visitors.
The wind whirled ahead in a sudden gust. It could freeze your bones. It was relentless, remorseless, if you thought of it as the enemy. In so far as Batu gave it any thought, he knew that the wind, the cold, the steppes were friends of the Mongols. If you were a Mongol they were a part of you and a part of your ancestor’s bones, if you listened.
The pony kicked up snow, making a vapor-like trail as it approached. Batu watched indifferently. Soon the rider was within hailing distance.
Snow flakes clung to the pony’s long mane, ice crystals were on part of its coat.
“Do you want some tea friend?” Batu asked without bothering to inquire why the man had come to Batu’s ger or how he even knew where it was.
“Yes. Yes, that would suit me,” the rider replied in a dialect that Batu recognized as one from the more western tribes, he could not place it more exactly than that. Indeed, the man had whiskers, though they were not very thick.
Batu’s wife prepared the tea in the dombo***. The man sat on the rug near Batu. He looked over approvingly at Batu’s son. After they had begun to drink their tea the man reached inside his coat, “ Here my friend I have something for you.” He pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper. Batu recognized the Cyrillic script. A puzzled look came over Batu’s face; he could barely read Uyghur script let alone Cyrillic.
“The reason I was sent here,” the man began somewhat more nervously than Batu felt comfortable with, “is that I can speak and read Russian.” “Oh,” replied Batu wondering what this was all leading up to. “As you know my friend there is a war going on.”
Batu had heard that there was fighting going on somewhere in the west, maybe in Russia, he wasn’t sure. But what did this have to do with him?
With the back of his hand the man wiped tea from his beard. “Are you Batu?” the man asked. “Yes,” Batu answered wondering how the man knew his name. The man began to read from the wrinkled piece of paper. Partly because of the man’s dialect and partly because of his awkward translation. Batu had difficulty in understanding.
The man reached over and put his hand on Batu’s shoulder. “Comrade Batu you have been conscripted into the Soviet Peoples Army,” Batu’s wife looked at the stranger with piercing eyes. She tightened her grip on her son who she was rocking in her arms.
“You are to get your affairs together and report to Ulaanbaatar in ten days. Bring your horse. Bring other horses if you are able,” the man added. Batu looked at the courier quizzically who answered, “Nothing moves in this weather, sometimes only horses.”
Batu was surprised about that; he thought there must be some mistake. Anyway he had already made up his mind. He would go to Ulaanbaatar.
The courier took a last gulp of tea. “I must go now, there are others.” He left his tea on the table, he did not look at Batu’s wife.
Batu’s wife kissed hers son’s rosey cheeks. She spoke softly to him as she laid him on the bed. Soon the baby was fast asleep.
Batu pulled the blanket higher on his shoulder. His wife turned toward him. He could feel her fingernails in his back. Then her breath against his chest. “Tonight we will make another one,” she whispered. She had said this with conviction. Still Batu wondered how she could be sure. His face felt surrounded by her long hair. Outside the wind blew one high piercing note.
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* Yurt
**Morin khuur. Hi
gh pitched two stingred violin.
*** Dombo. Mongolian. A tall narrow tea kettle.
They Entrain