Red Sky at Noon (The Moscow Trilogy)

  ‘What are you doing? It’s me,’ Benya said. ‘Put down the pistol. Are you lost too?’

  ‘Easy, now, Golden, easy. Yes, we’re lost,’ said Kapto, not holstering the pistol, just holding it.

  ‘How is she?’ Benya looked at the child.

  ‘She’s going to be fine. No amount of care is too much for her. A doctor’s duty doesn’t just end with saving a life, we must nurture, we must tend—’

  ‘Ah yes: those we heal we must also cherish,’ Benya quoted Kapto’s motto back to him.

  Kapto gave a lineless smile above his heart-shaped chin.

  ‘I fell asleep in the saddle,’ said Benya. ‘Stupid of me. But the unit must be just across this field. Are you coming?’

  ‘Good luck, friend,’ said Kapto. ‘Ours is another way …’ And he nodded at Benya, and rode on.

  Ten minutes later, Benya met up with Prishchepa and took his place. Melishko rode out in front to meet the scouts coming back from reconnaissance, headed by Panka.

  ‘How many men in the village?’ asked Melishko. Ganakovich and Zhurko were beside him.

  ‘A few hundred,’ replied Panka, saluting.

  ‘Mandryka?’

  ‘He’s there, ruling his men like a Tartar khan.’

  ‘Are there Germans there too?’

  ‘We saw special SS task groups,’ Panka said.

  ‘Why are you alone, sergeant? What happened to the Cossacks I sent with you? Where are Delibash and Grishchuk?’

  Panka looked awkward and said nothing.

  ‘Speak up, sergeant.’

  Panka patted his horse.

  ‘They defected?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Ah. Well, they won’t be the last,’ said Zhurko.

  Benya turned in his saddle, looking for Kapto with the queerest feeling in his belly.

  ‘Where’s the doctor?’ he asked Prishchepa.

  ‘Don’t you know? He defected with the nurse, Tonya.’

  Abruptly Benya understood their encounter. ‘Good luck, friend,’ Kapto had said. Was he mocking him? Tonya’s stare had been contemptuous, he now realized. Benya was bewildered. Simple Cossacks and boneheaded villagers might join the Nazis – but the Baby Doctor, his friend? How could he join the Nazis after seeing the massacre? And what would happen to the child? For some men, war was a liberation that allowed them to become whomsoever they wanted, to play out infernal fantasies and unbridle unspeakable passions, Benya thought. Men without nerves would enjoy short reigns of glory before the world tilted back but quite long enough to destroy so many lives … Yet Kapto had never uttered a word about politics. So who was he really? There was something else. If Kapto and the others had defected to the Nazis, Mandryka would be expecting them …

  Ganakovich drew his Nagant and turned to the men: ‘Any traitors will be hunted down and executed! Their families arrested. Ride, motherfuckers, or I shoot …’

  ‘Not now.’ Melishko put his hand on Ganakovich’s arm, and summoned Panka. ‘Sergeant, do we have any Product Sixty-One?’

  ‘Yes sir. The usual hundred grammes?’

  ‘No, distribute it all right away.’ At a nod from Melishko, Panka rode through the ranks, ladling out the vodka in a steel thimble hanging from his belt. Benya downed three of them, feeling the molten lurch as the alcohol kicked in. Then Melishko himself rode down the line on Elephant.

  ‘Remember,’ he told the men. ‘The war’s not lost. Russia is vast, and Hitler’s a madman if he thinks he can defeat us. Napoleon took Moscow but Tsar Alexander rode his Cossacks all the way to Paris. Yes, to Paris! This offensive is Hitler’s last gamble. You’ve already beaten the odds. We broke through, didn’t we? This is our mission against the men who killed those people – and if we succeed, I will recommend every one of you for redemption, I promise. We give no quarter to traitors, and we ride to kill Mandryka. We’ll make it, bandits. YOU CAN’T GET ME!’

  In this scruffy, brusque growl of a man, Benya sensed the noble and fathomless depths of Mother Russia.

  ‘Bandits!’ Melishko drew his sabre and raised it. ‘Squadrons, forward at the trot! Draw sabres! Forward …’

  The Cossacks were standing high in their stirrups; Benya raised his sabre and felt his blood changing, almost frothing in his veins with anger, with exhilaration. For a man who often couldn’t decide whether to order absinthe or cognac, and even sometimes which girl to choose, war granted simplicity: advance, retreat; live, die. Around him was the rhythmic thud of hooves as they changed from trot to lope to canter to gallop. He recited Gorky to himself: ‘Those who are born to crawl cannot fly.’ Now he was flying!

  Then all of it was drowned out by something cruder and louder and for a second Benya could not understand what it was – and then he felt the force of it and heard the chugging as the belts worked their way through the heavy machine guns in the nests hidden in the rye of the fields. Next to Benya, Lover-boy Cherkashkin was trying to hold on to his horse’s mane but, as the animal fell, he came out of his saddle, catapulted high into the air and over the rump, his sabre flying, his rifle tangled round his neck, his mouth a perfect ‘O’ of surprise. Men were falling all around him. Shundenko was being dragged by his foot behind his horse. He saw Cut and Run Ivanov riding on but with a chunk taken out of his face. Clinging on to Silver Socks, one foot out of his stirrups, he noticed that many of the horses around him were riderless. Amid the machine-gun fire, Socks reared up and tried to turn and Benya, having lost both his stirrups now, somersaulted right over the horse’s head.

  It was a relief to lie there in the sweet rye and imagine that he was about to die and that all this striving and gunfire was almost finished. Weariness like warm water rose within him, a benumbed heaviness. He feared Silver Socks was hurt and wished he could find her but she was gone. He knew he had been hit, and was surprised he wasn’t in more pain as the deep metallic crack of the guns kept raking over him, and blood ran down his forehead into his eyes.

  In front of him, he could hear voices in German and Russian talking between bursts of the big guns. Soon the men would come out and walk through the field, mopping up, and these irregulars were notoriously cruel. It was unlikely they would leave anyone alive.

  Benya lay back and looked up at the long teal sky, but unlike earlier that morning, the blueness seemed utterly bleak and stark. He passed out, and when he awoke, he was being half pulled, half lifted backwards. The process was agonizingly slow. There was a burst of machine-gun fire, lighter this time, and the man pulling Benya gasped for a second, shook then went on. Soon they were in higher steppe grass beyond this blood harvest, and someone was giving Benya water. He sat up and wiped his face, but he saw they were tending another man right beside him, the man who had saved him, who had dragged him to safety. They were working on him, opening his shirt, but Prishchepa shook his head.

  ‘He’s gone,’ he said and they laid him down. It was Ganakovich.

  ‘Him …?’ Benya was confounded: the Politruk who had executed an innocent boy was the same man who had sacrificed his own life to save Benya?

  ‘Sometimes a crow flies as an eagle,’ said Prishchepa, looking at Benya now.

  Benya felt fireworks exploding behind his eyes, silver hammers beating in his temple and he fell sideways.

  ‘You have a bang on your head, and a cut on your forehead. You’ll be OK in a minute,’ said Zhurko.

  ‘We have to go right now,’ Spider Garanzha told them. ‘I have horses for all of us and a surprise for you, Golden.’ Spider was holding Socks by the reins. ‘She found us. She’s unscathed. Even her stitches are almost healed.’

  Getting to his feet, Benya took Socks’s reins and kissed her neck, burying his face in the mane. Never had he been more relieved to see anyone. Then they heard a voice from out on the field, a voice they all knew.

  ‘Don’t leave me! Give me some water, for God’s sake!’

  ‘It’s Melishko.’ Benya would recognize that voice in his dreams.

  ‘Dear bandits, some water
please! Or finish me off! I can’t reach my gun. I don’t want these bastards near me …’

  ‘We just can’t leave him,’ said Benya. ‘He’s our father-commander!’

  ‘We help him – we all die,’ Garanzha muttered.

  ‘He’s right,’ said Zhurko sadly. He too loved Melishko.

  ‘But we’ve got to help him,’ insisted Benya.

  Zhurko rubbed his chin, thinking, then looked towards Panka.

  Panka, showing nothing on his face, shook his head.

  Zhurko sighed heavily. ‘You’re right. He’d be the first to tell us that.’

  Zhurko and Panka crawled forward, and Benya watched Zhurko raise the binoculars in the direction of Melishko’s voice.

  ‘I see him,’ said Zhurko when they were back. ‘He’s out there. His legs are crushed under Elephant and he’s wounded in the gut. Elephant’s done for too. We’re not going to get him out of there.’

  ‘Finish me off, if any of you motherfucker bandits are still out there!’ came the voice again across the field. ‘Don’t forget! YOU CAN’T GET ME!’ They smiled a little at this; even Panka.

  ‘I can do it,’ said Panka after a while. ‘As to a wounded mare, beloved after many seasons.’

  ‘I’ll do it properly,’ Spider Garanzha said, taking the Simonov sniper rifle. ‘He’s not far away.’

  Panka patted his shoulder but could not speak.

  ‘You set off,’ said Garanzha, ‘and I’ll join you when you’re away. One shot, I promise. And one for Elephant. Two shots, no more. I’ll see you at the’ – he was going to say the barn but no one could go there again – ‘at the millhouse.’

  They mounted the horses amongst the high steppe grass and rode back the way they had come. When they reached the mill in the burnt village, they watered the horses in the stream and waited for Spider. In the distance, they had heard one shot, then the second for Elephant. Panka crossed himself and looked away, very still for a moment.

  Now in the safety of the mill, Benya lowered his head, then he cleaned his face in the cool stream.

  III

  It was lunchtime in the Kremlin and Stalin, who had just woken up, was hearing the first reports from the fronts. He had been up until 6 a.m. trying to organize the defence of the Don River, and Russian forces were just hanging on to the western bank. If the Nazis managed to cross the Don, then they would be just sixty miles from Stalingrad, Stalin’s city on the Volga River. Meanwhile, further south, they were rifling towards the oil fields of the Caucasus.

  Molotov, sitting stolidly at the table, flanked by an overweight younger comrade, Malenkov, and the rangy and dark-eyed Armenian, Mikoyan, listened to Chief of Staff Vasilevsky’s report.

  ‘And Operation Pluto?’ Stalin asked.

  ‘The Shtrafniki charged German positions,’ Vasilevsky said.

  ‘They were wiped out,’ stated Stalin, his voice entirely neutral.

  ‘Yes. They were charging heavily fortified German positions. The First Cavalry Shtrafbat has ceased to exist as a unit.’

  Stalin broke a cigarette in half, took out the tobacco and stuffed it into the bowl of his Dunhill pipe (a gift from the British). ‘Totally annihilated.’ He lit the pipe, sucking the flame of the match into its bowl. ‘But did the Shtrafniki distract the Germans sufficiently to ensure the success of Operation Pluto?’

  ‘Operation Pluto failed to drive back the German advance though there was a slight weakening as they now regroup.’

  ‘So the Shtrafniki did their duty. They died. But they fought. The idea works.’

  ‘Yes, Comrade Stalin. Shtrafbats are being formed and trained on all fronts. These convicts fight to the last man in the hope of redemption.’

  ‘Were any redeemed?’

  ‘No. As far as we know there were few survivors. Now, moving on to Stalingrad itself, Gordov reports the Germans are bombing the city …’

  ‘I know about that. I was just talking to Satinov by phone.’ Stalin seemed distracted. ‘But the Shtrafniki – that Melishko is a good officer. I remember him from the thirties.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Comrade Stalin, I hadn’t mentioned the Second Battalion.’

  ‘Report.’

  ‘Well, this is a very minor engagement. We have a lot to get through … The Stalingrad, Southern, Don Fronts and the Leningrad Front, not to mention the Central—’

  ‘Report on Melishko’s Shtrafbat.’

  ‘They were not totally wiped out. The Germans are deploying Italians in these sectors to free up their resources for the offensives, and the Second Cavalry Shtrafbat, the one under Melishko, faced mixed Italian units of the Alpine Tridentine, Bersaglieri and Blackshirts, and two squadrons actually broke through into the Hitlerite rear.’

  Stalin was silent. He tapped the pipe on the desk, relit it, and then sucked flame through once again. The general and the three civilians watched the match flare, the tobacco take light and heard the wheeze as Stalin inhaled. Then he raised his hazel eyes. ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘We’re not sure.’ Vasilevsky checked his notes. He was accustomed to Stalin taking an interest in small engagements and kept all the reports with him. ‘Ah yes, we believe they drove the Italians out of the village of Little Yablako where they called for backup. They were given no logistical support – but all units are ordered, during their briefings, to destroy the traitor Mandryka and his units if they break through. If they still exist as a unit, they may be pursuing this mission.’

  ‘Did Melishko survive?’

  ‘Apparently yes.’

  ‘If he returns, he is to be reinstated as a general.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of that.’

  ‘Did any of Melishko’s bandits win their freedom?’

  ‘One Shtrafnik was executed by their Special Unit before the entire regiment right before deployment according to Order 227. Another five were shot by the Blocking Unit on the battlefield. But since there was no logistical backup, it was impossible to remove the wounded. We do not know if any earned redemption by the shedding of blood. They were also told if they managed to liquidate traitor Mandryka, they would be redeemed.’

  Stalin rested the pipe in the ashtray, lit a cigarette – a sign of intense focus – and smiled for a moment, or at least the muscles of his face creased like an old tiger, and the men in the room smiled grimly back at him. ‘I have a question about Melishko’s bandits. Shall we help them?’

  IV

  Dr Kapto was sitting under a canopy at the priest’s house in the pretty village of Shepilovka. Beside him was a neat, red-faced man in German feldgrau uniform and boots, and with his head shaven on the sides. The glare of the sun was almost blinding even in the shade.

  Kapto had crossed the lines a few hours earlier and been welcomed like the other defectors. ‘Surrender your arms, dismount and lead your horse!’ You could read the fortunes of war in the number of defectors. Nine overnight, the pickets were saying, and more coming, all signs that the Germans were winning. But this one had a child on his saddle and a nurse with him. He was different, obviously educated, a doctor, he said. And he told them he knew their commander from their schooldays. ‘Take me to Mandryka,’ he’d said. They weren’t going to fall for that one. Mandryka was protected. ‘All right,’ said the doctor. ‘Tell Mandryka this: A friend from Briansk has come to visit with Sleepy Tonya. Say that the Soviets will attack in a few hours at first light. Be ready!’

  ‘Why should we believe you?’

  ‘Tell him now, fast, or you’ll be sorry.’

  So they took the doctor, the nurse and the child to Major Shavykin, and when Shavykin told Mandryka, their commander did a dance: ‘It’s him! I thought he was dead. It’s my best friend from Briansk. The Bolshevik bastards sent him to the Camps. But here he is.’

  ‘And what about the nurse, and the child?’ asked Shavykin, who had a bullet scar on his face that looked as if a red worm was tunnelling under his cheek.

  ‘He cares for children,’ said Mandryka, buttoning his tunic and put
ting on a Wehrmacht forage cap and round dark glasses. ‘That’s it. From now on, Kapto joins us! Give him a uniform and a captain’s pips. Tonya will be his lieutenant. She gets anything she wants. Bring Kapto to me. Meanwhile, prepare the men for the attack.’

  ‘Right, chief.’

  Now Mandryka poured a cup of ersatz coffee and another shot of Armenian cognac for his friend from Briansk, and they started to catch up on many years apart.

  ‘One thing,’ said Kapto after they had exchanged their experiences in Soviet jails. ‘I have something for our allies.’

  ‘The Germans?’ Mandryka asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Kapto took the satchel off his shoulder and spread out a map. ‘This will be useful to them.’

  ‘Always resourceful.’ Mandryka smiled. ‘Shall I look?’ But the maps were marked with complex symbols and signs that meant nothing to him – he wasn’t a soldier; he had been a dentist in Briansk.

  Kapto lit up a cigarette and leaned in to Mandryka, speaking confidentially. ‘This isn’t for any of the special task forces or police battalions. It’s for the Wehrmacht. I need to give this to the staff of the army – the Sixth, isn’t it? – further north, who are preparing to cross the Don and maybe push towards Stalingrad? It will come from you and me, Mandryka. It will help you. They’ll be impressed.’

  Mandryka nodded slowly.

  ‘Obviously it’s urgent,’ added Kapto. ‘It could really help our side.’

  ‘We’ll get it to them as soon as we can,’ said Mandryka. ‘Now tell me about the little girl?’

  V

  ‘Have you ever met Shapiro?’ Svetlana asked. Her best friend Martha Peshkova had come to the Kremlin apartment for chai.

  ‘Well, no, but I have seen him.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s very tall. He has black hair with grey streaks, big dark eyes and he looks very …’

  ‘Very what?’

  ‘Turbulent – passionate!’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Svetlana fanned her face with her hands.