Benya did not know the details – the truth was always ‘Top Secret’ – but he did know the Russians were retreating fast and now there must have been some new debacle. Ganakovich was fritzing with nerves, Mogilchuk visibly shaking. At each crump of the guns, the fear slithered another degree up Benya’s belly.
‘Remember what I always say,’ bellowed Melishko, his false teeth breaking the vowels. ‘You can’t get me!’ It was a line borrowed from his favourite movie and the men loved it.
‘Urrah!’ they cried but then there was the sound of footsteps and Benya peered round as Captain Zhurko ran into the manège and handed Melishko a piece of paper.
‘As you are,’ said Melishko. ‘We’re awaiting an important order from Stavka.’ ‘Stavka’ was headquarters in Moscow. Benya and Prishchepa looked at each other, and Prishchepa started to sing under his breath: ‘Don’t circle over me, black raven …’
III
Far to the north, in Moscow, a small, tired old man, wearing a military tunic and baggy grey trousers tucked into soft calfskin boots, sat at a huge desk in a long office. His face was seared with exhaustion, bleached a sallow pockmarked grey.
Outside, the Kremlin was draped in camouflage netting, and air balloons floated above the city to disorientate German bombers. Inside, the long table, the desk with the T-shaped extension and the chunky row of Bakelite telephones, the dreary drapes over the windows and the illuminated death mask of Lenin on the wall were unchanged, but now the founder of Soviet Russia was joined on the walls by oil paintings of Tsarist paladins, Suvorov and Kutuzov. This office known to regulars as the Little Corner was the headquarters of the Soviet armies, and the phone lines and telegraph wires in the communications room next door linked the man in this office to a boundless and often unpredictable and uncontrollable world of savage struggle between millions of men.
‘We were tricked,’ said Stalin quietly. ‘The whole south is collapsing. Our commanders are fools and yes-men. We lack good men. We still await the main offensive against Moscow.’
At the nearest end of the long table sat three men. Molotov, a squat blockhouse with a round head and pince-nez, nodded. The only one in civilian clothes, he wore a grey suit, grey tie and stiff white collar. He had the clammy pallor of the bureaucrat who never saw the sun, a condition known to Stalin’s familiars as ‘the Kremlin tan’.
‘You’re right, Comrade Stalin,’ said Lavrenti Beria, the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, chief of the secret police. Wearing his blue-tabbed NKVD uniform, he was broad-spanned and grey-faced but bristling with ingenuity, vigilance, ferocity.
The third of them, Hercules Satinov, dressed as an army colonel general, spoke up: ‘Comrade Stalin, I believe this is the main German offensive. They are throwing everything against the Don and the Caucasus. We made the wrong judgement. There is no Moscow offensive. I myself was mistaken and I wish to take responsibility, and if you believe it necessary, stand trial. We were tricked …’
Stalin stared witheringly at Satinov for a long moment. Until today, he might have called him a fool, a traitor, perhaps even ordered his arrest. But Satinov, his favourite and, like him, another Georgian, had always told him the truth. And now he needed the truth. Six weeks earlier, on 19 June, a German Storch plane had crashed behind Soviet lines near Kharkov. Inside was a staff officer, Major Reichel, with a briefcase that contained the plans for Hitler’s southern offensive, Case Blue. Hours later, those plans were reviewed in this very room by Stalin, accompanied by the same Greek chorus of Molotov, Beria and Satinov.
‘It’s a trick,’ Stalin had said. ‘It’s classic disinformation. The bastards expect us to fall for this? The southern offensive will be a diversion. The big offensive will be against Moscow.’ The three Politburo members had agreed – as they always did. But now it was clear they had called it wrong and Hitler’s panzers were charging across the southern plains towards Stalingrad. Russia was about to be cut in half.
Stalin looked down the table at the only other man in the huge room, General Alexander Vasilevsky, his Chief of Staff, who was leaning over a map of the southern theatre, marked with arrows and symbols. ‘Comrade Vasilevsky?’
Vasilevsky, who had the professional air of an old-fashioned Tsarist officer, stood up straight. ‘He’s right, Comrade Stalin. This is the main offensive.’
Stalin nodded, rubbing his face with his hands. Ripples of exhaustion seemed to emanate from him. Satinov could only admire Stalin’s self-control, the steely, intelligent coldness that he radiated despite his egregious mistakes. But he had aged in this past year of war; his clothes hung off him.
The padded door opened silently and a dwarfish figure, Alexander Poskrebyshev, also in boots and uniform, looked in: ‘They’re here, Comrade Stalin,’ he announced.
Stalin beckoned, and two old cavalrymen entered and stood at attention before him. Both had just flown in from the front and been driven straight to the Kremlin. The dust of battle was still on their faces, and Satinov could smell their sweat, and their despair.
‘Report, Comrade Budyonny,’ commanded Stalin in his light tenor voice.
‘German Army Group A has broken through the North Caucasus Front,’ said Marshal Budyonny, his barrel chest, his rider’s bow legs in boots and red-striped britches, even his magnificently waxed moustaches, diminished in defeat. ‘Our troops are in retreat. They’ve reached the Don, and are breaking into the Caucasus, targeting the oil fields. We are struggling to regroup. Rostov has fallen.’
‘Rostov?’ repeated Stalin.
‘A lie! You’re spreading panic,’ cried Beria. ‘Report properly!’
But Budyonny ignored him. In 1937, when they had tried to arrest him during the Terror, Budyonny had drawn his pistol and threatened to kill them and shoot himself, shouting, ‘Get Stalin on the line!’ Stalin had cancelled the arrest order.
‘Our forces fell back from Rostov,’ said Budyonny. ‘They turned and fled. Just ran! I admit there was cowardice and incompetence. I take full responsibility.’
‘And you, Marshal Timoshenko?’ Stalin turned to the other cavalryman. ‘What good news have you got for us?’
Timoshenko shook his gleaming bald head. ‘The Stalingrad Front is in disarray. German forces have reached the Don and the only thing holding them back are two armies defending the bend in the river. And we can’t hold Voronezh. I would say …’ He struggled to speak.
‘Tell Comrade Stalin the truth!’ said Beria.
‘I think Stalingrad itself in danger.’
Stalingrad! Stalin’s own city where he made his name in the Civil War. Satinov felt breathless suddenly with disbelief.
‘That’s a lie! Stalingrad will never fall,’ said Beria in his clotted Mingrelian accent. ‘Panic-mongers should be shot! The Germans are hundreds of miles from Stalingrad.’
Stalin’s hazel eyes flicked towards Vasilevsky, who was plotting the new information on the maps spread on the table. He trusted Vasilevsky. ‘Well?’
Vasilevsky appeared to consider his answer unhurriedly.
‘We will halt the German forces on the Don Bend but the defence and fortification of Stalingrad must be urgently prepared along with evacuation plans for the tank factories. I propose a radical reconstruction of the southern fronts and I’ve informed them to expect new orders from Stavka.’
Stalin thought for a moment and lit a Herzegovina Flor cigarette. In the silent room, with the two marshals standing to attention, with Vasilevsky again perusing the maps, the three henchmen waiting, the wheeze of every breath of smoke seemed laden with fearsome concentration.
‘Timoshenko, Budyonny, wait outside,’ said Stalin.
The two men saluted and left the room.
‘Of course Stalingrad is not threatened. Not yet. But I will not tolerate a single step back. Not one step back …’ He allowed this phrase to sink in.
‘Comrade Stalin,’ said Satinov after a pause. ‘The Hitlerites have very successfully used penal battalions in battle made up of court-mart
ialled soldiers and criminal elements. We have punishment units of cowards and criminals already being trained, some recruited in the Gulags, but I propose we formalize this structure, and create penal battalions on every front and throw them into battle …’
‘Desperate men fight like devils,’ said Stalin. ‘Very well.’ He lifted one of the many Bakelite phones on his desk, ‘Get in here.’
Poskrebyshev appeared at the door, notebook and pencil already in hand. ‘Take this down,’ Stalin ordered. ‘Order 227 from the People’s Commissar of Defence.’ He stood and started to pace up and down, his hands shaking as he inhaled his cigarette. ‘Telegraph this to all fronts. To be read to all units urgently on this very night … The enemy throws new forces against us … The German invaders penetrate towards Stalingrad … they’ve already captured Novocherkask, Rostov-on-Don, half Voronezh … Our soldiers, encouraged by panic-mongers, shamefully abandoned Rostov … I order: Not One Step Back …’
IV
‘Not One Step Back! That is our slogan!’
In the sultry heat of the manège’s arena, Melishko was reading out Stalin’s orders which had just arrived, smoking off the telegraph from Moscow. Benya felt the hair rising on his neck. His life was entering a new and daunting stage.
‘Stavka orders: “Every army must form well-armed blocking squads (two hundred men) and place them behind any unstable divisions. In the case of any retreat, they are to shoot panic-mongers and cowards on the spot … Not One Step Back … We are already training punishment units of prisoners.’ Benya and his comrades concentrated; Stalin himself was addressing them and their destiny. ‘Now I order the formation of penal battalions – shtrafnoi batalioni – of eight hundred persons on every front made up of men guilty of crimes, breaches of discipline due to cowardice or confusion. They are to be placed in the most difficult sectors of the battle to give them the chance to redeem their sins against the Motherland by the shedding of their own blood … These are the orders of our Motherland. This is to be read to all companies, cavalry squadrons, batteries and headquarters. People’s Commissar of Defence. J Stalin.”’
Melishko folded the paper and peered grimly at his ‘bandits’. ‘Comrade Stalin has spoken and—’
‘Permission to speak!’ a voice called out. Melishko nodded.
‘What does “redeeming sins by shedding blood” mean?’ said Prishchepa. Only he would have dared ask such a thing.
Melishko wiped the sweat from his forehead into the wisps of his meagre rust-coloured hair. The men waited; Benya could feel them craning forward.
‘Comrade Stalin means that there are only two ways to earn your freedom. Death or by being wounded in battle.’
The men held their breath for a moment as they, like Benya, absorbed the primitive simplicity of their fates.
‘See, my bandits?’ said Melishko. ‘You have the chance to free yourselves in battle. Your deployment is imminent. Get some rest tonight … Yes, comrade?’
Ganakovich whispered in Melishko’s ear.
‘Right,’ said Melishko. ‘Comrade Ganakovich will tell you more.’
Captain Ganakovich swaggered to the front. ‘Lads, comrades, muckers, Shtrafniki,’ he started in a deep voice of rasp and raunch that he adopted for momentous occasions. ‘You bear the taint of alien elements, bourgeois illiterates, counter-revolutionary delinquents, murderous degenerates, but you’ve been re-educated and retrained and now you have the honour to fight for the Socialist Motherland and the Great Genius Stalin – and I’ll be right there with you, shoulder to shoulder!’ Ganakovich was in Stalinist commissar mode as he drew his pistol and held it above his head. ‘As convicts and cowards, you have no rights as soldiers. You will not even be informed of the name of your front, and there’ll be no maps for you. You will gratefully receive your mission and you will fulfil it. If I or the Special Unit notice the slightest hesitation, deviation, insubordination, a word, a look, yes, even a thought, you’ll get the Eight Grammes: instant execution!’ He gulped – he had a tendency when excited to forget to swallow his saliva, which then built up in his mouth until it had to be consumed in one phlegmy wad.
Melishko looked embarrassed but the ex-prisoners were unmoved. The things they had seen in the Gulags, or in the great retreats of 1941, had accustomed them to the malignant buffoonery of Soviet bureaucrats.
‘Thank you, very useful, Comrade Ganakovich,’ Melishko said, stepping forward again. The men could feel his disdain for the Party hack – and they shared his disgust. ‘Good luck, bandits! I will be there with you! Long live Stalin!’
‘Excuse me, penal-colonel,’ the secret policeman Mogilchuk interjected. ‘There’s one more thing. Captain Ganakovich will enlighten the men.’
‘They need to rest and tend the horses. Haven’t my bandits listened to us enough?’ objected Melishko.
‘Not quite,’ said Mogilchuk. ‘Proceed! Bring out the prisoner!’
A hush fell over the Shtrafbat as the NKVD men, machine guns sloping ready, pushed a figure in front of them. Benya saw at once it was young Polyak and he was sobbing. God, prayed Benya, give the boy strength! But there was no God there to help him now, no God at all in their lives.
When Polyak reached the cluster of officers in the middle of the manège, Mogilchuk made a gesture and they brusquely stopped him. Polyak swayed but the guards held him up.
‘Lads, pals, if the generosity of the Great Stalin is abused with trickery, there can only be one result,’ declared Ganakovich portentously. A creature of the Communist Party, Ganakovich liked to present himself as a leader with the popular touch. Benya knew that if they were dancing the kalinka, Ganakovich would jump into the centre of the circle and make his fancy leaps. If the men were taking a drink, Ganakovich, slapping backs and massaging arms, would buy shots and tell stories of his dubious exploits – his heroics in the grain campaign of ’32, the time he met Molotov, the day he defeated a Trotskyite cell in his factory, and of course the girls whom he had conquered. Only his upturned snout and piggy eyes hinted at his self-glorification. He swallowed loudly. ‘I hand you over to our Chekist knights of the Revolution.’
Flanked by his NKVD soldiers, Mogilchuk stepped forward. ‘Anyone who deliberately wounds themselves to avoid battle or win redemption will receive the Eight Grammes. Penal-Sergeant Polyak was sentenced to serve in this penal battalion for retreating without orders during the battle of Kiev. Last night, hearing our deployment was imminent, this coward went to elaborate lengths to fake sickness, by cutting himself.’
‘It was a real cut!’ Polyak wailed.
‘Silence, prisoner!’ snapped Mogilchuk. ‘He was denounced by one of the medical team. After an investigation, following this order from Stavka, he is hereby condemned to the Vishka, the sentence to be carried out immediately and in front of the battalion.’
An intake of breath.
‘Shtrafniki, my lads, my muckers!’ cried Ganakovich, making no effort to conceal his excitement. ‘Volunteers from the ranks to execute the prisoner?’
Melishko stared at his boots. It was so hot that Benya found it hard to breathe. He remembered how he had once heard his own death sentence. He stared at the boy: Mitka Polyak, we talked often; if you were so afraid, why didn’t you come to me?
The men swayed slowly, shifting foot to foot, flies buzzing.
‘I repeat,’ cried out Ganakovich. ‘Volunteers to execute the prisoner!’
Silence.
Ganakovich raised his pistol again. ‘Or must I do it myself?’
Benya and Prishchepa glanced at each other. They lived in a Russia dominated by Ganakoviches but it was ironic that in a regiment of cutthroats, no one wanted to fire a shot.
‘I will shoot the boy!’ said a voice. Spider Garanzha had raised his hand.
‘Step forward, Penal-Private Garanzha,’ said Ganakovich.
Moving with his customary slowness, relishing the strength of his cyclopean limbs and the terrifying effect of his face, Garanzha stepped up to the front of the batta
lion and crossed his hairy arms. A giant swollen spider, a birdeater perhaps; Benya could see how he got his nickname.
‘Who else? We need one more. Come on, men. Who’s it to be?’
‘Count me in!’ It was Smiley, a Chechen gangster whom Benya had met on the atrocious sea voyage to Kolyma.
‘Come forward Penal-Private Ulibnush,’ blared Ganakovich, using Smiley’s real name.
‘Proceed to your positions,’ said Mogilchuk, who believed that saying ‘proceed’ frequently granted him a patina of authority. ‘Or you’ll face the tribunal yourself.’
Smiley moved sideways with the loose, dancing gait of one who has lived beyond the law all his life, who has never slept without remaining half awake, never crossed a road without watching his back, who was always running from one heinous thing towards another.
Polyak cast a glance at these two cutthroats and started to shake.
‘Please get this over,’ whispered Benya.
Prishchepa was praying, touching his icon necklace. When Benya looked around, he saw that many of the Cossacks in the battalion were also moving their lips silently.
Ganakovich handed out the Nagants. Both executioners took the pistols as if born with guns in their hands.
‘On your knees, prisoner!’ cried Ganakovich with a gulp.
The guards turned Polyak away from the men and then let him drop to his knees. Benya saw his lowered freckly neck flush bright red. There’s sometimes as much character in a man’s neck as in his face, Benya thought. Polyak started to breathe greedily, tossing his head back, gulping air. He was no longer a human, just an animal seconds from death, like a cow in the abattoir, straining at the hands of his captors.
Garanzha and Smiley cocked their pistols. First Garanzha and then Smiley fired into Polyak’s neck, the shots merging into one. When Benya opened his eyes Polyak lay on his side. Mogilchuk drew his own pistol and, wincing with the strain – no gunman he – fired the control shot into Polyak’s temple. Benya noticed that Melishko had never looked up.