Apricot Jam: And Other Stories (31 page)

I sit with Kuklin for a moment to show him where the posts are going, and ask him:
“
Yurochka
, don
’
t be in a rush. But do the three nearest posts first, even if it
’
s just an initial fix. And send us the numbers right away.
”
I explain that I
’
ve seen our Third Battalion of guns on the move and they
’
ll be coming in somewhere nearby, but they still haven
’
t arrived.

Kuklin takes his chain to the first clear reference point from which he
’
ll measure the distance to Shukhov
’
s post. (The reference point was taken from the map, and these can also be off. And a trigonometric network in a moving battle is never enough.)

It
’
s hard to say who has the worst job in battle. The surveyors don
’
t really do any fighting, but they walk around with
theodolites
and levels, dragging their surveyors
’
chains across the fields straight as the crow flies, and never mind that there might be a minefield there or that you might come under fire at any minute.

And now our signalmen from brigade have found us. They
’
re running a cable to our central station, and the fellows are bringing up the reels of cable from the dammed-up stream below.

Who else has found us? The battalions of guns we
’
ll be working with are still on the move. They
’
re running cables from the brigade headquarters, of course, and it
’
s from there that they
’
ll soon begin asking us for targets.

If only we can get our location fixed in the early morning, before the air heats up.
The Germans are already hammering away: there
’
s one gun firing over here, and another ten shells or more coming from over there, and we
’
re still not fully deployed. Our work through the day will be very poor; you can already tell it
’
ll be a scorcher, and that creates a heat inversion: the upper layers of the air thin out as they grow heated, and the sounds won
’
t be reflected downward to earth but will just go higher. The same thing happens with your normal hearing: the shells fall, but the shots themselves are harder to hear. The very best conditions for sound reconnaissance are high humidity, fog, and anytime during the night. That
’
s when
the recordings are very precise and the targets—whether they
’
re the sharp blasts of guns or the dull roars of howitzers—can easily be picked up.

The people higher up have never taken this rule into account, though. If they had any sense, they
’
d have us move by day, not by night.

We, an instrumental reconnaissance battalion, are a separate unit but
always operationally subordinate to the heavy artillery; at this moment
we
’
re working with a brigade of guns. It
’
ll be hot work for us today: we
’
re serving two of their battalions, the second, on our right, toward Zhelyabuga itself, and the third, on our left, toward
Shiskov
.

Down in the cellar, people have already crowded around Botnev. They
’
ve hooked everything up and run the checks. The needles on the dials of the equipment are already quivering. All six of the tiny glass pens clamped within electromagnetic rings
are
ready to trace a recording on a strip of paper. The thin, agile Dugin is already at the recorder. (He
’
s good with his hands, and in every spare minute he
’
s busy manufacturing something—a cigarette holder for one person, a cigarette case for another. For me he fashioned some lovely notebooks for my war diaries using strips of sound-ranging records.)

The man on the telephone, the saucy Yenko, has squeezed himself onto the bench beside the recorder. He already has a receiver on each ear, linked by a cord running over his head. One receiver is from the forward observer, the other from all the listening posts; they can hear one another, and if they all start chattering at once, the central operator has to try to keep them in check. But he
’
s greedy for any kind of news: what
’
s going at which post,
who
’
s
had a bucket knocked over by a shell fragment.

Right behind the recorder is the interpretation table. Beyond that, with scarcely any space to sit, is the table where they determine the time differential. By the other wall are the plotter
’
s table and a map on a slanted frame. The dim cellar is lit up by three twelve-volt bulbs, one hanging over the square-ruled
Whatman
paper. We
’
re ready.

Fedya Botnev isn
’
t what you would call a bold, intrepid warrior, but in the plotting platoon he doesn
’
t have to be. He
’
s careful, fussy, and very attentive to detail, just what
’
s needed for his job. (He
’
s even very curious about the equipment of the neighboring units and goes to take a look when he has an opportunity. He
’
s been through an industrial-technical school.) He loves to stand at the map board himself and plot the intersecting lines from the sensors.

But the entire progress of any reconnaissance depends on the interpretation. We have Lipsky, a process engineer, and we
’
ve promoted him to sergeant. When there
’
s a lull in our work in the battery, he
’
s the only one addressed politely by his name and patronymic. (There
’
s one other man with higher education in my battery,
Pugach
, a lawyer. He
’
s a good lawyer and can always find some loophole to get him the easier jobs. But you can send him on any detail:
“
Give the political officer a hand
”
;
“
Put together a little news sheet for the boys.
”
)

At the far end of the cellar there
’
s some faint muttering:

“
Listen to all that noise! What a commotion . . .
”

“
You think I might get out and take a look to see they haven
’
t carried everything off? I left a
‘
nameled
basin out there.
”

“
Well,
Arfevna
, you can
’
t bring it all in here. And if a shell drops down on it, you won
’
t even find your house.
”

“
God spare us that.
”

It
’
s heating up outside. The light is already the bright yellow of a sunny, hot day. Even those tiny clouds have melted away, and the sky is a pure blue. There
’
ll be a lot going on in the sky overhead today.

Smoke is already coming from
Isakov
’
s
kitchen in the bushes.

The drivers are sweating to finish digging in their trucks, and a few men who are free are giving them a hand. Lyakhov is a tall, stolid fellow who never gives a sign that he
’
s tired out. Plump little Pashanin, from
Nizhegorod
, has stripped to the waist, but still his hairy chest and back are covered with sweat and he wipes his brow with his wrist. He was careless enough to tell the battery of his misfortune: the wife he loved so much, a singer in the variety
theater,
has abandoned him, and Pashanin has become both an object of sympathy and of mockery.

I
also have the battery political officer,
Kochergarov
, usually hanging around; but when things get hot and everyone else is rushing about, there
’
s no way you can make him lend a hand. Before the war he was a driver, though a driver for a party regional committee; and now he doesn
’
t seem to have enough sense to pick up a shovel and help Pashanin.

The first call comes in. It
’
s from post three, the nearest one: they
’
re in position, have hooked up the cable, and are digging in. We test their connection: they give a clap right in front of the diaphragm of the sensor, and our recorder marks it as a shot. Everything
’
s working.

When an aircraft flies over one of our posts, though, its sound spoils the transcription from three other posts.

The cables that now fan out from the cellar are being dug in by the linesmen—each digging the one leading to his post. They bury the first fifty meters so that all the people walking around won
’
t tangle them and also to try to keep them from being hit by shrapnel.

Here come some planes now!
Six Henschel bombers.
They
’
re flying high at first,
then
they drop down and turn to our left. We hear the pop of our antiaircraft guns.
Missed.
Once they
’
ve dropped their bombs they withdraw.

Our troops here are crowded into a few square kilometers along the front line. There are light and heavy mortar
s, forty-five- and seventy-six-m
illimeter guns, 107-millimeter howitzers, and all kinds of vehicles half dug-in and camouflaged. Drop anything into that area and you
’
ll make a hit.

Meanwhile, we have to find three more seats inside the cellar for the telephone operators from brigade and the two battalions. Our boys saw off three billets from the fallen linden—we
’
re never without our two-man saw—and roll them down the steps. Lyakhov has driven his ZIS truck down the ramp he
’
s dug. Pashanin has also moved his GAZ down. Well, that
’
s a relief.

Shukhov, who has a bit of a lisp, reports that they
’
ve arrived at post two. We
’
ve tested the system and
it
’
s
working.

They all take up approximate positions and would like to move to some spot that suits them better, but until Ovsyannikov checks their locations, there
’
s no point in digging themselves in.

A shout comes from the cellar:
“
Call for you, Comrade Lieutenant!
”

I tumble down the brick steps as fast as I can. Yes, it
’
s brigade: we
’
re waiting for targets, Forty-two!
“
At least let us deploy and get hooked up,
”
I reply.
“
Give us a break!
”

A little nap would be just the thing now. I look at the boys in the cellar. They feel the same way.

“
Right, until we
’
ve got work to do you can put your heads down on the tables.
”

They don
’
t need any more invitation, and their heads go down immediately. This will be the last chance for half an hour
’
s rest.

The sun rises higher and the heat grows more intense.

Post four has now hooked up, along with the advance post. A rough estimate, at least, can be made using three posts—depending on the grid square they
’
re firing from.

Two linesmen have been on duty since the central station has been operating. They run out along a line that
’
s been broken and splice the cable. Someone from the listening post runs out to meet them so that there are two people searching for the break (you never can tell which end is closest to it). Repairing a line is one of the most dangerous jobs of all: you
’
re fully exposed and standing, no matter how much you try to bend down; and if there
’
s shelling, all you can do is flop down on the ground. If there
’
s no sign of an artillery barrage, the duty linesman goes out himself; he knows his job. But when there
’
s an urgent need, someone has to decide whom to send out. If Ovsyannikov is here, then it
’
s him; if
not, it
’
s me. Depending on the job, it can be done without an officer; the sergeant manning the central equipment can go out himself. He
’
s responsible: without a listening post, we can
’
t locate the target, and that could cause an even bigger loss. Every trip along the line could cost a linesman
’
s life. We
’
ve already lost
Klimansky
that way. And it
’
s precisely when there
’
s firing, when the shells are flying, that we need to pinpoint our target.