Last Citadel - [World War II 03] (15 page)

‘Your son?’ she asked Dimitri.

‘Yes. The bastard.’

‘Go,’ Sonya said.

‘A kiss first.’

‘No. I don’t know you that well.’

‘I’ve earned a kiss.’

Valentin repeated his command. The sky behind him reddened.

‘Go, Dima. You’ll get in trouble.’

‘See. You do know me well! Kiss me, woman, and I’ll deal with the trouble.’

Sonya bent her head to his and they touched lips; the kiss was softer than Dimitri wanted but, again, he found she was plenty. He let her pull away first and open her eyes.

‘Another time,’ she said.

‘Another time, Just Sonya.’

He grabbed one more handful of her bottom and clambered away before she could consider taking a swipe at him. He flew up the trench slope to stand beside Valentin.

‘You should have gotten here sooner,’ he said to his son, looking down at all the women gathering their tools, washing their bare arms in the last of the water buckets. Then he made a face. ‘No. Perhaps not.’

* * * *

June 31

2215 hours

Two boys sat cross-legged on the ground in front of the General Platov. They jumped up when Valentin strode into the glow of their lantern.

‘Sergeant!’ they said together.

Dimitri came to stand beside his son, who addressed the two newcomers.

‘Men, this is your driver. Private…’

Dimitri stepped forward before Valentin could make any more formal pronouncements. He held out his hand to each. Neither was out of his teens. More sons, Dimitri thought; Christ, more children to take into battle.

‘Dimitri Konstantinovich Berko,’ he said with each handshake. The boys had acne and nervous clasps. Dimitri felt expansive after his day in the trench with the woman, the digging made him tired in the good, old way of the farm. ‘Call me Dima. Tell me your names.’

Both were short, the way tankers must be. One was thick, the other lean. Dimitri guessed the chunky one was the loader, he had to be strong to sling the shells around inside the tank, out of the bins and into the breech. The other would be the hull machine-gunner and radioman, if the
General
had a radio.

‘Pyotr Semyonovich Belyayev,’ said the stumpy one. His eyes were close-set. Beneath broad shoulders hung short arms. ‘I am…’

‘The loader, yes, I guessed. Of course. Look at you. Strong as an ox, I’ll bet. Good, good. And you?’

The thinner of the two was the edgy, pinched one. Both boys had buzzed haircuts but this one looked like a match head, there was something incendiary about him.

‘Private Frolov.’ His name had to escape his mouth as though words were prisoners in this boy’s head.

‘Private Frolov? I’m not going to call out “Hey, Private Frolov, shoot those Nazi fuckers for me!” in the middle of a battle. What’s your name, boy?’

‘Urn… um…’

‘Yes?’

‘Alexander Mikhailovich Frolov.’

This one will be fun, thought Dimitri. The quiet ones always are after you put some vodka in them. He guessed the skinny one would be the harder fighter of the two when the time came. Life for the quiet ones is a fight all the time. Good. He’ll keep his head.

‘Gunner extraordinaire,
da!’
Dimitri clapped Frolov on the back to see how he’d take it. The boy wavered under the smack but looked up and grinned.

‘Good, very good. Sergeant, these look like good fighters. Well done.’

Valentin eyed his father.

Dimitri spread his arms, pushing the two boys together, tucking both inside his span as though measuring their collective width and worth.

‘Alright! Pasha and Sasha. Yes. And Dima.’ He looked back at Valentin. ‘And the sergeant.’

Dimitri took up the lantern and carried it to the
General
. He set it on the ground and folded next to it, resting his tired back against the T-34’s tread.

‘Gather ‘round.’

Pyotr and Alexander came to sit about the lantern. Valentin stood apart. This was the third crew they’d had in a year, and Dimitri had gone through this exercise with each. Dimitri walked over to his son and took the boy’s arm, leading him away to speak privately.

‘Come on, Valya. They’re children.’

‘They’re soldiers.’

‘They’re fighters, yes. And who are the best fighters in all of Russia? Hmm?’

‘Cossacks,’ Valentin said with rolling eyes. The answer was their ritual.

‘Yes! So, you see. We have to do this, every time. Yes? Come on.’ Dimitri steered Valentin by their linked arms back to the lantern, the
General
, and the two waiting crewmen.

‘Good. All together,’ he said, grunting a bit while descending to the ground again. Valentin took a place up on the tank, close but above the three privates. ‘Pasha. Tell me where you’re from.’

The broad one said, ‘Lesogorsk. Near Bratsk.’

‘Ah,’ Dimitri clapped, ‘a Siberian. Are you a hunter, then? You must be.’

‘I grew up shooting ducks on the Bratskoye reservoir. And foxes in the
taiga
. My father and I…’

‘Excellent, wonderful. You’ll tell us more sometime. Sasha, you. Where is your home?’

The boy licked his lips. ‘Odessa.’

Dimitri looked up at Valentin. ‘You hear that! He’s from the other side of the Black Sea from us. Splendid.’

‘Did you two know the sergeant and I are Kuban Cossacks?’

The boys shook their heads and looked at each other.

‘What do you know about Cossacks? Anything?’

Pasha the stump said, ‘My mother used to scare us when we were bad. She’d say if we didn’t behave, she was going to call the Cossack and let him get us.’

‘What would the Cossack do?’

‘I don’t know. Eat us, I guess.’

Dimitri chuckled. ‘Your mother was a wise woman, Pasha. I might have eaten you and grown very fat myself. But as you can see, I’m skinny, so I never ate any children. Alright?’

Pasha nodded, like a child being assured a scary campfire story was just that, a story.

Dimitri reached to the lantern to turn up the wick. ‘Did you notice the name of your new tank? Sasha?’

Valentin, seated on the tank, sighed and this made Sasha take a moment longer.

‘General Platov.’

‘Yes. Good. I suppose you don’t know who General Platov was, so I’ll tell you.’

‘Yes,’ said Pasha, cupping his chin in his hands and digging his elbows into his bent knees. Sasha nodded. This boy did not ever seem to blink.

‘Before the War of 1812, Napoleon knew he would invade Russia. He set out to learn everything he could about the Motherland before attacking. One of the things he found out was that the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban regions were the finest riders and fighters in the world. Better than the Mongols, the British, and better than the French, of course. Napoleon needed good cavalry if he was going to build an empire, and who better than the Cossacks?’

Dimitri slapped the tank tread behind him. ‘Good old General Platov here was the
hetman
of the Don Cossacks. He got a letter from Bonaparte himself, inviting him to visit Paris to be His Majesty’s guest. When Platov got to France, Napoleon and all of his generals kissed his ass like he was a king himself. They showed him all the wonders of Paris, held fancy balls in his honor, even a parade! All this to get their hands on General Platov’s Cossacks. And Platov, you see, was no dummy. He knew what Bonaparte was up to.’

The lantern light reached high enough on the tank for Dimitri to see his son listening, knowing the story well but allowing the father’s gift of the telling.

‘Finally, Napoleon made his move on the General. He sat Platov down in a giant parlor of gold and silk, and said to him, “General, such a man as you should be a prince in your country. You command thousands of fighters, but you are treated with no honor by your own king. France can offer you this honor, for you and your Cossacks. Side with us, General. It would do you and your people good to become acquainted with the cultures of France and Europe.” The General kept his opinion to himself, that Napoleon had spoken as though, without French culture, his Cossacks were savages!’

Pasha and Sasha laughed. Even Valentin snickered, this was a new line Dimitri threw into the tale.

‘Napoleon made his offer. “General,” he said, “I would give anything you asked if I could have Cossacks on my side. With twenty thousand of the best cavalrymen in the world fighting with France, no one could stop us.” Platov listened, rubbed his beard, and answered, “I see no problem. This is a very easy thing to do.” Well, Napoleon could hardly believe his ears. “How can we do this, General?” he begged. “Tell me what you require.” The General stood in the grand, golden room of Napoleon and said, “It’s a simple thing. I will bring twenty thousand of my finest young riders to Paris for a few days. You will bring twenty thousand of your prettiest French girls to Paris. We will let Nature take its course, and in twenty years or so you will have your own twenty thousand French Cossacks!”‘

Dimitri spanked his knees with his hands, relishing the old General’s reply every time he told the story. Pasha and Sasha clapped and Valentin rocked back in his seat on the tank. The slanting lantern light made all their faces merry.

‘So, you see,’ Dimitri said. ‘The whole world fears the Cossack. Including Napoleon and Pasha’s mother. And the Germans.’

He leaned into the lantern, to light his face better for this next chapter of the rite. ‘My old father. Your sergeant’s grandfather. He would be here right now if he were alive. Cossack families go to war together. Did you know that?’

The two lads shook their heads.

‘Well, they do. Every Cossack family knows the history of its warriors. The family heroes are remembered with praise, the villains are the cowards or the disloyal ones. When I was your age, I went to war with my father. We wore red-topped caps and black
burka
cloaks with red hoods. We rode in pigskin boots and kept a tea kettle and sacks of biscuits tied to our belts. I had a curved saber, a carbine with a bayonet, and a goathorn full of powder. We rode first against the Romanovs, those inbred European shits. And when we’d won enough battles against their white cavalry all across western Russia, even on these steppe lands around us right now, the Tsar himself gave in. The Cossacks were rewarded with free land, the right to govern ourselves, and respect! Then, after a few years of royal bribes, when it was clear the Bolsheviks would win, we traded in our white flag for a red one. We turned on the bastard Tsar for the new bastard Lenin. Because the Cossack fights for the Cossack. It doesn’t matter who invades us. Germans or Russians, Tsars or commissars. Napoleon called us the disgrace of the human race. And he was right, if you look at how most humans live!’

The two boys were rapt. Dimitri understood the rotten training these two had been given before they were shipped to the Kursk bulge for their first battle. They’d been bullied and frightened and given no pay and less than a month’s lesson on how to fight in these tanks. Commissars had shouted slogans at them, they’d taken oaths, but no one had talked with them, told them tales of bravery and deeds and mentioned they might have what it takes to do the same, valiant things -
podvigs
. Valentin and his sour ilk were all they’d seen of the Red Army. These lads were considered nothing more than numbers to be thrown at the Germans.