28

Darensky felt a strange mixture of feelings as he looked at the German tanks and lorries that had been abandoned in the snow, at the frozen corpses, at the column of men being marched under escort to the East.

This was retribution indeed.

He remembered stories about how the Germans had made fun of the poverty of the peasant huts, how they had gazed in surprise and disgust at the simple cradles, the crude stoves, the earthenware pots, the pictures on the walls, the wooden tubs, the painted clay cocks, at the beloved and wonderful world in which the boys then fleeing from their tanks had been born and brought up.

'Look, comrade Lieutenant-Colonel!' said his driver.

Four Germans were carrying one of their comrades on a greatcoat. You could tell from their faces, from their straining necks, that soon they too would fall to the ground. They swayed from side to side. They tripped over the tangled rags wound round their feet. The dry snow lashed their mindless eyes. Their frozen fingers gripped the corners of the greatcoat like hooks.

'So much for the Fritzes,' said the driver.

'We never asked them to come here,' said Darensky.

Suddenly he felt a wave of happiness. Straight through the steppe, in a cloud of mist and snow, Soviet tanks were making their way to the West. They looked quick and fierce, strong and muscular…

Soldiers were standing up in the hatches. He could see their faces and shoulders, their black helmets and their black sheepskins. There they were, tearing through the ocean-like steppe, leaving behind them a foaming wake of dirty snow. Darensky caught his breath in pride and happiness.

Terrible and sombre, a steel-clad Russia had turned her face to the West.

There was a hold-up as they came to a village. Darensky got out of his jeep and walked past two rows of trucks and some tarpaulin-covered Katyushas. A group of prisoners was being herded across the road. A full colonel who had just got out of his car was watching; he was wearing a cap made from silver Astrakhan fur, the kind you can only obtain if you are in command of an army or if you have a quartermaster as a close friend. The guards waved their machine-guns at the prisoners and shouted: 'Come on, come on! Look lively there!'

An invisible wall separated these prisoners from the soldiers and lorry-drivers. A cold still more extreme than the cold of the steppes prevented their eyes from meeting.

'Look at that!' said a laughing voice. 'One of them's got a tail.'

A German soldier was crawling across the road on all fours. A scrap of torn quilt trailed along behind him. The soldier was crawling as quickly as he could, moving his arms and legs like a dog, his head to the ground as though he were following a scent. He was making straight for the colonel. The driver standing beside the colonel said: 'Watch out, comrade Colonel. He's going to bite you.'

The colonel stepped to one side. As the German came up to him, he gave him a push with his boot. The feeble blow was enough to break him. He collapsed on the ground, his arms and legs splayed out on either side.

The German looked up at the man who had just kicked him. His eyes were like those of a dying sheep; there was no reproach or suffering in them, nothing at all except humility.

'A fine warrior that shit makes!' said the colonel, wiping the sole of his boot on the snow. There was a ripple of laughter among the onlookers.

Everything went dark. Darensky was no longer his own master; another man, someone who was at once very familiar to him and yet utterly alien, someone who never hesitated, was directing his actions.

'Comrade Colonel,' he said, 'Russians don't kick a man when he's down.'

'What do you think I am then?' asked the colonel. 'Do you think I'm not a Russian?'

'You're a scoundrel,' said Darensky. He saw the colonel take a step towards him. Forestalling the man's angry threats, he shouted: 'My surname's Darensky. Lieutenant-Colonel Darensky – inspector of the Operations Section of Stalingrad Front Headquarters. I'm ready to repeat what I said to you before the commander of the Front and before a military tribunal.'

In a voice full of hatred, the colonel said: 'Very well, Lieutenant-Colonel Darensky. You will be hearing from me.'

He stalked away. Some prisoners came up and dragged their comrade to one side. After that, wherever Darensky turned, he kept meeting the eyes of the prisoners. It was as though something attracted them to him.

As he walked slowly back to his jeep, he heard a mocking voice say: 'So the Fritzes have found a defender!'

Soon Darensky was on his way again. But they were held up by another column of prisoners being marched towards them, the Germans in grey uniforms, the Rumanians in green.

Darensky's fingers were trembling as he lit a cigarette. The driver noticed this out of the corner of his eye and said: 'I don't feel any pity for them. I could shoot any one of them just like that.'

'Fine,' said Darensky. 'But you should have shot them in 1941 instead of taking to your heels like I did.'

He said nothing more for the rest of the journey.

This incident, however, didn't open his heart. On the contrary, it was as though he'd quite exhausted his store of kindness.

What an abyss lay between the road he was following today and the road he had taken to Yashkul through the Kalmyk steppe. Was he really the same man who, beneath an enormous moon, had stood on what seemed to be the last corner of Russian earth? Who had watched the fleeing soldiers and the snake-like necks of the camels, tenderly making room in his heart for the poor, for the weak, for everyone whom he loved?

29

____________________m ____________________

The command-post of the tank corps lay on the outskirts of the village. Darensky drove up to the hut. It was already dark. They'd obviously only recently moved in: soldiers were unloading suitcases and mattresses from a truck and signallers were installing telephones.

The soldier on sentry-duty reluctantly went inside and called for the duty-officer. He came reluctantly out onto the porch. Like all duty-officers, he looked at the new arrival's epaulettes rather than his face.

'Comrade Lieutenant-Colonel, the corps commander's only just got back from visiting one of the brigades. He's having a rest. He can see you later.'

'Report to the corps commander that Lieutenant-Colonel Darensky has arrived. Is that clear?'

The officer sighed and went back into the hut.

A minute later he came out again and called: 'This way please, comrade Lieutenant-Colonel.'

Darensky climbed the steps up onto the porch and saw Novikov coming to meet him. For a few moments they just looked at one another, laughing.

'So we meet again,' said Novikov.

It was a good meeting.

Two intelligent heads bent over the map, just as they had in the old days.

'I'm advancing as fast as I once retreated,' said Novikov. 'Even faster on this bit of the course.'

'And this is winter,' said Darensky. 'Just wait till the summer!'

'I know.'

It was wonderful to study the map with Darensky. He grasped things immediately and he was interested in details that no one except Novikov ever seemed to notice.

Lowering his voice, as though he were about to come out with some personal confidence, Novikov said: 'Of course we have scouts in the zone of operations. Of course we have a co-ordinated system of reference points for the terrain. Of course we liaise with other arms of the service. But the operations of every other arm are subordinated to one god – the T-34. She's the queen!'

Darensky was familiar with the maps of the other military operations then in progress. He told Novikov about the campaign in the Caucasus, the contents of the intercepted conversations between Hitler and Paulus, and about the movement of General Fretter-Piko's artillery units.