The other inmates were sitting in a pit at the foot of the main wall and talking. As before, no one mentioned the two gypsies; nor did they seem worried at being encircled.

This calm seemed strange to Katya; nevertheless, she submitted to it herself. Even the dreaded word 'encirclement' no longer held any terrors for her. Nor was she frightened when a machine-gun opened up right next to them and Grekov shouted: 'Fire! Fire! Look – they've got right in!' Nor when Grekov ordered: 'Use whatever's to hand – knives, spades, grenades. You know your job. Kill the bastards – it doesn't matter how.'

During the few quiet moments, the men engaged in a long and detailed discussion of Katya's physical appearance. The short-sighted Batrakov, who had always seemed to live in another world, turned out to be surprisingly interested.

'All I care about are a woman's tits,' he said.

Kolomeitsev disagreed. He – in Zubarev's words – preferred to call a spade a spade.

'So have you talked to her about the cat, then?' asked Zubarev.

'Of course,' said Batrakov. 'Even old grey-beard here's had a chat with her about that.'

The old man in command of the mortars spat and drew his hand across his chest.

'Really! I ask you! Does she have what makes a woman a woman?'

He got particularly angry if anyone hinted that Grekov might have his eye on her.

'Well, of course! To us, even a Katya seems passable. In the country of the blind… She's got legs like a stork, no arse worth speaking of, and great cow-like eyes. Call that a woman?'

'You just like big tits,' Chentsov retorted. 'That's an outmoded, pre-revolutionary point of view.'

Kolomeitsev, a coarse, foul-mouthed man, whose large bald head concealed many surprising contradictions, said: 'She's not a bad girl, but I'm very particular. I like them small, preferably Armenian or Jewish, with large quick eyes and short hair.'

Zubarev looked thoughtfully at the dark sky criss-crossed by the beams of searchlights. 'Well, I wonder how it will work out in the end.'

'You mean who she'll end up with?' said Kolomeitsev. 'Grekov -that's obvious.'

'Far from it,' said Zubarev. 'It's not in the least obvious.' He picked up a piece of brick and hurled it against the wall.

The others laughed.

'I see! You're going to charm her with the down on your chin, are you?' said Batrakov.

'No,' said Kolomeitsev, 'he's going to sing. They're going to make a programme together: "Infantry at the microphone". He'll sing and she'll broadcast it into the ether. They'll make a fine pair!'

Zubarev looked round at the boy who'd been reading poetry the evening before. 'And how about you?'

'If he doesn't say anything, it's because he doesn't want to,' said the old grey-beard warningly. Then he turned to the boy and said in a fatherly way, as though he were rebuking his son for listening to the grown-ups: 'You'd do better to go down to the cellar and get some sleep while you can.'

'Antsiferov's down there right now with his dynamite,' said Batrakov.

Meanwhile Grekov was dictating to Katya. He informed Army Headquarters that the Germans were almost certainly preparing an offensive and that it would almost certainly be directed at the Tractor Factory. What he didn't say was that house 6/1 appeared to lie on the very axis of this offensive. But as he looked at Katya's thin little neck, at her lips, at her half-lowered eyelashes, he saw an all-too-vivid picture of a broken neck with pearly vertebrae poking out through lacerated skin, of two glassed-over, fish-like eyes, and of lips like grey, dusty rubber.

He was longing to seize hold of her, to feel her life and warmth while they were both alive, while this young being was still full of grace and charm. He thought it was just pity that made him want to embrace the girl – but does pity make your temples throb and your ears buzz?

Headquarters were slow to answer. Grekov stretched till every joint in his body began to crack, gave a loud sigh, thought, 'It's all right, we've got the night ahead of us,' and asked tenderly: 'How's Klimov's kitten getting on? Is he getting his strength back?'

'Far from it,' answered Katya.

She thought about the gypsies on the bonfire. Her hands were shaking. She glanced at Grekov to see if he'd noticed.

Yesterday she'd thought that no one in this building was ever going to talk to her; today the bearded second lieutenant, tommy-gun in hand, had rushed by as she was eating her kasha and called out as though they were old friends: 'Don't just pick at it, Katya!' He had gestured at her to show how she ought to plunge her spoon into the pot.

She had seen the boy who'd read the poem yesterday carrying some mortar-bombs on a tarpaulin. Later she had looked round and seen him standing by the water-boiler. Realizing he was watching her, she had looked away, but by then he had already turned away himself.

She already knew who would start showing her letters and photographs tomorrow, who would look at her in silence and sigh, who would bring her a present of half a flask of water and some rusks of white bread, who would say he didn't believe in women's love and would never fall in love again… As for the bearded second lieutenant, he would probably start pawing her.

Finally an answer came through from Headquarters. Katya started to repeat the message to Grekov.

'Your orders are to make a detailed report every day at twelve hundred hours precisely…'

Grekov suddenly knocked Katya's hand off the switch. She let out a cry.

He grinned and said: 'A fragment from a mortar-bomb has put the wireless-set out of action. Contact will be re-established when it suits Grekov.'

Katya gaped at him in astonishment.

'I'm sorry, Katyusha,' said Grekov and took her by the hand.

59

In the early morning Divisional Headquarters were informed by Byerozkin's regiment that the men in house 6/1 had excavated a passage into one of the concrete tunnels belonging to the Tractor Factory; some of them were now in the factory itself. A duty-officer at Divisional HQ informed Army HQ, where it was then reported to General Krylov himself. Krylov ordered one of the men to be brought to him for questioning. A signals officer was detailed to take a young boy, chosen by the duty-officer, to Army HQ. They walked down a ravine leading to the bank; on the way the boy kept turning round and anxiously asking questions.

'I must go back home. My instructions were to reconnoitre the tunnel – so we could evacuate the wounded.'

'Never mind,' said the officer. 'You're about to see someone a little senior to your own boss. You have to do as he says.'

On the way the boy told the officer how they had been in house 6/1 for over two weeks, how they'd lived for some time on a cache of potatoes they'd found in the cellar, how they'd drunk the water from the central heating system, and had given the Germans such a hard rime that they'd sent an envoy with an offer of free passage to the factory. Naturally their commander – the boy referred to him as the 'house-manager' – had replied by ordering them all to open fire. When they reached the Volga, the boy lay down and began to drink; he then shook the drops from his jacket onto the palm of his hand and licked them off. It was as though he were starving and they were crumbs of bread. He explained that the water in the central heating system had been foul. To begin with, they had all had stomach-upsets, but then the house-manager had ordered them to boil the water and they had recovered.

They walked on in silence. The boy listened to the sound of the bombers and looked up at the night sky, now decorated by red and green flares and the curved trajectories of tracer-bullets and shells. He saw the glow of the guttering fires in the town, the white flame of the guns and the blue columns of water sent up by shells falling in the Volga. His pace gradually slackened, till finally the officer shouted: 'Come on now! Look lively!'