The plane crissed-crossed the afternoon sky, shooting and darting the fire that was coming from Russian guns in the near distance. Vlad flung himself in the dip, hurting his nose as his face smacked hard against the ground. His friends pressed around him, their heads bobbing to watch the train being punctured some more. A man in uniform ordered everyone who could hear him, ‘Keep your bloody heads down and dig in!’ With that, men began to claw at the earth so that they could burrow forwards.
However, there was no need. It proved to be a temporary interruption. The pilot grew bored and sped off to greener pastures, in search of more Russians to kill. The older and more experienced soldiers waved goodbye, with one man shouting out, ‘That’s it? Now that you’ve had your fun, you’re just going to leave us?’ His companions roared with laughter, relieving the tension of the previous few minutes.
Vlad, Anton and Leo joined in, standing up slowly to rub the dirt from their uniforms. Misha stood too, a little apart from the others, hoping the smell of his urine was lost in the chaos. Seeing the embarrassment in his friend’s eyes, Leo smiled, and shrugged his shoulders, pretending that he too had wet himself. Misha was desperate enough to believe him.
The order went out, ‘Collect any dead!’
Men poured back onto the train, finding three bodies, including the old man’s. Not knowing what else to do, the boys took up their former positions, standing exactly where they had been before the plane’s arrival, ready to be of assistance should they be needed. Misha gingerly felt the front of his trousers, while the other two pretended not to notice.
Anton made a lunge at the corpse of the elderly passenger but lost out to two tough-looking soldiers who were in no need of his help. He stood watching them as they easily picked the body off the seat and moved to the door, nodding his head as if he was well pleased with their work. Finally he got his reward when one of the soldiers felt him staring and barked, ‘Go and get some planks of wood from the bunks in the next carriage. We’ll use them to cover the body.’
Three hasty burials were performed while the driver readied the train for the rest of the journey. Misha, trying to hide his upset, whispered, ‘But who was he? We don’t even know his name. What about his family?’
Leo and Vlad exchanged glances, Vlad offering, ‘I suppose his relatives will assume the worst when he doesn’t return home.’
Misha nodded unhappily. ‘The other two, were they from this carriage?’
Neither of his friends answered his question.
Staring out the window, at the freshly dug graves, Misha made a request, ‘If that ever happens to me, make sure someone tells my mother,’ adding almost apologetically, ‘and I’ll do the same for you two and Anton.’
Leo glanced at him and away again, and said, ‘Yep, it’s a deal!’
Vlad barely realised he had been about to say something like ‘Don’t be daft, nothing bad is going to happen to us.’ Because, isn’t that what you say to your friends when they are worried about something? Instead he found himself thinking, this is it, we’re soldiers now.
Anton reappeared, failing to hide how proud he was that he had been singled out for his assistance. He nodded coolly at his classmates, obviously not wanting them to affect his new-found independence, and sat back down on his bloodied seat. Glancing quickly behind him, towards the door, he edged himself along, making room for the men he had helped. When the door was closed and the train heaved into action, with no sign of his funeral companions, Anton concentrated hard on not looking disappointed.
Leo, always the quickest to poke fun, asked, ‘Oh dear, Anton! Did you leave your new friends behind?’
He was completely ignored. Anton, to his relief, spotted his fallen newspaper on the floor and bent down to retrieve it, flicking away the coagulating drops of blood that blotted out some of the headlines, pretending once more to be utterly absorbed in current affairs while Misha continued to look haunted by the immediate future.
There were no more attacks and only a little over an hour left until their final destination, not that the boys knew that. The train began to slow down for the second time. Misha started, expecting to hear another plane, while Leo said quickly, to reassure him, ‘We must be here.’ Vlad would have preferred the train to keep moving. He didn’t feel ready to arrive anywhere yet. Even Leo rubbed sweat from his forehead and avoided looking out the window for more information.
If Leo, Vlad and Misha were already feeling a little overwhelmed, it was nothing compared to their feelings as the carriage doors were pulled open. The scene that met their eyes was, quite simply, mad. There were hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, all moving in different directions. They had to queue to get off the train, trying not to trip over each other. Anton had somehow managed to end up standing beside them. His three classmates were too distracted for it to occur to them that maybe, just maybe, Anton was suddenly feeling as shy and awkward as the rest of them.
Vlad could smell burning and checked the carriage to see if there was something on fire. Seeing him wrinkle his nose, Leo muttered, ‘It’s coming from outside.’
A few minutes of slow, shuffling steps later and, finally, they were able to jump down from the train. The next thing was to find their sergeant. Misha practically stood on Vlad’s foot, in his determination to remain as close as possible to him. Vlad couldn’t help noticing the strain on his friend’s face.
The silent group of four took a moment to watch the other soldiers, who looked like they knew each other and knew exactly what they were meant to do. Anton tried to find some of his earlier confidence. He took a deep breath and stuck out his chest, not realising that his innocence was all too obvious as he turned his head, this way and that, like a child in a toy shop.
He spoke first, ‘Come on, then!’
‘Where?’ asked Leo, who was not prepared to allow Anton even to pretend to boss them around.
Anton shrugged in honest confusion. ‘There must be a sign somewhere,’ he offered.
‘Oh, like “Welcome Anton, come right this way”.’ Leo’s nervousness was making him bad-tempered.
‘Don’t be silly, that’s not what I meant!’ Anton’s nervousness, on the other hand, was making him patient and, well, nicer than usual. Everyone ignored him, which didn’t seem to bother him in the least.
‘Hey, you lot!’
The boys guessed correctly that this welcome was directed at them. Their four heads swivelled in different directions, to find the source of the voice. Anton was the first to meet the tired face of Sergeant Batyuk, a plump man, with greying stubble dotted across his two chins. His uniform was in need of a wash.
‘Are you lot Batyuk’s ducklings, then?’
They were unsure how to answer this. Only Anton gulped, ‘Sir?’ The man laughed, briefly and loudly. Actually, it was more like a few sharp snorts, one after the other. ‘I’m Sergeant Batyuk and you’re my new recruits, yes?’
Delighted that he knew the answer to this question, Anton bellowed, ‘Oh, yes, sir! We are, sir!’ He raised his arm to make a joyous salute.
The other three straightened their backs, but kept their arms clamped down either side of their torsos.
‘At ease, lads. You’re not going anywhere just yet. As you may have guessed, you are not in Stalingrad.’
Sergeant Batyuk must not have realised that this was a surprising piece of news to his young audience. Not one of them had ever visited Stalin’s favourite city before and, therefore, had no reason to believe that they hadn’t reached their famous destination. The sergeant continued furnishing them with information that he believed was already obvious to them. ‘So, we’ve a bit of a walk, about forty miles in all, but we won’t be making a move until it’s dark and a hell of a lot cooler than it is now.’