At some point Moscow turned to me and whispered with irritation:
‘I really hope this is the last time. If they ask us to do anything else, I’m going to tell them all to shove it.’
I was in total agreement.
We soon reached our destination. The car stopped in the courtyard of a small building defended by our men. The yard was full of equipment randomly strewn across the ground. On the opposite side there was a road that separated our territory from the territory held by the enemies. We jumped out of the car and began gathering Kalashnikov clips, tying them together with the wide bandages from our medi-kits, attaching them to our vests.
The captain ordered:
‘Prepare ten clips for me too, boys!’
Then he went off to the tent in the middle of the yard, which was surrounded by sandbags stacked up to a man’s height around the perimeter. It was the mobile command base, where there was usually some low-ranking officer, a major or at most a lieutenant colonel.
Our captain was very critical towards the men in command – he called any contact with them ‘listening to babies cry’, referring to the story in the Gospel about the massacre of the innocents. There was something about their behaviour, he told us, that he had never really been able to understand, and when he had to deal with them face to face they always ended up arguing and he would insult them. As he admitted himself, that’s precisely the reason why he never went up in military rank – sometimes he would jokingly add the word ‘eternal’ to his title of captain; he was aware that nobody in command was very fond of him, either.
That day, I could tell just from the way he stormed over to the tent that Nosov was going to get into trouble the moment he walked in there.
Not even ten minutes had passed before we started to hear shouting coming from the tent, along with a string of accusations and insults, with which our captain was always very generous.
Right after that Nosov came by the sandbags, and called me over, his voice breaking:
‘Kolima! Come here, I have a job for you!’
I could imagine what it would be, so I walked towards the tent with some reluctance. Inside there was an infantry major sitting at a table, improvised from empty cases for heavy machine gun rounds. He had a battle knife in his hand, which he was using to show Nosov various points on a map that was spread out in front of them.
On the map, our area was surrounded by empty shells and various calibres of cartridge, which were supposed to represent the different military units. Next to that was a package of black bread, open, and a piece of paper with a pat of butter on top, a Kalashnikov survival knife stuck inside. There was also a big pot full of black tea, which was so hot it was steaming, and in fact its smell filled the entire tent. In one corner, on top of a zinc case, an infantry explorer, a private, ate silently. Next to him, leaning against the case, was his precision rifle: a VSS with an integrated silencer, exactly the same as mine. He was a sniper too.
The major was angry with Nosov, but he paid no attention and made himself at home. He spread some butter on a thick hunk of bread and passed it to me.
‘Here. Eat while you can…’
I didn’t need him to tell me twice, and in a single bite I’d chomped off half the piece. Then the major took an empty tin from a pile of rubbish on the ground and poured a drop of hot tea in it. He rinsed out the tin with a vigorous swish and dumped the dirty tea on the rubbish. Finally he filled the tin up with tea and said to me:
‘Drink up, soldier, don’t just eat stale bread!’
I liked him right off the bat, this major; he had a very friendly demeanour and he treated me like a son. It was clear that he found himself in an awkward situation, that’s why he was trying to get some support.
While I drank the tea, with the residue of the oil from the tin still floating on top, Nosov bent over the map. He said to me, without ever looking up:
‘Look, Kolima, your colleague here has managed to find the spots where the Arabs are. You have to memorise them, study them carefully…’ I turned towards the explorers’ sniper, who still hadn’t said a word.
‘You left the area by yourself? How did you do it?’
The guy gave me a serious look, and while he was still chewing, he said:
‘I went into the sewer system. In the yard, behind the house where our post is, there’s an entrance to the sewers. Our lieutenant ordered me to search it and, if possible, follow it all the way to you guys.’
It seemed incredible, looking at the guy. Alone, with a precision rifle and a few clips, that boy had gone through over a kilometre of sewer. Even if they were completely dry, since in the city the water pipes weren’t working and there was no drinking water, the biggest danger in the sewers was the mines. During the First Chechen Campaign, all the sewers were mined – first by the enemies, then by us – to keep anyone from using them as underground passageways from one part of the city to another. Nobody dared go in there, the risk was too high.
‘That’s some luck, brother! You weren’t just born with a bulletproof vest, you had a full-on jacket!’ I said, looking on the map at the path he had taken.
I had only been in the sewers once. We were clearing out a neighbourhood in the Chechen capital, the city of Grozny. To get closer to the position of an Arab sniper I had to take down, I went through nearly two hundred metres of sewer, but it was nice and wide, and there was no danger of being discovered. The city was under the control of our troops, and two soldiers from the strategic unit had already passed through that same tract of sewer and deactivated the mines they found on the path.
The Arabs had several models of explosive devices at their disposal, many of which were Italian-made, coming from San Marino. They had different mechanisms, but were all deadly weapons. Some of them had been scattered throughout the city we were supposed to attack, thrown in the street in order to attract our soldiers’ attention. They were made to look like mobile phones, watches, videocameras, and unfortunately sometimes toys or boxes of crayons. We all knew about these dangerous surprises, and if during the First Chechen Campaign a Russian or two had lost his hide, I don’t remember a single case of that happening in the Second. But many civilians died, including – disgracefully – children. When we saw those mines in the street we wouldn’t hesitate to shoot them to make them explode, thus rendering them harmless. The idea of picking them up and trying to deactivate them, on the other hand, never occurred to any one of us.
The explorers’ sniper had done everything alone. Besides making it all the way to our position, he had emerged from the sewers at several points to observe the enemy camp and had used a piece of hard lime to mark the areas of greatest danger on the walls. He had risked his life so he could tell us where and how the Arabs were positioned. To me he was a hero.
Now that I had a full stomach I went and carefully studied the map the sniper had drawn, trying to memorise all the points marked on the route, but there were so many I couldn’t even count them. So I took out the map they’d given us at the beginning of the operation, and with a pencil I traced every single enemy post.
In the meantime, Nosov was talking with the major, discussing the possibility of launching an attack to free the trapped soldiers.
‘Before we attack,’ the major said, ‘we have to wait for the planes to arrive, to bomb the perimeter, and…’
‘But that means sentencing our men to death!’ Nosov broke in. ‘We have to try a passive attack. We push the Arabs back to their positions, and take back control of the perimeter. Then from there, we create a path for us to get to the area where the soldiers are stuck…’ Nosov wasn’t used to having to explain things to other people.