*
And then we were on Fell Crag. Part of the way we crawled up a steep hillside, and it was dead true that Dýha was a bright, nippy little guy, and as we crawled up through a cleft cut into the cliff overhang, I’d probably have got smashed up more than once without his hissed commands, like ‘Toehold, man! Your foot this way!’, and that wouldn’t have been good for a saboteur redeploying to a new site. But I hadn’t been waging war in the forest. I’d been on a tank.
Having climbed over the rocky ramparts, we were right there among the lads. They’d settled down on blankets and groundsheets around a little campfire, and those who wanted to were stuffing their faces again, and I said hello to Mikušinec. He gawped at me. Probably couldn’t make up his mind whether it was me or not. The only one missing was Páta, but that our gypsies weren’t there didn’t surprise me a bit.
I’d been really lucky that they took out the cottage with a bazooka that day. It was their farewell night. The altar boys were off into the forest to their mothers and kid sisters, while Dýha and Mikušinec were already packed and ready to go off to join the Legion. I hadn’t said yet where I was going, though I knew. ‘And you, Martin? Karel?’
Martin told me he had one big task ahead of him still. Karel just sighed. There was water boiling in a battered kettle on the fire. Someone shoved a canteen in my hand, and I took a drink of hard liquor. I was to take part in the last night of the battle group, since Czechoslovakia, squeezed by the five armies, had capitulated, and I learned that the new Russians — that is Kozhanov’s 1st Tank Brigade of Guards — would be here very soon to start picking up anyone who refused to lay down their arms, including recalcitrant Bulgarians and Poles and Germans and Hungarians, and the old Soviet occupying forces who’d acquitted themselves badly, and so it really was time to do a runner, because anyone who stayed could expect to face a military tribunal! — and Siberia! — and that’s if things went well! It’s always been the same.
And the lads were earnestly talking about winding up their combat activities. Now and then they looked up towards the mountain high above our post with its defensive rocky ramparts, and some kind of saboteur’s instinct told me that’s where our Commander Baudyš was lurking. I wasn’t wrong. In my mind I began to put together my report to him. I needn’t have bothered.
The lads swished the liquor from their canteens into the hot tea, and reminisced about all the fighting. They were laughing and talking about people suffering in coarse, husky voices that broke now and again into a squeak like some mouse or bird, and again I was glad that Dago had done a bunk, disappearing before the bazooka attack, because he could easily have copped it… I wanted to tell the lads about the funny little dwarf, they’d like that!.. But now wasn’t the time, because Freckles, Holý, Pepper, all our altar boys were saying goodbye. We exchanged manly handshakes and, if we’d had stubble on our cheeks, furtive manly tears might well have run down it — that’s allowed when the fighting’s over! But our cheeks were still soft and whisker-free.
Now the altar boys quickly and quietly took off all the various bits of their uniforms and tossed them on the ground, and put on sweaters and trackies and other normal clothes which they had ready, so it took a while, and they also put their sub-machine guns and rifles and grenades and their cool knives in a big pile. Some had Siaz marked on them. Some were quite nice. Then one after another they clambered over the ramparts. It crossed my mind that one of them could be my lovely Hanka’s brother, but I couldn’t ask! I was just a reform school kid who’d skipped his tank unit! They didn’t want me on the crag… I didn’t dare risk it.
So I was sitting with the Bandits, just like old times, listening to all the tales about what had been going on. What surprised me most was the news that since his hero’s death old Mr Cimbura had also become a superstar.
‘What with Vyžlata being a martyr, that makes two Siřem saints,’ Martin called out faintly. ‘Think how happy that would make the sisters.’ And in the glare of the fire he clapped gently, just patting his palms lightly, his cheeks ablaze.
Martin was glad I asked him things, so off he started and the other lads just chipped in now and then… I heard that the extraordinary wartime beatification of Mr Cimbura was decided by no less than the auxiliary bishop of Louny… and that the hero Alexander Dubček was still alive, and he’d sent a messenger to Siřem all the way from Prague with his personal greeting. After all, the entire Czechoslovak uprising — in the suppression of which the best combat troops of five armies were nearly bled dry — broke out in Siřem right after Cimbura’s great act… ‘Dead right,’ the lads chimed in, and here and there one of them tossed a twig on the fire, and Martin handed me his canteen and carried on talking…
‘First they wanted to turn Siřem into a model of collaboration, right? The Radio Free Siřem transmitter really got up their noses… In the five armies and all over Czechoslovakia people had heard about how brilliantly organized our Siaz was, and all zones in revolt looked up to us… We was held up as an example! So that’s why the Soviets decided to bring Siřem to its knees,’ said Martin, and the lads lapped it all up, and it crossed my mind that he wasn’t telling this tale for the first time…
‘The five armies’ TV — the eyes of the entire world — were supposed to see us brought down and made powerless. There were platforms on the square in Siřem for all of them bigwigs and officers and top brass, and, just fancy, collaborators came up to them (they must have brought in actors or something, because a Czech collaborator? That don’t make sense! They hired people) and the collaborators come up and they bring the keys of the town to them cut-throat generals with uniforms all covered with spangles, but it didn’t happen, man… Siřem was meant to be a model of collaboration, but instead it came to symbolize nationwide resistance!’ As he talked, Martin waved his arms about as if the words were straining to get out. He told his tale, but it was not like when Commander Vyžlata told stories to send us to sleep. It wasn’t like Commander Baudyš giving instructions, and it wasn’t like Dago’s babbling on the tank. The lads hung on his every word…
‘Suddenly, Cimbura rides into the square on his wheelchair, pushed along by some old woman. He’s brandishing his crutch and he bellows, “To Moscow!” and he hurls his crutch and sends the collaborators’ keys of the town flying into the dust, honest! And Cimbura wheels himself away from the old biddy, then pours petrol over himself and with everyone looking on sets fire to himself and rides straight at the platform and the platform goes up in flames as if hell itself had opened up!’
Martin spoke very fast, sweat streaming down his face. ‘And so it started! People remembered their oaths and pledges, their dear Czech homeland, and the whole green rang to the tune of “Arise, Ye Holy Warriors of Blaník”, and the Home Guard, headed by Holasa and Kropáček, and Moravčík and Dašler, got to work with a will, and before the anthem “Where is My Home?” came to an end all the Russians were gone from Siřem, at least the ones who were alive; the others were lying around the green in the acrid stench of the charred remains of the generals… The nation rose up after the great Cimbura became a living torch. I saw the live broadcast. The rest you know, eh, Ilya?’
They were all silent. I nodded earnestly, because what could I say? The tank column? Snipers? The gangs in our sector? There was no point.
I sat and watched… then I grabbed a handful of grass and rubbed the mask of axle grease and the blood of insects from my forehead and cheeks. The tea had gone cold, so I used that too… Martin tossed me a sweater he’d picked from the pile left by the altar boys. I stood up, pealed off my tank jacket and hurled it into the flames, then I wriggled out of my tankman’s trousers and tracksuit, which was so covered in oil, sweat and blood (not mine) it was as vile as an old scab, and tossed everything into the fire. It was a good thing nothing was cooking on it.