So we fell asleep, and that was a great mistake, because we were attacked in the small hours by the panzer grenadiers of Major General Kozhanov’s 1st Tank Brigade of Guards, supported by the motorized riflemen of the 24th Samara-Ulyanovsk Division, and covered by the motorized riflemen of the 30th Irkutsk-Pinsk Guards Division, holders of the Order of Lenin and two Orders of the Red Banner; and we, up on our high point, were also pitched into by soldiers of the 1st Proletarian Moscow-Minsk Motorized Rifle Guards Division, holders of, among others, the Order of Suvorov (second degree) and the Order of Kutuzov (second degree); and on top of that the assault lines of those sent to butcher us were reinforced by observers and specialists from the Atlantic Pact forces. So we nearly missed blowing up our Commander.
Who the buggers were who were hell-bent on killing us that day I only discovered later. Early that morning there wasn’t much time to find out. It was all I could do just to survive.
The first thing I’d seen at the dawning of the new day was Dýha’s face, so screwed up that it scared me.
He was holding a finger to his lips.
It was quiet, not a bird tweeted and mist was rising from the woods beneath us, creeping towards us from the treetops, dribbling towards us over the rocky ramparts and through all the cracks in them. I saw all this because I’d rolled over on my front. The canteen Dýha had given me was poking into me. The lads were crouching behind the rocky ramparts, holding all their various machine guns and sub-machine guns and pump-action guns at the ready.
Me and Dýha crawled over to join them.
Down among the trees, amid the creeping shreds of mist, I caught a glimpse of something moving. It could have been a hind, but it was this guy in a black uniform, and behind him were others in camouflage gear. They were hopping through the mist, jumping between the trees and getting closer by leaps and bounds.
The forest was full of them.
Yet it was quiet. I turned to see the Bandits. They were kneeling, ready to shoot. The mist swirled around Martin’s body. In no time he was just a black silhouette in white milk. The rock was digging into my knees. The last time we’d knelt together like this was in the gloom of Siřem church amid the acrid smoke of candles. Dýha was next to me, smiling. I thought he was enjoying himself.
And it was cold, just like in the church. When the rocks got warmed up in the summer’s heat, they’d be riddled with bullet holes. I was unlikely to see that. I didn’t care that I didn’t have a weapon. In the first sunlight, I saw in the forest below us those familiar glints and it dawned on me that there were so many weapons down there that whatever we had we were done for. And I’d seen no sign of a bazooka or any other decent bit of kit among the boys. They’d probably squandered everything worthwhile back in Ctiradův Důl. If I hadn’t burnt my tankman’s uniform, I might have been mistaken for a prisoner of the Bandits.
Then I started to hear sighs from the mountain again, and suddenly I couldn’t give a damn about anything. I think I just wanted everything to end.
In the quiet of early morning, the sighs and groans from the mountain sounded louder than in the evening. The Commander’s breathing thundered and whistled in the stone throat of the shaft, and all those cut-throats and sharpshooters down below couldn’t fail to hear it. The sighing and groaning inside the mountain went on and on, as if someone was being interrogated by mountain goblins. The Commander must have been in great pain from the wounds covering his heroic frame. For an instant I had this notion that the Commander’s agonized breathing would sweep the attackers back down the hill, but that must have been my mind wandering off into some fairy tale.
Karel crept across to us, dragging a pump-action gun behind him over the stones with his left hand, which struck me as not very careful. In his right had he was clutching a thin black flex. Dýha turned away from the rock embrasure, and he said, ‘Now?’
Karel nodded.
Martin peeped out of the mist, pulling a silly face, and with his mouth agape he silently asked the same question. Mikušinec came crawling through the mist to join us, pushing ahead of him the backpack he’d got ready to take to the Legion, and to his questioning expression Karel whispered, ‘Yep!’
The flex in Karel’s hand was fitted with a switch, something I knew about. So I waited for the big bang, and just hoped the lads had made a first-class job of laying the mines.
We waited. The men down below didn’t. Now and again we caught a jangle from the equipment of some careless twerp, or twigs cracking. These were no performing bears or jolly kangaroos climbing up to inspect Fell Crag, no sir!
But Karel suddenly whispered, ‘I can’t do it!’ and to my amazement I saw our orderly quietly blubbering.
‘Well I can!’ said Dýha, and he reached for the switch… One mighty sigh from the bowels of the mountain had just turned into a groan, as if the Commander was spurring us on… Suddenly this fire came hurtling at us out of the forest, igniting the air above our heads with a deafening crash. Around and above us, rocks were flying and stones smashed into boulders on every side, splitting into bits. I couldn’t hear a thing in that hail of stones. I could only see that Dýha was no longer next to me. Part of the cliff had broken away and collapsed into the mist. I couldn’t see anyone or anything. I lay down for safety and covered my head, the canteen digging painfully into my chest. I thought it was the canteen, but then I saw it was the black switch, and I’d rolled onto it by accident, and so it had come about that our Commander, and with him the whole of Fell Crag, was in all likelihood blown up by me.
I didn’t worry about it. I dashed into the dark of the forest undergrowth, which, as I have already noted several times, surrounded our post on Fell Crag.
I can’t relay much about my wanderings in Chapman Forest. Stuff grew in some places, but not in others, and although I wasn’t hungry, I was plagued by the most embarrassing gastric problems, and that’s bad form for any fighting man. All I had was my full canteen. I didn’t drink hard liquor, not till later, when I was talking to the gippos.
How I broke out of the encirclement and found myself alone in the forest, I’ve no idea. I could have fainted and lain in some thicket long enough for the soldiers to have withdrawn. It’s hard to say. It did cross my mind to let myself be found by the soldiers. I knew how to cope with that by then. When all’s said and done, I was just a poor orphan and I’d lost my way. But I gave up that idea after I saw the villages. I reached the villages later.
Moreover, I’d been engaged in battle in a combat unit. They’d be able to tell that from the way I moved, the way I walked, from all the things I did and knew. They’d ask questions. To be under interrogation on the opposite side from before wasn’t something I fancied.
In the thicket where I came round, I inspected the terrain, sniffed the air and also hoped I’d meet one or two Bandits. At that point I’d have welcomed an invitation to go and join the Foreign Legion. But none of the lads showed up.
Just like a Soviet scout, I looked closely at the colour and humidity of the grass, and at everything else that was there, to see if the rocks were big and without odour and scarring or, conversely, riven by ancient waters and sweetly scented. I even scrutinized the heavy clouds that merged with the waving motion of the trees. So it wasn’t at all hard to find the brook. Beside it I counted up my aching bones and I drank from it. I ate frogs and stuff.
Then I started having more dreams about Hanka. Her battered body came back to me, and with it a thrill. I imagined her wandering around Siřem, and I grew tired of life in my forest hideout. It was my first time alone, and I talked and snuggled up to Hanka all the more. It was nice in my dream. But I knew I’d have to leave.