We came to a halt above the dressing station. We were at the top of the hill. If I stood on tiptoe I could see the whole village. We clambered out, the Captain first.
The command post was made up of a black awning on stakes. So the officer in a black uniform spangled with decorations had to be none other than Major General Kozhanov. I gathered that the numerous lances stuck in the ground were the battle colours of his unit. I got a bit of a shock, because women’s hair was attached to the lances, blowing in the wind whistling up the slope. There was fair hair and dark, and it had all been twisted into thick plaits. As we got closer it occured to me that they might be horses’ tails instead. I was right, they were horsehair.
Kozhanov was tall, taller than Captain Yegorov. Outside the tent on a folding desk there was a pile of maps — real maps, not like mine.
Captain Yegorov gave his name, but I didn’t. Nobody expected me to. Timosha stood to attention on the pickup. Kantariya got out only when the Captain barked the order at him.
Kozhanov was standing in front of us, and for a while he didn’t budge. Then he snapped his fingers and suddenly there was a line of paras behind us. I recognized the uniforms. They were from the regiment of guards, not just any old squaddies, and they were all huge.
‘Someone kill that kid and the two drivers,’ said Kozhanov, and I heard the paras release the safety catches on their rifles.
‘No, hang on. Don’t kill ’em just yet,’ said Kozhanov. ‘Let ’em say goodbye to their unit.’
Kozhanov waved an arm and we turned around. We looked at the massed tanks just crossing the barricade under continuous shellfire. From this distance and facing downhill all we could see were the tanks. The actual battle looked like ants scurrying about in the flames. I knew the barricade was there, with men and animals in it.
Then Kozhanov came over to my captain and hugged and kissed him.
The Captain ordered me onto the back of the pickup. It felt good to have at least the tarpaulin between me and the paras. The Captain ordered me to fold it back.
Kozhanov and Yegorov climbed inside, and Kozhanov patted the sacks full of watches and valuables. He even gave one large glass stag a slap of his hand. Looking around in the gloom he said, ‘Souvenirs, hmm…’ He caught his foot on the cracked mirror with washstand, cursed, then bashed it with his fist and shouted something, and a couple of the paras came towards us. Kozhanov pointed to the sacks and they picked them up and offloaded them, taking them away somewhere… And all Yegorov had left in the pickup was three sacks, which wasn’t fair, anyone could see that. So Kozhanov hollered and the paras put a sack, the smallest one, back under the tarpaulin. Then Yegorov handed Kozhanov the wolf-skin pouch, undoing it to show the Major General the dinosaur egg, his most prized possession.
Kozhanov stroked the wolf pelt, and said, ‘Very good, comrade. This’ll make some excellent wolf-skin caps for our Russian winter. Very good.’ Then he ran a finger across the rough surface of the dinosaur egg and said, ‘This is an outstanding souvenir, comrade. Take good care of it… Of course, you don’t need the drivers, or the lad!’
Timosha and Kantariya were hunched under the pickup’s tarpaulin. I stood to attention. Captain Yegorov placed a hand on my shoulder, looking down at his feet, at the carpets we were trampling on, and said, ‘This is my son. All his companions died in battle.’ And Captain Yegorov gave a little snivel.
And Major General Kozhanov said, ‘Ah, comrade of mine! Such is war, motherfucking bitch that she is!’ and he also started snivelling. Then he said, quietly, ‘Keep the lad then, and fly to safety! Fly like eagles!’
Kozhanov suddenly squatted down among the carpets and produced a flask from his coat pocket, uncorked it, took a swig, then passed it to Yegorov, who also squatted and drank. The Major General stroked the wolf skin and said, ‘Go ahead and make a nice warm cap for yourself, and one for the lad.’
After a while, Kozhanov said, ‘Well, we’ve had a little sit-down before the journey,’ and he stood up and climbed out, followed by Captain Yegorov. I hopped out as well, the tarpaulin clipping me across the head.
Major General Kozhanov was smiling now, and he told us, ‘The way is open, but just wait a moment…’ He disappeared under the black tarpaulin of the command post and reappeared almost at once. Inside he had taken off his flat officer’s cap and replaced it with a helmet with a metal spike. The helmet, decorated with a red star, looked old-fashioned and it was all shiny… ‘Nice, eh?’ Kozhanov laughed in our direction, but his paras weren’t laughing. They were rigid, holding their rifles. The horses’ tails on the lances were flapping in the wind, and Kozhanov said, ‘Kill just the drivers.’
There was a burst of gunfire, then another. They merged into one. I didn’t turn around, but out of the corner of my eye I could see two paras dragging Kantariya by the legs. He had a hole in his head, his arms trailing across the ground. Then I heard a revolver crack. That was them finishing off Timosha. It made me feel sorry.
Captain Yegorov felt sorry as well. Anyone could see that. Major General Kozhanov put an arm around his shoulders, gave him a bit of a shake, and said, ‘I know what you’re feeling, dear comrade. Your unit’s been destroyed. I’ve been through all that several times… See it as a necessary rearmament of our forces. We won’t be lacking tanks any more anyway. All around here,’ he swept his arm over Siaz, ‘will be one big storehouse for our nuclear arsenal.’
We sat in the driver’s cab, the steering wheel still warm from Kantariya’s hands. We would soon be beyond the sectors I had described and drawn in my maps. We were waved through crossroads and junctions by traffic controllers with signal flags, and here and there I spotted boards nailed to trees saying Louny in Russian letters, and an arrow marked on them, so I reckoned that was where we were headed, and I thought of Dýha and that I was also seeing this part of the world from a truck, and like him I was sort of under escort, though not with some Czech coppers! I was with a Soviet captain, not going to some sort of young offenders’ dump, but to a real home, if Captain Yegorov was really going to take me as his son.
But I couldn’t ask the Captain about anything. I clutched the shaggy wolf pelt tight around my knees, doing my best not to get covered in blood, which had already clotted in parts and was flaking off under my fingers; and because the skin was so very shaggy, I couldn’t feel the rough, crinkly egg through it. The Captain said we were going to fly like eagles to a faraway and glorious country to the east, a country so glorious and vast that I couldn’t begin to imagine it… but then I got pissed off with the Captain going on and on! It sounded like yet another fairy tale and I was too old for fairy tales. But I couldn’t tell the Captain that, could I?
Then the Captain started singing, tooting his horn and generally carrying on. He stamped his feet — all to show how happy he was! His singing grated on my ears, deafened by countless battles, and on my guts, which were empty except for hunger. Then he was chattering on about some Katyusha bird, most likely some cuddly whore, creeping about somewhere on a river bank. Then in his deep voice the Captain started singing about a glorious, faraway land, a homeland full of dense forests and stuff. Next he was cursing Chapman Forest, this murderer of his own men, who sold them down the river so that that other murdering bastard, Kozhanov, would let him keep his trophies — stolen, regrettably, with my help, from ordinary village folk… I was just thinking his face was dripping with sweat, when I realized my captain was crying — and laughing at the same time. It crossed my mind to jump off the pickup, but that wasn’t a good idea, because we were moving fast on a tarmac road. I’d never travelled so fast! Riding on a tank was nothing compared to this!