Stalin merely imagined a face.
A thin face with a high forehead…
… glasses…
…thin lips…
…Truman’s face…
“How he must be wriggling now, eh?”
Beria was startled out of his silence and looked at Stalin in query.
“I said, how that Amerikanski bastard Truman must be wriggling now, eh?”
“They’ll sue for peace… it’s inevitable… their democracy is their weakness… always has been, Comrade General Secretary. Their nations are weak… all of them, weak… but, even if they found someone with political resolve… they could never overcome this issue in their heartland…”
“Exactly, Lavrentiy, exactly… and that’s exactly why we will win… because we have the will!”
Stalin checked the time, and found he had less than he thought.
“Right, Comrade Marshal. Let us proceed to meet with the GKO, have the Vasilevsky plan initiated, press on with our efforts in their countries, and push ahead with Raduga as quickly as we can.”
He stood and pounded the desk with his hand.
“For the first time since those green toads stood at the gates of Moscow, and we drove them back, I know we will bring the world into a new Soviet era. It is inevitable, Comrade Marshal! Inevitable!”
The subsequent meeting of the GKO was buoyed beyond measure, the confidence of his Party leader enthusing each man, but also making him malleable to any proposition.
When the meeting broke up, the Soviet Union was set on a course that had the potential to divide the world for decades to come, and one that was aimed at destroying the major power bases of the United States and United Kingdom.
None who left the meeting room felt other than a new world era was about to start.
However, more than one had secretly thought that now was the time to seek an armistice, and secure all that had been gained, whilst the enemy was weak and confused by their inner wranglings,
Of course, none had dared to say so.
Chapter 156 – THE PAIN
The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man whilst he lives – the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the awareness that makes it possible to feel the pain, or the glory, of other men in yourself.
The Makaryev Monastery had been many things in its life.
Founded in the Fifteenth century, it had been a Monastery at its inception.
Fortified and secure, it became a centre for commerce, something that only terminated when it was burnt to the ground in 1816.
Brought back to life as a convent in 1882, it enjoyed some peaceful years until, 1929, the Bolsheviks ousted the nuns and converted the premises to an orphanage.
Passing through a number of interested parties, the premises were again taken over by the government, and became an important military hospital during the Patriotic War.
Much of the premises were turned over to the Lysovko College of Veterinary Medicine, retaining one complete wing for specialist treatment of one of war’s most horrible injuries.
Burns.
He was still controlled by it… almost defined by it.
It was the ever-present focus of his mind.
No matter what wonders fell before his gaze, or what sweet sounds entered his ears, or tastes fell on his tongue, it was all-powerful.
It could be temporarily controlled or, more accurately, displaced in his mind and body by the soporific effects of the substances they gave him.
‘Bless them.’
The doctors and nurses, sometimes the latter in tears, tended to his ruined body, washed him, fed him, and injected his raw flesh with all manner of medicines and analgesics, and had, by some miracle, dragged him back into the land of the living.
A land where living was defined by ‘it’.
Pain.
‘It’ was pain.
He had been wounded before, even burned before, but never to this extent, and never endured the unendurable pain that visited itself upon him hour by hour, day by day.
He tried to use his mind to control it, seize hold of IT, the ruling force, subjugate IT, deal with IT, control IT…
…but IT was in charge and refused to take a back seat.
“Polkovnik? Polkovnik? It’s time.”
He shifted slightly and felt his skin crackle and stretch, the burns protesting at the smallest movement.
He groaned, his only outward concession to the agonies of existence that he endured every waking minute.
“Polkovnik, it’s the doctor here. We’ve got to bath you today.”
Yarishlov opened his eyes in momentary terror.
The previous bath had been to soak the bandages and dressings away from his tortured flesh.
In his world of pain, it ranked second to the actual moment in Pomerania, when he had started to burn inside his tank.
He could not bring himself to speak, but rather made himself less ware of the Doctor’s presence, and focussed on the jab in his right arm, and the pulling in his other arm as the fluid bottles were changed.
At no time did he consider ending it all, not that he could have done in any case.
Yarishlov’s purpose, his driving force, his obsession was pure and simple… to wear his uniform again.
The nurses cleared the way as the other occupants of the burns ward watched on, none of them as badly hurt as the much-decorated Colonel of Tank Troops.
Yarishlov was a hero in every sense of the word, feted by the Soviet state and Communist Party, and to see him laid low by such hideous wounds, was awful to behold.
Two of them, old soldiers who had served in the dangerous early days of WW2, threw up salutes as best they could, their own offerings of honour bringing pain to each individual, but both had heard of Yarishlov and neither would accept less.
The warm water lay waiting for him, and Yarishlov steeled himself, as the process had no painless sections in which he could invest and recover.
Hands gently grasped his sheets and he felt himself raised up slightly, the bed no longer taking his weight.
Whilst there was pain, it was lessened by the analgesia he had just been given and, unbeknown to him, the start of the body’s best efforts at repair.
The warm liquid embraced him, not too cold and not too hot, and he was lowered beneath the water level, until the cooling fluid reached his neck.
The pain was lulled and calmed as one of the nurses used a piece of towelling to drizzle more liquid over his head, both over the burned area and the shaved section, bringing immediate relief to Yarishlov.
The team worked around him, ensuring every part was immersed or drizzled with water, and Yarishlov’s sense of well-being increased.
That feeling went in a microsecond and the extremes of pain returned to claim him.
A scream immediately burst from his lips in response to an attempt to remove a dressing that had fused with his recovering flesh.
“NO! Not yet, Nurse! Leave it to soak longer… much longer. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Leave it all until then.”
Yarishlov heard the horrified apology of the young nurse, but had already decided to settle back and enjoy the ten minutes the Doctor had offered, and use it to prepare himself to endure the agony that was to come.
The prisoners were being assembled, as per the divisional commander’s orders.
The small field was gradually filling up as the dejected soldiers arrived; shambling groups of Poles and British infantrymen, with a handful of Spaniards, all taken during the recent failed Allied attacks on the positions of 1st Guards Mechanised Rifle Division and her sister units of the newly reconstituted 2nd Baltic Front, the grouping tasked with halting and reducing the Polish landing incursion.