A nurse ventured into the ward, and busied herself with some enamelware.
Kriks changed his tack.
“The new boys are a scrawny bunch, not a scrap of fat on any of them… some have even been released from the Gulags to serve… others come straight from the hospital sick bed… probably about one in every five will make a combat soldier.”
He leant back and found a chair, all the time looking around to see who might have heard.
“I heard our prisoners of war were being given a chance to serve the Motherland again, Stefan?”
Kriks nodded and took a seat.
“If it’s so, and I doubt it, then they are being used elsewhere, not as qualified reinforcements for units like ours. So our strength gets watered down all the time, as good men die and boys take their place.”
The nurse moved to tend to the nearest patient, making them change the subject.
“Anyway, Comrade Polkovnik. How are you doing?”
Yarishlov spared Kriks the gory details, understating the seriousness, talking up the positives, and concluded with his returning to uniform.
“Well, that’s great news, Comrade Pol… Arkady… really it is. And when you return to service, remember to get me transferred.”
Something in the tone made Yarishlov frown.
“Is there a problem, Stefan?”
The nurse disappeared as quickly as she had arrived, and Kriks wrung his cap in his hands, in a very ‘peasant’ way, clearly uneasy about the matter he had just been cornered on.
He considered his words very carefully.
“Comrade Deniken has changed, Arkady.”
Yarishlov understood his man, and decided on a different approach.
“Unless you’ve changed, I expect you have something warming in your possession, you old rogue.”
Kriks smiled the smile of the guiltless and protested his innocence, whilst fishing in his bread bag.
Again he checked the small ward for nosey people, but the patients were all asleep, and there were now no members of staff to see or hear him.
He slid something under his friend’s pillow.
“Later… and for medicinal purposes only, of course.”
The protest died on Yarishlov’s lips as another bottle was produced.
“This is for now,” and a bottle of Goldwasser was broached and poured into two cups that magically appeared from the same bread bag.
“Na Zdorovie.”
The toast was whispered and two throats suffered under the assault of the Polish liqueur, laced with flakes of 22-carat gold.
The liquid assault was repeated.
“Fucking hell.”
Yarishlov coughed his way through swallowing the second shot.
“Hideous… give me another.”
The two friends smiled their way through five shots before a halt was called, albeit temporarily.
Whilst a sense of well-being filled Yarishlov, partially from the liqueur and partially from the visit of his old friend, he had not forgotten his question, and posed it as easily and blandly as he could.
“So what is young Deniken up to then, eh?”
Kriks, loosened by the alcohol, was less reluctant to hold his tongue.
“He’s gone mad… really… totally changed. No longer the happy boy we met all those months ago… yes… still efficient as an officer… but he’s lost his humour.”
Kriks grabbed his face and pulled on the skin, feeling wretched.
“He’s had prisoners shot… executed for no great reason. He was very angry when you were wounded… he took it out on some prisoners. It happens, of course. But it continues… he’s still doing it. It’s like you getting hurt has transformed him into some sort of machine… he works, he eats, he sleeps, he has no time for me, not like you did… like he used to.”
He checked the ward again.
“Remember how he used to be with his soldiers, eh? Always smiling… he knew their names… would sit down with them for a vodka and a cigarette… not now… not now…”
“What have you said to him? How did he respond?”
“He dismisses me. He won’t talk about anything except the unit and the needs of the war. I mention you and he blanks me. I bring out a bottle and get told to go and drink it elsewhere.”
“Does he not talk to you at all?”
“Once he did. Although it was brief and he was very controlled. He was very angry.”
“About?”
“You getting wounded, the men who were dying in this ‘stupid war’… his words, Arkady, and the fact that all the dying and suffering was for nothing.”
“Is that what he said?”
“That’s what I remember, Comrade Polkovnik.”
Kriks sat up and increased the volume of his voice, acknowledging the approaching nurse as he warned his friend of her presence.
“Visiting time is over, Comrade Praporshchik. Sorry. Comrade Polkovnik, time for your bath.”
The two shook hands again.
Yarishlov held his friend’s hand as firmly as he could.
“Remember, Stefan… he’s a good man. Stay with him and help him all you can. When I’m fit, I’ll send for you. Now…” he shook hands with great sincerity, “… Away with you. Give him my best, and ask him to come and visit me soon. Look after him… and look after yourself. The Motherland’ll have need of us all when this war is over. Good bye, old friend.”
Kriks croaked an emotional goodbye, and was chivvied away by the arriving senior nurse, who understood a lot about front line soldiers, and used that knowledge to locate and confiscate the bottle stowed under Yarishlov’s pillow.
Chapter 162 – THE HILL
Some of the world’s greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.
The assault had been going on for over an hour, and the engineers leading the attack had only just secured their river crossing.
The Saale was not the widest or deepest of obstacles, but it had proved to be one of the bloodiest in the war so far, as the pioneers of the 266th Division and 3rd Korps attempted to cross in the face of fierce Soviet resistance.
Both battalion commanders were down and on their way to the rear, broken men, in spirit as well as body.
Losses amongst the remaining officers and senior NCOs were huge, as they struggled to push their men forward, exposing themselves to the greatest dangers and, too often, paying the price.
But the valiant men of Pioniere-Bataillon-266 had finally gained a foothold and had started to remove the barbed wire and obstacles that posed a risk to the follow-up forces, backed up the soldiers of 3rd Korps’ own assault pioneer unit, the 903rd.
The bridging engineers waited patiently, in no hurry to expose themselves to the maelstrom of shot and shell that transformed the waters of the soft flowing Saale into a blend of the finest liquids Germany had to offer; the water of her mountains and the blood of her sons.
More tanks were brought up, their massive guns providing direct fire support as the Soviet commanders counter-attacked, desperate to throw back the Germans and destroy their tenuous hold on the east bank.
The men of the Red Army died in their scores.
German artillery, combined with air support, hammered front and rear line positions incessantly.
The men of the Red Army died in their hundreds.
The bridging engineers were sent forward, ordered to construct their bridges even though still under fire.
Men were killed and men were wounded, but the structure quickly took shape.
More pioneers made the short journey across the Saale, and reinforced the bridgehead.