They were obviously close friends; you could tell from their certainty that whatever happened to one was of equal interest to the other.
'So what happened?' said one of them, feigning mockery and indifference.
'You know the bastard as well as I do,' said the second soldier with pretended reluctance. 'How can he expect a man to walk in boots like these?'
'So what happened?'
'So here I am in the same old boots. I'm not going to walk barefoot, am I?'
'So he wouldn't give you new boots,' said the second gunner. His voice was now full of interest; every trace of mockery and indifference had disappeared.
Their talk turned to their homes.
'What do you expect a woman to write about? This is out of stock and that's out of stock. If the boy isn't ill, then it's the girl. You know what women are like.'
'Mine's quite straightforward about it. She says: "You lot at the front are all right – you've got your rations. As for us, we really are having a hard time." '
'That's woman's logic for you,' said the first gunner. 'There she is, sitting in the rear, and she hasn't got a clue what it's like at the front. All she knows about are your rations.'
'That's right. She can't get hold of any kerosene, and she thinks it's the end of the world.'
'Sure. It's a thousand times more difficult to wait in a queue than to sit here in the desert and fight off enemy tanks with empty bottles.'
They were both well aware that there had been no tank attacks anywhere near them.
Interrupting the eternal discussion – who has the hardest role in life, man or woman? – one of them said hesitantly:
'Mine's fallen ill, though. She's got something wrong with her back. She only has to lift something heavy and she's in bed for a week.'
Once again the conversation seemed to take a different direction. They began to talk about the accursed, waterless desert around them.
The second gunner, the one lying closest to Darensky, said:
'She didn't write that to upset me. She just doesn't understand.'
Wanting to take back – but not completely take back – his harsh words about soldiers' wives, the first gunner said:
'I know. I was just being stupid.'
They smoked for a while in silence, then started discussing the respective merits of safety-razors and cut-throats, the battery commander's new jacket, and how you still want to go on living no matter how hard things may be.
'Just look at the night! You know, I once saw a picture like this when I was at schooclass="underline" a full moon over a field and dead warriors lying on the ground.'
'That doesn't sound much like us,' said the other with a laugh. 'We're not warriors. We're more like sparrows.'
59
The silence was suddenly broken by an explosion to Darensky's right. 'A hundred and three millimetres,' he said to himself at once. All the usual thoughts immediately went through his mind: 'Was that a stray shot? Are they registering? I hope they haven't already bracketed us. Is it going to be a full-scale barrage? Are they preparing the ground for a tank-attack?'
Every experienced soldier was asking the same questions.
An experienced soldier can distinguish one genuinely alarming sound from among a hundred others. Whatever he's doing – eating, cleaning his rifle, writing a letter, scratching his nose, reading a newspaper; even if his mind is as empty as only that of an off-duty soldier can be – he cocks his head and listens intently and avidly.
The answer came straight away. There were explosions to the right of them, then to the left of them – and suddenly everything began shaking, smoking and thundering.
A full-scale barrage.
The flames of the explosions pierced the clouds of smoke, dust and sand; at the same time, smoke poured out of the flames. Everywhere people were running for cover, dropping to the ground.
The desert was filled by a terrible howl. Mortar-bombs had begun falling near the camels; they were running wild, upsetting their carts and dragging their broken harnesses along the ground. Darensky just stood there, forgetting the whistling shells, gazing in horror at the appalling spectacle.
He couldn't rid himself of the thought that these were the last days of his motherland. He felt a sense of doom. The terrible howl of maddened camels, the anxious Russian voices, the men running for shelter! Russia was dying! Here she was, driven into the cold sands of Asia, dying under a sullen, indifferent moon. The Russian language he so cherished had become mingled with the terrified screams of wounded camels.
What he felt at this bitter moment was not anger or hatred, but a feeling of brotherhood towards everything poor and weak. For some reason he glimpsed the dark face of the old Kalmyk he had met in the steppe; he seemed very close – as though they had known one another for a long time.
'We're in the hands of Fate,' he thought, realizing that he'd rather not stay alive if Russia was defeated.
He looked round at the soldiers; they were lying prone in whatever hollows they had been able to find. He drew himself up to his full height, ready to take command of the battery, and called out:
'Where's the telephonist? Quick! I want you right here.'
At that very moment the thunder of explosions ceased.
That night, on Stalin's orders, the commanders of three Fronts, Vatutin, Rokossovsky and Yeremenko, launched the offensive that, within a hundred hours, was to decide the battle of Stalingrad and the fate of Paulus's 330,000-strong army, the offensive that was to mark a turning-point in the war.
A telegram was waiting for Darensky at headquarters. He was to attach himself to Colonel Novikov's tank corps and keep the General Staff informed of its operations.
60
Soon after the anniversary of the Revolution, there had been another massive air-raid on the Central Power Station; eighteen bombers took part.
Clouds of smoke covered the ruins; the power station had finally been brought to a standstill.
After the raid, Spiridonov's hands had begun to tremble convulsively. He splashed tea everywhere if he tried to lift a mug to his lips; sometimes he had to put it straight back on the table, knowing he couldn't hold it any longer. His hands only stopped trembling when he drank vodka.
He and Kamyshov began allowing the workers to leave; they crossed the Volga and made their way through the steppe to Akhtuba and Leninsk. At the same time, they themselves asked Moscow for permission to leave; there was little sense in their remaining in the front line among these ruins. Moscow was slow to reply and Spiridonov became increasingly nervous. Nikolayev, the Party organizer, had already been summoned by the Central Committee; he had left for Moscow in a Douglas.
Spiridonov and Kamyshov spent their time wandering through the ruins, telling one another that there was nothing left for them to do and that they had better get the hell out of it. But Moscow still didn't reply.
Spiridonov was particularly worried about Vera. She had begun to feel ill after crossing to the left bank and had been unable to make the journey to Leninsk. She was in the last stages of pregnancy and there was no question of her travelling nearly a hundred kilometres in the back of a truck along frozen, pot-holed roads.
Some workers she knew took her to a barge that had been converted into a hostel; it was moored close to the bank, fast in the ice.
Soon after the bombing of the power station, Vera had sent her father a note by a mechanic on one of the launches. She told him that he wasn't to worry and that she'd been given a comfortable little corner in the hold, behind a partition. Among the other evacuees on the barge were a nurse from the Beketovka clinic and an old midwife; if there were any complications, they could call a doctor from the field-hospital four kilometres away. They had hot water on the barge, and a stove. The obkom supplied them with food and they all ate together.