The cook was always asking: 'Is the borshch all right, comrade Colonel?'
Ever since he was a child he had loved animals. Now he had a hedgehog that lived under his bed and pattered round the room at night. He also had a young chipmunk that ate nuts and lived in a special cage, decorated with an emblem of a tank, which had been presented to him by the maintenance workshop. The chipmunk had quickly got used to Novikov and now sometimes sat on his knee, looking up at him with childish trust and curiosity. Orlenev the cook, Kharitonov the driver, and Vershkov were all kind and attentive towards these animals.
All this was not without importance for Novikov. Once, before the war, he had brought a puppy into the officers' mess. It had taken a bite out of the slipper of the lady sitting next to him – a colonel – and made three puddles on the floor in half an hour. There had been such an outcry in the communal kitchen that he had had to part with the creature at once.
It was their last day – and it brought with it worries about fuel, about supplies for the journey and the best way to load the vehicles onto the tank-carriers.
He began to wonder about his future neighbours, the men whose artillery regiments and infantry battalions would also be setting out today. He began to wonder about the man before whom he himself would have to stand to attention and say: 'Comrade Colonel-General, allow me to report…'
It was their last day – and he hadn't managed to see his brother and niece. When he came to the Urals he had thought how near his brother would be, but in the end he hadn't had time for him.
He had already received reports that the tank-carriers were ready, that the brigades had set off, and that the hedgehog and chipmunk had been released into the forest.
It's hard to be the absolute master, to feel responsible for the last trifling detail. The tanks have already been loaded, but has everything been done correctly? Are they all in first gear, brakes firmly on, turrets pointing ahead, hatches battened down? Have wooden blocks been placed in position to stop the tanks shifting and unbalancing the wagons?
'How about a farewell game of cards?' asked Getmanov.
'All right,' said Nyeudobnov.
Novikov chose instead to go outside and be alone for a moment.
It was early in the evening, very quiet, and the air was extraordinarily transparent; even the smallest objects were clearly and distinctly visible. The smoke rose vertically from the chimneys. Logs crackled in the field-kitchens. A girl was embracing a dark-haired soldier in the middle of the street, her head on his chest, weeping. Boxes, suitcases and typewriters in black cases were being carried out of the buildings that had served as their HQ. Signallers were reeling in the thick black cables that stretched between corps headquarters and the headquarters of each brigade. A tank behind the barns backfired and let out puffs of exhaust smoke as it prepared to set off. Drivers were filling the petrol tanks of their new Ford trucks and removing the thick covers from their radiators. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was perfectly still.
Novikov stood on the porch and looked round; for a moment all his cares and anxieties fell away. Soon afterwards he set out in his jeep on the road to the station.
The tanks were coming out of the forest. The ground, already hardened by the first frosts, rang beneath the unaccustomed weight. The evening sun lit up the crowns of the distant firs where Karpov's brigade was slowly emerging. Makarov's brigade was passing through some young birch trees. The soldiers had decorated their tanks with branches; the pine-needles and birch-leaves seemed as much a part of the tanks as the armour-plating, the roar of the motors and the silvery click of their tracks.
When old soldiers see reserves being moved up to the front, they say, 'It looks like a wedding.'
Novikov pulled in to the side of the road and watched the tanks come past. What dramas had taken place here! What strange and ridiculous stories! What extraordinary incidents and emergencies had been reported to him…! At breakfast one day a frog had been discovered in the soup… Sub-Lieutenant Rozhdestvensky, who had completed ten years of schooling, had accidentally wounded a comrade in the stomach while he was cleaning his rifle; he had then committed suicide… A soldier in the motorized infantry battalion had refused to take the oath, saying: 'I only swear oaths in church.'
Blue-grey smoke twined round the bushes by the side of the road. What diverse thoughts lay hidden beneath all these leather helmets! Some they all shared – love of one's country, the sorrow of war; others were extraordinarily varied.
My God… What a lot of them there were, all wearing black overalls with wide belts. They had been chosen for their broad shoulders and short stature – so they could climb through the hatches and move about inside the tanks. How similar the answers on their forms had been – to questions about their fathers and mothers, their date of birth, the number of years they had completed at school, their experience as tractor-drivers. The shiny green T-34S, hatches open, tarpaulins strapped to their armour-plating, seemed to blend into one.
One soldier was singing; another, his eyes half-closed, was full of dire forebodings; a third was thinking about home; a fourth was chewing some bread and sausage and thinking about the sausage; a fifth, his mouth wide open, was trying to identify a bird on a tree; a sixth was worrying about whether he'd offended his mate by swearing at him the previous night; a seventh, still furious, was dreaming of giving his enemy – the commander of the tank in front – a good punch on the jaw; an eighth was composing a farewell poem to the autumn forest; a ninth was thinking about a girl's breasts; a tenth was thinking about his dog – sensing that she was about to be abandoned among the bunkers, she had jumped up onto the armour-plating, pathetically wagging her tail in an attempt to win him over; an eleventh was thinking how good it would be to live alone in a hut in the forest, drinking spring-water, eating berries and going about barefoot; a twelfth was wondering whether to feign sickness and have a rest in hospital; a thirteenth was remembering a fairy-tale he had heard as a child; a fourteenth was remembering the last time he had talked to his girl – he felt glad that they had now separated for ever; a fifteenth was thinking about the future – after the war he would like to run a canteen.
'Yes,' thought Novikov, 'they're fine lads.'
They were looking at him. They thought he was inspecting their uniforms; that he was listening to the sound of the engines to check the competence of the drivers and mechanics; that he was checking whether the correct distance was being maintained between each tank and each section or whether there were any madmen trying to race one another. In fact he was just standing there, no different from them, full of the same thoughts – about his bottle of cognac that had been opened by Getmanov, about how difficult it was to get on with Nyeudobnov… He was thinking that he would never again go hunting in the Urals and what a pity it was that the last hunt had been a failure – just stupid anecdotes, too much vodka and the chatter of tommy-guns… He was thinking that soon he would see the woman he had been in love with for years… When he had heard, six years ago, that she had got married, he had written a brief note: 'I am taking indefinite leave. I return my revolver – number 10322.' That had been when he was serving in Nikolsk-Ussuriysk. But in the end he hadn't pulled the trigger…
There his men were: timid, gloomy, easily amused, thoughtful; womanizers, harmless egotists, idlers, misers, contemplatives, good sorts… There they all were – going into battle for a common, just cause. The simplicity of this truth makes it difficult to talk about; but it is often forgotten by people who should, instead, take it as their point of departure.