Why didn’t the air defense troops fire? Kryshinin wondered.
In less than a minute, the helicopters peeled off to the south, leaving the wrecked battery in a veil of smoke pierced now and then by the flash of secondary explosions.
Kryshinin made a hurried stop at his own vehicle. It had moved nearer to the crest, and its main gun fired into the distance. He leaned into the turret, grabbing the gunner by the sleeve, shouting to be heard.
“Back into the courtyard. Get her behind the walls. I need the radios.”
The gunner stared up at him. “Comrade Captain. You’re bleeding.” Kryshinin followed the gunner’s eyes down to his shoulder, then over his chest and sleeve. Much of the uniform was shockingly dark, much darker than the rain alone could have made it. At the sight, Kryshinin felt a momentary faintness.
“Hurry up,” he said, almost gagging. “Get into the courtyard.” But he suddenly felt weaker, as if his realizing that he had been wounded had unleashed the wound’s effect. He remembered the little sting. It seemed impossible that it could have done this. He was not even aware of any pain.
He trotted beside his vehicle, guiding it through the gates as the direct-fire battle increased in intensity. But the forward air-control vehicle had blocked the courtyard, taking up more than its share of the space. Kryshinin ran to make the air force officer move out of the way just as the artillery came thumping back.
The barn roof collapsed. The concussion of the blast knocked several of the men in the courtyard to the ground. One soldier had blood draining from his ears, and Kryshinin felt deafened. But he still had enough hearing to recognize the sound of a tank gun closer than expected. In the misery of the courtyard, soldiers screamed for aid and choked on the dust of the smashed barn. Then the rain abruptly increased in intensity, as if the enemy controlled that, too.
“Everybody into the buildings,” Kryshinin shouted. “Don’t just stand around.” But the soldiers were hesitant. After watching the roof of the barn cave in, Kryshinin could hardly blame them. Nonetheless, the remaining buildings provided better protection than the open courtyard. And it was impossible for all of the men to fight effectively from the courtyard. “Move, damn you.”
But they were already scrambling to obey him. It was only that they had been stunned into a slowed reaction by the confusion that seemed to worsen with every minute. Now those who didn’t understand Kryshinin’s Russian simply followed their peers.
The sounds of moving tanks crowded in with the noises of missile back-blasts and automatic weapons. Kryshinin bounded back into the house and up the stairs, crunching glass underfoot. The lieutenant remained at his post. But he didn’t need his binoculars anymore.
“Those tanks,” he told Kryshinin, “at least a company. Working up along the treelines. We got two of them.”
A round smashed into the wall of the house, shaking it to its foundation. But the building was old and strong, built of masonry.
The lieutenant noticed Kryshinin’s bloody tunic.
Kryshinin held up his hand. “No real damage done,” he said, hoping he was correct. He couldn’t understand where the pain was hiding. The arm still worked, if stiffly.
“One of the officers went up on the roof with a radio,” the lieutenant said. “He looked like an air force guy.”
“Where is he?”
“On the roof. There’s an attic stairway back there. The roof has dormer windows.”
The enemy tanks had closed to within a thousand meters. Kryshinin watched them for a moment, catching a glimpse of dark metal now and then through the local smokescreens the enemy vehicles laid down with their smoke grenades. Their movement struck him as very clever, very disciplined, but slow. They seemed to move in cautious bounds. Kryshinin watched one of his own antitank missiles stream toward the enemy tanks, then spring out of control, soaring briefly into the empty sky, then plunging into a meadow. He turned away in disgust.
He followed the directions toward the attic. He felt unusually light, almost as though he were floating, yet it was a hard climb going up the narrow stairs. He began to feel as though his torso could fly but his feet were weighted down with irons. When he reached the attic, he found it cluttered with forgotten property, stinking with mildew. The trash of generations troubled his course, barring his feet with old framed pictures and antique household machinery, all strewn with ragged fabric.
The roof windows had been shattered. Kryshinin leaned out through the nearest, which opened toward the canal.
Bylov lay sprawled on his belly on the roof tiles, talking into a radio set, with a satchel of gear open beside him.
Kryshinin could not understand a single word the air force officer said. The level of noise was incredible, maddening. It seemed to give the air a tangible thickness, as though you could stir it with your hand.
Kryshinin tugged at Bylov’s leg.
The air force officer held up a finger. Wait. He rolled onto his back, scanning the gray sky.
Kryshinin followed Bylov’s line of sight but could see nothing.
Nonetheless, Bylov reached into his satchel, retrieving a flare pistol and two explosive canisters of colored smoke. He spoke once into his microphone, then rose to his knees on the slick tile, just high enough to peer over the roofbeam.
With a sure motion, Bylov threw a smoke canister to the right, then quickly hurled another to the left, marking the line of friendly troops. He fumbled briefly at the flare pistol, then fired two green flares in succession in the direction of the enemy.
Bylov threw his satchel at Kryshinin, knocking him back into the attic. The air force officer followed the bag, quick as a cat, dragging his radio after him. Without a look at Kryshinin, Bylov flattened onto the floor, hands over his ears.
Kryshinin swiftly imitated him.
A powerful rush of jet engines seemed to pass right through the room, shaking the floor even more powerfully than had the artillery blasts. The passage was closely followed by small blasts, then by enormous booms that seemed to tear several seconds out of their lives. The air itself drew tighter.
“Fuel air explosives,” Bylov shouted. “Great stuff.”
“Good work,” Kryshinin shouted back.
“Count on the air force,” Bylov told him. “We serve the Motherland and all that.”
“How did you get the sorties?”
Bylov looked at him in honest surprise. “We’ve got top priority. I’ve got more on the way.”
Bylov methodically began to gather his spilled tools, checking his radio, a technician of the sky. In his own little world of airplanes, Bylov had not noticed — or, at any rate, had said nothing about — Kryshinin’s wound. But Kryshinin felt changes coming over his body now. He was losing strength fast. He needed to have a look at the wound, yet he was afraid that the sight of his damaged flesh, of his own blood on his own skin, might paralyze him. And he was determined to hang on, no matter what happened.
Kryshinin slowly raised himself and worked his way back down the stairs to the lieutenant’s observation post. The lieutenant’s torso lay smashed against a wall, head and limbs twisted out of any skeletal sense, eyes bulging. From behind another wall, a machine gun fired.
Kryshinin peered out of the battered window frame. The valley had filled with black smoke.
Then he saw the first enemy tank in close. The airplanes had missed at least a platoon. Four enemy tanks came over the crest, one after another. One tank trailed fire off its deck, resembling a mythical dragon. They drove beside the farm complex, leaving Kryshinin’s field of vision.
He hurried back down the stairs to the accompaniment of blasts and rapid fires. Men shouted in a contest of complaints and commands.