Boniak gazed up at the dark sky, his mind turning over the events of the day and also what was to come. Would they catch up with Kleiser and his men or would the bastard escape once more? He took one of the bear claws from his pouch and held it before him, studying the curve and the sharp point. It reminded him of a miniature version of his own sabre. He looked at it a moment longer, then dropped it back into the pouch.
He ate some of the soup which was brought to him by Voronzov but it was thick and made him feel sick. The man next to him, with bandaged head, ate his own and then offered to eat up Boniak’s too and he let him have it, watching as the man drank from the shallow metal bowl, using a piece of stale bread to mop up the dregs, he belched loudly and was asleep within ten minutes.
Boniak however, lay awake much longer, listening to the hooting of an owl and the soft neighing of the horses as they padded the snow. Sentries rode slowly back and forth along the perimeter of the camp and, one by one, the camp-fires were allowed to burn out.
Night took hold of the land and did not release it for another six hours and, in that blackness, Boniak lay thinking of Kleiser and of revenge.
Chapter Thirteen
Some of the huts still smouldered as the cossacks rode into what was left of Ridanski.
The snow, which had stopped falling during the night, was now coming down even more thickly and Namarov realised that Kleiser’s trail might well be obscured so he swiftly despatched Petrovski and five other riders to tail the fleeing SS unit. They had orders to report back to him when they had found the Germans.
But now, riding slowly through the narrow lanes between gutted shells of houses, the cossacks had other things on their minds. The bodies of comrades who had fallen the previous day had been stacked up in the middle of the village, along with their horses and burned. A huge blackened pile of scorched flesh the only testament to their existance. There were still thin wisps of grey smoke rising from the funeral pyre. The blood had frozen and been covered by fresh falls of snow as had most of the burned-out huts. German corpses had been left where they fell and many now lay in rigored poses, lying in the snow like useless mannequins.
The only building which had not been burned was the church and it was towards that sturdy-looking edifice that Namarov now led a group of his men, Kuragin and Boniak amongst them.
The doors were slightly open and Namarov dismounted, walking towards them.
Kuragin was close behind and he recoiled as he saw what lay beyond the solid wooden barrier.
“Oh God,” murmured the major, walking inside. He coughed, trying to fight back the nausea he felt rising within him. The stench inside the church was appalling. A rank, fetid odour of blood, excrement and vomit.
Kuragin and Rostov joined their superior inside the building, which had been transformed into a charnel house.
Scattered all over the floor, piled three deep in places, were the bodies of the villagers. Men, women and children who had once peopled the little village now lay in blood-spattered heaps. Some had even been hung from the beams and they twisted gently in the breeze which swept in when Namarov opened the doors. The walls and floor were splashed with blood, particularly the floor, which felt spongy where so much of the crimson liquid had soaked into the wood.
Namarov stood gazing at the scene of slaughter for long seconds then he knelt and lifted the head of the nearest corpse. It was a woman in her thirties. There was a single bullet hole in the nape of her neck and her eyes, still bulging open, seemed to stare at the major. He moved to another corpse, an old man. He too had been neck-shot. As had the next. And the next.
Further down the church the bodies were riddled with bullet holes and he recognised the spent cartridge cases from MP40s. Obviously the SS had tired of their favourite past-time and decided to finish the job quickly with automatic weapons. A woman lay on her back, a small child still clutched in her arms. Both were drilled through with at least a dozen holes and a thick puddle of congealed blood had spread out around them. Gobbets of intestine and sticky lumps of brain matter were clinging to the walls like obscene decorations where six people had been lined up and then cut down. An empty magazine lay next to one body, almost unrecognisable due to the damage done to it and Namarov realised with disgust that the entire 32-round magazine had been fired into just one corpse.
Kuragin was checking the bodies, looking at people he had seen alive just twenty-four hours earlier, now mangled beyond belief by the fury of close-range gunshots. He lifted the heads of many corpses, seeing people he had known well in life and his despair was tinged with something like disgust and also hatred, both for Kleiser and himself. The knowledge that he had allowed his comrades to ride into a trap hurt him as much as having to search through the mounds of bodies.
“Kuragin.”
He recognised the voice as Namarov’s.
“Your family. Are they here?” the major asked.
The big cossack swallowed hard, not knowing whether Kleiser had kept his side of the bargain or not. He wondered if the next face he looked into would be that of his wife or one of his daughters.
They were not amongst the other corpses.
“They’re not here,” he said, his voice a mixture of relief and foreboding and he was not slow to catch the glance which Namarov shot him.
The major nodded, almost as if a suspicion had been confirmed, then he turned and walked out of the church. Kuragin and some of the others lingered, looking once more at the bullet-torn bodies as if doubting the truth of what they saw. It was all Boniak could do to prevent himself vomiting.
“Take a good look, son,” said Rostov. “That’s how the Germans fight wars.” He too stalked off.
But the lad had seen this kind of thing before and at much closer quarters. He had seen his own parents killed in this manner, he had seen bodies burned, men hung, neck-shot… The thoughts trailed off until just one word, one name remained in his consciousness. A word which had become synonymous with slaughter such as this.
Kleiser.
He spoke that hated name aloud, gazing once more at the carnage inside the church, then he turned and joined his companions who were outside in the square.
“Do we bury them?” asked Rostov, hooking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the church.
Namarov shook his head.
“We move on.”
No-one protested.
“We’ve got to find Kleiser, that’s the only thing that matters now,” added the major. “Petrovski will be reporting back as soon as he sights the bastard.”
“And then what?” Rostov wanted to know.
Namarov shrugged.
“We attack him and just hope that we don’t run into any more traps.”
“Do you still seriously believe that what happened yesterday was the result of betrayal?” There was a harsh note of disbelief in the squadron commander’s voice.
“Until I know otherwise, I must think so. We must all be prepared.” The major looked at those around him and, for long moments, his eyes fastened on Kuragin who held the stare for as long as he could then rode off to find his squadron. Rostov did likewise.
Within a matter of minutes, the cossacks were moving away from what had once been Ridanski.
Kuragin felt tired. He had slept little the previous night and now he almost nodded off as his horse made steady progress through the snow which was still falling like chill confetti. Behind him, his squadron plodded along wearily, many of them still wounded from the engagement with the SS troops. Those who had grown beards looked as if they had been attacked by some maniac with a whitewash brush, the snow sticking to the thick, unwashed growths of hair. Kuragin rummaged in his pocket and produced a hip flask. He pulled the top off with his teeth and took a hefty pull from the flask, allowing the fiery liquid to burn its way to his stomach.