He was already about to crawl on hands and knees along the mud wall to his APC, when Alyosha gripped his shoulder and stopped him: “How are you going to operate it?”
Vitka had not thought about that. The vehicle had been powered down. Neither the revolving turret, nor the aiming mechanism, nor the triggers of the cannon and machine gun would be working. They would have to get the driver-mechanic from the fort to get them going, and the sniper would certainly not give them the time to do that. So all they could do was sit and wait for the shooting to stop.
It could not go on for long. If the sniper got too carried away by his game, he would be spotted by the lookout, the message would go through to the battalion commander, who would not miss the opportunity to punish at least one bearded rebel. In a few minutes the gunners would be standing by their howitzers. If by then the sniper had not taken cover behind the mountain, he would have almost no chance of escaping. The howitzers would open up, shell splinters would cover the hills, and nothing would be left alive for hundreds of metres around. The shells would be set to explode high in the air, showering large areas with flechettes (see “terminology and Glossary” — Editor), so that anyone who was hit would look like a hedgehog with its spines pointing inward. The rebels knew that, and never stayed in the field for long.
And indeed the shooting soon stopped. The friends went around the vehicle park hiding behind the mud wall just to be safe, then through the woods and into the fort by the main entrance. Vitka could not rid himself of the thought that Alyosha could have been cut down by the sniper’s bullet. For a while the image of such a terrible and senseless death had put him off wanting to smoke ganga. But only a few days later Alyosha thought up the idea of having a smoke in the shelter of Dzhuma’s lorry cabin.
But now, looking at Alyosha convulsed with laughter, Vitka was once again overwhelmed by the same terrible vision. He wanted to drop out of the cabin, to crawl and run under cover past the mud wall, back to his bunk in the platoon hut, which now seemed to him to be the safest place in the world.
— Just like the three little piggies! — he said, following a sudden new train of thought.
— What, bacha (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor), what’s got into you? — said Alyosha, who had by now come to his senses.
— I don’t know, — Vitka admitted honestly, realising that there was no way he could explain his thinking to Alyosha.
— Let’s eat. — Dzhuma suggested.
For a few minutes the three of them chewed dried fruit in silence.
The laughter was over, the three men fell into a gloomy reverie. It was time to go, back to their bunks to relax on their beds, to let their thoughts arise unbidden, to watch events unroll at random in their imagination.
Once safely inside his billet in the fort, Vitka was overcome with joy. He almost died laughing as he looked at the young soldiers with their cropped hair and their absurdly protruding ears. He clambered onto the top bunk to relax, lay on his back and stared at the boards of the ceiling just above him. It was all so familiar, so pleasant, so homely, that he was filled with carefree happiness. Filled with emotion, he put his hands behind his head and imagined himself on the edge of a forest. He lay on the soft grass and looked at the distant sky. It was so beautiful that Vitka arched his back with pleasure. Unexpectedly his hands touched cool metal. It was the headboard, and he clutched automatically at its thin metal tubes. One of them spun in his fingers with a short metallic creak. For anyone else it would have been no more that an unpleasant screech. But for Vitka it filled in the missing link in his imaginary forest. It was the cry of a bird! Vitka began to spin the metal tubes slowly and his forest was filled with the singing of birds. With his eyes closed he savoured the unrestrained concert: the trilling of a nightingale, the song of thrushes and finches, orioles and waxwings. Vitka did not know one bird from another, but he did not care: all he wanted was for the singing to go on.
The nearby sound of irritated voices — too far away to distract him — ruffled the edge of his dream, which covered him like a web. But then harsh reality broke in on his idyllic Russian forest. Something rough landed on his face, The birds flew off in all directions. Vitka threw off the pillow which had been thrown at him, and jumped upright on his bunk.
— Come on, pull yourself together! Let’s roll a joint, — said Kolya.
— Push off, you wanker! I was on a high and you’ve ruined it. — Vitka groaned.
He threw his head back on the pillow, and tried to doze off again, but was soon awakened by loud laughter from some of the men from the bottom bunks. Kolya noisily continued his story, of which Vitka had missed the beginning.
— … and I said to Yakub that I won’t share another joint with him. And don’t you dare either! Do you hear me, you drivers? Don’t you dare smoke with Babay.
For nearly a year Kolya had supervised the company’s drivers. He had handed over his duty a month earlier, but even though he was now waiting to be demobbed, he still issued orders to them all.
— Why are you buggering me about? — said the offended Babay. — Just because you are the guy who thinks he can mess with everyone?
— I’m not messing you about, Yakub… You’re such a midget I’m really afraid for you. A couple more little puffs and you’ll be so stoned we won’t be able to bring you back down to earth. When our replacements arrive we’re all supposed to go home together. How could I go home without you? No one would be able to hold you down once we’d gone. Without us you’d be flying around here forever. — Kolya answered in all seriousness.
Those who were waiting to be demobbed roared with laughter. Looking down from the upper bunk Vitya saw Alyosha trying to hold Babay down.
He realised that the others were also half stoned.
— Guys, look! Viktor’s woken up. Come down, Vitka, let’s hear some of your usual bullshit! — Alyosha called him, — I’m sick of these lorry drivers, talking so big that you would think they were helicopter pilots.
— Hang on, Vitka will tell you something about flying. Remember how he flew with Sinitsky! — yelled Kolya cheerfully, — Come on, Viktor, tell us about that war.
Vitka smacked his lips, and gave his best imitation of Leonid Brezhnev (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor) television, reciting in his nasal voice from his wartime memoir “Malaya Zemlya: “I didn’t keep a diary during the war, but I still remember clearly every one of those 1458 days”… No! To hell with him! I’d rather tell you a joke! Listen!