Apricot Jam: And Other Stories (28 page)

“
We
’
ll have to hold off for a bit.
”

A burst of shooting would come from across the river, but well back; and then things would grow quiet again. Kandalintsev ordered his two free gun crews to prepare to engage the enemy with their rifles. Then he sent them to provide a defensive screen to the left and right of the bridge.

A few more of our troops were climbing up the road from the bridge. Then
came
a group carrying a wounded man on a groundsheet. They were infantry reconnaissance troops. They were exhausted and could barely carry him. Who was he?

Let
’
s make a place for him over here.

Oleg bent over the wounded man.
A major.
Hair the color of flax.
He wasn
’
t moving.

“
One of your people?
”

“
The CO of our regiment.
He
’
s new. They only sent him in yesterday.
”

“
Badly hurt?
”

“
In the head and stomach.
”

“
Where
’
s your regiment, then?
”

“
Who the hell knows?
”

Some of our gun crews took over from the stretcher bearers and carried the wounded man to the landowner
’
s house.
“
Have him taken to Liebstadt on our sled, then come right back,
”
Kandalintsev told them.

The town of Liebstadt stood at the intersection of six roads, and the artillery battalion had passed through it yesterday evening with no problems. But if we let the Germans get to it, they
’
ll have control over all the roads.

“
So it seems our deserter wasn
’
t lying, Pavel Petrovich.
”

“
I
’
ve told the kitchen to feed him,
”
Kandalintsev muttered.

“
What
’
s happened to our battery commander? He
’
s not answering our radio calls.
”

And what about the rest of the battery?

The distant glow in the sky provided a bit of light. They stared into the darkness.
Over there, another bunch of our guys.
This way!

Then more over there.
And over there.

Yes, there
’
s no way we could fire here.

Then, suddenly, to the right and to the left—and what were Four and Five Batteries doing!—some loud machine gun fire, and a lot of it.

Then, a huge shell burst! Another! An explosion behind us! And another!

~ * ~

22

The utter silence
of the murky pre-dawn gloom erupted with bursts of machine gun fire raining down on Five Battery. The fire was coming from the forest on the right. There were no mortars, just three or four heavy machine guns that for some reason fired only tracer bullets. Long red streams gave notice of the death they dealt out—a rare occasion when one could see death
coming
an instant before it struck. A moment later, shouts of
“
Hurrah! Hurrah!
”
resounded from the forest—two hundred voices, perhaps. A wave of men, scarcely visible among the flickering streams of red, rushed toward the guns.

Only a few rifle shots replied from the area around the guns; they had no chance for more. The streams of red shifted leftward, to Four Battery, while Five Battery was showered with grenades. Fires flared up here and there.

The attack caught Toplev at the far side of Four Battery. Now it was happening! They were prepared—he had prepared them himself—yet they could
scarcely believe it was happening. The tension that had gripped them through the night had just begun to ease; a few had even begun to doze.

Look at them! Three times as many as us! Should he shout? Give some commands? But they
’
d never hear him, and there was nothing more he could do to rally them.

It all happened in a flash, like the thrust of a dagger in the darkness.

Now Toplev could do absolutely nothing! Should he run? Run to Klein and set fire to the headquarters truck?

Off he ran. He could hear the explosions behind him, close now, and between explosions there were shouts and cries.
Ours?
Theirs?
He could still distinguish a few rifle shots—those were ours.

The plotter and the radio operator were ready for this moment. They splashed the cab of the truck with gasoline and then lit some tinder and tossed it in. The fire caught on all sides. Now go, go! Run!

That
’
s the last we
’
ll see of our firing chart! And they won
’
t get their hands on our files.

They had stopped throwing grenades at the battery. A few isolated shots could be heard here and there.

The Germans were still running toward the fire, bullets whistling around them. It was clear what they intended to do.

Toplev ran on with the two men from his headquarters. He ran, knowing only that he was going in the right direction, but had lost any idea of what to do other than flee. Someone was still running beside him, from the battery probably, he couldn
’
t tell.

Scenes from his childhood and his school flashed through his mind, one after the other, then all of them at once.

A soldier ahead paused for a moment to let the captain catch up. Breathless, he could say nothing, but words weren
’
t needed to understand.
They had saved Six Battery when they
’
d withdrawn a kilometer down the road and across the bridge. Red flames from their burning truck glowed high above the trees. The battalion commander used to say that we
’
d get to Germany with this truck.

From the place where the other guns remained came only a few bursts of machine gun fire.

~ * ~

23

Later, Kandalintsev and
Gusev had to help each other piece together as best they could just what had taken place. And then what happened? Whose gun had hit the first tank? What about that third tank? And what set that armored personnel carrier on fire?

They hadn
’
t been able to open fire until six o
’
clock: there was machine gun fire coming from the opposite bank to their front, but our own boys were still coming in from the German encirclement. None of our units were supposed to be there, yet a good many men had gathered in that snowy darkness.

Then, on the road from
Dietrichsdorf
on the left, they spotted the sidelights of tanks and APCs. The Germans are on the way! Sometimes the full headlights would flash, the drivers unable to resist turning them on. It was a whole mechanized column on the move. And the rumble of its engines grew louder and louder through the last bursts of machine gun fire.

There it was—the ugly snout of the first tank!
Time to fire.

“
Gun to the ready!
”
Kandalintsev
’
s
voice barely carried across the road.

“
Open sights!
”
Oleg roared at his crew.
“
Fire!
”

Petya Nikolaev was aiming. Our gun belched.
Koltsov
’
s
gun belched.

Oleg rushed to help his crew with their next shell. Now we had to move fast!

The Germans weren
’
t expecting any fire from this spot. They began moving to the roadsides.

We weren
’
t going to let them pass. Fountains of sparks showered from the tank
’
s armor!
The HE
-fragmentation shell had done its job!

The tank stopped. Something behind it caught fire—probably the personnel carrier.

The column was still moving along the road. But we kept up our fire, almost two rounds a minute! We put a shell right into the ugly mug of a King Tiger tank. And what a stroke of luck! We knocked out one tank on the approach to the bridge, another right on it, and they blocked the whole bridge. It was amazing that the bridge itself survived.

The German tanks fired at us, but because our side of the river was so much higher than theirs, their shells ricocheted and passed over us. Our crews would
dive
down into the ditches along the road and then jump back to reload. Nikolaev and
Koltsov
never left their guns, and they came through it all unharmed.

At a time like that you don
’
t think of yourself or anyone or anything else, only how to keep pouring fire at them.

The Germans were mixing solid and regular shot, as they
’
d been doing since autumn. They must be very short of ammunition. Their solid shot didn
’
t cause any wounds from shrapnel, though a direct hit was fatal, of course. Still, young
Yursh
was wounded, along with two of
Koltsov
’
s
crew. A shot from one of the tanks cut the equalizing column on
Nikolaev
’
s
gun.

So that was how they all reconstructed it later; but just who had done what and to whom, that no one could determine.

~ * ~

A number of
things happened later. Our infantry platoon finally showed up from out of nowhere and took up positions along the river. The bridge was under fire. The Germans tried to squeeze past the knocked-out tanks one by one, but they were mowed down as they came. They tried crossing the ice and clambering
up
the steep slope while wallowing in the snow, but they couldn
’
t manage it. Then we ran out of shells and had nothing more to fire at the column across the river.

Then, along the road behind us that was still open, one of our own tanks rolled up, a new IS-3 with an angular prow and very heavy armor, sent here from our division. Enemy shells would bounce off it like sunflower seeds. It took up a position between our guns and banged off a few shots at the armored column and two more along the road to
Adlig
. No more Germans tried to poke their noses out of that place. They pulled their armor back into the forest. Two more IS-3s arrived. That was when things eased up for us.

Still later, more of our boys made their way out of the German encirclement and came back, crossing on the ice and clambering up the snowy bank both upstream and down. Among them was our battery commander, Kasyanov, with a wounded arm. Four and Five Batteries had been captured by the Germans, but some of the crews, those who could still walk, made it back. There weren
’
t many of them.

Captain Toplev had come back, not wounded. All he knew about our battalion commander was that he had been surrounded. We could only hope he hadn
’
t been killed.

When Oleg looked at his watch, he couldn
’
t believe it: How could three hours have passed? How many things had been packed into them; how they had flashed by! They seemed to have disappeared into the battle.

It was already beginning to grow light.

~ * ~

24

The field kitchen
fed those who were left.

Captain Toplev was embarrassed and ashamed when he met the platoon commanders. But how could he have done anything better? He concealed nothing and explained to Kasyanov how it had all happened, how unexpectedly the Germans had crept up to them, and how it had been impossible to save the guns. And Captain Kasyanov, who could not be blamed for anything, still felt somehow guilty.