Chapter Three. Panasyuk
Army service consists of discipline, petty tyrannies, humiliations, details, eating, digesting, sleep and expectation -- expectation of orders, expectation of leave, expectation of returning home, expectation of freedom from the power of highly placed fools and scoundrels, expectation of the decrees of Fate. If an army is at war, service also includes expectation of death: be it in the name of obeying orders, serving the interests of the Motherland, or simply because on that day, at that moment, a specific number comes up, YOUR number. Someone must be sacrificed, after all.
Such choices of Fate are subsequently and most frequently described as heroism and fulfillment of duty, less frequently as sheer bad luck, while those who stood side by side with death, later find some explanation for that particular stroke of fortune, even though everyone knows exactly why and how it came to pass.
But people tied to the army conceal from each other that their survival so far in this inscrutable lottery has been due to blind luck, no more; and only in the deepest recesses of their minds, mostly subconsciously, do they render thanks to that hand, which did not draw THEIR number...
Rebellious Afghan tribes that had refused to swear allegiance to the new regime had taken refuge on the plain between high mountains. The troops took up positions on the dominant heights above the plain, presiding above villages and wooded patches -- "greenery" -- which lay below silently, like a predator gone to earth. The troops knew that victory would be theirs, that the greenery would fall before them, but they also knew the price they would have to pay.
Those who had planned the battle and were ready to order its start had already estimated the costs of the operation, because war is a science, and science demands precision and calculation. War does not excuse weakness, war knows no mercy, and therefore people who decide to make war never allow themselves to be guided by such feelings. They deliberately distance themselves from the epicenter of battle in order not to see the soldiers they are sending off to be slaughtered, in order not to look into their eyes. Instead, they content themselves with sending them rousing messages and promising medals and titles. They are well aware that after victory the number of the fallen will not be a determining factor, because those who died will automatically become heroes, while the maimed and wounded shall be whisked away from the theatre of war to specially devised hospitals and military medical installations, so the sight of them will not upset their former comrades in arms and newly arrived reinforcements.
Sharagin's platoon soon took possession of the hill overlooking the road, making a nest for itself at the top. Like the company, the whole battalion, and all the units assigned to this particular military operation, the platoon lived in daily expectation of orders, meanwhile the soldiers slept under canvas awnings erected on the slope and under armoured cars, dreamt of home in the stillness of afternoons and nights, ate dry rations and relieved themselves in the immediate vicinity.
Lieutenant Sharagin worried that this relaxed atmosphere could prove fatal if it were to last a few more days, but there was little he could do about it but hope for speedy orders to advance.
.... we're surrounded by mountains... when the sun goes down,
and darkness falls, and the first stars appear like sentinels in
the heavens, the sun still lights up the other side of the
mountain range, making it look as though it is still daylight
over there, and they look flat ... as though some giant has
made cardboard cutouts of ancient warriors, heads bent, and
tired horsemen, and the peaks and contours look like their
heads, lowered in exhaustion, who have struck camp, backs and
shoulders slumped, and their horses' heads ... the giant has glued
them carefully and disposed them like immense decorations,
gifting the sleeping valley with a certain coziness ... the
valley that we shall take soon...
The atmosphere of tedium and lyrical musing was heightened by the effects of the dry, hot, all-pervasive and heavy wind known as the "afghan," which descended out of nowhere and blew unrelentingly all day.
The "afghan" was fierce, as though angered by the platoon and all the troops that had come to the valley. It drove myriad grains of sand against the canvas of the tents, stung faces, covered those who had taken refuge behind rocks with sand and dust and harried the sentries who crouched in dug-outs and waited to be replaced.
But the relief sentries never arrived punctually. The "grand-dads" slept, unconcerned by the problems of the youngsters, and those who were scheduled for duty strung out the time as long as possible to shorten their own stint on guard.
The wind danced up and down the valley, blotting out the sky and mountains with an impenetrable shroud of dust. Stubborn, capricious and merciless, the "afghan" spun at liberty, feeling its power and impunity.
... what was that bit in the Bible? How apt it was!...
Sharagin racked his brains, trying to remember those words out of Ecclesiastes, which he had read so long ago, before military school:
"The wind blows to the South and goes around to the North; round and round goes the wind and on its circuits the wind returns."
... it was as if the prophet was talking about the "afghan"...
I'll have to read it again when I get back home....
It was easier to tolerate the "afghan" in company, but depression was just as great, the desire to go home was always there, and because home was far away, the next best thing was to get drunk.
The sand raised by the "afghan" penetrated everywhere, filtering through every crack, every hole. People spat, rubbed their eyes and noses, but the sand filled their hair and crept down their backs. The wind carried a hidden premonition of disaster.
Toward evening the "afghan" finally tired of making mischief, and took itself off. It had not exhausted itself, no, that was not why the wind died down. Most likely it got bored with this place, and sped off to wreak havoc and bother people elsewhere, after a few parting sand whirls.
It was completely quiet again, cold and distant stars filled the sky, but in the morning torture by the sun resumed. The soldiers, usually so talkative and noisy, were silent.
Sharagin inspected the positions once more. Two soldiers snored in the shade of a canvas awning. One of them -- Savateyev -- was swiping at a fly on his face in his sleep, frowning and scratching his cheeks. When his hand brushed against the top of his head, the lice he dislodged leapt nimbly to the head of the soldier sleeping next to him.
... I'll order their heads shaved, every last one of them!...
Sharagin saw junior sergeant Titov wandering around clad in nothing but a pair of sateen drawers, rolled up to look like bathing trunks, absently scratching his crotch. Sergeant Panasyuk, his face sunburnt a fiery red, sprawled on a greatcoat on the ground. Nearby, private Sychev, in correct uniform, was squeezing festering pimples on the back of a "grand-dad" of the Soviet Army, Prokhorov.
... disgusting ...
By certain unwritten laws, only the so-called grand-dads had the right to go around undressed. In principle, the grand-dads were not supposed to do so either, but any officer in his right mind turned a blind eye to such liberties, provided they remained within reason. The grand-dads knew what they were about, they knew that they could allow themselves a measure of insolence with any commanding officer, and if they did not go too far, if they did not overdo things, no conflict would ensue. One only needed to know exactly where to draw the line. Sharagin glanced sideways at Panasyuk, Titov and Prokhorov, all in their satin underwear, threw a second glance on his way to relieve himself, and when he passed by a third time, the grand-dads were all getting dressed. They took the squad leader's hint. Once dressed, they went off to harry the younger personnel, because there was nothing else to do that day.
It did not take long for Panasyuk to adopt some of the squad leader's mannerisms and expressions. Aping Sharagin, he took to addressing the lower ranks with the polite "you" instead of the familiar "thou," but with an air of paternal superiority; at combat training he would urge them on with one of the new commanding officer's aphorisms: "At first, a soldier marches as long as he can, and after that, as long as necessary." Panasyuk's stubbornness and persistence earned him the nickname of "the mountain brake of communism." Combat vehicles of the commando forces are all equipped with a so-called mountain brake with a catch. Once this is engaged, the motor will continue to roar and strain, but the vehicle will not budge an inch. It was due to his unwillingness to give one iota that Panasyuk lost a front tooth during his first months of service.
The people on the hilltop wilted from the burning sun and inactivity, becoming dull and stupid. In this kind of heat, anybody's thoughts become scattered. Even in the shade you toss around as in a fever, sweating out every drop of moisture and waking up stupefied by the stifling heat, with spittle on your lips, your head like a chunk of lead, sticky with sweat and mind fogged with fragments of restless dreams.
... Sharagin wove around in his half-dreams, and although his thoughts remained perfectly clear and consistent, coordination disappeared: the men would run out to line up, and all Oleg could do was mumble something, drunkenly trying to pull on a pair of socks which, for some reason, were two sizes too small, so the heel was too far down and the sock wouldn't fit; he hopped around on one bare foot, lost balance and tumbled backwards, luckily onto his bunk, avoiding injury ... Soldiers' voices reached his ears through a thin, silken veil of slumber: "...took fright, that greenhorn!...shit himself when the shooting started!...well, it's true, isn't it?", "a rocket exploded just five meters off, and not a single splinter hit us, would you believe?", "and fuck me dead if I didn't kill three spooks right then and there," "I'd rather walk into someone else's shit instead of going up there on the slope. We already had one stupid bastard who went out into the field for a crap ... we found his arse about twenty meters away, ha, ha, ha..." , "remember that warrant officer, Kosyakevich, how he rolled around on the ground when that, well, when them spooks had us holed up in a ravine and opened up with a fucking heavy machine gun? Kosyakevich copped it in the stomach... the first aid instructor bandaged him up, but we knew that it was curtains for the poor sod!", "death's a bugger, always catches you unawares..."; and in his dreams Oleg also heard the soldiers bitching about their details, and the lousy rations, and that "you always have to put down your own cash to get a decent bite of something," and the curses the soldiers aimed at the merciless sun of Afghanistan.
Finally Sharagin could not stand this monotonous and stupid chatter, which would not let him sleep properly, and barked: "Stop that fucking noise!" to shut them up. Then he took a gulp of water from his canteen and turned over, hoping to fall asleep until dinner time.
One lot of voices was replaced by another, distracting him from his attempts to sleep, and, if truth be told, Sharagin didn't really want to sleep, and all kinds of thoughts went round and round in the lieutenant's head.
... when you get down to it, soldiers are nothing but rabble, the
dregs of our society, they're ... hell, how quickly they've become
an uncontrollable wave away from home! ... nothing but trivial,
idiotic thoughts in practically every head that's why they
talk such rubbish ... but if our soldier is so dumb and useless,
what about the "diesel-heads"? All the mototrised infantry are
Morons!...
"I tell you, those flies weren't fucking!" cried someone, as though in confirmation of Sharagin's thoughts.
"Everyone's a psycho!" yelled someone else.
... grown-up idiots, the whole bleeding lot...
The lives of sons of bitches like Prokhorov, slobs and mean bastards like Titov, hounded juniors like Myshkovsky, Sychev and Chirikov, clowns like Panasyuk and similar typical and untypical persons and non-persons of the latest and intervening call-ups belonged to Sharagin. Rather, he was assigned to this motley crew known as a platoon, and it was up to him to make the platoon combat-worthy, it was his job to think about the platoon, these people, every hour, minute and second, to worry and make decisions as a result of which the soldiers would return home alive from Afghanistan, or not.
One could spend eternity cursing these young men, drafted from all ends of the Land of the Soviets to active military service,
... brainless "elephants"...
but right now Sharagin cursed them to himself, just as he did aloud, for errors and for trifles about which the soldiers didn't give a damn, but which could prove fatal in war. He cursed them, but at the same time he sympathised with each one individually, and was saddened each time when the hardened youngsters left his squad, in the USSR or here in Afghanistan, after their two-year stint. Sharagin truly valued that inexplicable and unique phenomenon that is called a Soviet, Russian soldier.
... where does the Soviet soldier's frequent total disregard of death arise, his endless courage and desperate feats? ... an Afghan soldier is nothing like that, just try telling him that he has to go from Kabul to Kandahar: he won't, not for any money, each one of those 'afghanoids' thinks only of saving his own skin, while we guard their peace, do their dirty work for them, slave our guts out ... because they're all cowards, and our lads can't wait to get into battle ... what is it, excessive romanticism? no, they've seen it all, and still strain at the leash ... are they stupid? but they're not such fools as to throw life away needlessly ... duty? no, that's for the newspapers, empty words ... Russian recklessness? partly ... nobody can really understand it ... just as nobody can solve the riddle of the Russian soul, nobody ... huge, deep, like our country ... untractable, unpredictable ... only the Russian soul can encompass unbelievable breadth, sincerity, openness and sentimentality alongside such traits as villainy, boot-licking, baseness, servility, selfless love of others and total disregard for human life ... especially for those on top, human life loses all value, especially in Moscow, among those bastards who wear out the seats of their pants in HQ offices ... they do not see us as individuals, but as battalions, companies and divisions ...
... that's enough philosophizing, Sharagin, time to get back to business, the war, and not sit around meditating ... what did I start with? oh, yes - the boundless courage of Russian soldiers...
No matter how hard Sharagin tried to get away from philosophical musings, he kept plunging back into thought. He turned over and started to examine the peeling green paint of the APC, the dried mud plastering its body, the thick layer of dust that covered it just as it lined his lungs.
Soviet people in Afghanistan choked on dust and spat it out in thick gobs of yellow, pus-like spittle.
Unexpectedly it came to him that glorification of war, romantic perception of battle begins in childhood, when a child encounters a veritable landslide of literature on the subject, when his mind is barely able to digest heroic films in which the soldier is always victorious, and where death of the enemy is a great feat.
... kids barely out of the cradle run around with wooden machine guns: bang-bang, you're dead! ... nobody ever told us what real war is like, not a single book explained that by its nature, war is an abomination ... the Great Patriotic War was idealized, made into a fetish ... yes, we won, but at what price! ... I learnt a lot from my grandfather ... but this is something that will never be published in a single book or newspaper! ... so it looks as though the loss of ten million lives is justified, and instead of condemning such monstrous losses, instead of condemning those who couldn't give a damn whether thirty or forty millions perish in the name of victory, we eulogise martial success and prepare another generation hooked on self-sacrifice ... my generation was well prepared, that's why we're here, that's why our Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan perform miracles of heroism ....
Saturated with specious, sweet, superficial and erroneous images of war, boys with wooden guns dream of battle, dream of going to war, no matter where or what.
... sadly, most of them never shed these childish illusions as they grow up ... stop! cancel that! it looks as though we can't live without violent emotion, without heroics, we always need an enemy who must be destroyed ... so were we all, our whole country, only waiting for yet another war, like this one in Afghanistan? ...
As soon as the sun was past the zenith, the soldiers, who had quieted down for a while, came back to life, rubbing their eyes, yawning, crawling out of their holes. With returned vigour came jokes, laughter, swearing, shouts.
The day before, when the squad was moving out to its assigned position, the lads pulled a fast number to get additional food, which they hid from their commander while they were digging in and sheltering from the "afghan."
The armoured military vehicles, BMPs, met a herd of goats on a narrow mountain road. The older herdsman, a sturdy man who struck Sharagin as highly suspicious,
... he's a "spook," for sure ... and he'll remain in our rear, the bastard ...
and a young boy, were driving the herd toward them. The Afghans were afraid that the shuravi would run down their goats and began to mill about and fuss. Sharagin signalled a halt. At the same moment, lance-corporal Prokhorov, the wiry and daring gunner in the first BMP, opened the rear hatch and seized a young kid.
Sharagin didn't notice anything, all he heard was a dull thud as the hatch slammed shut, and turned around in surprise to see a female goat butting the BMP's armour:
... stupid animal ... what on earth possessed it? ...
The kid traveled on with the squad, quietly chewing into a sack of potatoes. Halfway through, it almost started on some sticks of TNT that were kept to help in digging trenches. Prokhorov and Panasyuk caught the kid devouring the short-supply potatoes and dragged it out of the vehicle, swearing profusely, to the encouraging shouts of their comrades.
The poor, frightened animal plunged wildly amid a forest of legs and shadows cast by surrounding soldiery until Titov felled it to earth and slit its throat with his bayonet.
Naturally, there was not enough fresh meat to go around. The younger men had to make do with boiled pearl barley, but the youngsters devoured it greedily, chomping and belching, licking their spoons and mess tins clean in their hurry to fill their bellies before their older comrades could intervene.
They watched from a respectful distance how the old hands savoured their meat, sucking the bones clean and helping themselves to baked potatoes: first they would poke around in the hot ashes with a twig, roll out a potato, pull off the blackened peel, pop the white inside into their mouths, and take another bite of goat meat.
"A drop of whaddya call it, port, would go down a treat now, eh Panas?" Asked lance-corporal Prokhorov, licking his greasy fingers.
"Stop breaking my heart. When we get back to the Union, then we'll pull out all the stops and celebrate! As much port and vodka as you can hold!"
"Shit yes, that'll be really something!"
"When we get back to the company, fuck me if I get up off my bunk for anything. I won't move a finger until I'm demobbed!" Panansyuk took a bite of potato. "If it wasn't for this assignment, we'd be getting ready to go back right now..."
The youngsters chewed on dry crackers, listening enviously to the old hands' fantasies.
"Hey, Chiri, why are you resting your balls by that fire? Where's the tea, boy?" shouted Prokhorov. "Damn greenhorns! You'll be jerking off for a long time yet before you can think of demob!" He laughed loudly. "But the grand-daddies of the Soviet Army will be getting up to God knows what in a month's time. Lock up your daughters, people! I told you, remember, how we've got this whole female hostel right next door, a new slit every night," he went on, making things up on the spur of the moment, and believing his own lies. "I remember Panas, see, how you'd come every night to a dance, pick up a chick, and on the way back to the hostel, naturally, you'd get her into a clinch somewhere in the bushes, then take her home, and another one would be waving out the window at you, like, hell, come and hop into my cot, soldier-boy! Just think, fuck it, what a life we had!"
"Who d'you think you're shitting, Prokhor?" jeered Titov. "One and a half years I've known you, and all you've done is bullshit on about that hostel, and I bet before that you hadn't so much as squeezed a tit!"
"Bullshit yourself, I didn't!" roared Prokhorov, though he clearly realized that any moment now he'd be pinned down for outright lying.
"With a willy like yours, even if you got to climb up on a woman she wouldn't feel a thing! It'd be like a pencil in a glass!" said Titov, quashing his friend even further.
"How would you know?" challenged Prokhorov sourly.
"Well, it's no great military secret, is it? We've been in the bath-house together, haven't we?"
"Chiri, you mother-fucker!" Shouted lance-corporal Prokhorov, glaring at a soldier sitting nearby. "How long are we going to wait for that tea, eh? It's ready? Well, bring it here, bugger it, before I have to get up! I'll count to three ... fucking one ... fucking two ..."
Thin, fair-haired Chirikov grabbed up the hot mugs with his bare hands, and just made it on the count of three.
"And where's the jam, worm?" Demanded Prokhorov, pinning the hapless soldier with a merciless glare.
" ? "
"I'll count to one and a half! Starting now! One..."
"Come off it," interrupted Panasyuk. "Dismissed, Chiri!" After the soldier retreated, he added: "You've driven the poor sod into the ground. He's just come off duty. Give him a break. Otherwise, he'll goof off on duty, fall asleep, and that will be that."
"Fuck the lot of you!" Retorted Prokhorov, offended, and stumped off with his mug, muttering as he went: "Fine friends, bugger them! If I hadn't swiped that fucking goat, you'd all be sitting around sucking your balls!"
"Hold it!" Shouted Panansyuk.
"Let him go," interposed Titov, waving dismissively. "Five minutes, and he'll be back to normal."
They sat around, slurping thick black tea, which had been overboiled on an improvised grill made out of a zinc cartridge box. The subject under discussion was how to make a cake out of biscuits and condensed milk. It was imperative to make their own demob cake. Tradition. Sweet dreams of demobilisation reflected on the faces of Panasyuk and Titov, while Prokhorov, miffed by his friends' digs, wandered around the post, sipping his tea, burning his mouth on the hot aluminum mug, and shouting at the younger soldiers.
Sharagin, relaxing with an after-dinner cigarette, heard a single shot.
"Find out who that was, and report back," he ordered private Myshkovsky, who had jumped at the shot, and again at the harsh tone of his commanding officer's voice.
... you'd swear someone dropped him flat on his face on some asphalt in childhood ... he's put up with the grand-dads, month after month ... never mind, Myshkovsky, we'll make a paratrooper out of you yet ...
"It was lance-corporal Prokhorov shooting, comrade lieutenant," reported Myshkovsky breathlessly when he got back. "He said it was so the spooks in the village wouldn't stick their noses out. Remedial shot, he said."
Prokhorov had taken up a position with a sniper's rifle, and turned to the cowed sentry:
"Burkov, fuck you! Get over to the sergeant and tell him to come here."
"But I'm on duty, I can't leave my post ..."
"Whaaat? Lost your marbles in attack, or something? On your way -- one foot here, the other one there!"
At first, they just fooled around to shape up, aiming at rocks and bushes from the top of the hill. However, this pastime soon palled. Panasyuk offered a bet to make things more interesting:
"For five chits, all right? Prokhor, let's see which one of us can hit that donkey over there."
Prokhorov missed, which made him even more angry. Panasyuk got the donkey with his first shot, leaned back against a rock and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, while the unlucky grand-dad, boiling with frustration, studied the village through the rifle sights, hoping that something live would appear, a domestic animal, say, or an Afghan, so that he could renew the bet and win back his five chits -- a whole FIVE -- from Panasyuk.
Sharagin went for a piss after his tea and saw the grand-dads messing around with the rifle. He saw Prokhorov, pop-eyed and red-faced, pull money out of his pocket and give it to the sergeant. Buttoning up his fly as he went, Sharagin wandered over to the shooters. He wouldn't mind doing a bit of shooting himself.
"Hey, Prokhor, look! An old woman's come out! No, no, a bit further to the right," prompted the sergeant.
"Same conditions as before?" Asked Prokhorov, just to be sure.
"Yep. There's a war on, she's got no business roaming the streets. Right, comrade lieutenant?"
"I guess so."
"One fucking spook about to bite the dust!" Cried Prokhorov gleefully.
The sun was already low, and the veiled woman cast a long shadow, which dragged behind her along a wall, as if trying to hold her back from inevitable disaster.
A 7.62 whooshed toward the village.
The old woman stopped, as if struck by a sudden thought, then slid slowly to the ground, fell on her side and lay motionless.
"Never cross the road on a red light," quipped one of the men who had gathered to watch the show.
"Want a go, comrade lieutenant?" Offered Panansyuk. "I'll load it up with an exploding head, if you like." He retreated a few steps behind the beaming Prokhorov and returned the five chits. They stood there watching as their commanding officer settled down on a sleeping bag, and adjusted the rifle sights.
"Look, look, comrade lieutenant, over on the left by the wall!" Prompted Titov, eyes glued to a pair of binoculars. "There's a spook there, see him?"
"Yes, I see him..."
He did not dampen the grand-dads' exhilaration, consenting silently that the village belonged to the spooks and was thus doomed to destruction, so there was no point in wasting pity on its inhabitants. He had agreed, so he, too, was now part of this "game." He lay cradling the rifle and looking through its sights at an old man who peered out from behind a wall from time to time.
... Prokhorov's right: there's a war on, they've no business showing themselves outside ... there's a war on, so it's either them or us ... all these so-called peaceful civilians, old and young, hate our guts, and given the chance, they'll wind our gizzards around a pitchfork and put them out for all to see ... they help the spooks, the bastards, going back and forth as if they're tending their fields, but at the same time, the sons of bitches are setting out trip-wires ... "
Sharagin took aim, but at the same moment decided not to kill the old man, just shoot over his head, and tightened his finger on the trigger. In training, he had been the best shot in his group. It would be easy to hit the target at this range -- too easy.
... live, old man ....
"Bet you he'll miss," came a whisper from behind.
" ....."
"No guts?"
"No ... Bet you ten chits." That was Panasyuk.
Sharagin aimed again. A drop of sweat trickled from his hairline past his ear, down his cheek and fell on the rifle butt. He held his breath. He couldn't understand why he had suddenly given way to doubts. His fingers felt the stiffness of the trigger, as though it was resisting him.
"... taking too long to aim, fuck it, he'll miss for sure!" needled Prokhorov's voice.
The shot boomed out. The old man fell away from the wall, staggered forward a few steps and fell.
"Ha! Gotcha!" whooped Panasyuk.
"Class shot! Right in the brain box!" Confirmed Titov, still glued to the binoculars. "Head's gone like it was never there. Just his jawbone hanging on his neck!"
The armoured vehicles were like pincers around the village; moving inward, the paratroopers began combing through the village. Groups of soldiers dispersed along its dusty, crooked streets.
... the village is empty, definitely empty ... and the artillery pounded the hell out of it ... everyone must be long gone ... but, then, who knows? ...
A dead donkey lay beside the last hut, distended from the heat like a barrel to which someone had tied four legs for fun. A suffocating stench of decaying flesh hung in the air for several dozen meters around.
Suppressing the urge to vomit, the soldiers tried to keep as far away from it as possible, as if fearing that the rock-hard hide of the dead animal, bloated to its limits, might burst and douse them with stinking, rotten matter.
Armed men filed through the winding streets, which were not wide enough for their vehicles: a BMP was bound to get stuck and become a sitting target.
The new boys gazed around fearfully, creeping sideways along the walls in momentary expectation of attack, delaying the others as they pressed their backs to the blind walls of houses. Lacking experience, borne along only by the fear and excitement arising out of terror of the unknown, they could only count on the speed of their reaction, the ability to fire at once, emptying the entire magazine.
The more experienced soldiers were like predators: listening, constantly evaluating their position in relation to a possible enemy, estimating the best and closest cover to dive into at the first sound of a shot. Intuitively, they sought the temper of the village, tried to catch its breath, and moved confidently ever deeper, to complete the combing and get out of this silent, malevolent and alien kingdom.
The men advanced quickly but quietly, fearful of mines and trip-wires. Their eyes searched the ground. The labyrinths under the houses led to the very heart of the village.
Part of the village was destroyed by artillery fire: some roofs and grey mud walls had collapsed, shattered windows were black holes in the walls of houses. Here and there, on houses that were still standing, there were small Chinese-manufactured padlocks -- a sure sign that the inhabitants had fled, expecting the worst, but hoped to return at some later time.
"Check 'em out!"
A door was rammed in.
"Sychev, follow me!" Ordered Sharagin. "Titov, Myshkovsky! Check opposite, in the yard!"
"All clear!"
"The spooks have fucked off!..."
Captain Morgultsev took off his hat, wiped the sweat off his brow with his sleeve, and unfolded a map on the armour.
"Combing through the "greenery" is like chasing lice out of your hair with a bloody fine-tooth comb ... All right ...The Afghan units will move in from here, and here. Our orders are to move along here." He poked a finger at a green-shaded section on the map, criss-crossed by roads, like so many veins.
"To hell and gone with that fucking greenery!" Chistyakov hawked and spat through his teeth, then rubbed the spittle into the ground with the toe of his boot. "Can't we do without those bloody Afghans? They'll scare off the spooks for miles around!"
... wants to take a last drink of blood, and there aren't any spooks about, nobody to kill ...
guessed Sharagin.
"Comrade senior lieutenant!" squeaked the political officer. "Enough of your fu ... '' he cut himself off. ''Enough of these emotional outbursts! They're our military allies!"
Chistyakov bit his lip, scowled at Nemilov and burst out:
"What do you fucking well want, more than anyone else?"
"Bloody hell, will you stop that?!" interrupted Morgultsev. He gave the platoon leaders their instructions and ordered them to their vehicles.
"I won't leave it at that," fumed the political officer. "I don't care if he's due for replacement! What kind of an example is he setting others?"
"Leave him alone," advised Morgultsev.
Sharagin's BMP bounced across a trench, the armour slicing through a corner of a house, and raced away from the village.
They penetrated deeper into the valley and the "greenery", breathing in the unhealthy, greasy dust of deserted houses, the treads of BMPs churning up the spooks' former land holdings, driving them away and pursuing; their advance drove the spooks back from their bolt-holes, squeezed them out of the valley, pointing them toward other hunters, even though they knew that once the operation was over and the companies went back to base, the spooks who had managed to break through would return and bring others with them, return and take up residence once more, and revolutionary power would never be established in these parts.
Unruly and defiant, condemned as treacherous or subversive, at times due to errors inevitable in war time, the villages were methodically pounded by Soviet air power and artillery. Heavy arms fire felled and destroyed Muslim gravestones, flags fluttering in the wind. Shells disemboweled cemeteries and homes of the heathen, cleared Afghan mountains, plains and deserts of the spooks, of the unclean, making way for the builders of a new, bright future. The shuravi hoped the time would come when they would finally wipe all treacherous villages from the face of the earth. Villages fell, burned, disintegrated, but for some reason never disappeared completely. Like scabbed-over sores they lay on mountain slopes, in the "greenery" and along roadsides -- a blind reproach, malignant and unforgiving of what was done to them, ready to wreak revenge for the cruelty with which, free from doubt and hesitation, the people from the North, the shuravi, who always did whatever they wanted, had dealt with them.
A lone, stunted tree stuck out above a long, partially ruined wall, chunks missing from it like bites from an apple. The tree had lost its crown in the shelling, but it still lived. It looked out fearfully at the surrounding world after the artillery storm.
... just like that old man behind the house ...
The familiar, relatively safe passage of life, accompanied by the roar of diesel engines and shuddering armour, suddenly broke off. A grenade launcher opened up on the first BMP from behind the wall.
... like a fireball ...
it flew from the shelter of the wall, beside the tree, and a moment later the armour under Oleg jumped. The shell hit the vehicle's tread, blasting it off.
Whee, whee, whee! Screamed wayward spook bullets on all sides. Soldiers fell flat, pressing themselves against the ground, into the dust, dived under vehicles. Everyone took whatever shelter they could.
A machine gun chattered in fury and hatred, striving to kill off as many as it could of these suddenly vulnerable people, jumping off the armour to the ground.
Sergeant Panasyuk was caught in mid-leap. He bounded up and fell like a sack on his back; his helmet rolled away, and his hand clenched his gun.
The sergeant had no time to even shout, he just grunted almost inaudibly, as if to himself, before his long, bony body struck the ground. In the all-embracing silence before death, the sergeant was quiet and relaxed for the first time in one and a half years of war, as if he had returned home and wrapped himself in a blanket, hid his head and went to sleep.
Hefty Titov crawled up and dragged him behind the BMP, pulled off his bullet-proof vest, and only then saw the reddish-brown spot on Panasyuk's shirt.
The battle cut off the squad from the rest of the world, deafened it with shell-fire, blinded it with explosions; lead whizzed all around.
Sharagin emptied his second magazine, replaced it and turned, wondering why the BMPs were not firing. The cannon of the nearest one was swiveling back and forth. Prokhorov, staggering, as if drunk, could not figure out where the fire was coming from and where the spooks had taken up their position. Finally he fired by guess: Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom!
Kaboom! Kaboom! Came belated fire from the second BMP.
... serve the bastards right! ... give them another one! ...
Ah, that was better. Now all guns were firing.
Shattered by explosions, the village fell silent. The spooks must be retreating. But the infuriated soldiers kept raking the area with every available weapon. Eventually the barrage ceased, hot barrels cooling one after another.
Death, which seemed to have come from nowhere and almost won, fell back in the face of the soldiers' desperate resistance, taking sergeant Panasyuk with it.
He lay there with an expression of faint chagrin or disappointment on his face, his legs bent and doubled over like a snapped branch, pitiful, frail, shot through the side just in the spot left exposed by the bullet-proof vest.
Sharagin railed, swore at the radio operator, who spluttered desperately, trying to summon a helicopter. There was not a single cloud in the sky, and not a single chopper. Time was passing, flying away uncontrolled, and together with it, with those speeding minutes that replaced one another on the liquid crystal display of the black, quartz watch in a plastic thick casing on the sergeant's wrist, hope faded.
"Where the hell are they, the swine!" Shouted Sharagin, but there was nothing anyone could say. "I've got a man dying here!" He yelled into the silent airwaves.
Titov, Prokhorov and others stared at the distant pass, hoping to catch sight of the choppers, then looked back at Panasyuk, seeing how he was slipping away, without a word of farewell, into another world, giving up, cornered and unable to find anything to grasp and hold on to life. The younger soldiers gaped at their dying comrade in terror, as though they could no longer recognize him, so helpless and no longer in charge of them.
The men wandered around, smoking, chewing dry rations, talking in muted voices, and each one was thinking: fuck, what lousy luck ...
Unable to do anything, the squad leader went through moments of despair. When the sergeant opened his eyes slightly for the last time, Sharagin thought:
... it'll be all right ... hang on, just don't die ...
Even though it was obvious that the sergeant wouldn't pull through: and in that moment, in some distant corner of his mind, a hint of his own death raised its head, a hint he immediately and naturally brushed aside, unable to agree or accept such an eventuality, but at the same time, he wished that his own end would be quick and without suffering.
Panasyuk died fifteen minutes before the choppers arrived. Lieutenant Sharagin sat beside the dead sergeant, exhausted, drained, for the first time in his service in Afghanistan cursing the war, cursing himself, suffering as though he could have stopped those bullets that penetrate human bodies, or dissipate the fog at the other end of the pass, so the helicopters could come sooner and get the sergeant to the hospital on time.
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Chapter two
Chapter four
