Now. Now of all possible times.
Gordunov hugged his weapon as if he could squeeze the pain into it, while the slow rain teased his neck below the helmet rim. A blast hurt his ears. He climbed out of his preoccupation with his misfortune. An antitank missile slithered off the launch rails of a nearby helicopter, hunting a target off to the north. In a few seconds, Gordunov heard a clang and a roar.
Just don’t be broken, Gordunov told his injury. You can’t be broken, damn you. And he forced himself to roll over and cover his field of fire.
The roof was clear to the south. He heard friendly voices now. Shouted names. Yan. Georgi. Misha.
A hand touched Gordunov’s back. “Are you all right, Comrade Battalion Commander?”
Gordunov grunted and pushed the hand away. Disorganized small-arms fire sounded from several directions.
“First squad reports that the upper floor is clear. No opposition. But the hospital is full.”
It was Levin, the deputy commander for political affairs, a little puppy dog who had learned to quote Lenin and the current Party lords. Gordunov suspected that Levin even believed half of it or more. And he wanted to be a soldier. Well, Captain Levin was about to get his chance.
Gordunov pulled himself up on his knees behind the low wall rimming the roof. The pain was definitely in his ankle now, and it was excruciating. Perhaps it was just a sprain, he thought. Sprains could hurt worse than breaks. He made a deal with his body. He would accept any amount of pain, as long as the ankle was not broken.
The soldiers of the command section came scrambling along the roof. A rifleman swiftly leaned his weapon over the balustrade and fired a burst down into the street. He had not unfolded the stock of the assault rifle, and he had little control of it. But he crouched lower, almost a cartoon of a warrior, and fired a second burst. Then the boy hunkered behind the protective barrier.
Gordunov could tell that the boy had no idea what he was shooting at. In combat, it made some men feel good just to fire their weapons. And there were others you had to beat with your fists in order to get them to let off a single round.
Sergeant Bronchevitch held a microphone out to him.
“The battalion net is operational, Comrade Commander.”
Gordunov grasped the mike. “Now get the long-range burster up,” he told his communications specialist. A gunship passed overhead, then another, flying off in echelon.
Where were they going? Gordunov knew the helicopters had not finished their area-clearing mission.
Sergeant Bronchevitch messed through his papers. His pockets were crammed with cards and printed sheets. Meanwhile, the battalion net came to life. Major Dukhonin’s voice. “Those sons of bitches are clearing off. The gunships are clearing off. Eagle, I’ve got more tanks down here.”
“I
Heavy machine-gun fire. Not Soviet. Another pair of gunships pulsed overhead. Gordunov tried to stand up, struggling to wave at them, to communicate somehow.
They were leaving. The bastards were leaving.
At the head of the parched valley, in the rocks, high above the treeline, the transports had set them down. The dushman had waited with superb discipline. Savages with superb discipline. They had waited until the helicopters hurried off. Then they fired into the company position from all directions. The mountains had come to life, monstrous, spitting things. And Gordunov had watched his men fall as though in a film. The helicopters always cleared off too soon. Afraid. And Gordunov had waited to die in a mountain desert pass in a worthless land. They waited all afternoon. All night. When relief forces finally arrived the next day, only eleven men remained from the entire company. Gordunov never understood why the dushman had not come in to finish them off. And when they took him back to the base, he left his ten subordinates without a word and went to the pilots’ quarters. He smashed the first aviator he saw in the face, then he attacked the next one, and the one after that, calling them cowards and sons of whores. It took half a dozen men to get him under control. But in the end, he had only received a verbal rebuke. He was already considered one of the crazies then, and they gave him a medal and leave as a reward for losing his company, and the helicopters continued to desert the combat area as soon as possible. But Gordunov had not cared any more. He simply killed what there was to kill and waited to die. Yet foolishly, crazily, he had expected better here.
“Comrade Commander,” Branch spoke in a nervous, embarrassed voice, “I don’t have the flight frequency. They didn’t give it to me.”
Gordunov almost hit the boy. But he caught himself. It would not do any good. Suddenly, he relaxed, as in the presence of an old friend. Even the pain in his ankle seemed to diminish.
So. That was that. They were on their own. The way it was in the mountains. Now there was only the fighting, and nothing else mattered in the world. Gordunov felt the familiar rush of exhilaration.
The political officer looked at him obediently. Levin was the most annoyingly conscientious officer Gordunov had ever known. He did everything the Party told him to do and more. He didn’t drink. He studied tactics because the political officer was supposed to be able to take over from fallen comrades in battle. He spent more time out on the ranges than the company commanders. And he had an attractive wife who deceived him. Gordunov did not have much regard for political officers, in any case. But he despised any man who let a woman control him or bring him embarrassment. In formulating the plan of operations, Levin had protested against landing atop the hospital building, even though it was the only possibility if they were to control the crossing site from the outset. Gordunov doubted that the enemy would have any scruples about using the structure. But Levin had cited the laws of war and endless paragraphs of rubbish. Gordunov himself had no special desire to use the hospital, but it was a question of practicality. Now he was going to give his cuckold captain the opportunity to apply some of the military knowledge he’d been cramming into his narrow little mind.
“Levin, I want you to take the first squad and get down to the bridge. Clear out anybody who’s still resisting. Leave one machine gunner on the roof where he can cover your movement. I’m staying here with the radios until I find out just what we managed to get on the ground. Just clear the approach to the bridge and hold on until Major Dukhonin comes up. And watch for tanks from the north. We’ll try to cover the approach, but keep your eyes open. Understand?”
The political officer saluted.
Gordunov slapped the hand down. “No more of that shit. This isn’t a November Parade in Red Square.”
“Comrade Commander,” Bronch, the communications specialist, said, “the burst radio is operational.”
Captain Levin moved out along the roofscape, gathering the first squad. Gordunov still did not know what to make of him. He turned to the matter of informing higher headquarters of the unit’s arrival at the objective. He felt in his breast pocket and pulled out a small booklet, then leafed through the pages. It was increasingly hard to see in the rain-darkened evening light.
Bronch waited to copy the message.
Gordunov gave him the code groups for safe arrival, approximate percentage of strength, main bridge intact, and combat action. Then he carefully buttoned the booklet back in his pocket.
The firing on the near side of the river had no logical pattern to it. Probably exchanges with bridge guards and perhaps a few military policemen or support soldiers. But the firing on the western side was much more intense. Dukhonin had a real fight on his hands.
“Falcon, this is Eagle. What’s your status?”
Dukhonin’s voice was clearly that of a man pressed by combat. “I’ve got tanks all around me. They took out the last aircraft on the ground. I’ve got at least a platoon over here, playing hide and seek with us. Older tanks, I think they’re M48s. German. Maybe reservists. But plenty of trouble.”
“Any of your men closing on the bridge?”
“Not yet. Karchenko’s working most of his company down toward it. But we’ve got a mess over here.”
“Listen, I don’t think the bridge is prepped to blow. Just my instinct. But Karchenko needs to get down there,
