“Lieutenant Svirkin’s directing the blocking action. Gurtayev’s putting in the positions around the bridgehead.”
Directing the blocking action, Gordunov thought. What he meant was that the lieutenant was hanging on for dear life. Gordunov calmed slightly. “And what are you doing?” he asked Karchenko.
“This is my company command post. Between the bridge and the blocking force.”
“Where’s Major Dukhonin?”
“He’s dead.”
“I know. But where is he? Where’s the body?”
Karchenko didn’t answer.
“I said, where’s his body?”
“I don’t know.”
“You left him?”
“No. I mean, he was dead.”
“And you left him?”
“He was in pieces. We had to move. There were tanks.”
“You left him,” Gordunov said in disgust, arctic winter in his voice. It wasn’t a matter of emotionalism. Gordunov considered himself a hard man, and he was proud of it. He had been the toughest cadet in his class, and the best boxer in the academy. And he prided himself on his strong stomach. But the first time he had seen what the dushman did to the bodies of the Soviet dead, he had been unable to speak. The sight of the bodies had filled the bottom of his belly with ice. That was why airborne soldiers brought back their dead. And they never let themselves be taken prisoner. Because the bodies of dead soldiers were only for practice.
Now Gordunov made no mental distinction between dead comrades in Afghanistan and those killed by British troops or Germans. It was simply a matter of military discipline, of pride, as routine as wearing a clean, well-fitted uniform on parade. Airborne soldiers brought back their dead.
“The tanks would have killed us all,” Karchenko said, pleading for understanding. “We had to organize the position.”
Dukhonin had been all right. Another veteran. A professional. Dukhonin had been in the terrible fighting up in Herat in Afghanistan. And his chest was sewn up so that it looked as though there were a zipper across it. Now he was gone.
“Ammunition all right?” Gordunov asked, in a controlled voice.
“We got our full load in. I think Anureyev’s flight was hit a lot worse than ours.”
“More targets,” Gordunov said. “Listen. I sent Levin down to fetch you another platoon. I want you to block one hundred and eighty degrees off the river. You can weight the defense to the north, but don’t take anything for granted. Move your command post closer to the bridge. You could be overrun up here before you knew what was happening. And push out observation posts.”
A series of explosions crashed along the street.
“I’m surprised they’re shooting everything up,” Karchenko said. “The houses are full of people, you know. You don’t see them. But they’re here. Six of them in this basement. They thought we were going to eat them.”
“Keep the soldiers under control. How do you see the enemy over here? More Germans or more British?”
“Seems like a mix. The tanks are all German. I think we caught a German tank unit crossing the river up on the tactical bridges. But there was a British support unit tucked in near the landing zone.”
“Well, the British won’t care what they shoot up. It isn’t their country.”
“They’re tough. Especially for rear services troops.”
“We’re tougher. Get this mess under control.” Gordunov looked at his watch. “In ninety minutes, I want you to meet me in the lobby of the hospital across the river. Bring Levin, if he’s still with you. I’ll get Anureyev up. I want to make damned sure that, come first light, every man is where we need him. We got the bridge easily enough. Now it’s just a matter of holding it.”
“For how long? When do you think they’ll get here?”
A spray of machine-gun fire ripped along the street, punching into the interior wall above their heads.
“Sometime tomorrow.” And Gordunov got to his feet and launched himself back into the darkness, with Sergeant Bronchevitch trailing behind him.
Karchenko might not make it, Gordunov thought. But he did not know with whom he could replace him. Dukhonin had been his safety man, his watchdog on this side of the river. Now Dukhonin was gone. There was no one left he could trust.
He thought of Levin, the political officer. Levin didn’t have any experience. But he would have to use him, if it came down to it. Perhaps Levin on the eastern bank, while he took personal command in Karchenko’s area. Or wherever the action was the most intense. Gordunov hated the thought of relying on the political officer. But then he hated to rely on any man. He could only bear counting on Dukhonin because they had both come from the
In the darkness, Gordunov collided with a body rushing out of the shadows.
They both fell. The body called out in a foreign voice.
Gordunov shot him at point-blank range.
A return burst of fire from beyond the body sought him in the dark. Gordunov flattened and fired back over the body of the man he had just shot. When the body moved, Gordunov drew his assault knife and plunged it into the man’s throat.
There were several foreign voices now, calling to one another. Unfamiliar-sounding weapons began to fire around him.
Gordunov peeled a grenade from his harness, primed it, then lobbed it down toward the mouth of an alley.
As the fragmentation settled Gordunov crawled into a doorway. The door was locked.
“I’m shot… I’m shot…”
Bronch. The radio.
Gordunov held still. His radioman lay sprawled in the street, his boots still up on the sidewalk. He repeated his complaint over and over, aching with the damage a foreign weapon had done to his body.
Gordunov watched the darkness. Waiting for them to come out. As if on cue, the radio crackled with unintelligible sounds. Then an electronically filtered voice called over the airwaves in Russian.
Come for it. Come on, Gordunov thought. You know you want it.
The radioman moaned, face down, his radio teasing the foreign soldiers.
Take the chance, Gordunov thought. Come on.
Movement caught his eye. And Gordunov was back in the hills of Afghanistan, brilliantly alive. He didn’t let the leading figure distract him. He watched the point of origin for the covering man. When he had him fixed, he put a burst of fire into him, then shifted his weapon to catch the forward man against the side of a building.
The point man returned fire. But it sprayed wildly.
Gordunov pushed up far enough to break in the door. Then he scrambled to drag the radioman inside.
His hands slicked with blood. It reminded him of dragging a wet rolled-up tent. The boy seemed to be falling apart as he dragged him. He had clearly caught a full burst. Amazingly, he still whimpered with life.
Gordunov peeled the radio from the boy’s shoulders, flicking the moisture off the mike.
“Falcon, this is Eagle.”
“This is Falcon. Are you all right? We thought we saw a firefight.”
“My radioman’s down. I’m about a block down from you, just off on one of the side streets. Can you get somebody down here?”
“We’re all ready to move out.”
It was an old man. With a hunting rifle.
Stupid shit, Gordunov thought. The damned old fool.
