I'm all right now.'
'Yes, you do sound a bit hoarse,' said Chuykov almost gloatingly. 'Well, the Germans will give you some hot milk. They've got it all ready, they won't be long.'
'Yes, comrade,' said Byerozkin. 'I understand you.'
'Very good,' said Chuykov. 'But if you ever think of retreating, remember I can make you an egg-flip at least as good as the Germans' hot milk.'
22
Old Polyakov arranged for Klimov, the scout, to take him at night to Regimental HQ; he wanted to find out how things were with Seryozha.
'That's a splendid idea, old man,' said Grekov. 'You can have a bit of a rest and then come back and tell us how things are in the rear.'
'You mean with Katya?' asked Polyakov, guessing why Grekov had been so quick to agree.
'They left HQ long ago,' said Klimov. 'The commander had them both sent to the left bank. By now they've probably already visited the registry office in Akhtuba.'
'Do you want to cancel our trip then?' asked Polyakov pointedly.
Grekov looked at him sharply, but all he said was: 'Very well, then. Be off with you!'
'Very well,' thought Polyakov.
They set off down the narrow passage about four in the morning. Polyakov kept bumping his head against the supports and cursing Seryozha. He felt a little angry and embarrassed at the strength of his affection for the boy.
After a while the passage widened and they sat down for a rest. Klimov said jokingly:
'What, haven't you got a present for them?'
'To hell with the damned boy!' said Polyakov. 'I should have taken a brick so I could give him a good knock on the head!'
'I see!' said Klimov. 'That's why you wanted to come with me. That's why you're ready to swim the Volga to see him. Or is it Katya you want to see? Are you dying of jealousy?'
'Come on,' said Polyakov. 'Let's get going!'
Soon they came up to the surface and had to walk through no man's land. It was utterly silent.
'Perhaps the war's come to an end?' thought Polyakov. He could picture his own home with an extraordinary vividness: there was a plate of borshch on the table and his wife was gutting a fish he had caught. He even began to feel quite warm…
That night General Paulus gave orders for the attack on the Tractor Factory.
Two infantry divisions were to advance through the breach opened by bombers, artillery and tanks… Since midnight, cigarettes had been glowing in the soldiers' cupped hands.
The first Junkers flew over the factory an hour and a half before dawn. The ensuing bombardment was quite without respite; any gap in the unbroken wall of noise was immediately filled by the whistle of bombs tearing towards the earth with all their iron strength. The continuous roar was enough to shatter your skull or your backbone.
It began to get light, but not over the factory… It was as though the earth itself were belching out black dust, smoke, thunder, lightning…
The brunt of the attack was borne by Byerozkin's regiment and house 6/1.
Caught in no man's land, Klimov and Polyakov rushed towards some large craters made by one-ton bombs at the end of September. Some soldiers from Podchufarov's battalion had escaped from their caved-in trenches and were running in the same direction.
The Russian and German trenches were so close together that part of the bombardment fell on the German assault-troops waiting in the front line.
To Polyakov it was as though a fierce wind from downstream was sweeping up the Volga. Several times he was knocked off his feet; he fell to the ground no longer knowing what world he lived in, whether he was old or young, what was up and what was down. But Klimov dragged him along and finally they slid to the bottom of a huge crater. Here the darkness was threefold: the darkness of night, the darkness of dust and smoke, the darkness of a deep pit.
They lay there beside one another; the same soft light, the same prayer for life filled both their heads. It was the same light, the same touching hope that glows in all heads and all hearts – in those of birds and animals as well as in those of human beings.
Klimov couldn't stop swearing at Seryozha, still somehow thinking this was all his fault. Deep down, though, he felt he was praying.
This explosion of violence seemed too extreme to continue for long. But there was no let-up; as time went by, the black cloud only thickened, linking the earth and the sky still more closely.
Klimov found the roughened hand of the old man and squeezed it; its answering warmth gave him a brief moment of comfort. An explosion nearby threw a shower of earth, stone and brick into the crater; Polyakov was hit in the back by fragments of brick. It was even worse when great chunks of earth began peeling off the walls… There they were, cowering in a pit. They would never again see the light of day. Soon the Germans up above would cover them over with earth, then level the edges of the tomb.
Usually Klimov preferred to go on reconnaissance missions alone; he would hurry off into the darkness like an experienced swimmer striking out into the open sea. Now, though, he was glad to have Polyakov beside him.
Time no longer flowed evenly. It had gone insane, tearing forward like a shock-wave, then suddenly congealing, turning back on itself like the horns of a ram.
Finally, though, the men in the pit raised their heads. The dust and smoke had been carried away by the wind and they could see a dim light. The earth quietened; the continual roar separated out into a series of distinct explosions. They felt a numb exhaustion – as though every feeling except anguish had been crushed out of their souls.
As Klimov staggered to his feet, he saw a German soldier lying beside him. Battered, covered in dust, he looked as though he had been chewed up by the war from the peak of his cap to the toes of his boots.
Klimov had no fear of Germans; he had an unshakeable confidence in his own strength, his own miraculous ability to pull a trigger, throw a grenade, strike a blow with a knife or a rifle-butt a second earlier than his opponent. Now, though, he didn't know what to do. He was amazed at the thought that, blinded and deafened as he was, he had been comforted by the presence of this German, had mistaken his hand for Polyakov's. Klimov and the German looked at one another. Each had been crushed by the same terrible force, and each was equally helpless to struggle against it.
They looked at one another in silence, two inhabitants of the war.
The perfect, faultless, automatic reflex they both possessed – the instinct to kill – failed to function.
Polyakov, a little further away, was also gazing at the stubble-covered face of the German. He didn't say anything either – though he usually found it difficult to keep his mouth shut.
Life was terrible. It was as though they could understand, as though they could read in one another's eyes, that the power which had ground them into the mud would continue – even after the war – to oppress both conquered and conquerors.
As though coming to an unspoken agreement, they began to climb to the surface, all three of them easy targets, all three of them quite sure they were safe.
Polyakov slipped; the German, who was right beside him, didn't give him a hand. The old man tumbled down to the bottom, cursing the light of day but obstinately crawling back up towards it. Klimov and the German reached the surface. They both looked round – one to the East, one to the West – to see if any of their superiors had noticed them climbing quite peaceably out of the same pit. Then, without looking back, without a word of goodbye, they set off for their respective trenches, making their way through the newly-ploughed, still smoking, hills and valleys.
