Before the war he had twice been sent abroad. He was on the
The period, usually a very lengthy one, between being recommended for promotion and having this confirmed had, in Nyeudobnov's case, always been reduced to a bare minimum. It was as if the People's Commissar for Defence had had no more urgent matters to attend to.
There was one strange thing, however, about the information contained in such dossiers: one moment they seemed to explain all the mysteries of a man's life, all his successes and failures – and then a moment later they seemed only to obscure matters, not to explain anything at all.
Since the beginning of the war, people's biographies, service records, confidential reports and diplomas of honour had come to be looked at differently… And so General Nyeudobnov had been subordinated to Colonel Novikov. He knew, though, that this was only a temporary abnormality, something that would be rectified as soon as the war was over.
Nyeudobnov had brought with him a hunting rifle that had made all the aficionados gasp with envy. Novikov had said that Nicholas II might have used one just like it. Nyeudobnov had been given it in 1938, together with a dacha and various other confiscated items: furniture, carpets, and some fine china.
Whether they were talking about the war,
After supper he sometimes became more talkative and began telling stories about enemies of the people who had been unmasked in the most unlikely places – medical-instrument factories, workshops producing army boots, sweetshops, Pioneer [29] palaces, the stables of the Moscow Hippodrome, the Tretyakovsky Gallery…
He had an excellent memory and seemed to have studied the works of Lenin and Stalin in great detail. During an argument he would say: 'As early as the Seventeenth Congress, comrade Stalin said…' – and begin to quote.
'There are quotations and quotations,' Getmanov once said to him. 'All kinds of things have been said at one time or another. For instance: 'We don't want other people's land and we won't yield an inch of our own.' And where are the Germans now?'
Nyeudobnov had just shrugged his shoulders as though the Germans on the Volga were of no importance compared to the famous words he had quoted.
Suddenly everything vanished – tanks, service regulations, gunnery exercises, the forest, Getmanov, Nyeudobnov… Nothing was left but Zhenya. Zhenya! Was he really going to see her again?
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Novikov had been surprised when Getmanov, having read a letter from home, had said: 'My wife says she feels sorry for us. I told her what our living conditions are like.' What Getmanov found arduous, Novikov regarded as uncomfortably luxurious.
For the first time he had been able to choose his own lodgings. Once, leaving to visit one of the brigades, he said he didn't like the sofa. On his return, he found it had already been exchanged for an armchair. His orderly, Vershkov, was waiting anxiously to see if he liked it.
The cook was always asking: 'Is the borshch all right, comrade Colonel?'
Ever since he was a child he had loved animals. Now he had a hedgehog that lived under his bed and pattered round the room at night. He also had a young chipmunk that ate nuts and lived in a special cage, decorated with an emblem of a tank, which had been presented to him by the maintenance workshop. The chipmunk had quickly got used to Novikov and now sometimes sat on his knee, looking up at him with childish trust and curiosity. Orlenev the cook, Kharitonov the driver, and Vershkov were all kind and attentive towards these animals.
All this was not without importance for Novikov. Once, before the war, he had brought a puppy into the officers' mess. It had taken a bite out of the slipper of the lady sitting next to him – a colonel – and made three puddles on the floor in half an hour. There had been such an outcry in the communal kitchen that he had had to part with the creature at once.
It was their last day – and it brought with it worries about fuel, about supplies for the journey and the best way to load the vehicles onto the tank-carriers.
He began to wonder about his future neighbours, the men whose artillery regiments and infantry battalions would also be setting out today. He began to wonder about the man before whom he himself would have to stand to attention and say: 'Comrade Colonel-General, allow me to report…'
It was their last day – and he hadn't managed to see his brother and niece. When he came to the Urals he had thought how near his brother would be, but in the end he hadn't had time for him.
He had already received reports that the tank-carriers were ready, that the brigades had set off, and that the hedgehog and chipmunk had been released into the forest.
It's hard to be the absolute master, to feel responsible for the last trifling detail. The tanks have already been loaded, but has everything been done correctly? Are they all in first gear, brakes firmly on, turrets pointing ahead, hatches battened down? Have wooden blocks been placed in position to stop the tanks shifting and unbalancing the wagons?
'How about a farewell game of cards?' asked Getmanov.
'All right,' said Nyeudobnov.
Novikov chose instead to go outside and be alone for a moment.
It was early in the evening, very quiet, and the air was extraordinarily transparent; even the smallest objects were clearly and distinctly visible. The smoke rose vertically from the chimneys. Logs crackled in the field-kitchens. A girl was embracing a dark-haired soldier in the middle of the street, her head on his chest, weeping. Boxes, suitcases and typewriters in black cases were being carried out of the buildings that had served as their HQ. Signallers were reeling in the thick black cables that stretched between corps headquarters and the headquarters of each brigade. A tank behind the barns backfired and let out puffs of exhaust smoke as it prepared to set off. Drivers were filling the petrol tanks of their new Ford trucks and removing the thick covers from their radiators. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was perfectly still.
Novikov stood on the porch and looked round; for a moment all his cares and anxieties fell away. Soon afterwards he set out in his jeep on the road to the station.
The tanks were coming out of the forest. The ground, already hardened by the first frosts, rang beneath the unaccustomed weight. The evening sun lit up the crowns of the distant firs where Karpov's brigade was slowly emerging. Makarov's brigade was passing through some young birch trees. The soldiers had decorated their tanks with branches; the pine-needles and birch-leaves seemed as much a part of the tanks as the armour-plating, the roar of the motors and the silvery click of their tracks.
When old soldiers see reserves being moved up to the front, they say, 'It looks like a wedding.'
Novikov pulled in to the side of the road and watched the tanks come past. What dramas had taken place here! What strange and ridiculous stories! What extraordinary incidents and emergencies had been reported to him…! At breakfast one day a frog had been discovered in the soup… Sub-Lieutenant Rozhdestvensky, who had completed ten years of schooling, had accidentally wounded a comrade in the stomach while he was cleaning his rifle; he had then committed suicide… A soldier in the motorized infantry battalion had refused to take the oath, saying: 'I only swear oaths in church.'
Blue-grey smoke twined round the bushes by the side of the road. What diverse thoughts lay hidden beneath all these leather helmets! Some they all shared – love of one's country, the sorrow of war; others were extraordinarily varied.
My God… What a lot of them there were, all wearing black overalls with wide belts. They had been chosen for their broad shoulders and short stature – so they could climb through the hatches and move about inside the tanks.
