‘Another time, Just Sonya.’
He grabbed one more handful of her bottom and clambered away before she could consider taking a swipe at him. He flew up the trench slope to stand beside Valentin.
‘You should have gotten here sooner,’ he said to his son, looking down at all the women gathering their tools, washing their bare arms in the last of the water buckets. Then he made a face. ‘No. Perhaps not.’
* * * *
June 31
2215 hours
Two boys sat cross-legged on the ground in front of the General Platov.
They jumped up when Valentin strode into the glow of their lantern.
‘Sergeant!’ they said together.
Dimitri came to stand beside his son, who addressed the two newcomers.
‘Men, this is your driver. Private…’
Dimitri stepped forward before Valentin could make any more formal pronouncements. He held out his hand to each. Neither was out of his teens. More sons, Dimitri thought; Christ, more children to take into battle.
‘Dimitri Konstantinovich Berko,’ he said with each handshake. The boys had acne and nervous clasps. Dimitri felt expansive after his day in the trench with the woman, the digging made him tired in the good, old way of the farm. ‘Call me Dima. Tell me your names.’
Both were short, the way tankers must be. One was thick, the other lean. Dimitri guessed the chunky one was the loader, he had to be strong to sling the shells around inside the tank, out of the bins and into the breech.
The other would be the hull machine-gunner and radioman, if the
‘Pyotr Semyonovich Belyayev,’ said the stumpy one. His eyes were close-set. Beneath broad shoulders hung short arms. ‘I am…’
‘The loader, yes, I guessed. Of course. Look at you. Strong as an ox, I’ll bet. Good, good. And you?’
The thinner of the two was the edgy, pinched one. Both boys had buzzed haircuts but this one looked like a match head, there was something incendiary about him.
‘Private Frolov.’ His name had to escape his mouth as though words were prisoners in this boy’s head.
‘Private Frolov? I’m not going to call out “Hey, Private Frolov, shoot those Nazi fuckers for me!” in the middle of a battle. What’s your name, boy?’
‘Urn… um…’
‘Yes?’
‘Alexander Mikhailovich Frolov.’
This one will be fun, thought Dimitri. The quiet ones always are after you put some vodka in them. He guessed the skinny one would be the harder fighter of the two when the time came. Life for the quiet ones is a fight all the time. Good. He’ll keep his head.
‘Gunner extraordinaire,
‘Good, very good. Sergeant, these look like good fighters. Well done.’
Valentin eyed his father.
Dimitri spread his arms, pushing the two boys together, tucking both inside his span as though measuring their collective width and worth.
‘Alright! Pasha and Sasha. Yes. And Dima.’ He looked back at Valentin. ‘And the sergeant.’
Dimitri took up the lantern and carried it to the
‘Gather ‘round.’
Pyotr and Alexander came to sit about the lantern. Valentin stood apart. This was the third crew they’d had in a year, and Dimitri had gone through this exercise with each. Dimitri walked over to his son and took the boy’s arm, leading him away to speak privately.
‘Come on, Valya. They’re children.’
‘They’re soldiers.’
‘They’re fighters, yes. And who are the best fighters in all of Russia?
Hmm?’
‘Cossacks,’ Valentin said with rolling eyes. The answer was their ritual.
‘Yes! So, you see. We have to do this, every time. Yes? Come on.’
Dimitri steered Valentin by their linked arms back to the lantern, the
, and the two waiting crewmen.
‘Good. All together,’ he said, grunting a bit while descending to the ground again. Valentin took a place up on the tank, close but above the three privates. ‘Pasha. Tell me where you’re from.’
The broad one said, ‘Lesogorsk. Near Bratsk.’
‘Ah,’ Dimitri clapped, ‘a Siberian. Are you a hunter, then? You must be.’
