poured down from the hill. Sasha stirred. Dimitri pinched shut the gash in Sasha’s forehead, the bleeding eased between his grubby fingers.
He sat like this, marveling at the furor around him; the clash between armies right now was fought not for control of the Oboyan road, not for anything historic at all, but roared and erupted just for him and these boys he’d brought out here. This was majestic. Sasha needed to wake to see it.
Dimitri squeezed the boy’s earlobe.
Sasha sputtered and sat up. Dimitri took away his hand from the boy’s head, blood seeped from the cut. Sasha drew a sharp breath and set loose wild eyes, he’d awakened expecting to be dead. Dimitri patted the boy’s leg.
‘Are you alright?’
Sasha blinked. ‘What happened?’
‘You keep trying to get yourself killed. You’re not very good at it.’
The boy touched the blood trail warming his temple. He looked at his fingertips. Dimitri pressed back a black chuckle in his breast, he did not say to the boy that they would probably both get it right before the morning was out.
The commander’s hatch lifted open. Valentin stood in the turret. He saw the two of them sitting beside the treads.
Valentin said nothing.
Behind and above Valya, more artillery shells rent invisible stripes through the air. Dimitri heard the rounds whispering over his son’s shoulder, a moment later blasting into the German advance. The three Red fighter planes tilted behind him, hung on the blue like ornaments. Valentin was a hero this minute, the hero of the Oboyan road. The exploding tableau around him would be painted as the backdrop to his portrait one day.
Dimitri stood from Sasha, trailing a hand over the boy’s shoulder before he stepped away. Sasha sat still. Dimitri swung up onto the T-34’s deck. He rose to his full height beside the turret looking over the crater’s lip.
A wall of eruptions barred the Germans from coming any closer. Round after round detonated in their ranks; the rest of the enemy advance on all sides was being ignored by every gunner on Hill 260.8 and in the remaining defense bunkers along the road and by the three Soviet fighter planes who’d taken up the mission to save the gallant little T-34 that had knocked out six German tanks single-handedly, including a Tiger. The German wedge closest to the crater recoiled under the concerted Russian salvos, their tanks and infantry temporarily stymied.
Everything on the battlefield Dimitri had in his heart. Confusion, reprieve, bedlam. There would be more, Dimitri decided, standing beside his son on the brink. There would be more.
* * * *
CHAPTER 17
July 9
1005 hours
the village of Kriulkovo
Outside the barn, the day promised to be hot. Thin tiers of light grinned in the space between the weathered wood slats. Inside the barn, the air stayed cool, there was room for the heat in the bare rafters. Daniel and Ivan lay on piles of straw, chewing pieces of it. To Katya they looked like lazy farmhands hiding from work.
The three of them were hiding. Plokhoi’s cell had dispersed for the day into this farming village ten kilometers north of Borisovka. The older men of the cell worked in the fields this morning helping villagers with their hoeing. Plokhoi himself dug potatoes and beans. The younger ones, the ones who could be spotted by roving German patrols as not belonging in civilian clothes, stayed out of sight. Plokhoi let Katya rest after her scare beside the railroad tracks. She’d been given a minute in the river, a change of clothes, and another horse.
She leaned over the rail of the stall where her new mount stood. She caressed the ear of the horse. The ear twitched under her fingers. Katya rose on tiptoe and blew into it. She whispered into the pink folds.
‘Your name now is Svetlana. That was my mother’s name. I will call you Lana.’
The horse shook its head away from her hand. Katya kept her lips close to the horse’s ear, whispering.
‘Don’t be like that, Lana.’
‘Leave the poor animal alone, Witch,’ Daniel called from his mound.
‘It’s understandable if she doesn’t like you.’
From his straw pile, Ivan laughed. The sight of Katya covered in Anna’s gore had lost its grimness and become something to joke with her about. She had risked the mission, but then saved it. She had earned some ribbing from the partisans, and some respect.
‘Ignore them, Lanyushka,’ she told the horse. ‘Did you know your predecessor was a very brave horse?’ Katya recalled drawing her knife under Anna’s throat, how terrified Anna had been after the C-3 gutted her, how she’d tried to stand and run. Katya resolved to remember Anna always as brave. That was all she could do, all anyone could do for a comrade’s death.
Lana tossed her head out of Katya’s hands. Katya reached to pat the receding mane and the horse dodged her.
Ivan laughed. ‘You’re losing your touch, Cossack.’
‘Too many airplanes,’ added Daniel.
‘Did you see what she did to her plane?’ Ivan rolled over on his straw.
‘Planes probably don’t like her anymore, either.’
The two soldiers guffawed. Katya glared at them without mirth. Left in that airplane was Vera, also brave and sacrificed by Katya. The two men did not catch the look on her face as they chuckled to themselves. Katya stepped toward Ivan, the bigger one, to kick him in the ribs.
The barn door creaked open.
A German soldier stepped inside.
Ivan and Daniel rolled off their backs, scrambling for their rifles and to get to their feet. Katya stood in the
