Blood Red Army Read online

  I never saw the bomb that blew the vehicle apart, showering us with shrapnel and burning debris. I cowered down in the cab, my arms instinctively moving in front of my face for protection. The driver was not so quick to react, and paid a heavy price for his lack of haste. A long finger of shrapnel stabbed through our windscreen and punctured the driver's chest, pinning him against the back wall of the cab. He turned to me and muttered one final curse before vomiting a mouthful of blood over my hands. The steering wheel twisted sideways in his grasp and we rolled out of our position from the convoy, becoming wedged in a bank of snow gathered on the southern edge of the Doroga Zhizni.

  I then heard a long, slow whistle coming closer to me, as if someone was falling from the sky towards the truck. No, not someone, I realised, but something. I opened the passenger door and dived clear of the stalled vehicle. As I flung myself through the air I caught sight of a German bomber roaring overhead, a handful of black shapes tumbling from beneath the aircraft. Probably incendiaries, I decided as my body hit the cold, frozen snow bank. I had always thought of snow as something soft and gentle, but this was hard as any brick or stone. The impact smashed the breath from my lungs, leaving me weak and gasping on the ground.

  Then I was surrounded by explosions, fireballs bursting into life to my left and right like yellow and white flowers. The truck I had been travelling in came apart with a heavy crump, metal screaming in anguish at its destruction. Moments later I could smell meat roasting, the incongruous but still delicious aroma wafting across the ice as the incendiaries set fire to the carcasses in the back of the vehicle. Another smell mingled with the meat cooking - the scent of burning fabric. I glanced over one shoulder and realised the back of my uniform had also been set alight. I flung myself sideways, rolling over and over until the flames were extinguished by the cold, glistening ice. Reusenko had been right: there was more than one way to die on the Doroga Zhizni.

  All around me was chaos, soldiers firing uselessly into the air as German bombers flew over, climbing back into the night sky. An ominous cracking sound reverberated beneath my body, the sound of mighty weights grinding against each other, splitting apart. I looked down and saw a jagged line splintering the ice, fracturing the surface of the road. I scrambled to my feet and immediately fell over again, unprepared for the slickness of the surface. Taking more care, I got back up once more and gingerly made my way onto the road.

  Reusenko roared into view, standing on the running board of a truck as it churned a path through the shattered convoy. "Still alive?" the commander bellowed at me. "Good! I always said the Germans couldn't shoot straight! Climb on board!"

  I jumped up beside him, grabbing hold of the truck's door handle. "What about the supplies?" Even as I shouted, another mighty crack sounded across the ice. The burning vehicle in which I had sat minutes earlier disappeared through the ice, its headlights the last thing visible before the truck vanished altogether.

  "We save what we can the rest we leave behind," Reusenko snarled. "Tonight you are among the saved." The cluster of German aircraft banked in the blue and black sky overhead before diving back towards us on another attack run. Reusenko reached into the truck's cab and pulled out a PPSh submachine gun. He jumped down from the running board to the ice road, sliding on the slippery surface but keeping his footing.

  "Here they come again! Let's give these Nazi podonok something to think about!" He died seven seconds later, his head almost completely severed by the blade of a bayonet.

  The Germans must have been lying in wait for us on the ice, letting the aerial attack divert our attention. The first wave of bombers had brought the convoy to a halt, while the second distracted us from noticing the infantry moving in from out of the darkness. Before we knew what was happening, German troops were on top of us, emerging from the shadows, bayonets glinting dully in the wintry night. Reusenko was their first target, his insignia making him obvious prey. After that it was every man for himself, wave upon wave of Germans rushing us from the southern edge of the Doroga Zhizni.

  I screamed a warning to those around me and pulled my pistol from its holster. Taking aim at the German soldier still finishing off Reusenko, I pulled the trigger... but nothing happened. The German heard the click and spun round to face me, smiling at my baffled expression and the jammed pistol that refused to fire. Again and again I pulled the trigger before realising it must have frozen in the cold. I dived aside as the German tried to run me through with his bloody bayonet, the blade stabbing into the vehicle door where I had been standing. I smashed the butt of my pistol against the German's helmet, staggering the enemy soldier but nothing more. He swung round and spat a curse at me in his own tongue. I replied in German, startling him with my mastery of his language and its many obscenities. Then his head snapped sideways, one ear flying off as a bullet exited through the right side of his skull. In his haste to attack me, the soldier hadn't noticed the driver hiding inside the nearby truck.

  "Thanks!" I called out, crouching to get the PPSh from Reusenko's grasp. His fingers had clenched tightly round the submachine gun, forcing me to prise them off the weapon's circular ammunition drum one by one.

  "Where did you learn to speak German?" the driver asked, edging nervously from his vehicle. A battle was raging around us, the sound of men dying mixed with gunfire and grenades exploding, yet we were having the sort of conversation you might share in a tearoom. I would have laughed at his question had the moment not been so surreal.

  "I went to university in Berlin, before the war," I replied, finally wrenching the weapon free from Reusenko's grasp. "I was studying-"

  A hail of bullets cut short my words. I flung myself down on the cold road, taking shelter behind the commander's rapidly cooling corpse. The driver was not so quick, the rounds pinning him back against the truck. He jerked as each bullet hit him, then he slowly slid down onto the ice, a pool of crimson already forming beneath him. A cloud of steam rose from the blood, sudden warmth against the frozen road.

  I raised my newly acquired submachine gun above Reusenko's face and fired blindly into the darkness, emptying the weapon in the direction from which the volley of bullets had come. Two men cried out in pain and whoever had been shooting at me stopped. I searched the commander's body for another drum of ammunition but found nothing. Cursing my stupidity, I tossed the PPSh aside and crawled towards the driver. I knew for certain his pistol was still working, so that would have to do. Blood bubbled from between his lips as I took his weapon away, but his eyes were already glassy and lifeless, like those of a child's doll. I stared at his dark pupils, wondering if he had a mother waiting patiently at home for his return, or a sweetheart or a daughter. The driver didn't look any older than me but by some quirk of fate he was dead and I was alive. As I stared into his eyes, searching for some meaning to the random moments that had condemned him to death and me to survival, I glimpsed a movement reflected in his pupils.

  I spun round and fired at a man emerging from the night. The bullet hit him in the chest but he did not cry out, did not buckle or fall, did not react in any way at all. I fired again and again and again, each round hitting the enemy as he got closer, strolling towards me. I had never fired a gun in anger before, but fear and desperation had given me perfect aim and still that wasn't enough to stop him.

  It was hard to make my target out in the darkness, the only light coming from the burning vehicles to either side of us. The advancing figure was tall, his body shrouded within a black, knee-length cloak with an upturned collar. A peaked cap masked the colour of his hair, but I could make out the line of a dark moustache above his cruel mouth. He carried himself with a haughty arrogance, his head tilted back slightly so he could look down his nose at me. I fired my last bullet at him without effect and then threw the pistol at him as well. It bounced off his chest and fell to the ice.

  "Who are you?" I hissed at him in German.

  "That hardly matters," he replied in an aristocratic voice, his German pronunciation colou
red by an accent I did not recognise. He shrugged aside his cloak to reveal an officer's uniform underneath, the insignia of a hauptmann evident on it. I could see half a dozen bullet holes in his tunic but no blood seeped from the wounds or stained the surrounding fabric. I was certain the pistol had fired true but he appeared invulnerable to its bullets.

  "What are you?" I whispered.

  "A better question," he said, arching an eyebrow at me. "Do you believe in a deity, comrade?"

  I shook my head, urging myself to lash out at this enemy but somehow unable to raise a hand against him. The closer he got, the weaker my resolve to fight him off became. It was as if he was sucking the will to fight from my body, taking command of my spirit. I wanted to turn from his gaze but even that was denied me, his eyes boring into mine, his brow furrowing with intense concentration.

  "That is a great pity... Now would be a good time to pray."

  "I don't believe in a god," I hissed through gritted teeth, forcing myself to speak words that threatened to die in my throat. "I believe in Mother Russia, the Communist Party and our People's Commissar for Defence, Josef Stalin!"

  "That will not be enough to save you," the hauptmann said, smiling thinly. He crouched on one knee beside me. "Loosen the collar of your jacket."

  I felt my hands reach to my throat and undo the top button, despite every ounce of my rapidly failing willpower screaming at them not to comply. My cold fingers stumbled on the button for a moment, but soon had it undone.

  "Now, pull apart the fabric and tilt your head away from me," the sinister figure urged, his voice a whisper in my ear. Again, I found myself doing as I was told, unable to resist his silky commands. What I had said before was true. I did not believe in a god then, but I found myself wishing I did. The hauptmann leaned closer to me, until I could feel his cold, chilling breath on my neck. My eyes swivelled round to look at him and I saw his lips part, drawing back to reveal two unusually large, extremely sharp canine teeth.

  Lenin's beard, what kind of creature was this looming over me?

  He slipped off one of his black leather gloves and stroked a finger up and down my neck. The hauptmann tipped his head back for a moment to lick his lips, his eyes alive with a ravenous hunger.

  Then night became day as a flare exploded above us, showering the battlefield with brilliant white light. The hauptmann hissed angrily, pulling his cloak up over himself as a shield from the sudden radiance. I felt his hold over me lessen and flung myself out of his grasp, rolling away as far as I could. The further I got, the stronger my urge to run became and I obeyed it, scrambling away, intent on nothing but putting as much distance between myself and him as possible. When I dared glance back over my shoulder, the cloaked figure was gone. A hint of grey mist hung in the air where he had been; then that too dissipated before my eyes.

  Not looking where I was going, I ran straight into a mountainous soldier's chest and bounced backwards, tumbling down to the icy road's surface. I looked up and was relieved to see the solider was wearing a gymnastiorka, the Red Army shirt that resembled a traditional peasant blouse. I searched it for insignia but could see none, nothing that indicated a rank or affiliation with a particular unit. He was a great bear of a man, barrel-chested with a mop of thick blond hair and a bushy beard. He looked at me with amusement, a smile playing about the corners of his eyes and lips.

  "Going somewhere?" a rasping, gravelly voice asked. I swung round to see another soldier standing over me, a flare gun in one of his hands and a sickle in the other. The blade's edge gleamed as if it was made of silver. Like his formidable colleague, this soldier had no insignia on his uniform, but his bearing suggested a figure of authority. I did not recognise either man from among those who had set off with the convoy a few hours earlier.

  "B-back t-there," I stammered. "One of the Germans tried to bite me!"

  My interrogator tore open my jacket with one hand to examine my neck, while his other hand drew back the sickle, as if poised to use it on me. "You fought him off?"

  "N-no," I admitted feebly. "The light from your flare startled him. I got away."

  Satisfied that I was unharmed, the sickle-bearer released his grip on me. "What rank was he?"

  "A hauptmann, he was a hauptmann."

  A shadow crossed the face of my interrogator. "Constanta?"

  "Could be," the other soldier suggested. "Some of his kind have been sent to help Army Group North, and Leningrad's long winter nights make this area a perfect hunting ground for them. But what is his lordship doing up here?"

  "We have to tell the others about this." The soldier with the sickle glared at me. "Consider yourself lucky," he said. "Bloody lucky." He turned to walk away, followed by his large companion.

  "Hey! Who are you? What unit do you serve with?" I shouted after them, but they ignored me. "Who's this Constanta you're talking about?" I scrambled to my feet and shouted at them to stop, pointing out to them that I was a kommisar and could make life very difficult for anyone who showed insufficient respect for my rank and status. The strange pair paused and I could have sworn I heard the larger man sigh as they turned to face me. His associate strode back to where I was standing, a finger pointing at the collar of his uniform where the accoutrements of rank were normally displayed.

  "See this? What have I got here?" he demanded angrily.

  "Nothing."

  "Exactly. I have no rank, no status. Aside from arranging to have my friend Yuri and I shot by a firing squad, I doubt there is much else you could do to make our lives any more difficult than they already are. Frankly, a quick death by lead poisoning sounds more appealing than spending my remaining days showing respect for dubiina like you, so be my guest. Otherwise, shut the hell up before you get all of us killed. Understand, tovarisch?" His eyes were narrowed slits against the cold. His face was lean and grim, and receding brown hair was just visible beneath his khaki pilotka. Like his comrade, this gimlet-eyed figure was clad in minimal clothing against the biting cold with only a gymnastiorka, matching trousers and black leather boots to keep him warm.

  I nodded, chastened by this man who obviously had nothing left to lose except his life - and even that was permanently in the balance. Against such steely resolve, my threats of punishment and sanctions seemed weak and feeble.

  This implacable man looked back at his companion. "Did you see where Uralsky and the others went?"

  "Andrei took Strelnikov and Borodin along the northern edge of the road."

  "Good. Let's find them, then see who else is still alive." My saviours strode away into the darkness, the last glimmers of the flare long since swallowed up by the night. I looked around me. In the time we had been talking the fighting had died away. The German infantry had retreated into the darkness and their bombers returned to whatever base they had come from. Of the convoy, more than half the trucks had been destroyed or damaged by the lightning attack from the air and the ice. No wonder the Germans called this Blitzkrieg, I thought.

  It was dawn before I reached Osinovets with the other survivors. As we straggled in, clinging to the backs of trucks, I surveyed our losses. The bombers had targeted our vehicles, but I soon concluded this was merely to bring the convoy to a halt. The real target had been the reinforcements. The ground attack had concentrated on killing or maiming the men Reusenko had been bringing through the blockade. Quite a lot of the supplies for the city and its defenders were also destroyed in the process, but that was a bonus for our enemies. The objective appeared to have been terrorising the new arrivals, so they would spread the word among their comrades when they reached the front line positions.

  I relayed my conclusions to the officer waiting for me at Osinovets when I reported the loss of Reusenko. He merely nodded, confirming my analysis. "Our battle here is as much a war of attrition as anything else. Now it seems the enemy is hell-bent on terrorising us as well." He handed me a sheaf of orders for distribution to the men. I gave him a curt salute but decided not to leave yet. My encounter with the hauptm
ann had disturbed me, but the words and deeds of my saviours were also playing on my mind. I described them for the officer.

  He nodded sourly. "Congratulations, Kommisar Zunetov. You were privileged to meet two of the deadliest, most disloyal soldiers in the Red Army."

  I did not understand and said so. "Who are these men? Why did they have no insignia on their uniforms? That's close to a court martial offence in itself, not to mention their arrogance and flagrant disregard for my authority."

  "Count yourself lucky they let you live after challenging them. Those men are members of a shtrafroty, a penal patrol. Here in the Leningrad oblast we don't shoot traitors - we need all our bullets for the enemy. Those who would normally face a firing squad are put into a shtrafroty instead. The other soldiers call them the company of the cursed. They're almost a law unto themselves, Zunetov," the officer said. He paused before continuing.

  "It sounds like you met Grigori Eisenstein, the longest serving member of the shtrafroty, and his ally Yuri Antonov. If he appears during a battle, you can be certain hell is only five steps behind him. You must be blessed to have survived an encounter with him and his men!"

  Chapter Two

  For the next six weeks I thought rarely, if at all, about what had happened that night on the Doroga Zhizni. It felt more like a nightmare than something I had experienced, akin to the fevered imaginings of a fearful mind. In time, I told myself, I would come to realise that I had dreamed it all. I was a warrior, a proud protector of the great Communist Party. I did not cower submissively for enemy officers, nor did I let murderers and deserters tell me what to do. Besides, for the next six weeks I was too busy staying alive to worry about what I had experienced out on the ice, except in those fleeting moments between exhaustion and sleep.