Beyond the Shadow of Night(34)

Mykhail approached the engine, just behind the turret, and took a few seconds to examine the air-intake grille. “Looks okay,” he said. Then he walked around to the exhaust.

“Ah,” he said, pointing at the underside of the pipe. “It’s damaged.”

The corporal walked over and stood next to him.

“You see? The opening is okay, but farther back something’s crushed the exhaust pipe, pinched it. Probably a chunk of concrete thrown up onto it.”

“So?”

Mykhail glanced around until he spotted a metal fence post—a sorry casualty of the aircraft’s bombs. He dragged it over. The corporal helped, and together they poked the post into the back end of the exhaust.

“Careful,” Mykhail said. “Just use it as a lever to open the pipe out, to get rid of that pinch point.”

A few minutes later, they’d just done that, and the exhaust pipe—although mangled—was now open.

“Try that,” Mykhail shouted up to the driver.

The tank fired up and revved, and a few seconds later it started moving.

“I’m impressed,” the corporal said. “You want to work more with tanks?”

Mykhail gave the man a sideways, wary glance, then nodded.

“You know it’s not a safe option, don’t you?”

“What is safe around here?”

The corporal nodded. “Good. Consider yourself part of the tank maintenance team.”



Mykhail spent most of the next few weeks looking after the tanks and other army vehicles. It wasn’t peaceful, and when he wasn’t being a mechanic, he was retreating, but it kept him away from the worst of the action. Tanks and engines were mechanical beasts. They showed no fear or anger, had no allies or enemies. They would not turn on you unexpectedly.

A little of that robotic attitude rubbed off on Mykhail. He was still sore over the killings of his friends, and the work helped him keep himself to himself and quell feelings of anger that, if given vent, would surely see him get punished.

He didn’t talk to other soldiers, but he did listen. The words were always spoken after a glance over each shoulder to make sure no corporals were within earshot.

“I never wanted to join this damn army in the first place.”

“Months of bloody retreat after bloody retreat. I’ve had enough.”

“I was conscripted against my will anyway.”

“Do the generals know what the hell they’re doing?”

“It’s humiliation week after week, losing battle after battle.”

And there was talk of what his fellow Red Army troops had done to captured German soldiers—things so horrible they made Mykhail feel more ill than he already was.

By now there was also talk of rebellion every day, but it came to nothing.

Ultimately the Wehrmacht and the rest of the enemy did the job for them. By the end of September 1941, the Nazi blitzkrieg machine had encircled the last remnants of the Red Army in the city. There was nowhere left for them to retreat to, and they were finally ground into submission.

The soldiers were gathered into groups and told that they were surrendering to the combined forces of German, Hungarian, and Romanian troops.

Those in command said, “You should be proud of yourself,” and, “One day the courageous Red Army will live again,” and, “You will continue to fight the good Soviet fight for your people.”

The rank-and-file soldiers muttered, “Thank God,” and, “Anything but more fighting,” and, “Damn the Russians.”

Whether embarrassing capitulation or blessed relief, the plain fact was that the Germans had taken Kiev, and with it something in the region of half a million Red Army soldiers.



A strange, almost ethereal, sense of relief fell upon Mykhail. There were no bombs exploding left, right, front, and back. No aircraft fire strafed the ground in front of his eyes, no friends fell on him, grasping, their fresh wounds spraying blood onto him. The fighting had stopped.

The civilians of Kiev started to come out of their houses, like bemused pit ponies being brought to the surface. There was an air of normality—a peace of sorts. For the first time in months, Mykhail could relax. Yes, there would be a price for that. But so be it.

He was not alone in this release. Nobody seemed to be considering the practicalities of housing and feeding so many prisoners of war. Instead, there was only relief, and little of any other emotion.

The German troops approached warily. Arms were surrendered at gunpoint. Now Mykhail felt naked. There were raised German voices. A translator shouted out the orders in both Russian and Ukrainian, and they were all ordered to march.

Mykhail was lucky; he still had boots. Some of his comrades had to march across the rubble-strewn streets in blood-soaked rags or bare feet that were soon cut to shreds.

About a half-mile on, some of his fellow soldiers started talking and pointing up at the trees lining the streets. Some branches seemed to be bent vertically to point at the street below. Mykhail was confused.

Then he realized. They weren’t branches, but blackened objects hanging from the branches. And as the marching prisoners and escorts got closer, the reality became clear.

These blackened objects were the remains of soldiers—German soldiers—suspended from branches by their tied hands, hanging lifelessly, occasionally swinging and spinning in the breeze.