Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(103)

"You're not even a very good entertainer. Surely sex can't be that boring, or have I just forgotten?"

"Have you?"

"I don't think so."

"You tell me a story then."

Shaking his head, Alexander said, "The stories I can tell you, I've forgotten. The stories I remember, I can't tell you." Alexander felt Nikolai staring at him. "What?" He walked a little faster. "Go ahead, men!" he called to his formation. "Don't f*cking die right in front of me. Faster! Hip hop! We've got another twenty kilometers before our destination. Don't dilly dally." He glanced at Ouspensky. "What?" Alexander barked at his lieutenant who was still staring at him.

"Captain, who did you leave behind?"

"It's not whoI left behind," replied Alexander, marching faster, holding his machine gun tighter. "It's who left me behind."

They got to the bridge by the third nightfall. Immediately the telephone stringer left to find an Army Group Ukraine division to run a wire from the high command to Alexander.

At pre-dawn, Alexander was up. He sat by the banks of the river, it was no more than 200 feet wide and looked onto the small innocuous bridge, an old, wooden, once-white bridge. "Most do Swietokryzst ," Alexander whispered. It was very early Sunday morning and there was no one on it, but beyond the bridge in the distance, across the river, were the church spires of the town of Swietokryzst and beyond them were the dense oaks of the Holy Cross mountains.

Alexander was going to wait for a division of Army Group Ukraine to catch up with him, but he reconsidered. He was going to stop at nothing to cross the river first.

It was peaceful. It was hard to believe that in one day, the next morning, the sky, the earth, the water was going to be filled with the blood of his men. Maybe there are no Germans on the other side at all, he thought, and then we can cross and then somehow hide in the woods. The Americans entered Europe two months ago. Eventually they will be in Germany. All I have to do is live long enough to fall into American hands...

At one of these bridges, a painter would sit and on another Sunday would perhaps paint families rowing down the river in little boats, the women in white hats, the men with oars, the young children in white dresses. In his painting perhaps the woman is wearing a blue hat. Perhaps the child is about one. She holds the child in her arms, and smiles, and the man smiles back and rows a little faster, as the wake behind him increases, the goldenrod hue gleams, and the painter catches it all.

What Alexander wanted this morning was his childhood back. He felt as if he were eighty. When was the last time he ran with a smile to anything? When was the last time he ran to something without a gun in his hand? When was the last time he crossed the street in stride? Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

He didn't want to answer those questions, not before he crossed the bridge to Swietokryzst.

"OPEN FIRE! OPEN FIRE!"

The next day in the river they were dying under the oppressive popping din of enemy fire, and not slowly dying, either. His infantry ran in first, but they needed immediate help.

Their tank was stuck in the rocky bottom, immersed up to the treads in the water. Verenkov loaded a 100-millimeter shell into the cannon and fired. The explosion and resounding screams told Alexander that Verenkov did not miss. He reloaded with smaller ammunition, but didn't have enough time to open fire.

The tank was a large target. Alexander knew that it was about to be blown apart. He didn't want to lose his tank and his weapons, but he needed his men more. "Jump!" he shouted to his crew. "Live one coming!"

They all jumped--rather, they were thrown as the shell hit the tank nose and exploded on impact. With regret for his only piece of motorized artillery, Alexander began to wade through the water holding his machine gun above his head and shooting in short bursts at the small beachhead in front of him on the other side of the river. Ouspensky covered him from behind and to the side. Alexander heard Ouspensky yelling at him to MOVE BACK, to STEP BACK, to GET BEHIND, to HOLD, to DROP BACK, FIND COVER! FIND COVER! motioning at him, pulling him down, cursing, but all Alexander did was push Ouspensky off him, ignore him and continue forward. Telikov and Verenkov grabbed each other as they swam. Only Alexander was tall enough to wade through, water up to his neck. He was able to aim better than his men; swimming and shooting at the same time was inefficient at best.

All around him was machine-gun fire. He couldn't tell where it was coming from. Every round felt as though it were hitting his helmet.

His men were floating.

The Vistula was turning red. Alexander had to get to the other side. Once they were on dry land anything was possible. Andthis is better than Dolny, better than Pulawy? he thought.Here the German defenses are down?

In the water nothing seemed possible.

Ouspensky continued to shout, as always. This time it wasn't directed at Alexander. "Look at them all screaming like a bunch of pussies! Who are we fighting? Men or girls?"

Alexander spotted one of his own men clutching a corpse. It was Yermenko.

"Corporal!" Alexander yelled. "Where is your battle partner?"

Yermenko lifted the dead body. "Right here, sir!"

Alexander could see that Yermenko was struggling in the water. Quickly Alexander swam to him and yelled at him, but Yermenko was still struggling. He was using the body as a float. "What the f*ck is wrong with you?" Alexander yelled. "Drop the soldier, and swim!" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html