Tatiana and Alexander: A Novel(77)

New York at Christmas.

As she walked down Mulberry Street in Little Italy on the way to Vikki's apartment, pushing Anthony in the carriage, Tatiana sang under her breath, "A Long Long Trail," a song she had heard on the hospital radio.

"There's a long long trail unwinding

Into the land of my dreams,

Where the nightingales are singing

And a white moon beams.

There is a long long night of waiting

Until my dreams all come true,

Till the day when I'll be going

Down that long long trail with you."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Alexander and the Germans, 1943

THESOVIET MEN WEREstill dying at Sinyavino, and the Germans remained in the hills.

Alexander would send more and they would get killed. Lieutenant-colonel Muraviev, in charge of both the penal and the non-penal battalions, had no interest in hearing from Alexander. "It's a penal battalion," he said. "Do you know the meaning of that, Captain?"

"I do. But let me ask you, I haven't taken math since secondary school, but at the rate of thirty men a day, how long will I keep my two hundred men?" Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"I know the answer to that one," Muraviev exclaimed. "Six!"

"Yes. Not even one week. The Germans still have three thousand troops in the hills, while we have virtually none."

"Don't worry. We will get you more men to send to the railroad. We always do."

"Is that the goal? To let the Germans use our men for target practice?"

Muraviev narrowed his eyes. "I've been told about you. You're a troublemaker. You're forgetting, you're in charge of apenal battalion. The safety of your men is not my concern. Just fix the railroad and shut up."

Alexander left without saluting Muraviev. Clearly he needed to take matters into his own hands. He didn't wish for another man like Stepanov to guide him. He wished for three men a tenth of Stepanov to let him do as he knew best. Well, why would Alexander's men mean anything to Muraviev? They were all convicted criminals. Their crimes included having had mothers who had been in musical groups that corresponded with people in France, even though the musical groups had been long defunct and even though the mothers had been long dead. Some of them had been found in churches, before late last year when Stalin had admitted, according to Pravda, that he himself believed in a "kind of God." Some of them unwittingly shook hands with people who were about to be arrested. Some of them had rooms next to people who had been arrested. Ouspensky said, "I was one of those people. I had the bad luck to be bedded next to you, Captain." Alexander smiled. They were walking to the armaments tent. He had asked Ouspensky to come with him. Alexander was going to requisition a 160-millimeter mortar.

The previous dawn, Alexander had climbed up behind the bushes on the slopes that led to the railroad and watched his men become fodder for the German bombs. With a pair of field binoculars he observed where the three German bombs came from. They were a good two kilometers away. He needed the 160-millimeter mortar. Nothing else would reach.

Of course the commissar's office didn't want to give it to him. The desk sergeant said the penal battalion was not entitled to one, and the order to requisition one had to come from Alexander's commanding officer, who was Muraviev and who with a flat snicker refused.

"I've lost a hundred and ninety-two men in seven days. Do we have enough convicts to repair this road?"

"Orders are orders, Belov! The mortar is going to be needed by the company storming Sinyavino Heights next week."

"Your men intend to carry a three-ton weaponup a mountain, Colonel?"

Muraviev ordered Alexander out of his tent.

Alexander had had enough. He called one of his sergeants, Melkov. In the evening, Melkov, who tolerated vodka best in the battalion, got the armament guard good and drunk, so drunk in fact that the guard--when he fell asleep in his chair--did not hear Alexander and Ouspensky open the creaky door of the wooden weapons facility and wheel the mortar out. They had to wheel it a kilometer in the dark. Meanwhile Melkov, taking his assignment very seriously, sat by the armaments guard and every fifteen minutes poured more vodka down his throat. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Right before five a.m., seven of Alexander's men used themselves as bait on the railroad.

Through his binoculars, Alexander watched the origination point of the first bomb from the hills arch its whistling way into the tracks. His men ran, escaping unharmed. It took both Alexander and Ouspensky to load the detonation explosive chemical rocket bomb into the breech. "Now just remember, Nikolai," said Alexander as he pointed the cannon to the hills. "We only have two bombs. Two chances to blow up the Fritzes. We need to return this damn thing in twenty minutes before the changing of the guard at six."

"You don't think req will notice the two biggest bombs gone?"

Alexander watched the blue morning hill through the binoculars. "After we blast the f*cking Germans, I really don't care if anyone notices the missing bombs. I bet they won't notice. Who do you think keeps an inventory of this stuff? The drunk guard? Melkov is taking care of him. He is also taking thirty sub-machine guns for our men."

Ouspensky laughed.

"Don't laugh," said Alexander. "You'll disturb the delicate balance of the charge. Ready?" He lit the fuse.