Dan Smith - Red Winter

‘The one we saw from the woods?’

‘Yes. There are Chekists there.’

‘ Chekists? ’

She nodded.

‘The ones who were following you?’ Tanya looked at me.

‘They couldn’t be…’ I looked down at Oksana and let her see my anger. ‘When did they get here? When? ’

‘Yesterday morning.’ She cowered away from me.

‘It’s not them.’ I shook my head at Tanya. ‘It can’t be. It’s someone else.’

‘I knew there was something wrong here.’ Lyudmila stepped closer to Oksana and leaned right in to stare at her. ‘I—’

‘Is it him?’ Tanya said to me, her face draining. ‘Do you think it’s him?’

Lyudmila stopped mid-sentence and stared. She turned her head slowly, all three of us looking at one another. Tanya hadn’t needed to say the name.

‘Did we… ? While he was so close?’

The thought of it was like a thousand cannons firing in my head. It was almost too much to comprehend – that we might have found him. That our search might be almost at an end. That we might have been sitting in the izba sharing our food with Oksana and her family while Krukov was so close.

‘It can’t be…’ I shook my head. It was too hard to believe.

‘We stay,’ Tanya said, hefting her rifle. ‘Let him come. Kill them all.’

I imagined us barricading ourselves in the tiny izba , with its broken roof, waiting for Krukov and his unit of well-trained soldiers to arrive, but all I saw was bloodshed and death. Ours. ‘We wouldn’t have a chance.’

‘We have rifles,’ Lyudmila said. ‘Pistols and enough ammunition to kill a hundred men. Will they have a hundred men?’

‘They’ll have explosives,’ I told her. ‘Gas. Maybe a Maxim gun.’

‘Please,’ Oksana said. ‘My children.’

‘And we have Anna. We can’t… We don’t have a chance. We should get the horses ready, go into the forest.’

‘Run away?’ Tanya said. ‘After all this?’

‘We can fight from the forest if we have to,’ I said. ‘And remember, I need to know where my family is. I need him alive.’

Tanya said nothing. She looked out into the darkness and said nothing.

‘We don’t have a chance,’ I told them again. ‘If we stay here, we’ll die. We need to get the horses ready and leave. Now.’

‘There’s no time for the horses,’ Oksana said. ‘They’ll be here any minute. Please just go.’

‘We’ll find time.’ It would take a few long minutes to saddle the horses, but there was no question of leaving without them. We needed them. Without Kashtan, I would probably be dead in the forest already; I had no intention of leaving her anywhere. ‘Take her.’ I pushed Oksana towards Tanya, who gripped her tighter than necessary, and then the three women hurried towards the outhouse where the horses were stabled.

I ran back to the izba and called to Anna, telling her to help me carry the few belongings we had brought inside, then she and I followed the women, Tuzik on our heels.

The door to the barn was open and we rushed inside.

The animals were agitated; that was clear straight away. They had moved to one side of the barn, shying away from the place where Tanya stood, pressing Oksana against the wall.

Tanya had taken the front of Oksana’s dress in her left fist, twisting to cut off her breath and pushing her forearm against her chest. In her right hand, she held a pistol, the barrel forced so hard into the soft tissue on the underside of Oksana’s chin it was pushing the woman’s head back. I had been on the receiving end of Tanya’s temper when we first met in Belev, so I knew how fierce she could be.

As soon as she saw, Anna tugged on my coat. ‘Make her stop.’

I understood Tanya’s reaction. I knew how she felt because I felt that way too. We had compromised ourselves for the promise of some little comfort, for the protection of a young girl, for the slightest sense of humanity, and our decision to let down our guard had been rewarded with this . And if this kind of betrayal was the result of placing even the slightest faith in other people, then what hope was there for any of us?

There was also the thought of our proximity to Krukov. The soldiers in the nearby farm might not be Krukov and his men, but there was a good chance they were. We had been following them for days, and everything had pointed us in this direction. The temptation to stand and fight was a powerful one, and our decision to leave, right though it was, was a difficult one for any of us to stomach. The thought of letting him go was like a pain in my heart, and I knew it would be the same for Tanya, perhaps more so. If it weren’t for Anna and for my need to have Krukov alive, Tanya might have chosen to make a final stand against him. With nothing to lose, she might have taken that risk. Tanya, though, was not as filled with the need for vengeance as she wanted to be, and she had a small chink in her armour. She had us. Or, rather, she had Anna .

‘Please,’ Anna said, and her single word cut through my own anger like a light splitting the dark. In that moment I saw one thing more clearly than anything else. She needed my strength to reassure her. She needed the father in me as much as my family needed the soldier.

I took a deep breath and banished my rage to its dark place to fester for a while longer, but I knew that when it finally came – when I finally allowed it freedom – the soldier in me would surface and my rage would be colder and blacker than it had ever been before.

‘Leave her,’ I said to Tanya. ‘We don’t have time for this.’

Tanya heard me but didn’t respond right away. Whatever questions she had been asking Oksana now stopped, but the pistol remained against her skin.

I looked down at Anna, seeing the expectation in her face. She believed me to be the strong one. She wanted me to stop this. I couldn’t let her down, and that in itself was another source of anger and frustration for me.

‘We don’t have time ,’ I said, striding across the barn.

Lyudmila tried to stop me. She saw the nature of my intent, if not exactly what I was going to do, and she stepped between me and Tanya, but she was neither powerful nor quick enough and I pushed her aside. She stumbled and fell as I grabbed Tanya’s arm and tore it away from Oksana, who sank to her knees in the straw.

Tanya had allowed her anger to take control of her, as my own had threatened to do, and now she wheeled round, raising her pistol to point at me.

Arm outstretched, barrel against my cheek, her eyes like a demon’s. She couldn’t focus on me, such was the intensity of her feeling, and she was taking long breaths, sucking the air into her nostrils as if trying to calm herself. But her arm was like iron. Unmoving. The barrel of the pistol unwavering.

My own revolver was less visible, but just as deadly. I’d had no intention of using it against Tanya, but her action had triggered my reaction and now I held it at waist height, aimed at her stomach.

Lyudmila tried to get to her feet beside me, to protect her comrade, but Tuzik stood over her, and when she tried to back away from him, he showed her his teeth.

‘Look at yourself,’ I said. ‘Save your anger for him .’

Tanya stared. For a moment she struggled to speak, and when she finally did, the words were spat through gritted teeth. ‘They betrayed us.’

I looked down at Oksana, but she had lowered her gaze. She remained on her knees, head bowed as if in prayer.

‘I know.’ My eyes met Tanya’s. ‘And I know how you feel. After everything. All this way. All the things we’ve seen and done, and all that came before. But this is not the end, Tanya. This is not where it ends. We still have further to go.’