Stephen Baxter - The Massacre of Mankind

The city, Russia’s capital, sat on a fat isthmus between Lake Ladoga to the east, and the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic to the west. In this eighth year of a long war the German divisions had pushed through Finland and come on the city from the north, evidently intent on taking the capital at last, in a bold and demoralising coup. The Imperial Army had responded well. The Germans had been held north-west of the city, a line that had since solidified in miles of trenchworks and wire and artillery emplacements, backed up by rougher ditches and wooden barricades assembled by civilian squads. But they were German invaders stuck like a knife deep in the belly of Russia, and they had been there for years.

This particular night the men in Smirnov’s unit, on a rest rotation, had been holed up in what had been a school hall a few streets behind the Pushkin Theatre. They were far behind the lines, deep inside the city itself, on the southern bank of the Neva, the river that bisected St Petersburg. And when morning came the men, summoned by the bugle, formed up in a yard where no children had played for many months. Outside the barracks, a sense of urgency was apparent. Smirnov became aware of church bells ringing, rousing the population. They soon learned that Smirnov’s unit was being mustered, not to go north to meet the Germans, but south to face Martians. Smirnov could feel the fear sweep along the lines, like the passing of a ghost.

Andrei Smirnov was a conscript soldier, one of many millions – some said as many as five million – mobilised since the Germans’ declaration of war. He had seen little action, even since being posted here, to St Petersburg itself. Was he to be spared a German bullet, only to face an interplanetary death?

As it turned out, not that particular day.

A lieutenant, in a crisp staff officer’s uniform, walked along the lines, briefly inspecting the men. He stopped by Smirnov, tapped him on the shoulder and beckoned him away. ‘You’ll do. This way.’

In a moment Smirnov’s life had changed, and he was set on path that would lead me, one day, to write to him about his memories of this day. For now he was just confused, and wary, for no soldier likes novelty; novelty gets you in trouble, or dead. Smirnov looked over to his corporal, but the man shrugged. Smirnov had no choice but to follow the lieutenant.

The lieutenant looked him up and down. ‘Your name?’ Smirnov told him.

‘Can you ride a motorcycle?’

‘Yes, sir, I—’

‘I am an aide to General Brusilov.’

Automatically Smirnov stiffened to a kind of attention.

The lieutenant handed Smirnov a packet of papers, and a small white flag. ‘Here are your orders. You are to take a message to the Germans. Am I keeping you awake, soldier?’

‘No, sir. I mean – sorry, sir. The Germans, sir?’

‘You may have heard of them. Ugly sausage-eaters with pointy hats.’

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Naturally we’ve been trying to get through to them by other means, telegraph, wireless. We do need to communicate from time to time. Probably the wireless will work. You are something of a last resort.’

‘Very well, sir.’ He stood waiting for details.

The lieutenant, who didn’t look much older than Smirnov, waved his arms impatiently. ‘What are you waiting for, man, a push?’

‘But how should I—’

‘Ride through the city to the German lines, and wave that bloody flag before the Germans shoot your balls off, and make them read the letters. All right?…’

Of course it wasn’t as simple as that.

The first part of the assignment was easy enough. On his requisitioned motorcycle, he took a direct route north-west through the most picturesque part of the city, through Palace Square, across the Neva – from the bridge he had a fine view of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the oldest building in the city, now a prison, and scarred, like so many of the city’s landmarks, by the Germans’ shelling. But that morning the streets were filling, with confused and frightened civilians; more than once he had to gun his engine and wave to clear a path. Evidently the news was out that the Martians had landed to the south, and of course one would have an impulse to flee – but where to? The north was the obvious route, but the Germans were to the north, they had not magically gone away, and a German bullet would kill you just as effectively as the Martians’ magical Heat-Ray. The driving got easier as he reached the north-west suburbs, nearer the front line, and passed along streets that were much more badly damaged, and all but deserted.

Once outside the city proper, he first had to produce his packet of papers when he got to the rear trenches of the Russian line.

He was stopped by a sentry, then taken to a corporal, and then another lieutenant, who read a covering letter with apparent amusement. He looked Smirnov over. ‘Sooner you than me carrying this, on such a fine morning. I’ll assign a couple of men to cover you – and, corporal, find him a bloody big stick to wave his flag on, will you?’

So Smirnov found himself disarmed, and sent out through a string of communications trenches to the front line. Then it was up a short ladder and out of the trenches – after the muddy enclosure, out in the sunlight so suddenly, it felt like being born – and he was led out by scouts through a gap in the wire.

After that he was on his own, marching through churned-up mud, waving a flag that seemed ever more pathetically small the further out he got. He had been to the front before but had not been beyond the trenches.

‘Halt.’

The word was in Russian, coarsely accented. A man stood before him, in grey field uniform, mud-splashed as Smirnov’s was. Smirnov did not know German insignias well enough to be able to read his rank. His heart hammered. But he said cordially, ‘Good morning.’

The man laughed. ‘And to you.’

‘You speak Russian?’

The German sighed. ‘I studied it at university. And my reward is this, a conversation with an idiot, in a position where I am likely to get my head blown in by one of your snipers at any moment.’

‘As I by yours.’

‘That’s true. But you started it. What do you want?’

‘Nothing. I come with a gift.’ Smirnov held out his pack of papers, now slightly mud-splashed. ‘This is for your commanding officer.’

‘Ah. A message from the famous General Brusilov, no doubt.’

‘As a matter of fact, yes.’

‘Who are you, his boyfriend?’

‘Just a messenger.’

The German took the papers, and eyed him shrewdly. ‘I think we both know what this is about. And what do you think Brusilov has to say, private?’

Oddly,Smirnov hadn’t thought that through. ‘If I were the General, I would suggest that you Germans lower your arms and join us in a fight against a common foe.’

The German nodded. ‘Just so. Because it will take them mere minutes to burn their way through your peasant army. Together at least we may slow them a little longer – is that the calculation?’

‘I’m just the messenger.’

The German considered the papers. ‘If it were up to me,’ he said, ‘I would join you, for two reasons. One is our common humanity. And second—’

‘Yes?’

‘We have heard – it is only rumour, here on the line – that the cylinders have fallen close to Berlin, too.’

‘Ah.’

‘Germans and Russians, two mighty hosts. If joined together, perhaps even the Martians would find us formidable opponents. Do you think?’

‘Maybe.’

The German looked over Smirnov’s shoulder. ‘Russia is unimpressive. It is only – what, sixty years? – since serfdom was abolished in your land. Sixty years! Your Tsar still rules—’