Simon Montefiore - Red Sky at Noon

‘Forward, you motherfuckers, or I’ll shoot you down! Za Rodina, z a Stalina! For Stalin, for the Motherland!’ cried Ganakovich, waving his pistol unconvincingly.

‘For the fucking Prosecutors!’ shouted the Shtrafniki as one.

Keeping pace with the horses on either side of her, Silver Socks lengthened her stride and began to gallop, the surge of muscular power sending Benya bouncing around in the saddle once more. ‘Stay on, fucker, stay on!’ he grunted, holding on to the reins and Silver Socks’s mane for all he was worth.

Melishko turned in his saddle: ‘Enemy sighted!’

And Benya saw them. A compact mass of riders, maybe thirty of them, shirtsleeves rolled up, red caps, and swords flashing, riding straight at him. He could see their faces: all wore uniforms with red ties. A dark-skinned man on a limber grey, black eyes and low brows, nostrils flared, was concentrating hard on him, no one else, just him, riding at him, sword raised – Benya understood the brutal simplicity of war; this man wants to kill me – but then he galloped right past. Benya hung on to Socks. Around him was the clash of steel on steel as another rider in a red cap came at him, but he swerved past him too. A third flew at him, shouting – Benya could see the blackheads on his nose, that was how close he was, he had black eyelashes – and this time Prishchepa spun round in his saddle and brought his sword down on the man, missing the top of his head but slicing off his ear. Benya thanked God that no one had reached him yet. He tried to stay close to his Cossack friends but this time a bulky rider, smiling under a black moustache, was right in front of him, his bay horse foaming, and before Benya could pull on Socks’s reins to avoid him, he had drawn a pistol and was raising it.

There was a loud thump as Spider Garanzha rode his horse right into him, knocking him to the ground. Benya did not see what happened next, because a blow hit him so hard on the chest that he almost fell off Socks and surely he was wounded, even dead? Someone had struck him with a sabre but it must have been the flat side for he was unharmed; the sword had hit the pommel of his saddle and glanced off, grazing Silver Socks on the neck. He saw blood, and it was this that outraged him. This man had wounded his Silver Socks, his beloved Budyonny chestnut.

‘You bastard!’ Benya shouted, swinging his sword at his opponent. He was thin-faced, sunburned, perhaps Benya’s age, and now Benya saw fear in an enemy’s eyes and he feasted on it as he swung the sword just as he had been trained: parry, withdraw and strike. The sword smashed into the man’s face, slicing right through his cheekbone, tearing his face in half. There was a sound like the fracturing of an eggshell and the slurp of the yolk and Benya saw his opponent’s teeth flying up to scatter like a broken pearl necklace. By the time he realized that he had wounded him, even perhaps killed him, the man was on the ground, his riderless horse galloping into the distance, and Benya was charging on with Prishchepa, Smiley and Little Mametka, all using their quirts on their mounts.

Seconds later, he and Prishchepa faced two enemies, riding at them together; one was unhorsed and Benya brought his sword down on the man on the ground with unrealized strength, cutting deep into him. Blood sprayed up at him, red heat cooling on his face, a coppery taste in his mouth. How delicate a thing is a man, he thought, how much softness there is to spoil. He heard singing and he realized it was his own voice, joining in with the Cossacks. He was changing; a switch clicked within him, as if he was a new animal who bore little resemblance to his usual self, a crimson-sprayed Jew on a Russian Pegasus riding the hot wind.

Silver Socks pricked her ears and slowed suddenly, turning her head to the left. Once again, Benya saw the crimson on her neck but then she rallied, leaped forward, her gallop stronger than before. A squadron of four riders was heading towards him, wearing field-grey tunics – German uniforms – but they weren’t Germans. One or two had raised their sabres, the others held up their carbines like Red Indians. ‘Brother Cossacks, join us,’ one of them called over. ‘The war’s lost, brothers! It’s not our war!’

Cossacks fighting on the German side. And then, dropping their reins, they started firing at them. Benya managed to swerve behind his comrades. By hesitating for an instant, Silver Socks had saved his life.

‘Motherfuckers! Traitors!’ Prishchepa turned his mount and slid over to one side, behind his saddle, as the shots rang out; then, holding his pommel, he swung back into the saddle and raising a pistol, shot one of them right in the face.

The horses were suddenly packed against each other and Benya and the others were fighting with everything, hands, swords, everyone terrified and angry, the horses foaming in the heat. Benya drove his sword into a man until he felt it hit the spine, not so soft after all, and the man started to slip backwards off his horse, hands flailing for the reins, mane, finally tail, anything. In panic, with the man’s blood running down his sabre on to his hands, Benya spurred Silver Socks and she reared up and jumped out of the tangle with Benya just keeping his seat.

‘Onwards! We’ve surprised them!’ Captain Zhurko was still riding ahead of them, now shooting with his Papasha sub-machine gun. Cannons opened up on each side. Shells whined and landed to their left and right, and starbursts of earth, flame and turf exploded over him. Benya looked back. The Betushka tanks were burning, and men were jumping out of the turrets which vomited jet-black smoke. Benya had the impression of torn horses on their sides, legs still treading the air with men staggering around them, but his squadron galloped on, untouched somehow. They were approaching an enemy position, but the soldiers there saw them and turned and ran; so did those at the next enemy position and suddenly they were riding alongside running men.

Benya came up behind one, a man in a helmet with a cockerel-feather plume who was running like a mechanical doll, and he brought down the sabre on his head, splitting it right open like a melon. He heard singing and it was him singing again loudly, at the top of his voice. Riderless horses joined him galloping forward; they were Russian horses, Budyonnys and little Kalmyk ponies – and one dragged the body of a Shtrafnik by the boot; it was his comrade Skakun with his hands bouncing above his head. Benya passed abandoned tanks: one was a Betushka, but two belonged to the enemy – although the markings weren’t German. He saw his Uzbek comrade Koshka overtaking him, out of control, holding on to his horse’s mane, reins flying, google-eyed with panic. Silver Socks’s hoof crashed down with a crunching pop on to the head of a fallen man but Benya didn’t look back.

More men were running before him; the Cossacks were yahooing and ululating like banshees; yet more enemies appeared out of trenches and golden fields and ran for their lives. One turned to point a rifle at him but Silver Socks leaped forward and Benya brought down his sword, hitting his enemy’s neck, cutting deep; this killing had its own queer wantoness that made him thirst for more. Two boys wearing helmets with feathers raised their hands to him. As Benya was about to slash one of them, he fell to his knees and cried out: ‘Mama, Mama!’ The other boy was young, much younger than Benya, with a long nose and big teeth and sheepish eyes and he remembered thinking their voices were beautiful, their faces were tanned and dark, and their uniforms were baroque. Feathers and red ties and fezes. Fancy dress! The boy stopped crying ‘Mama!’ and was pointing a pistol at Benya until, in a swish, the arm was gone, his torso cloven from shoulder to ribs in a throb of blood. Spider Garanzha raised his dripping blade and waved it wildly at Benya as if to say: You see, the Splitter!