Simon Montefiore - Red Sky at Noon

So they took the doctor, the nurse and the child to Major Shavykin, and when Shavykin told Mandryka, their commander did a dance: ‘It’s him! I thought he was dead. It’s my best friend from Briansk. The Bolshevik bastards sent him to the Camps. But here he is.’

‘And what about the nurse, and the child?’ asked Shavykin, who had a bullet scar on his face that looked as if a red worm was tunnelling under his cheek.

‘He cares for children,’ said Mandryka, buttoning his tunic and putting on a Wehrmacht forage cap and round dark glasses. ‘That’s it. From now on, Kapto joins us! Give him a uniform and a captain’s pips. Tonya will be his lieutenant. She gets anything she wants. Bring Kapto to me. Meanwhile, prepare the men for the attack.’

‘Right, chief.’

Now Mandryka poured a cup of ersatz coffee and another shot of Armenian cognac for his friend from Briansk, and they started to catch up on many years apart.

‘One thing,’ said Kapto after they had exchanged their experiences in Soviet jails. ‘I have something for our allies.’

‘The Germans?’ Mandryka asked.

‘Yes.’ Kapto took the satchel off his shoulder and spread out a map. ‘This will be useful to them.’

‘Always resourceful.’ Mandryka smiled. ‘Shall I look?’ But the maps were marked with complex symbols and signs that meant nothing to him – he wasn’t a soldier; he had been a dentist in Briansk.

Kapto lit up a cigarette and leaned in to Mandryka, speaking confidentially. ‘This isn’t for any of the special task forces or police battalions. It’s for the Wehrmacht. I need to give this to the staff of the army – the Sixth, isn’t it? – further north, who are preparing to cross the Don and maybe push towards Stalingrad? It will come from you and me, Mandryka. It will help you. They’ll be impressed.’

Mandryka nodded slowly.

‘Obviously it’s urgent,’ added Kapto. ‘It could really help our side.’

‘We’ll get it to them as soon as we can,’ said Mandryka. ‘Now tell me about the little girl?’

‘Have you ever met Shapiro?’ Svetlana asked. Her best friend Martha Peshkova had come to the Kremlin apartment for chai.

‘Well, no, but I have seen him.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘He’s very tall. He has black hair with grey streaks, big dark eyes and he looks very…’

‘Very what?’

‘Turbulent – passionate!’

‘Oh my God.’ Svetlana fanned her face with her hands.

‘But, Sveta?’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s forty and he’s married.’

‘Oh,’ said Svetlana. Dammit! Married, she thought, I have no chance. But she was Stalin’s daughter. Anything was possible to her. She knew how to give orders.

‘He’s quite famous, you know,’ Martha went on. ‘His scripts have been filmed. He’s a certain sort of Jewish intellectual. He’s talented.’ Martha knew about writers. Her grandfather was Maxim Gorky, the greatest Soviet writer. ‘But, Sveta, he’s forty . That’s ancient! He’s an antique. And he’s a playboy. I’ve heard he’s a notorious skirt-chaser!’

‘Oh no,’ said Svetlana very primly, but she was really thinking, Thank God. If he’s a playboy I have some chance. If only I was as beautiful as Martha. She can have anyone she wants… She felt despondent suddenly.

‘He’s a married playboy!’ Martha giggled. She was getting more amused by the minute. She savoured the smell of pipesmoke in the apartment. Then she looked serious, grabbed Svetlana’s shoulders and whispered, ‘What would your father say? Think about it!’

‘Ugh, he’s busy with the war, I hardly see him,’ Svetlana replied. ‘Besides, I have to live too.’

‘I must go home,’ said Martha, kissing Svetlana and going to the door. There, she hesitated. ‘Oh, wait – I’ll tell you who knows Shapiro.’

‘ Who? ’ cried Svetlana, running at her and hugging her. ‘Tell me!’

‘You’re serious about this man, aren’t you, dear?’

‘Yes! As serious as you can be without actually knowing someone at all. But yes, I’ve written to him.’

‘And you signed it?’

‘Yes, from Stalina of the Kremlin!’

Martha’s laughter pealed through the gloomy apartment. ‘That will give him a shock. But he’s arrogant. There are writers who think they are God’s gift to women and he’s one of them. He’ll think it’s his due and he deserves your favour.’

‘Cut to the chase, Marthochka: who knows him?’

‘Your brother Vasily, silly. He knows all the movie people. I saw Lev Shapiro at one of Vasily’s parties at Zubalovo…’

It’s going to be so easy, thought Svetlana. Alone in the apartment once again, she sat down and started to scan the pages of today’s Red Star , looking for his name – and there it was: the latest article by Lev Shapiro. Where was he? She longed to know. Had he yet received her letter? Surely not, and even if he had, he was much too busy to read her silly note. From his articles, she could tell he was a man of the world. A playboy! A skirt-chaser! But it was just possible he had got the letter because she had given it to her bodyguard Klimov yesterday and he had managed to send it down on the Stavka plane to Stalingrad. If Shapiro was in the city, he could have read it. She blushed at the thought. Then another anxiety: had she made a fool of herself? Suppose he told his friends and mocked her? What would her father say if he heard of this?

The door opened.

She hid the paper, and jumped up: ‘Papa, have you eaten?’

‘Hello, my little sparrow. How’s moia khozianka , my little housekeeper,’ said Stalin and kissed her forehead. ‘Just wanted to see you. I’m working the rest of the night out at Kuntsevo.’

‘Goodnight, Papa. Get some rest!’

He turned and left, calling for his driver outside the front door.

She was alone again.

While they waited for Garanzha, old Panka knelt beside Benya and probed his head wound.

‘If it’s a sabre cut, swords are dirty; if it’s shrapnel, cleaner; if a stone, cleaner still, but you can take no chances with a head wound. We need a poultice.’ He was treating Benya just as he had treated Silver Socks.

He took out one of the cartridges and carefully broke it, taking out the black gunpowder. Then, as Benya lay on the ground in the shade, he walked to the nearest tree, scanning its branches until he reached for something. ‘A spider’s web,’ he said, gathering it with surprising delicacy in his huge hands. He took his dagger and cut into the bark of the tree, collecting some resin; next he dug up some earth with his knife, mixed it around, and then popped it all into his mouth. Finally he leaned over Benya, placing his mouth close to his forehead, and regurgitated this sticky mess right on to the wound, plastering it down so it was level.

‘Shame we have no honey but this makes a poultice that will heal you fast,’ Panka said, taking a bandage out of one of his saddlebags and deftly wrapping it round Benya’s head before fastening it in place with a pin. ‘Always sunny on the steppe,’ he said, smiling again.

He moved on to the next task: ‘Everyone drink water. Eat one tack biscuit. Water the horses,’ he ordered. ‘Garanzha and Prishchepa, you take on guard duty. Golden, shut your eyes.’

The men were talking around the fire they’d made, mostly about Kapto. Had he always been a traitor? What about Tonya? Who else had gone with them? Nyushka – had anyone seen her? Koshka was another one who’d vanished. But no one would be surprised if Koshka was a snivelling traitor, and it would be no loss either because Uzbeks were the worst soldiers in the Red Army. But they kept coming back to Kapto – and so did Benya.