Simon Montefiore - Red Sky at Noon

Benya was aware that troops lost behind the lines were deemed to be traitors unless they could prove otherwise; it was how decent men like Captain Zhurko had ended up in the penal battalions. If these Shtrafniki were suspected of the slightest sin, they would simply get the Eight Grammes – without even facing the tribunal. But here was the difficulty: Benya did not know where these men had been for the last few days. Had they defected temporarily to the Fascists? Had they waited to see how quickly the Germans smashed through to Stalingrad and the oil fields? Or had they decided that the Soviet Union was not collapsing as fast as it seemed when Rostov fell and changed their minds, seeking a way to cover their tracks? And if they had, did they know about his secret, Fabiana?

‘Wait,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘I ask no questions. We fought, we were cut off and found our way back to the Don.’

‘We killed Mandryka. We’ve earned our freedom – it’s simple!’ It was always simple for Prishchepa.

‘The partisans will remember we were there,’ said Benya. ‘Unless… we could do something more to earn our redemption…’

Prishchepa waved his hand. ‘The Zhid’s always worrying.’

Garanzha started to scratch his back, always a sign that he was beginning to relax.

‘So all is well,’ Prishchepa said. ‘I’m happy our brother Benya is still alive – but then you learned from the best riders on the Don. This Zhid can certainly ride, eh, Panka?’ He embraced Benya. ‘Let’s eat and sleep and then maybe swim in the Don. Have you ever swum in the Don, Benya?’

‘No time for that, brother,’ said Panka, spitting. ‘Prishchepa, you’ve forgotten where we are. The Don is a cauldron. The Fritzes are searching this village for us right now.’

‘Let me go scout,’ said Prishchepa, always keen to volunteer for the most dangerous jobs. They went outside, and Panka saddled Silver Socks. There was no sign of Violante, Fabiana’s palomino.

‘Just this once, I’m doing it for you, brother,’ said the old Cossack – and Benya noted the compliment.

Garanzha scratched, picking lice out of his clothes, and sharpened his dagger until Prishchepa returned.

‘They’re getting near,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Let’s go.’

As Benya rode out with his three companions, heading towards the Don and the Russian lines, he knew what he had known even as Prishchepa pointed the gun at his head. That he had awoken alone, quite alone. It was as if she had never even been there.

Svetlana never saw her father in the morning – except on Black Sea holidays. But now he was right here, standing over her. She was getting ready for school when her father burst into her bedroom, something he had never done before in her entire life.

She looked into his face and she knew she was in terrible trouble. He was blazingly furious and the nanny, who was standing behind him, was so terrified that she couldn’t move. Svetlana had never witnessed her father like this. He had almost never lost his temper with her but now he was white-faced and nearly speechless with rage. He was waving some rolled-up papers.

‘I’ve punished Vasily for his antics,’ he said. ‘I’ve had him thrown in the guardhouse for behaving like a fucking disgusting baron’s son! But your behaviour is as repulsive as his. When our men are dying in their thousands, this is what you do?’

‘Father, what do you mean?’ Svetlana knew exactly but was stalling for time.

‘Don’t play the idiot, girl!’ he said. ‘Where are they then? Your filthy letters from your “writer”? Your so-called writer! Where are those letters?’

‘I don’t know, Papa…’

‘Of course, you know – don’t take me for a fool. Well, I’ve read them too!’ He tapped the pocket of his tunic. ‘I’ve got them all right here. What filth! I know everything. You don’t believe me? What’s all this then?’ He threw a wad of typed papers at Svetlana’s feet and she jumped. ‘Go on. Take a look! See all your filthy words right here! Pick them up. Read them. Go on, read them!’

Lieutenant Brambilla brought Malamore a cup of ersatz coffee as Dirlewanger joined him. He was, noticed Malamore, already reeking of schnapps, sweating, blinking, fritzing as the meths surged.

‘Is Montefalcone up?’ Malamore asked Brambilla.

‘Yes, sir. I woke him.’

Then they heard a shot. He and Dirlewanger caught eyes and they hurried to the next-door hut. Fully dressed, his feathered cap and his papers laid out, Montefalcone sat at the table with his head in his arms. The pistol was in his hand, and a finger of blood ran down his temple.

‘Fuck!’ said Dirlewanger. ‘This war…’

Malamore shook his head. ‘He was no soldier.’ He lit a cigarette. Brambilla stood behind him.

‘What shall we do, sir? What shall we say?’

‘The major died in battle on an anti-partisan mission. I’ll write up the report on our return. Bury him here in the yard. Quietly. Fast.’ He paused. ‘And, Brambilla?’

‘Sir?’

‘We ride out in one hour.’

The single shot rang out over the village, echoing back off the hills, but the four riders paid no attention.

‘I saw an old friend of ours,’ said Prishchepa. ‘Right here. Riding over this very hill.’

They halted in the trees on the hill outside the village. Below them, in the limpid light of dawn, they could see Malamore’s men amongst the houses, the horses all tied up outside the church. Behind them smoke rose from the rising uproar of the battle of the Don Bend: the shells bursting over the river, now so near they felt the earth shake. Benya could smell the Don itself, the salt and the rotting reeds, and the water close to them: the border they had to cross.

‘Garanzha, ride ahead and take a look,’ said Panka. ‘Let’s rest here a moment while I have a chew.’ As Spider Garanzha trotted off through the poplars, Panka swung off Almaz and absentmindedly stroked the animal’s withers as he chewed some makhorka . Benya knew this meant he was deliberating. An observer might think Panka was having a rest but his decision would settle their fate. Benya let Silver Socks graze and Panka came over and stroked her neck.

‘You chose well with that one, brother,’ he said. ‘I always loved her too. She’s got firm feet, that girl.’

Benya kissed Socks’s white muzzle. He was sorry he had ridden her into this war. She deserved to be free on the grasslands, serene and happy.

‘Sergeant, what do we do now?’

‘Well, my boy… it’s simple really.’ Panka chuckled, meaning it wasn’t simple at all. ‘Either we cross the Don here or we join our soldiers at the bridgehead,’ he said. ‘Here we’d have to swim the river and it’s wide and, if I recall this place where I once caught a pike this long, the currents are strong. They can shoot us in the water and we might lose the horses. But if we approach the lines further up, it’ll be like going hunting with my Uncle Prokofei, who once shot my cousin Grishaka in the behind when he was aiming at a bear beside the Vieshenska stream. What I mean is there’ll be crossfire and our own people might well shoot us by mistake.’

‘I once had a girl beside that stream,’ said Prishchepa. ‘And that friend I saw last night – it was Dr Kapto.’

‘Where?’ asked Benya sharply.

‘He was riding out of the village with two Fritzes. Wehrmacht officers.’

‘And the little girl?’

‘Yes, the child was on his saddle.’ Prishchepa turned to Benya. ‘You care for that child?’

‘I fear for her,’ Benya said, but then he remembered the crone’s prophecy of the child and the doctor riding happily into the steppes.