Simon Montefiore - Red Sky at Noon

With this, Stalin walked out of the room, leaving Svetlana standing there looking at the shreds of her love letters from the Lion all over the carpet.

The moment he was gone, she threw herself into the arms of her nanny, who kissed her hair.

‘There there, bright one, it’s going to be OK,’ said her nanny.

‘Is it over now?’ Svetlana sobbed.

‘I think so.’

‘Will he… will he punish Lev?’

‘Of course he won’t,’ answered her nanny. ‘Your father would never do such a thing. But, Svetlana Josefovna?’

‘Yes?’

‘Promise me you will never contact him again. You can’t. It’s over. Your father is calmer because I’ve promised him that. Promise me!’

‘Of course! I promise,’ said Svetlana through her tears. ‘Never again!’

Panka tapped Benya on the shoulder and they rode on towards the Don. Another field and they looked back again. Malamore was still on his hill with Fabiana behind him.

A bolt of pain coursed through Benya as he thought about Malamore and Fabiana together. In the shrouding darkness, the countryside, the grasses, the trees, the sibilant wheatfields all seemed alive with men and machines. By now they were close to the river, and Benya could see the muzzle flashes of big guns and the tracers of small ones zinging through the dusk as the Germans, Italians, Romanians and Hungarians threw their forces against the last, beleaguered Russian positions on the west bank of the Don. In front of them, the Russians were lobbing shells over the river, each one sending waves of vibrations pulsating through them. Flashes lit up hillsides, and explosions rendered cottages and vehicles and running men as light as day before darkness washed back over them. How would they ever get back now? Benya thought.

A shell whistled right over them. Panka turned back – and so did Benya – and suddenly they were all looking at the Italian group on the hill as the shell hit its mark. In a halo of orange brilliance, a doll-like figure was tossed in the air, and then nothing, nothing but horses running, dead animals scattered and people on fire. Garanzha and Prishchepa were cheering, and Mogilchuk was staring wide-eyed at the scene. There was no sign of Fabiana.

Benya knew she was gone. In that moment, he felt a little piece of him wither and die. They had loved each other ‘somehow forever’ but his ‘somehow forever’ never once envisaged that it would be she who was gone. He had always assumed it would be he. He saw her quite clearly at her most beautiful, her eyes honey-coloured in the sunlight and burning with indignation, her chin raised and hands open – until her fury was breaking into the widest laugh, and she was raising her eyes to him, and he was kissing those soft lips with the slight twist, smelling her amber skin, seeing her dark hair unbraided and flowing.

Now he stared at the hillside, almost reclaimed by darkness except for small fires burning on the grass where Fabiana had been just a few minutes earlier, and the strange thing was he was glassed off, feeling and hearing nothing, nothing at all. She was no longer amongst the living and he was utterly blank.

Panka grabbed him by the collar, telling him to ride on – now was their moment. Benya didn’t care what happened now. That was his last investment in the world and he was nearly fearless, careless, heedless. Panka was explaining what lay ahead to Mogilchuk, who managed, even now that things were dire, to rustle up a last reserve of pomposity. ‘Let us proceed, sergeant.’

They couldn’t get back along the beach, Panka was saying, and German armour was crushing the last Russian positions on the bend. The stronghold they had been in that morning had been abandoned, and the advance of the Italian cavalry could only mean a charge against Russian lines was imminent. What was left? There was only one course of action.

‘We must embrace our darling mother,’ said Panka, spurring Almaz forward.

‘What’s he talking about?’ asked Mogilchuk.

‘Follow me,’ said Panka. Up the bluffs they galloped and down the chalky escarpment of the high bank, down a thin snaking path that led to the River Don. Here they could see the battle, a multi-faceted panorama across the mirror-like expanse of the great river, reflected in the water and in the sky above it, as were the muzzle flashes of the Russian guns fired from the other bank. Suddenly the sky went dark, and now the clouds were right above them, rolling over the riverbanks, and they too were jet black. It was, Benya thought, as if they were riding inside a black drum.

‘Perfect timing,’ said Panka as forks of lightning hit the water. ‘A Don fury.’

The horses were stamping and pacing and snorting. ‘I hate the rain, I hate the rain,’ said Garanzha, whipping his rearing horse. Panka rode down to the water, Benya following as foamy waves lapped Silver Socks’s hooves.

‘What now?’ shouted Mogilchuk.

Prishchepa threw his head back and started to sing, ‘ I fell in love on the night of a Don storm… ’ A red wall of fire illuminated the bank for a moment as a fuel tank exploded; then glimmers of orange flickered behind the clouds as the rain started, dense pails of rain, slanting in to burn and lash their faces and necks, blinding them. Benya was soaked instantly. The world was ending, and he was so tired that he might as well slip off his horse and die right here. But he was brought to by a sting of pain: Panka’s whip on his hand.

‘Come on, Granpa! This storm is a fierce bitch and every Cossack knows the bitches are fiercest on the Don. It’s our chance. We cross the Don here!’ shouted Panka over the deafening rain, lightning, guns. ‘Ride right in, look neither right nor left. Tighten your reins and say your prayers!’

‘But the horses…’ cried Mogilchuk, trying to hold the reins.

‘Reins tight! They’ll be fine, dear boy,’ replied Panka.

‘I can’t swim,’ said Mogilchuk.

‘This is the Don,’ Panka shouted. ‘The sun shines yonder on the far bank!’ And he spurred Almaz straight into the river. A shell landed ahead of them, and Almaz balked but Panka whipped him on.

Benya knew he was going to die in the waters. He and Mogilchuk peered at one another, petrified, wiping their eyes, fellow Muscovites now, townies, sharing the same fear.

‘I can’t!’ cried Mogilchuk.

‘Me neither!’

But Speedy Prishchepa had galloped in with an escort of foamy spray, one hand raised as if he was riding a bronco in some Western rodeo, and he was singing right into the storm.

Benya leaned over Silver Socks’s neck, throwing his arms around her, burying his face in her mane, talking to her and Fabiana all in a seamless stream of love and fear and fury. Socks reared up again and again, trying to avoid the water, but she went deeper with each leap. Spider Garanzha leaned over and whipped her so hard that she bled and she bucked into the frothing water, now up to her knees and then her shoulders.

An explosion rocked them forwards, and Silver Socks stepped deeper into the river. By now Benya’s boots, and then his britches were in the water, its coldness soaking up his legs. Prishchepa was ahead, the water around his waist and then his chest as his horse started to swim, her head thrashing, her eyes frantic. Mogilchuk was beside him, shaking with fear.

Benya pivoted and saw a riderless horse, so he turned Socks around, riding back up the bank. Spider Garanzha was on the ground and Benya jumped down beside him. Spider looked up at him with those surprisingly goo-goo eyes first pleadingly then defiantly, his bulging face mushroomed with sweat and pale as paper. Benya saw his belly was open, and a mass of blue and red guts lay smoking, jerking and stirring on the stones of the beach. He raised his eyes to Spider’s, eye to eye as if quite alone, two wolves on a wide steppe. He knew that if Spider had ridden straight in with Prishchepa, leaving him and Mogilchuk to die on the bank, he’d be halfway across now, and living. Poor Spider, Benya thought, he must be cursing his one kindness: staying behind to whip them in, a Zhid and a secret police bastard!