Vasily Grossman: Life And Fate

The regimental staff collected their impedimenta, moved thirty or forty yards downstream and evicted the battalion commander from his quarters. The now homeless battalion commander decided to leave his company commanders in peace – their quarters were in any case extremely cramped – and ordered a new bunker to be constructed on the high plateau.

Engineering works were already in full swing when Krymov arrived at the command-post. The sappers were digging a whole network of communication trenches between the different sections -Political, Operations and Artillery. His conversation with Chuykov was twice interrupted as the latter went out to inspect the progress of this work.

There was probably nowhere in the world where the construction of living-quarters was taken more seriously than in Stalingrad. These bunkers were built neither for warmth, nor in order to impress posterity. It was the likelihood of greeting the next dawn and eating the next meal that depended on the solidity of the beams, the depth of the communication trenches, the nearness of the latrine and the effectiveness of the camouflage.

When you were talking about someone, you always mentioned the quality of his bunker: 'Batyuk's done some fine work on Mamayev Kurgan with his mortars. He's got a fine bunker by the way. A huge oak door just like the Senate. Yes, he's certainly got a head on his shoulders.' While of another man it might be said: 'Well, what do you know, he was forced to retreat during the night. He had no liaison with his units and he lost a key position… As for his command-post, it was visible from the air. And he had a cape by way of a door – to keep out the flies, I suppose. An empty-headed fellow – I heard his wife left him before the war.'

There were any number of stories in circulation that had to do with dug-outs and bunkers… The story of the conduit that housed Rodimtsev's command-post: water had suddenly gushed through and swept away all his files; wits had subsequently marked the confluence of Rodimtsev and the Volga on maps. The story of the destruction of Batyuk's famous door. And the story of how Zholudyev and his staff had been buried alive in their bunker at the Tractor Factory.

The river bank, packed tightly with bunkers, reminded Krymov of a vast warship. To port lay the Volga, to starboard a wall of enemy fire.

Krymov had been instructed by the Political Administration to sort out a quarrel between the commanding officer and the commissar [8]of an infantry regiment in Rodimtsev's division. He intended first to give a short lecture to the staff officers and then to sort out the quarrel.

An orderly from the Army Political Section led him to the mouth of the vast conduit that housed Rodimtsev's command-post. A sentry announced his arrival, and a gruff voice replied: 'Bring him in! The poor man's probably shitting in his pants by now.'

Krymov walked in under the low ceiling. Conscious that everyone was watching, he introduced himself to Vavilov, the divisional commissar. He was a stout man in a soldier's jacket, sitting on top of an empty crate.

'Splendid!' said Vavilov. 'A lecture's just what we need. People have heard that Manuilsky and a few others have arrived on the left bank and aren't even coming over to Stalingrad.'

'I've also been instructed to sort out a quarrel between the commander of one of your infantry regiments and his commissar.'

'Yes, we did have some difficulties there,' said Vavilov. 'But yesterday they were settled: a one-ton bomb fell on the command-post. Eighteen men were killed, the commander and his commissar among them.

'They couldn't have been more different,' he went on confidingly, 'even in appearance. They were like chalk and cheese. The commander was a straightforward man, the son of a peasant, while the commissar had a ring on one finger and always wore gloves. And now they are lying side by side.'

In the manner of someone used to being in control, both of his own feelings and of other people's, he suddenly added in a quite different tone of voice:

'Once, when we were based near Kotluban, I had to drive a lecturer from Moscow to the front-Pavel Fyodorovich Yudin. [9]The Member of the Military Soviet had said it would be the end of me if he lost so much as a hair off his head. Now that really was hard work. We had to dive straight into the ditch if a plane came anywhere near. But comrade Yudin certainly knew how to take care of himself – I'll say that for him! He showed true initiative.'

The other listeners laughed. Krymov knew it was him they were making fun of.

As a rule, he was able to establish good relations with officers in the field, tolerable relations with staff officers, and only awkward, rather insincere relations with his fellow political-workers. It was the same now: he was irritated by this commissar. He'd only just been sent to the front and he put on the airs of a veteran. He probably hadn't even joined the Party till just before the war.

On the other hand, there was obviously something about Krymov that got under Vavilov's skin.

After the lecture, people began asking questions. Belsky, Rodimtsev's chief of staff, who was sitting beside the general, asked: 'When are the Allies going to open a second front, comrade lecturer?'

Vavilov, who had been stretched out on a narrow bunk fixed to the stone facing of the conduit, sat up, raked aside some straw with his fingers and said: 'Who cares about that? What I want to know is when our own Command intends to act.'

Krymov glanced at him in irritation. 'Since the commissar puts the question in that form, it seems more appropriate that the general should answer it.'

Everyone turned to Rodimtsev.

'A tall man can't even stand up in here,' he began. 'This is a dead end if ever there was one. You can't launch an offensive from out of a pipe. I'd be only too glad – but how can you effect a concentration of troops in a pipe?'

The telephone rang. Rodimtsev picked up the receiver.

Everyone's eyes were on him.

He put down the receiver, leant over towards Belsky and whispered a few words in his ear. The latter reached out for the receiver himself. Rodimtsev put his hand over it and said: 'Why bother? Can't you hear?'

Up above they could hear frequent bursts of machine-gun fire and the explosions of hand-grenades. The conduit amplified every sound. The gunfire was like the clatter of carts going over a bridge.

Rodimtsev said a few words to various staff officers and again picked up the impatient telephone-receiver. He caught Krymov's eye for a moment, smiled calmly and said: 'The weather's turned fine here on the Volga.'

The telephone was now ringing incessantly. Krymov had gathered what was happening from the conversations he had overheard. Colonel Borisov, the second-in-command, went up to the general and leaned over the crate where the plan of Stalingrad was spread out. With a sudden, dramatic gesture he drew a blue perpendicular through the red dots of the Soviet front line right up to the Volga, then looked pointedly at Rodimtsev. A man in a cape came in out of the darkness and Rodimtsev got up to meet him.

It was obvious enough where he had come from. He was shrouded in an incandescent cloud and his cape seemed to be crackling with electricity.

'Comrade General,' he said plaintively, 'the swine have forced me back. They've reached the ravine and they're almost at the Volga. I need reinforcements!'

'You must stop the enemy yourselves, at whatever cost,' said Rodimtsev. 'There are no reserves.'

'At whatever cost,' repeated the man in the cape. He clearly understood what this meant.

'Just here?' asked Krymov, pointing to a spot on the map.

Rodimtsev didn't get a chance to answer. From the mouth of the conduit came the sound of pistol-shots and the flashes of hand-grenades.