Russian Front (17) A troubled note came into her voice. ‘The afternoon dragged on. Yuri was at the back of the loft with the radio operator, sending the intelligence we had gathered back to base. The other guy and I – I never knew his name and never will – had put our field glasses down and were tracking the enemy through the scopes on our rifles. It wasn’t what we were supposed to be doing, but we were in shadow well back inside the shattered windows. We were kind of fooling about because a few minutes earlier Yuri had told us that the work was nearly done and that our soldiers had infiltrated the German lines to within a couple of hundred meters of the back of the building. A quick dash should see us safe ‘I remember, just before it all went mad, I tracked a soldier, just an ordinary private, scuttling from one trench to another. Probably a runner. Then I saw them. A column of German soldiers came trotting around the corner of a building. They must have been replacements, and not very well led, or they would have been moving much more cautiously. I reached for my notebook and then thought, why not kill them and then make bloody notes about their uniforms! The guy next to me seemed to have the same idea at the same time. The next thing I knew we were blazing away, reloading as fast as we could, screaming our heads off. We must have killed ten or fifteen of them but, of course, a few gained cover. ‘The next thing I felt was Yuri’s boot on my shoulder, kicking me as hard as he was able. ‘”You couple of idiots!” he breathed at us. He was furious, but he still couldn’t bring himself to shout. “You’ve given our position away. We’ve got to get out of here now, before they have this place zeroed in. Grab your rifle.” ‘I felt sick as we scrambled down the stairs to the rear of the building. I knew what I’d done. All it needed was for one fascist to report our position. Then there was this whistling sound and mortar shells were falling around us, bracketing the building. At the back of the building we were all almost buried under dust and timber splinters. I was choking and spluttering and all I could say was “Yuri, I’m so sorry.” It was pathetic. He just told me to shut up. I could see that he was planning our escape. He never gave up. ‘“We’ll go in two bounds,” he said. All I could see was open ground, but he had hunter’s eyes, he could see that there was some dead ground along our escape route. “Rush to that dip in the ground,” he said. “And lie low. Then we’ll dash to those buildings. Our guys should see us and give us some cover. ‘We began to run towards safety. A machinegun opened up. You know the German machineguns, the Spandau?’ Hugh nodded. ‘It has a viciously high rate of fire. Earth was kicking up all around us. The radio operator was the first to get it. He was carrying his radio, a big bulky thing and he wasn’t a big guy. He would have been shot by his own side if he had left it behind. Anyway, a mortar round exploded right beside him, blew him ten feet. He was riddled with shrapnel, he must have bled to death in minutes or seconds. But we – Yuri, myself and the other guy – made it to the shallow depression in the ground. ‘We caught our breath and checked our direction. I could see Russian soldiers in a factory building, not more than thirty meters away. Thirty meters. Yuri looked at me. “Come on you lazy cow, on your feet.” We were so nearly safe. The mortaring and machine-gunning had subsided. The other guy raised his head and looked to the direction we had come. God knows why. His head just crumpled as he was shot. I had his blood all over my hair. Then Yuri grabbed me and we started running, still carrying our rifles. I was breathing hard and everything was just wobbling in front of me. ‘Then I was hit. Here.’ She pointed to her groin. ‘It hurt terribly and I stumbled. Yuri slowed to help me and I saw the bullet flick the back of his collar. The front of his neck went bright red with blood, but we didn’t stop. We staggered on and made safety. Our soldiers helped us. I passed out. The last sight I had of Yuri was his face. He was looking at me, but he didn’t seem to recognize me. I didn’t realize that he was dying. ‘The next few hours were very confused, like a dream. The bullet had cut a small artery and I lost a lot of blood. I was taken back across the Volga on a paddle steamer with hundreds of other casualties. In a field hospital this beefy nurse told me that I had been lucky that I had been hit by a tracer bullet, as this had cauterized the wound. I thought it would be luckier still not to have been hit at all. Some idiot made a sniggering joke about the site of my injury. This didn’t bother me, but it did make me think about my one night with Yuri and I closed my eyes and started to cry. ‘Then I was recovering for a week or so. Then, all of a sudden, Sergei appeared. According to the military newspaper Yuri had just been wounded and was recovering. On the flight to Moscow Sergei told me the truth – Yuri was dead. Then he told me about this fantastic plan they had. One of Sergei’s colleagues in the NKVD had traveled from Stalingrad to North Africa and happened to see you. She turned to him, blue eyes brimming in the gloom of the hide. ‘A second is all it takes, you know that, for one bullet out of millions to find its mark. Yuri died and I lived. And I still love him.’ He didn’t know what to say, or what to think or feel. She bent her head to sob, utterly beyond soldiering for the moment. He put his right arm around her and, shifting position carefully, reached up with his grubby other hand to stroke the hair lying on the side of her cheek His rifle was a barrier between their bodies. ‘I know what we need,’ he said. She looked at him, rubbing her tears away, a little girl - Daddy, please make it right. Hugh wondered again what had happened to her parents. He tried to make his voice cheerful and confident. ‘We need Fred!’ She searched his eyes as she asked, ‘What is “Fred”?’ He smiled at her, and opened his mouth to explain. At that moment, the flap at the rear of their hiding place, their den in the middle of mechanized death, was opened and pulled up over the roof. Light, dread light, spilled in to silhouette their heads against the gauze in front of them. Hugh and Tania immediately flattened themselves against the earth floor of the scrape. Hugh turned his head around. The boyish face of a young Russian officer was framed between their boots at the back of the hide. ‘Close that fucking flap!’ Hugh shouted before he could stop himself. Tania gave him a horrified glance before repeating the instruction in Russian. Twenty minutes later they were back at the bunker, very lucky to be alive. Fortunately the Major, or whoever was doing the killing, had not spotted them crawling the short distance from their now-useless hide back to the Russian lines. It occurred to Hugh that, with the sun shining in the sky, the Major would wait until he had the Sun behind him before using binoculars or a telescopic sight. This might have saved their lives. The schoolboy subaltern had been sent to get them because there was important news, apparently. So important that they had to be withdrawn from the carefully constructed hide before darkness fell. All the way back Hugh had kept silent, but he could feel the youth giving him curious glances. Once he asked Hugh a question in a respectful tone. Tania answered him sharply. But the damage was done. Hugh was miserable as they scrambled and slid towards headquarters. As they neared the bunker, there was an artillery barrage not so far away. It could have done for all of them, of course, but at least it kept the boy from speaking to anyone. He probably wasn’t aware that Hugh and Tania were watching him like hawks. As he led the way, Tania and Hugh followed. The boy slipped into a cellar. Tania touched Hugh’s arm. She pointed at where the boy had been and touched her mouth then her rifle. He nodded. Her meaning was unmistakable. If he started blathering, they would have to kill him. All the way down through the maze-like approach to the main part of the bunker they kept close to the boy-officer. They spotted Kruschev in a side corridor with a photographer in uniform. Tania implored him for a moment of his time. The photographer was dismissed and they were alone in the corridor. Tania explained that the young officer had heard Hugh speak in English, although very briefly. Kruschev nodded, and took charge of the situation. He bellowed for help and all of a sudden the corridor was full of military police. The young officer started to say something and was angrily shouted at. Kruschev issued orders. A piece of cloth was produced and the young officer was gagged, his eyes wide with fear and astonishment. He was handcuffed and taken away. Hugh looked at Tania. They were both wondering what would happen to him. Sergei appeared, grabbed Hugh’s arm, nodded to Tania, and led them to their room. Sergei satisfied himself that the passage was empty before closing the curtain and attempting to tear a strip off Hugh ‘Now listen, Hugh, this really is too bad. You mustn’t speak. What do you think you’re here for?’ ‘You try stalking around a foreign city for days on end, people trying to kill you all the time, without speaking one word of your own language.’ ‘I know. But you really must try harder. The success of this plan depends on you keeping your mouth shut.’ It was like being told off at school. Hugh was sitting on his creaky camp bed and was too tired to argue. All he said was, ‘Then it’s a pretty shaky plan, isn’t it?’ He looked at Tania sitting on the other bed. Was it his imagination or had some of the sadness gone from her eyes? ‘I do bring some good news,’ announced Sergei, pleased with himself. ‘Is the war over?’ asked Hugh. ‘Not nearly, I’m afraid. But the spy who was looking for you in England has been caught. Apparently he had tracked down your parents in wherever-it-is …’ ‘Exmoor,’ snapped Hugh, suddenly alert. ‘Yes. There.’ Said Sergei, making there sound like a sewer. ‘Fortunately MI6 were on his tracks and arrested him. I don’t know the details but both your mother and, ah –‘ he looked at a piece of paper, glanced at Tania and continued, ‘Miss Knott are alright, just a bit shaken up.’ ‘Sally was in Exmoor? At my parents’?’ Hugh was mystified. ‘So the signal from London said. There isn’t very much detail, you understand. There’s a lot of radio traffic between here and London to encode. Churchill is always crawling to Comrade Stalin, promising the world, but all he comes up with are a few trucks and Hurricanes.’ ‘But the spy is in custody? He didn’t learn anything of what I’m doing here?’ asked Hugh. ‘Apparently he learned some, guessed the rest and was on his way back to his base in the German embassy in Dublin when the British Army picked him up. Fortunately he didn’t have a radio transmitter with him. Anyway, the point is, your cover is intact, for the moment at least. Provided you don’t persist in giving our soldiers English lessons. ‘What will happen to the boy?’ asked Tania. ‘I imagine he will be told to keep his mouth shut and then sent to another Front. The war is a big place. The Red Army is a vast machine. There are plenty of places where he could be tucked away.’ Very smooth, thought Hugh. But something in Sergei’s tone made him think that Kruschev wouldn’t bother to have the young officer who had heard his English outburst transferred to Leningrad or anywhere else. But Tania seemed reassured, so he kept this thought to himself. ‘So,’ Sergei was saying, ‘for the moment, if you are still keen to risk your life aiding the great patriotic struggle, Comrade Kruschev says that you have permission to carry on looking for this Major character. In fact, we would be very grateful if you would, as our intelligence suggests that the Germans are about to launch another attack. Any good news, such as the Major’s death, would be vital for morale. Is there anything else you need?’ ‘We need “Fred”,’ said Tania, grimacing as she knocked back her vodka ration. Hugh smiled for the second time that day. Sergei looked from one face to the other. ‘And who might Fred be?’ he demanded. Chapter Thirteen THE RUINS Red Army engineers performed prodigies of improvisation, working through the night and scouring the battlefield for materials to create ‘Fred’. Hugh stayed in his hovel in the bunker while Tania conveyed his instructions to the sappers. While waiting he noticed that food seemed to be getting even scarcer, and the atmosphere in the bunker was even more tense. The temperature, even deep within the fetid bunker, was getting colder by the day. Tania returned at about ten in the morning. She held the new-born Fred over her shoulder, eyes shining with a surreal version of maternal pride. Hugh picked Fred up and looked it over. Fred was a dummy, but an exceptionally lifelike one. The head had been closely modeled in plaster-of-Paris by a sculptor who was more used to making busts of Stalin. ‘He is stationed with an anti-aircraft battery now,’ Tania explained, ‘not far from here. We were lucky to find him. I am told that the engineers had to take the plaster-of-Paris from the field hospital at gunpoint. Everything is in such short supply, with the bloody ice choking the Volga.’ As he examined the dummy it occurred to him that this was the second time he had heard her say ‘bloody’. Her English had become much more colloquial. Was it through listening to him and Sergei? A steel helmet had been attached to the head of the dummy. Below this, the face was incredibly lifelike, even at arm’s length. The eyes were brown, the nose prominent, chin lightly stubbled. The dummy wore a greatcoat around its ‘shoulders’, buttoned to the neck. The lifelike appearance ended abruptly just where the chest bone would normally be, and the greatcoat had been cut away at this point. Below the chest was a wooden frame with handles allowing the dummy to be raised and lowered smoothly. The dummy’s mouth was very slightly open, and a rubber tube, invisible from the outside, led from inside the mouth down to hang loose below the chest. ‘What is the tube for?’ asked Tania. ‘Fred doesn’t need to eat.’ ‘You’ll find out,’ said Hugh. ‘Come on. Let’s go and look for the Major.’ Two hours later and they were in an abandoned trench just behind the Russian front line, in the same general area where they had lain in the hide. Hugh used a field periscope to scan the area in front of him. There was that blasted – literally and figuratively – tank, right in front of them, about one hundred and fifty yards away, its gun barrel still pointing to the left like an accusing finger. He couldn’t see any movement. ‘We have tried dummies before,’ observed Tania. ‘But they never seemed to work that well.’ ‘That’s because they weren’t sufficiently lifelike. If you’re going to simulate the human face you have to do it properly. The French started making them during the last war. Our snipers in the trenches copied the idea.’
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