It seemed Voloshin had dozed off after warming himself up in his quiet corner, for he suddenly awoke with a shudder, alarmed by a vague misgiving that some calamity had occurred. The watch on the packing case showed a quarter past four. He thrust it into his pocket and sprang out of the dug-out, stunned by what was happening outside.
It was still dark, but the silence had exploded in a crackling, rumbling avalanche of firing. Scores of fiery tracers chased each other all over the skies, flashing and criss-crossing in their rushing flight, and above the hill, flares were erupting repeatedly into the sky, flooding the slope that ran down to the marsh with quivering blue light. There on the slope, several grenade explosions were heard, and the burning threads of tracers flew thick and fast above the marsh, traversing the battalion line, coming together and dispersing in the inky darkness of the sky.
Quickly suppressing his sleepy alarm, Voloshin realised that, despite the din and intense flashing all around, the action was taking place on the German side and his companies were silent. Most probably, just as he had feared all along, it was his scouts in trouble beyond the marsh.
"Report to the regiment," he barked out at Markin, who had bounded out of the dug-out in fright, and shouting for Gutmann he set off along the trench towards the field.
Stumbling and missing his footing on the uneven ground of the open field, he ran downhill in the flickering, luminous darkness towards the commotion and the line of the Seventh Company, thinking that now he must come to the aid of the scouts, if only that were still possible. If they weren't both spreadeagled on the hillside. Of course, in that case there'd be no avoiding unpleasant explanations to Gunko, but what could he do? Giving explanations was something he hadn't been able to get used to.
Gutmann, hurriedly doing up his fastenings and putting on his belt, loped along after Voloshin in silence, casting anxious glances at the hill. Once he fell down and swore; then bending low as he ran, caught up with Voloshin again.
"Have they gone berserk up there, or something?"
Voloshin didn't reply. His eyes, too, had not left the hill and the slope flooded with flashes of light, on which, however, nothing was visible from his position. He was thinking that the scouts had probably been well and truly caught, and by this time were beyond help. Slowing his pace a little, he began to note with an experienced eye all the flashes from machine-gun tracers, which he knew how to distinguish from the numerous other kinds of automatic fire, and realised sombrely that there were a lot of them. He estimated them as no fewer than six, although of course this was only part of a well organised system of machine-gun fire, the whole of which they weren't going to reveal now.
The men of the Seventh Company were all on their feet, nobody was still asleep. They were craning out of their dark foxholes, watching the frenzy of firing on the hill and waiting to see what would happen next. Voloshin made for the side and, bending low as he ran, covered the distance to the familiar access trench to the shelter, in which several men were already huddling. Samokhin's voice could be heard:
"Don't move, stay where you are, and keep your heads down! Are you sick of living or something?"
Voloshin bounded into the trench without slackening his pace, somebody moved aside to make room for him, and Gutmann climbed in after him. Samokhin said anxiously:
"Do you see what's happening? Probably Nagorny…"
"Isn't he back yet?"
"No."
"Send ten men across the marsh to the rescue. At once!"
"Sir!" rapped out Samokhin. "Gamziuk! Gamziuk, take the First Platoon and down you go!"
By the light of the flares, Gamziuk sprang out of the shallow trench and, ducking low, set off down the line at a run. A close burst of firing, which just missed blowing off Gamziuk's head, flew over him in a thick braid of flashing light. When it had spent itself, it could be seen that several men had climbed diffidently out of their foxholes and fallen to the ground, presumably undecided as to whether they should start running without orders.
While they were deliberating, a pair of machine-guns on the summit started thrashing away blindly at the clumps of bushes on the marsh, and the glowing particles of tracer ricochets, buzzing like bumblebees, flew off in all directions. At last Gamziuk had assembled all his men, and had just run off towards the marsh when someone standing next to Voloshin in the trench exclaimed joyfully:
"Look over there! Isn't that Nagorny?"
All heads turned in the direction to which he was pointing, and there was indeed some sort of perceptible movement in the bushes. Apparently Gamziuk's men had already noticed it, and one of them, bending low, veered sharply to one side. A minute later, several more had turned back to the elevated strip of ground, and one little group, bunched together, had turned towards the trench.
"What is it, Gamziuk?" Samokhin called out to him, unable to bear the suspense.
"He's been wounded, sir."
"Who's been wounded?"
They came up to the parapet and carefully laid an inert form on the ground. Somebody began to undo the man's greatcoat, as Nagorny subsided heavily onto the parapet.
"Nagorny? What happened to you?" Samokhin asked agitatedly.
"Just a moment, sir, just a moment…"
Only then did they all notice that Nagorny was totally exhausted. His breathing was laboured, and after flinging open his greatcoat and taking off his cap, for a long time he still could not utter a word.
"One moment… Well then… they wounded him… Drozd…"
"Where did it happen?" asked Voloshin.
"Up there, near the trench. We crawled all the way up to the top… And then we turned back… We were crawling to begin with, but then there's this… concertina…"
"What concertina?" asked the company commander in astonishment.
"You know - Bruno coil - barbed wire."
"There was definitely no concertina there. Yesterday I watched all day…"
"It wasn't there yesterday. They dragged it round while we were there… So we got stuck in it, couldn't move this way or that. I grabbed it and gave it a good tug."
"What the hell did you do that for, you halfwit?" the lieutenant snarled at him furiously.
"But what about Drozd then? He was lying there wounded." He nodded in the direction of the soldier lying on the ground, and Voloshin, wincing in the darkness, noticed that Vera's petite form had already appeared at his side. "On the way up it wasn't there. And then they hauled it round…"
"Ah, they cut you off with it, did they? The swine!" cursed Samokhin.
Voloshin did not interrupt or ask any questions, but waited until Nagorny had finished talking. The fact that concertina wire had appeared there did not make things any easier. Nevertheless it was more important to find out about the mines.
"So we crawled right up to the trench, and we could hear their guttural voices… Then suddenly there was this shirr, shirr behind us, so loud…"
"What do you mean 'shirr, shirr'?" said Voloshin, mystified.
"Well they were staking out the concertina. They had us snared like carp in a pond. And then he got wounded…"
"And the mines?" asked Samokhin impatiently.
"Eh? There aren't any mines. At least we didn't find any. And those Jerries with the wire were walking about there without any worries."
Voloshin heaved an inward sigh of relief. The uneasy tension that had kept him on tenterhooks since the very beginning of this commotion was gradually abating. The very worst of his fears, it seemed, was unfounded, there were no mines, and although there was one casualty, the scouts had returned to the company. It would have been worse if, either living or dead, they had remained on the other side of the wire. This concertina wire was the last thing they needed. It would be the last straw if they got stuck in that in the morning.
"Well, is he badly wounded?" he quietly asked the soldiers who were attending to the injured man.
"Can't tell, everything's covered in blood," one of them replied. Vera said nothing.
"They got him with a grenade," said Nagorny, who had managed to get his breath back a little. "This bloody Fritz sniffed him and lobbed a grenade at him. Exploded right next to him, and he copped the fragments."
You didn't abandon him, well done," said Voloshin, and for the first time thought with hostility of Kabakov, in whose place this man Drozd now lay wounded on the parapet. It seemed so unjust - Kabakov by his unconcealed cowardice had saved his own life. And this other man? No one knew yet whether he'd survive.
"They made a hell of a racket," said Samokhin, referring to the Germans.
"They simply went berserk. I thought I'd get a scorching too, but… I just managed to drag him out."
"Bandage him quickly and take him to the rear. Sergeant-Major Grak?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Get the casualty to the medical unit fast! See to it personally."
"Sir!"
The shooting nevertheless gradually died down, only two machine-guns were firing intermittently from the flanks, the others were virtually silent. Flares were still appearing at brief intervals above the incline. Presumably the Germans feared a new sortie of scouts and were assiduously lighting up the hillside. Now their reasons for avoiding any show of light in the first half of the night were becoming clear - they'd been setting up obstacles and fencing themselves in with that damned concertina wire. Yes, certainly, if they were to delay matters for another couple of days, there'd be not only the concertina on the slopes, but also a minefield and a triple barbed-wire entanglement, and perhaps some other things as well.
The general was indeed right: they had to move fast.
Everything would have been all right if Voloshin had his own mortar company, and if Ivanov had a few more shells and could support the infantry properly, at the time of the attack and later, too, on the hill. It had now become clear that the Germans were consolidating their positions with a view to a long stay, and that they wouldn't surrender the hill so easily, but would fight doggedly for it. Obviously this hill had somehow caught their fancy.
Junior Lieutenant Yaroshchuk ran into the trench, and catching sight of Voloshin there, squeezed sidelong towards him in his torn, dilapidated sheepskin coat.
"Where on earth did you get to, Yaroshchuk?" Voloshin said reproachfully. "I've been all over the place looking for you."
"But I'm right here. Over yonder, only four hundred metres away. I wanted to get stuck into them before… don't see why we shouldn't. They're pounding away over there, so why should we keep quiet?"
"It's not worth our while," Voloshin said. "Conserve your energy. You're going to need it."
"We've got plenty of that."
"And your ammunition as well. Here's what you have to do, Yaroshchuk: by morning drag the machine-guns up a little closer. When the attack begins, you'll be providing support. Direct the fire across the marsh. That's when you'll show them what you're made of."
"Sir. I'll do it right away. I've already got my eye on a position there."
"Get moving then," said Voloshin, concluding the conversation, and Yaroshchuk dashed off into the darkness to his heavy machine-gun platoon.
"Ah the scum! They've spoilt my rest," said Samokhin, and shivered in the wind. Vera bobbed furtively into the trench near the shelter and disappeared again. The wounded man had already been bandaged, and Sergeant-Major Grak and two soldiers had taken him to the rear.
"He was a good soldier," said Samokhin regretfully and shook his fist at the darkness. "By God I'll show that little louse a thing or two. I'll teach him to hide behind other people's backs. Gutless wonder!"
Voloshin knew whom he had in mind, but kept silent. It was difficult to get to the bottom of such matters, and still more difficult to make allowances for all their complexities. Deep down he too was angry at Kabakov, but nevertheless he wasn't about to show him a thing or two. Who knew what the very near future held for Kabakov anyway? He only hoped nothing worse would happen to him.
"Right," said Voloshin, "nearly time for breakfast. Get the men fed, and… Your sector, Samokhin, extends from here straight up the slope. The Eighth will take the one slightly to the right. Let Nagorny's platoon be the guides, he knows the way. Anyway, I'll be giving further orders."
"All clear, sir. What about the artillery: haven't left them in the lurch, have they?"
"No, they haven't, Samokhin. They've given them a few shells, twenty rounds per gun."
"Only twenty? That's not much."
"What can we do about it? All our hopes are pinned on the heavy machine-gun platoon. As long as Yaroshchuk doesn't let us down."
"He shouldn't. He's an energetic junior lieutenant."
"Yes, he's energetic…"
Voloshin was not going to elaborate his doubts, which were still in many respects unclear in his own mind - before a battle you don't have time to take everything into account. Something was bound to come out in the wash, unexpected and most often unpleasant, compelling you to be on the alert and prepared for absolutely anything at all.
Glancing around at the hill from time to time, Voloshin set off for Kizevich's company. The main worry of the night had finally fallen from his shoulders: without mines everything would be easier. As before, it was not clear who was on hill "Minor". Were they really Russians? Was he harbouring doubts, putting extra pressure on his men and working himself up into a lather for nothing?
As befits a well-disciplined orderly, Gutmann had been keeping behind the whole time, but he suddenly ran a few steps forward until he was level with Voloshin:
"Now Samokhin will give that Kabakov what for. Was it through him that Drozd got hurt?"
"Yes," affirmed Voloshin.
"Wouldn't I like to get stuck into him, the louse… Ugh, I hate cowards!"
"Really? Haven't you ever been afraid?"
"Me? Yes, I have, why? But hiding behind others?… I've never done that!"
"Don't you see, Gutmann, that in life people are all different, and they arrive at the front different. But here suddenly the same demands are made of everybody, and naturally, not everybody can meet them. They need time to adapt, but there isn't any time. And so you get these... disparities."
"Aha! That's spot on, as regards some people I can think of. But to let others suffer for it? No, I don't agree with that."
"Of course it's unfair that others should have to suffer. but it can't be helped. Nothing can be helped in war."
"No, I can't go along with that. Can't see the point. Even gives me the creeps thinking about it."
"Then what can you go along with?"
"Me? I'd like to go at it in style, with a band playing! So as to give those bastards something to remember! I've got a hell of a score to settle with them. I lost thirty relatives in Kiev alone, not to mention friends. I need to bump off a lot of them, to get even. Perhaps you'd let me go into a company, eh, sir?"
Voloshin kept silent. The request had come somewhat unexpectedly, and although he was sensitive to its validity, he didn't want to decide immediately. Gutmann was a pretty good orderly, resourceful and no fool, and although he would have been perfectly fit now to perform the duties of a platoon commander in any company, Voloshin did not want to release him a couple of hours before an attack. In battle a reliable orderly was as indispensible as an adjutant.
"We'll talk about that later," he said. "Let's take the hill first, then we'll see."
Gutmann gave a faint sigh.
"Do you still think we'll capture it?"
"Do you doubt it"
"Don't mind me. Who am I to be having doubts about it?"
They were already approaching the left flank of the Ninth Company, when there was a muffled clatter of running feet behind them, and Voloshin stopped.
"Captain Voloshin!"
"Yes, what is it?"
In the darkness, Prygunov ran right up to him.
"Sir! Urgent phone call from the regimental commander."
Voloshin, trying to look as if he were listening intently to the now almost peaceful hill, waited half a minute, suppressing the feeling of annoyance that had suddenly flared up inside him. This untimely summons from the commander of the regiment did not augur well. But there was nowhere to escape to, you can't hide from those in authority, so he gave his orders:
"Gutmann, go to Kizevich and find out what's happened with the reconnaissance of the knoll. I want precise details."