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In the first six months of 1980, while still a postgraduate student in the Russian Department at the University of Queensland, I fulfilled a commission from the University of Queensland Press in St Lucia, Australia, to translate a novella by Vasil Bykov for a series they were publishing consisting of titles from contemporary Soviet fiction in translation. Other titles in the series included Valentin Rasputin's "Money for Maria" and "Borrowed Time", but it fell to my lot to translate one of Bykov's stories.
The resulting book is long out of print, so I now present the translation on-line, aware that there are bound to be points that a more experienced translator might wish to criticise, but also aware that after so long an interval has elapsed since the work was in the formative stage, tinkering with the text would probably do more harm than good. Translations, like original works, reach a point where they gel, achieving integrity of form and style. Although I have no doubt that imperfections remain, by the time it was published the work had settled into its present form, and I am loth to disturb it. My only concern at the time of the project was to do justice to the spirit and substance of the original to the best of my ability.
HIS BATTALION
by Vasil Bykov
List of Characters arranged by units
The Regiment
Major Gunko……………….regimental commander
Major Minenko…………….regimental deputy commander (political)
Lieutenant Kruglov………..regimental Komsomol organiser
Third Battalion
Battalion HQ
Captain Voloshin…………..battalion commander
Lieutenant Markin………....adjutant
Gutman (Leva)……………...orderly
Chernoruchenko……………telephone operator
Prygunov……………………sentry
Jim……………………………regimental mascot
Seventh Company
Lieutenant Samokhin………company commander
Sergeant-Major Grak……….company sergeant-major
Sergeant Nagorny…………..platoon commander
Avdiushkin………………….
Drozd………………………...
Kabakov……………………...members of Nagorny's platoon
Junior Sergeant Vera Veretennikova
………………………………...battalion first-aid instructor
Denishchik…………………...machine gunner
Eighth Company
Lieutenant Muratov………...company commander
Sergeant Yershov……………platoon commander
Gainatulin……………………private soldier
Ninth Company
Senior Lieutenant Kizevich…company commander
Heavy Machine-gun Platoon
Junior Lieutenant Yaroshchuk…..platoon commander
Support Battery
Captain Ivanov (Pasha)……..battery commander
Sergeant Mateichuk…………orderly
CHAPTER 1
The trench, hastily dug in a single night on a hillock scarcely thawed after the winter frosts, but already well dried out, was shallow, dry and dusty. In order to make himself less conspicuous, Voloshin was leaning as usual with his chest against the parapet and his elbows propped wide apart. However, it was tiring for a man of the battalion commander's height to maintain that stance for very long. As he changed position, his elbow dislodged a clod of frozen earth which hit the floor of the trench with a dull thud. At that moment an indignant yelp was heard in the trench and two broad canine paws appeared on the crumbling edge of the parapet.
"Jim! Get down!"
Keeping the binoculars to his eyes, Voloshin adjusted first one eyepiece, then the other, trying to get the best focus, but as before visibility was virtually nil. As nightfall rapidly approached, dusk was setting in on the bare slopes of the hill, recently uncovered by melting snow, enveloping a long strip of autumn ploughing, a few fresh mine-craters, and the sinuous scar of a trench on its very summit. Even the clumps of stunted bushes below were being obscured by the gathering gloom.
"What the hell, it's all perfectly clear!"
He let the binoculars fall to his chest and leaned back limply against the rear wall of the trench. The scout on duty, who had been keeping watch from the adjacent fire-position, hunched his shoulders with cold under his dirty, grey quilted jacket.
"They're building fortifications, the bastards!"
That the enemy was building fortifications was obvious, and the battalion commander reflected with regret that they had made a mistake yesterday in not attacking this hill right away. Then, there had still been some chance of capturing it, but yesterday the artillery had let them down. The support battery had only a dozen or so shells left, which were being kept for the direst emergency. The neighbouring battalion had become engaged in a long-drawn-out battle for the Pioneer State Farm that stretched away on the far side of the river, and when Voloshin had asked the regimental commander about this inconspicuous, but apparently not unimportant hill, there had been no reply. However, that was understandable enough: the offensive was losing impetus; the regiment had carried out its task, after a fashion, and beyond that divisional staff very likely had no definite plan as yet. But they should have captured the hill none the less. One battalion, the worse for wear after three weeks' fighting, was hardly sufficient for this, it was true, but yesterday there had been no trench on the bare, steep summit, and moreover the slope on the right flank above the marsh, Voloshin thought, had not been occupied by the Germans. They had taken it in the morning, and spent the whole day digging in all over it, paying no attention to the machine-gun fire. From where he stood, he caught glimpses of black soil scattering above the parapets, towards evening several transports had come up from the state farm, and before darkness fell the German sappers were dragging logs along the trench, fitting out their dug-outs and entrenchments. During the night they would probably mine the declivity that ran down to the marsh.
The darkness was deepening all around. The chill twilight was spreading with increasing density above the bare March landscape, relieved by dull grey patches of unmelted snow in the hollows and ditches and in the marsh, with its sparse overgrowth of shrubs. It was cold. A biting wind blew fitfully from the east, carrying to the observation post the smell of smoke, which reminded the battalion commander of his dug-out. Not once in the course of the day had he set foot there. As if he'd understood his master's intention, Jim stood up, ran along the trench for about five paces and glanced around with an enquiring expression in his serious, somewhat mournful eyes.
"Right, Prygunov, keep watch. And listen too. If anything happens, report immediately."
"Yes sir."
"And remember: no smoking."
"I don't smoke, sir."
"So much the better. You'll be relieved for dinner."
The battalion commander's groundsheet, thrown on over his greatcoat, scraped the walls of the narrow trench as he quickly made his way down to the dug-out, urged on by the temptations of relative warmth and peace and the pot of hot soup that awaited him there. The dug-out, constructed in a single night, was no great shakes: a temporary field shelter for a day or so, covered with stakes and straw instead of logs, with a thin layer of earth on top. There was no door to speak of, simply a groundsheet belonging to somebody which hung across the entrance. Lifting it slightly, Voloshin once again found himself near the dug-out's main attraction - a stove made from a converted milk-churn and already nicely heated up.
"Ah, what bliss!" he exclaimed involuntarily, holding out his cold hands to the warmth. "Like in Sochi. What are you grinning at, Chernoruchenko? Ever been to Sochi?"
"No sir."
"Well then!"
The taciturn telephone operator, Chernoruchenko, slow-moving and no longer young, had sandwiched the receiver between his shoulder and his ear and was poking brushwood into the stove, smiling all the while as if he had something jolly in mind. The battalion commander automatically transferred his gaze to the other men in the dug-out, but they too were smiling conspiratorially: both his orderly, Gutmann, kneeling in quilted trousers and twisting a long thread between his teeth, and a scout who was lying on the floor propped on one elbow, smoking a roll-your-own cigarette. The only exception was Lieutenant Markin, the battalion adjutant, who sat with sheepskin coat flung over his shoulders, busying himself intently with his papers by the dim light of a carbide lantern standing on a crate. But then Markin never smiled nor took pleasure in anything. He had been like that for as long as Voloshin had known him - withdrawn and self-absorbed.
"What's happened?" asked Voloshin, intrigued by the general silence, and Chernoruchenko, straightening up awkwardly, stepped from one foot to the other. However, it was Gutmann who spoke first:
"A surprise for you, Captain."
There were certainly plenty of those at the front; not an hour went by without surprises, each more unexpected than the last, but now Voloshin sensed that perhaps this was not one of the worst. Otherwise they wouldn't have been smiling.
"What is it this time?"
"Let Chernoruchenko tell you. He knows more about it."
Clumsy, long-armed Chernoruchenko, smiling sheepishly, glanced first at Gutmann then at Lieutenant Markin. Deciding against taking the initiative, Markin urged the private curtly:
"Well speak man, speak."
"A decoration for you, sir. HQ phoned about it."
Voloshin had already begun to have an inkling of what it was all about and now realised in a flash that he'd guessed correctly. Without saying a word he stepped over the scout's long legs, threw off his groundsheet and sat down beside the adjutant's crate. Jim, with the elaborately respectful air of a well-trained dog, sank down on his haunches next to his master.
Voloshin remained silent. For a moment he felt a thrill of joy mixed, however, with an inexplicable feeling of discomfort. A medal was all very well, but why had it been only him and not the others? At the same time, everything had happened as it was bound to happen in wartime. About two months ago the papers had been dispatched recommending him for the Order of the Red Banner. Voloshin had known about this and for a while he had even waited expectantly for the medal to arrive. But then the offensive commenced, and in the long hard battles for hilltops, villages and farms he held out little hope that the medal would find him among the living. And now, as it turned out , it had caught up with him, and he wondered how long he was destined to carry it on his chest. Ah well, on the whole he was pleased, though outwardly he gave no sign of it.
"Congratulation, Captain!" said Gutmann. "I've even managed to get hold of a little something to celebrate."
He produced a small aluminium flask from somewhere and shook it. The contents gurgled. Voloshin, embarrassed, made a wry face:
"Put it away for now, Leva. I can't think about celebrations at the moment. I've got other problems to consider."
"Oho! You've got problems! And after the trouble I went to, wheedling it out of the sergeant-major of the Second Battalion! That was a problem, I can tell you! The lieutenant here has been eyeing it all evening."
"You're talking nonsense, Gutmann," Markin remarked soberly.
"Give it to the lieutenant then," Voloshin said calmly. "I'd rather you found me some dry foot-bindings."
"Huh! Foot-bindings - big deal."
He dragged out a tightly packed kit-bag from under the straw and deftly undid the fastenings:
"Here you are."
"Thanks."
"And if you'll take off your greatcoat, I'll sew the button into the collar-tab. You've been promising to let me do it for almost three days."
"Just make sure both sides are even."
"Don't worry, it'll be a professional job."
Voloshin didn't doubt it. Gutmann was an old hand at all things possible and impossible. He made everything he did seem astonishingly effortless and simple. With a practised movement, Voloshin unbuckled his belt and flung the webbing straps from his shoulders along with the holster and Tokarev pistol, after which he removed his greatcoat. Once smartly tailored, it was now shabby and riddled with shrapnel holes. Gutmann, with the sweeping flourish of a professional tailor, spread it across his knees.
"Who thought of putting these buttons in the tabs anyway? It's a lousy idea!"
"They didn't need your opinion, Gutmann," growled Markin. "Since they've introduced them, there must be a reason for it."
"I reckon it was better before, with the officers' pips on the collar tabs."
With a sense of pleasure, Voloshin stretched his tired, swollen legs out on the straw, and listening abstractedly to the conversation of his subordinates, took his watch out of his trouser pocket. The watch was flat with fine hands and kept remarkably good time. He put it on the edge of the crate where he could see its illuminated dial and began to roll himself a cigarette.
His initial excitement was gradually subsiding, displaced by the urgent problems of the day, and looking at his watch he thought that soon he must phone regimental command post with his report. As was almost always the case, his good mood was spoilt by the unpleasant minutes before and after a report. Despite the time that had elapsed since Major Gunko had assumed command of the regiment, Voloshin could still not get used to his overbearing manner, which frequently irritated and even angered him.
"Any calls from the regiment?"
Markin tore himself from his papers and, remembering, he blinked. In the dim light of the carbide lamp the rather heavy stubble on his cheeks made his face appear almost black.
"Yes. They're sending reinforcements."
"Many?"
"No one knows. The orders are to despatch a representative from the battalion at twenty-two hundred hours."
The lieutenant glanced anxiously at his watch - the hour hand was approaching eight. Voloshin leaned back against the wall of the dug-out and drew on his cigarette. The wall had absorbed no warmth whatsoever, and even through his sheepskin waistcoat he could feel his back getting cold.
"They didn't ask about hill sixty-five?"
"No, why? Are they still digging?"
"They're building fortifications. I rather fear we're going to be asked to attack it tomorrow."
"Some chance," said Markin dubiously. "With a ration strength of seventy-six."
The figure named by Markin, though it came as no surprise to Voloshin, gave him a nasty jolt. Only seventy-six! Just a short while ago there had been almost a hundred more men, but now less than half the battalion remained. How many would be left in a week's time? Or in a month's time, towards summer? These thoughts occupied him for only a moment, however. Suppressing them with an effort, he returned to the question of the hill.
"In a day or two it'll be worse. They'll have strengthened their positions by then."
The lieutenant glanced quickly at the exit, listened for a moment and remarked quietly:
"How about leaving it out of the report? HQ hasn't mentioned it, so why don't we just keep quiet about it?"
"No fear," said Voloshin. "We'll report things as they are."
"As you wish."
Gutmann was painstakingly sewing on the button, Chernoruchenko was keeping busy near the stove and the scout, with his greatcoat pulled over his head, was trying to get some sleep before he went on duty. Markin was busy with a pencil and cleaning rod, ruling up an exercise book with the rows and columns of a Form 2-UR to register the promised reinforcements. Voloshin was absently watching the way the paper on the end of his cigarette was smouldering on one side, and thinking that, fortunately or not, war didn't allow the slightest freedom in the kind of choice that Markin had in mind.
Of all the possibilities latent in a given situation, in war, more often than not, the one that eventuated was the very worst, the price for which was almost always soldiers' lives. It was difficult to come to terms with this, but any attempts to find a way around it usually led not only to a conflict with one's conscience, but to something still worse. This issue was of far greater concern to an officer in command of troops than to an ordinary soldier, and it required him to be extremely exacting with himself if he were to demand the same of his subordinates.
"We can do as we please, can't we. Lieutenant?" Voloshin asked suddenly. Markin, detecting an odd note in the battalion commander's voice, gave a deprecating shrug.
"Don't mind me. It's none of my business. You're in command of the battalion, so it's your job to give reports. I was just making a suggestion."
"In every situation there are three ways out," said Gutmann, raising his head from his sewing. "As Khaimovich said himself…"
"Quiet, Gutmann," said Voloshin. "Don't take such liberties."
"Beg your pardon, sir."
For a moment Voloshin was silent, and then he asked quietly, for no apparent reason:
"Were you surrounded by the enemy for long, Markin?"
"Two months and eighteen days. Why?"
"I was wondering. Last year I was cut off too. For almost a month."
"Yes, but you got out with your unit," volunteered Gutmann, unable to keep out of the conversation. Voloshin scrutinised him with a stony face.
"Yes, I did," he said at last. "Which was just as well for me. Although forty-seven men were all that remained of the regiment, they still had the regimental colours and the safe with the Party documents. That helped us no end. When we got out, of course."
Markin put down his pencil and cleaning rod and tugged the sheepskin coat forward on his shoulder. His eyes blazed with recollection in his suddenly animated face.
"We had nothing left. Neither the colours nor the safe. A mere handful of soldiers, a dozen or so officers. Half of them wounded. Germans all around us. The commissar blew his brains out. The regimental commander was finished off by typhus. We assembled for the last time to work out a plan of action, and decided to try to get out in small groups. We set out, then ran into Germans. We floundered about in the forest for a week, eating bark. At last we broke through - twelve of us. Found some other Russians, so we thought we'd made it back. Then we noticed what a sorry sight they were, for front-line soldiers - emaciated, nothing to smoke, and living on horsemeat. It turned out they were encircled too. We'd got ourselves out of the frying-pan into the fire. So we were holed up there for another month, living on next to nothing."
"Where was that?"
"Somewhere just outside Nelidovo. Where else? With the Thirty-ninth Army."
"Yes, things were grim there. Just at the end of summer they were fighting their way through to us. They carried out the dead commander of the army and buried him in Kalinin."
"That's right. Lieutenant-General Bogdanov. A heroic fellow. But what else could he do? In the break-through he led the assault on the machine-guns himself and that was the end of him."
"The Thirty-ninth has taken a beating. So has the Twenty-ninth."
"And what about the Thirty-third? And Belov's cavalry? And Sokolov's?"
"Yes," agreed Voloshin, "there isn't much left of them…"
"I've lost out all along the line," said Markin suddenly. Gutmann and Chernoruchenko looked up cautiously.
"What I've lived through I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. In the reserves I met a chap who graduated with me. He's got two medals and his major's pip. And I'm still a lieutenant."
Voloshin propped himself on one elbow, supported by the crate, and cast a sidelong glance at his subdued men.
"That's no way to talk, Markin. It's still a long way to Berlin."
"Ha!" Markin dismissed the topic with a wave of his hand and took up his cleaning rod again. "How many lines do I rule up here? I wish we knew how many they'll send. Otherwise what's the point in ruling all these lines. Captain Voloshin, sir," he said, looking up at the battalion commander, "we must pick out a clerk from the reinforcements. Otherwise how much can one man be expected to do?"
"Why don't you train Gutmann over there to help you? He can combine jobs. Or Chernoruchenko."
The telephone operator began darting about in confusion near his telephone set, but Gutmann almost took umbrage:
"Come off it, Captain! I don't mind work, but this…"
"What is it then - not work?" retorted Markin angrily. "Just you try sitting over papers for a day, you end up feeling like a zombie."
"I don't want to."
"Of course you don't. You're having too good a time of it running about in the field. Spoils of war and all that…"
"All right, Gutmann, finish your sewing, my back's already frozen stiff!" said Voloshin, cutting the argument short.
"Take my sheepskin coat."
"Not on your life, thanks all the same. Your coat's probably got… er… saboteurs running about in it."
"A few, sir. You can't really get away from them. Well, it's finished. Here you are."
"Hand it over. Let's see how good a tailor you are."
Voloshin took the greatcoat from the orderly and put it on. Then with his customary precise movements he threw the webbing on over his shoulders, buckled his belt and moved the holster into position.
"That's fine, the tabs match perfectly now. Thanks a lot… Chernoruchenko, call up 'Volga' Ten for me. We'll have a talk with the boss."
(End of Chapter 1)
(To be continued)