November 1916 Read online

  No alternative, though. Must look through it all and try to keep some of it in mind, or tomorrow may be your day to make a mistake.

  There were Western Army Group orders, 2nd Army orders, Grenadier Corps orders—only their own battalion orders were, thank God, not given in writing, although they too had a typewriter, which was kept busy logging operations.

  Sanya transferred all this paper to the clean end of the table, moved the oil lamp nearer, and started from the top of the pile without sorting it. Directives on expenditure came first. To Brigade Paymaster, Titular Counselor so-and-so … deductions from officers’ pay for officers’ library … for medals … to the fund for families of soldiers killed or wounded … to the Mikhailovsky School fund … from the officers’ loan capital … from the brigade club collection … money for the purchase of devotional literature for the divisional mullah … the below-mentioned clerks have permission to take the examination for promotion to …

  Even skimming it, however cursorily and reluctantly, would take at least two hours. And it was the last thing he wanted to be doing.

  Medical Orderly so-and-so is ordered to proceed to Nesvizh to pick up medical supplies … to Minsk to buy kerosene … Bombardier so-and-so to obtain horseshoes … Junior Bombardier so-and-so of No. 5 Battery has entered into lawful wedlock with a peasant girl … to be entered in his service book … make Ensign so-and-so a grant equivalent to four months’ pay to buy a horse and carriage …

  “Why are you reading to yourself? Read it out loud!”

  “What for?”

  “I didn’t read it very carefully, and I wouldn’t mind hearing it again.”

  “Terenti, it’ll take too long.”

  “So where are you hurrying off to?”

  “It’s you who have to be off.”

  “Ah, but I may not go at all. Read away!”

  Terenti made himself comfortable, lying on his side, with his bullet head on the pillow, looking down at Sanya as though he was expecting an adventure story or a love story.

  “Come on, read!”

  Sanya couldn’t refuse. He read whatever his eyes could see, whatever his stumbling tongue could articulate, skipping quite a bit.

  “Increment for George medal … for greasing boots, twenty-four grams per soldier per month … in accordance with Order No … from the Minister of War … the below-mentioned are admitted to the examination for the rank of ensign.”

  “All very well,” Chernega grumbled. “But it’s better being a sergeant major. You’ve got more authority.” (Sanya skimmed through two orders silently while he was saying it.) “Still, ensigns are the backbone of the army … But why have you stopped?”

  “Officers’ shoes available from the Corps Quartermaster’s supply depot in Minsk at sixteen rubles twenty-five kopecks a pair.”

  “Phew! What a racket! Better buy some, though, mine are more or less worn out.”

  “After … soldiers will be issued with padded breeches, jerkins, donkey jackets, sheepskin coats, and flannelette puttees … On the supply of basic rations, hot meals, tea, tobacco, and soap … In view of the decline in butter production in the empire, as of 14 October this year fifty percent of dairy butter will be replaced by vegetable oil … as of 28 October lower ranks will be issued with only twelve zolotniks of sugar, and a money equivalent will be paid in lieu of the other six …”

  “Hmm … In ‘14 they came up with a pound of meat a day, you could eat till you burst, and we got a quarter of fatback as well … you could live like a king, and have some for the dog. You’d be glad of that fatback now to give a bit of a taste to your gruel.”

  Tsyzh, who was bringing in the copper kettle, with steam still billowing from the spout, heard this. “Never mind, s’, it’s a sin to complain. We still get half a pound of meat. And a pound of fatback a week.”

  Tsyzh made a barely perceptible distinction between real officers, who began at second lieutenant, and ensigns, calling the former “sir” and ensigns “s’.” But he wrapped his tongue around it so nimbly you’d never catch him on it.

  Tsyzh poured some of the strong tea, just boiled up and fragrant again, into the second lieutenant’s earthenware mug. He brewed twice a day, so the tea was always aromatic.

  The gentlemen officers’ sugar was in a sugar bowl.

  “Will there be anything else, sir?” he asked as he cleared the plates away and wiped the table.

  “Yes, a jug of honey,” Chernega trumpeted.

  Tsyzh, with a sprinkling of gray in his hair and a white cloth over his arm like a tavern waiter, smiled. “Sorry, sir, the bees have flown away. No honey till next year.”

  His sense of humor was another of his strong points. War likes a joke. He knew that the gentlemen officers always had worries and problems. He probably had some of his own, but serving officers’ meals was not just something that had to be done, he made it fun. Almost as though they were visiting him and the little woman at home.

  But being waited on by someone old enough to be his father was a constant embarrassment to Sanya. He couldn’t get used to it. Glancing at the stove—everything was neatly arranged there too—the second lieutenant smiled and said, “No, we don’t need anything else, go to bed now. Just find Blagodarev and tell him to come and see me in, say, half an hour.”

  Now that the table was wiped clean he spread his papers out and went on reading. A sheaf of instructions on the treatment of scurvy. Scurvy had taken hold of the brigade in the middle of the summer: there was sufficient bread, cereals, meat, and fish, but no green vegetables or new potatoes; you couldn’t buy them in neighboring villages and importing them from anywhere in the empire was prohibited by order of the Supreme Commander. The sudden outbreak of scurvy was the result not only of poor diet but of continual night duty—and lack of rest all through the spring and summer. Many of the men were sick and too weak for duty, but the authorities took a long time authorizing and arranging their removal to the sanatoria operated by the Union of Zemstvos, where complete rest and green vegetables awaited them, or allowing units to procure potatoes, cabbages, and beets by their own efforts, even from inside the empire. But now that the scurvy was no more, belated orders repeated over and over again how, and how often a day, dugouts should be aired (fit extra windows, install plank beds, and stop soldiers from sleeping on the ground or make them put branches under their mats) and who should be released from duty for rest and when …

  “Come on, read it out loud.” Chernega wouldn’t give up.

  “I thought you were asleep. Want some tea?”

  “No, not without honey.”

  “Halters, bridles, horsecloths, currycombs, brushes, nose bags, gas masks for horses … The horse Charlatan, on the roster since 1909, is redesignated for the use of officers, and the mare Shelkunya is redesignated for use in the line by other ranks.”

  “Shelkunya, let’s see, that’s the baldish bay with a tuft on her right forefoot. She’s still a good one. Changing her, eh—wonder if he’s found a better one.”

  Chernega knew every single horse in his own battalion by sight, and many of those in other battalions too. There followed a long list of horses transferred from one category to another—officers’ horses privately owned, army horses, saddle horses for the artillery, draft horses for the artillery, cart horses—Shorokh, Shved, Shut, Shatobrian, Shanghai, Shchedry—with a full description of sizes, coloring, bald patches, flashes and other markings, all of it signed by the brigade commander, who might or might not have read it, and Sanya would have left out everything concerning other batteries and battalions, but Chernega had come to life, dangling and flicking his plump, stubby hand like a rider’s crop, urging him on, approving or scolding.

  “As if the remount depots stick to the rules about grading nowadays! They send any horse anywhere, as long as the number’s right. While we’re in one place it doesn’t matter, but suppose we have to get started tomorrow. Every horse should be right for its job!”

  Sanya also liked horses an
d knew a bit about them, but wasn’t as passionate as Chernega: listening to it all for the second time around, he expressed his agreement or disagreement with what was said about every horse, always with an eye for neglect or dishonesty on somebody’s part.

  “On examination … some horses have sharp lugs on both rear shoes, which causes them to hitch …”

  “Bastards! Ought to be shod like that themselves!”

  “The below-mentioned horses belonging to officers are registered for a fodder allowance … the below-mentioned are returned to their original status … from the brigade’s racing capital in the Moscow Merchant Bank …”

  Sanya went through all the horses to please Chernega and only then spotted it: “Are you playing tricks on me or what? Did you put the most important orders on the bottom?”

  “Must be Ustimovich. Threw ‘em down as he read ‘em. So the first batch went to the bottom.”

  “So you should have done the opposite!”

  “Don’t blame me. He read them to me, like you’re doing.”

  Sanya felt peeved. A quiet evening, he could have made good use of it, and here he was blathering away, reading all this drivel. But Chernega wouldn’t let him read to himself.

  “Out loud, Sanya, my boy,” he begged. “Out loud!”

  Chernega was crafty all right, listening to it twice instead of reading it once. “I don’t understand anything out of books, I only understand what I hear for myself.”

  Next came the operational orders. Every regiment was to have a specially trained officer as “gas commandant.”

  The battalion already had one. Ustimovich. Let him read it.

  “… all batteries to record transfer of defensive fire from their own to adjacent sectors … to corps commanders …”

  “Not us, thank God!” Chernega said with a loud yawn.

  “Choose which of your positions … present on tracing paper … step up trenching operations in October.”

  The whining of the order machine reverberated hollowly in his head.

  “Increase the wire net to three or four strands, each greater in width … raise parapets to the proper height, and camouflage them … corps and battalion reserves to detail one-quarter of their complement daily for this work …”

  “Never any rest! Get over the scurvy without it! Left hand never knows what the right hand’s doing! Poland’s famous for muddling through, but Russia’s even worse …”

  Five German three-inch shells exploded not far away. The glass in the window jangled, the lamp dipped, and a few dribbles of earth fell through the ceiling.

  Next came a number of orders about communications … In spite of the ban some people are still using the open telegraph line … placing one-way signal lines underground in the vicinity of the enemy is forbidden.

  There had been a lot of bother about eavesdropping in recent months. It was a constant surprise to find that the Germans knew the disposition and duty periods of Russian units at the lowest level. Tests were made with an amplifier, and it turned out that telephone messages were easily intercepted. So now:

  Army HQs to work out code words and phrases and present some to the Western Army Group HQ so that a single code can be devised … How silly, why a single code? … Western Army Group. Today, on the name day of our Sovereign leader, the Heir Apparent, the armies of the Western Army Group tender their most loyal congratulations and offer up their fervent prayers … in reply His Majesty was pleased to favor me with the following telegram … to be read, by order, in all companies, squadrons, Cossack hundreds, batteries, and detachments … C in C, Western Army Group, Infantry General Evert … From the same, noting that there are still instances of the appointment of Jews as clerks and in quartermasters’ supply depots, and also as cattle drovers, which is absolutely impermissible … You are ordered to remove them from these posts immediately and make no further appointments of the sort …

  “Remove the Hymies!” Chernega said approvingly, lashing the air with his hand. “They cling to the safe jobs like flies around a stove. You won’t find them sticking their necks out!”

  Sanya stopped reading and raised his clear eyes.

  “After all, Terenti, these are fellows with some education. Some of them are students—Barukh, in my platoon, is a university graduate. Every third one could be an officer, not just a clerk.”

  “An officer? Are you crazy?” Chernega rolled over to the very edge of the bunk; his chest was on the last rod, he might come crashing down on the floor at any minute …

  “Just think where officers like that would lead us! They’d know what orders to give us!”

  “Depends which ones. Some of them are said to have the George medal.”

  “Said to! Somebody saw some somewhere, sometime. Think about it—why the hell should they fight for Russia?”

  Terenti found Sanya’s obtuseness laughable. Any fool could see it, why couldn’t he?

  “Let one of them in and tomorrow there’ll be ten! They’ll walk all over us. You haven’t learned it all yet, you haven’t lived with them. Equal rights, they call it. Only we don’t skin each other alive, and they do skin us. Equal rights would soon mean ‘we’re more equal than you.’ Put officer tabs on your Beinarovich tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow you’ll want to desert.”

  Beinarovich? Hmm. Beinarovich, with the hot, black, angry eyes. Maybe Chernega had a point there. But Barukh? Barukh was well educated, polite, reserved. Sanya always felt uneasy with Barukh’s ironic gaze upon him: how can I give him orders, what tone of voice should I use to him, when he’s taken his degree and I haven’t?

  “Whose country is it—ours or theirs?” Chernega swung his dangling hand like a flail. “I bet there aren’t any out on the steppes where you come from. Try living in Kharkov province, then I’ll listen to you.”

  Peaceable as he was, Sanya didn’t give way easily. He took his time and answered with a friendly smile, but stuck to his guns. “Well, if it isn’t their country, why do we make them join the army? It’s unfair. If you’re right, we shouldn’t call them up at all.”

  “So let’s not call them up!” Chernega conceded. “We won’t lose much if we don’t. But they live among us! If we don’t call them up, maybe we shouldn’t take anybody except Russkies and Ukes. It used to be like that. Sarts weren’t called up, Caucasians weren’t … Finns still aren’t. D’you know how many of our kind have been killed? In East Prussia alone?”

  Terenti fidgeted on the very edge of his little upper space, as though poised to swoop. Sanya had room to stand up and walk around, but he sat quietly, leaning on the table, with his elbow on all those orders, and his fingers spread over his forehead, touching his corn-colored hair.

  “Look,” he said reflectively. “What it comes down to is aggravated distrust of each other. The state refuses to regard Jews as real citizens, suspecting that they don’t see themselves that way. And the Jews don’t genuinely want to defend this country, suspecting that they won’t earn any thanks for it anyway. How do we get out of it? Who’s going to make the first move?”

  “Damn it, maybe you’re one yourself.” Chernega guffawed, rolling onto his back and playing his invisible accordion. “Why should you worry who takes the first step? It doesn’t matter if nobody does. The order’s clear enough. Kick the Jews out of their staff jobs. Why are they sitting pretty in staff jobs everywhere? Is that fair? Isn’t that an insult? I’m telling you, you don’t know anything, you haven’t lived with them, so you just don’t know. A very special people they are, they all stick together, and they worm their way in everywhere. Don’t forget they’re the ones who crucified Christ.”

  Sanya removed his hand from his head and spoke sternly to the man up above. “Terenti, that’s not a joking matter. Don’t talk wildly. D’you think we wouldn’t have crucified him? If he’d come from Suzdal instead of Nazareth, and come to us first, d’you think we Russians wouldn’t have crucified him?”

  At rare moments, confronted with his younger friend’s deep se
riousness, the older man quieted down. He answered back, with only the slightest tinge of humor in his voice. “We would? Ne-ever.”

  It wasn’t today’s problem. Why tear each other’s hair out?

  But for Sanya it was today’s problem, and mild as he was, once he got his teeth into something, beating him over the head wouldn’t make him let go.

  “Any people would have rejected and betrayed him! Understand? Any one of them! That was the intention. Nobody could have taken it in: he came and said straight out that he was from God, that he was the son of God, and had brought us God’s will! Who could endure that? Who would not beat him? Who would not crucify him? People were killed for much less. No human being can endure a revelation directly from God. He must flounder and fumble his way to thinking that it is the product of his own experience.”

  [4]

  There was a knock.

  “May I come in, sir?”

  The voice was subdued, deliberately kept low. But recognizable even through the door.

  “Come in, Blagodarev, come in!”

  Bowing his head, and his shoulders too, burly Blagodarev entered, and closed the door carefully so that it would not bang. Only then did he straighten up and raise his hand to his cap, with something less than military precision, but not unnecessarily flouting the rules.