Colonel Igor Karlovy, chief of engineers of the Third White Russian Front, dived below the surface of the river to study the effects on the strained underpinnings of the bridge. He surfaced and swam for shore, where a waiting party of helping hands pulled him up the bank. He was surrounded by impatient consultants as he wiped himself dry and lit a cigarette. He dressed. Igor Karlovy was a powerful, muscled man though a bit below average in height. Blond hair, a trace of high cheekbones, and ice-blue eyes gave testament to a Tartar element in his ancestry centuries before. His naked torso revealed shrapnel wounds from another battle. Once his tunic was buttoned about his neck his appearance seemed more aged than thirty-six years. It was a face that had known much, felt much, suffered much. He carried obvious authority.
“The bridge will collapse. There is no possible way to reinforce it. Erosion has set in in the foundation.”
Field Marshal Popov’s personal aide, a nervous major, inquired, “How long will the bridge hold up?”
“Ask the bridge,” Karlovy answered.
“We have more than two thousand heavy pieces to get over in this sector. If this bridge goes it can delay the entire offensive on Berlin.”
Igor merely shrugged. “Berlin is not going to run away.” Popov’s aide did not fathom Igor Karlovy’s humor. He knew the marshal had his heart set on opening the offensive so Berlin might fall by May Day.
The entourage followed Colonel Karlovy downstream. He consulted with two other engineers and decided upon the best place to erect temporary crossings.
“The main highway will have to be diverted so there must be a rampway built to get the mobile equipment down the bank. I suggest cutting some of these lovely German trees and constructing a log road. Now, if Marshal Popov will assign a regiment of men for labor I think we can have a crossing by tomorrow morning.”
“No sooner?”
“Certainly not.”
The aide stomped off to get the labor. Igor drew up hasty plans for building of a crossing. Captain Ivan Orlov pushed into the circle and drew the colonel out. He pointed to his watch excitedly. “Commissar Azov is waiting for us at Eberswalde.”
Captain Orlov obviously dropped Azov’s name for the colonel knew V. V. Azov was more powerful than Popov himself. Ivan Orlov, the party man assigned to watch the engineers, was apt to panic at the thought of being late to see the commissar.
“Drive across the bridge before it collapses and wait until I get things set up. If the bridge goes down, I’ll swim over to you as quickly as I can ... now, please ...”
Captain Ivan Orlov went off to the Mercedes staff car they had commandeered from a German general in Warsaw. He blew the horn with jerky violence and swung the vehicle between a pair of gargantuan SU-100 tanks rumbling over the trembling bridge.
Toward midday a human blanket of labor swarmed over the area. The masses of men and women had stripped a small forest, hand-carried in tons of fill dirt, and laid a rampway to the water’s edge. Others working in the swift stream had started the temporary bridge. Satisfied that the bridge would be built in less time than he predicted, Igor turned the job over to the subordinate engineers.
Captain Ivan Orlov was near frantic by the delay. He sped the car toward Eberswalde, zigzagging between the endless lines of tanks, guns, gondola wagons, horsemen, blowing the horn incessantly, sending foot troops scurrying into the ditches. He jabbered without respite. Igor tried to ignore him. What a magnificent sight, this great great mass of men and guns. Soon the five horrible years would be over. They were at the gates of Berlin ... Russians ... Ukrainians ... squat Asians from Mongol and Tartar lands ... dark-eyed Armenians and Georgians.
Igor was disturbed by gossip in the high command that Stalin preferred a street fight for Berlin rather than allow Nazi surrender. It would be a pretext to take Berlin apart street by street, house by house. What a shame to lose many thousands of young men in this last hour of war.
Igor rolled up his overcoat, made a pillow of it, and pretended to doze in order to shut off Ivan Orlov’s chatter. An intersection clogged with wagons brought them to a halt. A large-busted woman in military-police uniform answered Orlov’s long, undinted horn blast.
“Out of the way, damn you, clear that road!”
“What is your great hurry, comrade?” the woman soldier demanded.
“We have a meeting with a commissar.”
“Excuse me, comrade. Clear the way! Let them through!”
The People’s Military and Civil Governing Group was temporarily established in the boys’ gymnasium in the town of Eberswalde, some fifty kilometers north of Berlin, where they awaited the fall of the capital. White flags of surrender hanging from the town’s windows clashed with the red flags atop the schoolhouse.
Captain Ivan Orlov, now an hour late, leaped from the Mercedes. He quickly identified himself to two blue-capped guards from political security and trotted down the main corridor, which still held a portrait of Adolf Hitler.
Igor was met at the door by his two junior officers, Captain Boris Chernov and young Lieutenant Feodor Guchkov. They had not seen the colonel for several days. There were embraces and backslaps.
“Have you heard, Igor? Popov’s White Russian Front has approached the eastern and southern suburbs of Berlin!”
“And the Ukrainian Front is pouring in from the north!” Feodor added. “We have them in a pincers.”
“It’s official. We have joined hands with the Americans at the Elbe River!”
“Magnificent!” Igor Karlovy roared, “but for now I’d better get in to see Comrade Azov.”
“We’ll wait here,” Feodor said. “Tonight the bombardment of Berlin begins in earnest. I know a place up near the front lines where we can watch it.”
“Bring the vodka,” Igor said, and asked for directions to V. V. Azov’s office. He stopped for a moment to look into the auditorium. The Agitation and Propaganda Corps were hard at it: stacks of broadsheets holding portraits of Stalin, Lenin, Marx, Engels; stacks of leaflets; long strips of red lettering on white cloth carrying slogans would come in on the heels of the last shot.
V. V. Azov sat deadpanned behind his desk. Ivan Orlov was nervously repeating an apology of why they were late. “Marshal Popov personally asked Colonel Karlovy to look after the bridge.”
Azov silenced the captain by holding up his hand without indication of belief or disbelief. He seemed remote from the elation of the great turn of events. One almost never saw a smile, a frown, or any of those indications attributed to human reactions. He greeted Igor Karlovy matter-of-factly. His thick black hair was in place and his huge moustache was combed and carefully turned. The simple tunic was opened at the throat. Behind his dull gray eyes was a brain trained to receive and disseminate information without emotion.
“I heard the news of our joining with the Americans!” Igor said. “It’s marvelous!”
Azov opened his mouth slowly, began to speak with automation in expressionless tones. “We can well understand the elation of the moment. However, Comrade Colonel, we are not to lose sight of the fact that the American participation in this war has been a minor factor.”
From a long-standing dealing with commissars, Igor knew how to interpret Azov’s pronouncement. For several months now the Russian people had been indoctrinated to the effect that the winning of the war was a singular Russian effort. Hearing it from Azov’s lips, Igor knew, was a voicing of official policy. It was for damned sure, Igor knew, that the Agitation and Propaganda people were preparing literature to downgrade the American participation.