The two men crashed to ground and rolled into each other, bringing further pain to Czernin and adding a dislocated little finger to Nazarbayev‘s woes.
Neither man had any great interest in fighting any more, as their energy drained along with their blood.
The Soviet officer eyed his enemy, but decided that there was no threat so did what most soldiers would do in such a situation.
He lit a cigarette.
Czernin felt the desire wash over him and, with his rough Russian, managed to get one of his own.
The two bleeding warriors lay in the mud gasping and smoking as the battle grew in ferocity all around them.
A grenade went off near the top of the hole, covering both with a wash of mud.
The tension broke as Czernin started to laugh at the vision in front of him, the red and brown figure looking comical to his eyes.
They both laughed the laugh of the ‘slightly mad but getting decidedly madder’, and the conversation started to flow as each man set aside thoughts of who might come into the hole first and concentrated on staying awake as the soporific effect of their wounds started to kick in.
They laughed at each other, grew angry with each other, shared each other’s histories, and shared pictures of loved ones, and in Nazarbayev’s case, lost ones.
As both men started to drift into unconsciousness, Nazarbayev found the energy to dispute the war in its entirety.
“Well we didn’t start this latest fucking mess, Comrade!”
Czernin coughed his way through a rib-provoking bout caused by the second cigarette.
“I fucking know that, Kapitan.”
Nazarbayev, slowly being carried away on a fuzzy white cloud of blood loss and exhaustion, managed to speak one last time.
“So who fucking did then, Starshina?”
Czernin coughed his way to the edge of unconsciousness as Nazarbayev made the journey first, although the last vestiges of his conscious mind caught Czernin’s reply.
‘…We did…’
1722 hrs, Tuesday, 25th March 1947, ad hoc medical facility, Seilunai, Lithuania.
Nazarbayev opened his eyes against his better judgement as his head pounded like there were blacksmiths at work in every corner.
‘Mudaks!’
He rolled to one side and deposited everything he had in his stomach into a conveniently placed enamel bowl.
His stomach convulsions brought pain from every part of his body and he fell back exhausted and drained by his efforts.
His heart sank as he saw a Polish medical orderly walk past with an armful of bloody bandages.
‘I’m a prisoner!’
“Welcome back to us, Comrade Kapitan.”
He focussed on the man in front of him, a lieutenant of the Red Army medical corps.
“Leytenant? What is this place?”
“Temporary hospital, Comrade Kapitan. We’ll have you away to clean sheets in Moscow soon enough.”
“But the Pole?”
“He’ll live. Comrade Kapitan. Just about, anyway. Not the first time he’s seen the inside of a field hospital, but I think it’ll be his last. No more soldiering for him.”
“No… the Pole… the orderly?”
“Ah, you mean Jan… he was captured earlier. He’s helping out here. Good man he is, Comrade Kapitan. Now, please drink.”
The medical officer held out a cup of water for Nazarbayev to sip.
He did, and immediately hung himself over the side of the bed to bring it back up again.
“You must drink, Comrade Kapitan. It’s very important. The sickness will go. Please?”
“The battle?”
“We won… or at least… we stopped them. Hard to think of it as winning, Comrade Kapitan.”
“My men?”
“Mostly still in and around Seirijai, less those that are here… or no longer with us.”
“How many?”
“Short answer is that I don’t know, Comrade Kapitan. What I do know is that I haven’t seen a butcher’s yard like this since Berlin, and that’s a fact. Now drink.”
The effort of a third bout of vomiting drained him so much that he fell back into a deep sleep, assisted by opiates administered by one of the nurses, his mind conjuring up the faces of his men as he slept and recovered…
…Huninin…
…Zvorykin…
…Hubertus…
…Popov…
…Senis Nosis…
…Palenkov…
…Obdurov…
…We did…
1844 hrs, Tuesday, 25th March 1947, RAF Photo Interpretation Room, Bautzen Airfield, Germany.
“Yes… yes, I do see what you mean, Sperry.”
The Squadron leader in charge of the section screwed up his eyes and counted the tanks… possible tanks, he corrected himself…
The track marks weren’t there, but then they rarely were, even nowadays, so good were the Soviets at hiding things.
But they had not got it all right, which was why Ruby Sperry had called him over to look at the product of a Spitfire recon mission over Lithuania.
“Right ho, Sperry. I’ll bump this up with my recommendation. I endorse your view that the Degimas woods contain the best part of a Soviet tank regiment. Well done, Sperry. Now go and get yourself a cuppa, take five minutes, and then start on the yield from the Poles’ mosquito please.”
Ruby Sperry enjoyed her tea and cigarette, knowing she had done her job well and that her efforts would soon see a complete tank regiment transformed into scrap.
Chapter 197 – THE REVELATIONS
There are things in Russia which are not as they seem.
1130 hrs, Wednesday, 26th March 1947, Degimas Woods, Lithuania.
“There’s no way… simply no way out at all.”
“Damn. So we must sit tight… nothing more to it than that. Just hope that the bastards’ll go away soon.”
The partisan leadership nodded at the SAS officer’s summary of choices available.
Licking their wounds in a well-established underground camp deep in the Degimas Woods, the partisans of the ‘Shield of St Michael’ were surprised and not a little unnerved to learn that a Soviet armoured regiment had also joined them under the deep canopy of leaves.
None the less, they were confident that they would not be discovered; the NKVD had swept the area three times previously without finding any clue as to their presence.
The entrance to their site was a natural hole, no more than two metres wide, hidden in between the trunks of five trees, leading to a single large cave in which the entire group could hide.
The entrance was covered over with a simple lattice of stout wood overlaid with earth and the normal detritus of the forest floor.
Even those who knew it was there often failed to see it until the cover was moved.
Water was in abundant supply, the small pool in the centre of the curved floor constantly fed from a nearby stream: fresh, cold, and plentiful.
It was food that they needed, as the last of their personal rations had been consumed the previous evening, the main supplies being some four kilometres away, guarded by a few of the less able partisans.
“Fuck it then. Set guards. Let’s get some rest, eh?”
Bottomley looked at the two haggard faces in front of him.
“You two grab some kip first then. I’m good for now.”