Novikov felt a sudden surge of trust in Getmanov.
'Yes, comrade Commissar, many fine men were destroyed. Real damage was done to the Army then. Look at General Krivoruchko – he lost an eye during interrogation. Though he did split open his interrogator's skull with an inkpot.'
Getmanov nodded in agreement. 'Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria thinks very highly of Nyeudobnov. And Lavrentiy Pavlovich is an intelligent man: he never misjudges people.'
'Yes, yes,' thought Novikov resignedly. He didn't say anything.
For a moment they were both silent, listening to the low voices next door.
'Nonsense, those are our socks.'
'What do you mean, comrade Lieutenant? Have you gone blind or something? And don't you touch those – those are our collars.'
'Nonsense, comrade Political Instructor! Look! Can't you see?'
The two orderlies were sorting out Novikov's and Getmanov's laundry.
'I keep an eye on those devils the whole time,' said Getmanov. 'Once the two of us were on our way towards Fatov's battalion to watch their firing exercises. I crossed the river by some stepping-stones, while you jumped across and then stamped your feet to shake off the mud. I looked round and saw our two orderlies doing exactly the same thing: mine used the stepping-stones, while yours jumped across and stamped his feet.'
'Hey, you fire-eaters!' called Novikov. 'Try swearing a bit more quietly.' The two orderlies immediately fell silent.
General Nyeudobnov, a pale man with a high forehead and thick grey hair, came into the room. He looked at the bottle and glasses, put down his file on the table, and said to Novikov:
'Comrade Colonel, we need a new chief of staff for the second brigade. Mikhalev won't be back for six weeks; I just received a certificate from hospital.'
'And even then he'll be missing his guts and part of his stomach,' said Getmanov. He poured out some cognac and offered it to Nyeudobnov.
'Have a drink, comrade General, while your guts are still in one piece.'
Nyeudobnov raised his eyebrows and looked questioningly at Novikov.
'Please, comrade General, feel free!'
Novikov was annoyed by the way Getmanov always seemed to be in control of every situation. At meetings he held forth at length about technical matters he knew nothing about. And, with the same assurance, he would invite people to lie down for a rest on someone else's bed, offer them someone else's cognac, or read through papers that had nothing to do with him.
'We could appoint Major Basangov temporarily,' said Novikov. 'He knows what's what. And he was taking part in tank-battles right at the beginning of the war, near Novograd-Volynsk. Does the commissar have any objections?'
'Of course not,' said Getmanov. 'It's not for me to object… There is one thing, though. The second-in-command of the second brigade is an Armenian; you want the chief of staff to be a Kalmyk – and we've already got some Lifshits as chief of staff of the third brigade. Couldn't we do without the Kalmyk?' He looked at Novikov, then at Nyeudobnov.
'That's how we all feel,' said Nyeudobnov. 'And on the face of it you're right. But then Marxism's taught us to look at things differently.'
'What matters is how well the comrade in question can fight the Germans,' said Novikov. 'That's what Marxism tells me. I'm really not interested in where his grandfather prayed – whether he went to church, to a mosque…,' he paused for a moment to think, '… or to a synagogue. What matters in war is how well you can fight.'
'Quite right,' said Getmanov brightly. 'We're certainly not having synagogues and meeting-houses in our tank corps. We are, after all, defending Russia.'
A frown suddenly appeared on his face. 'Quite frankly,' he went on angrily, 'all this makes me want to vomit. In the name of the friendship of nations we keep sacrificing the Russians. A member of a national minority barely needs to know the alphabet to be appointed a people's commissar, while our Ivan, no matter if he's a genius, has to "yield place to the minorities". The great Russian people's becoming a national minority itself. I'm all for the friendship of nations, but not on these terms. I'm sick of it!'
Novikov thought for a moment, glanced at the papers on the table, then tapped a fingernail against his glass. 'So that's how it is. You think I discriminate against Russians out of a particular sympathy for Kalmyks?'
He turned to Nyeudobnov. 'Very well, I'm appointing Major Sazonov as temporary chief of staff of the second brigade.'
'A fine soldier,' said Getmanov quietly.
Yet again, Novikov, who had always been rude, harsh and highhanded with people, realized how uncertain of himself he felt with Getmanov. 'It doesn't matter,' he told himself. 'Politically, I'm illiterate. I'm just a proletarian who happens to know about war. My task is very simple – to smash the Germans.'
But however much he laughed at Getmanov's military ignorance, Novikov couldn't deny that he was afraid of him.
Getmanov was short and broad-shouldered. He had a large stomach and a large head with tousled hair. He was very active, quick to laugh, and he had a loud voice. He appeared inexhaustible. Despite the fact that he had never served at the front, people said of him: 'Yes, our commissar's a true soldier.' He enjoyed holding meetings and his speeches went down well with the troops: he made lots of jokes and spoke very simply, often quite coarsely.
He walked with a slight waddle and often made use of a stick. If an absent-minded soldier was slow in saluting him, he would stop in front of him, leaning on his famous stick, take off his cap, and make a deep bow – like some old man in a village.
He was quick-tempered and resented it if someone answered him back; if anyone did argue with him, he would at once start puffing and frowning. He once lost his temper and punched Captain Gubyonkov, the chief of staff of the heavy artillery regiment; the latter was rather obstinate and – in the words of his comrades – 'terribly high-principled'.
On this occasion, Getmanov's orderly had simply remarked: 'The swine – he really drove our commissar crazy.'
Getmanov felt no respect for people who had gone through the terrible first days of the war. He once remarked about Makarov, the commander of the First Brigade and a favourite of Novikov's, 'All that philosophy of 1941 – I'll shove it down his throat!' Novikov hadn't said anything, though he enjoyed talking to Makarov about that terrible but fascinating time.
On the surface, Getmanov, with his bold, sweeping judgements, seemed the very antithesis of Nyeudobnov. Nevertheless, there was something similar about them that brought them together.
Nyeudobnov's calm, deliberate manner of speaking, his blank, but expressive expression, were truly depressing. Getmanov, on the other hand, would laugh and say: 'We're in luck. The Fritzes have done more to put the peasants' backs up in one year than we Communists in twenty-five.' Or 'What can we do? The old boy really likes it when people call him a genius.' But this boldness of Getmanov's, far from being infectious, usually quite unnerved the man he was talking to.
Before the war, Getmanov had been in charge of an oblast. He had given speeches about the production of fire-bricks and the organization of scientific research at the Coal Institute, about the quality of bread from the municipal bakery, about the faults of a story entitled 'Blue Flames' that had been printed in the local almanac, about the reconstruction of the municipal garage, about inadequate storage facilities in the local warehouses, and about an epidemic of fowl-pest in the kolkhozes.
Now he spoke with the same authority about the quality of fuel and the rate of deterioration of engines, about tactics in battle, about the co-ordination of tanks, artillery and infantry if they broke through the enemy front, about medical assistance under fire, about radio codes, about the psychology of the soldier in combat, about the relations between one tank-crew and another, and between the individual members of each crew, about running repairs and major overhauls, and about the removal of damaged tanks from the battlefield.