‘Cigarette, captain?’ asked Malamore when they were seated inside on the rough chairs of the peasant cottage. ‘An Africa?’
‘Grateful, Herr Colonel,’ said Manteuffel. ‘I’ve come to take possession of the Soviet defector Kapto and his intelligence materials. Colonel von Schwerin is in the field but will be here tomorrow to collect him and his maps. He’s ordered me to interview Kapto and take a preliminary look at the materials.’
‘I’ll get Kapto now.’
Kapto came in a few minutes later and saluted with theatrical confidence as if he had been auditioning all his life to play this part.
Manteuffel nodded back, and then said in perfect Russian: ‘You are now my responsibility. Colonel von Schwerin has asked me to make an initial evaluation. Are you ready to depart?’
The four men walked two houses down where Kapto’s horse was tied up.
‘Good,’ said Manteuffel. ‘The lieutenant will help you saddle the horse. Is there anything else?’
‘Yes,’ replied the doctor. ‘I must wake the child who’s sleeping inside this house.’
‘The child?’ Manteuffel sounded startled.
Peeping through the doorway, he saw a little girl sleeping on a couch and exchanged looks with Malamore. ‘Who is this girl? Is she your daughter, doctor?’
‘No, but she’s under my protection. She travels with me.’
‘I don’t understand—’ started Manteuffel.
‘She’s a patient.’ Kapto smiled, his lips turning up at the ends like a dogbone.
‘A patient?’
‘I found her wounded and, as a paediatrician, I say: Those we heal we must also cherish.’ He knelt beside the couch and shook her gently on the shoulder and she sat up, very pale, and looked around at them with her moon eyes.
‘Herr Captain,’ said Malamore, ‘I am glad Kapto is safely in your care. I have many matters to attend to… and I need to sleep. Goodbye, captain.’
They walked outside, and Malamore watched them ride away, the Germans on either side of the defector Kapto with the child on his knee.
Montefalcone and Dirlewanger were waiting for him in the house that they had made their headquarters.
‘We still haven’t found them,’ said Montefalcone. ‘We’ve lost many dead and more are wounded – all for the sake of a nurse. I propose we let them go and return to our duties.’
‘I’m here to annihilate the partisans. That was why the Reichsführer-SS brought me from Belorussia. I’ve sent for reinforcements,’ slurred Dirlewanger, swigging from a flask. ‘Meanwhile let’s hunt the Jew.’
‘This is not a task for us,’ said Montefalcone to Malamore. ‘They’ve shown some courage. The girl yes – and the Russian too.’
‘Courage?’ chided Dirlewanger. ‘It’s the courageous Jews we have to kill before the others. Christus! Oberarschloch! Super arsehole!’
‘The hunt goes on,’ Malamore ordered, standing on the verandah, looking up at the stars and listening to the battle. ‘Search every house, and every barn. I think they might be closer than we think.’
Day Nine
I
Benya awoke with a start. A safety catch had been clicked off, and the pistol was now so close to his forehead that he could feel the cold metal and smell the oil and the presence of strangers. He had expected this all along, seen it in his mind, and now here it was. But he was so weary that he did not care any more. Let them shoot me, he thought; a man can only run for so long. He feared to open his eyes, expecting to see Malamore’s scaly face. He waited for the impact, flinching. But nothing happened and then he heard another sound. God, it was laughter.
‘Morning, dedushka! It’s me, Granpa, wake up!’
Benya sat up and looked into the bright blue eyes of Prishchepa, who was beaming at him, fresh as a chaffinch, his blond hair standing up like a haystack.
‘Why so sad?’ Prishchepa said. ‘You’re alive, Benya, and that’s quite something. And look who’s with me?’
Benya peered behind Prishchepa and there was Spider Garanzha – and the old teak-skinned sergeant, Panka.
‘Are you unhurt, lad?’ asked Panka, his small eyes scanning Benya and his dressing curiously.
‘My shoulder – now its fine. I am just tired.’
‘Tired? This is no time to be tired,’ said Panka. ‘Don’t give in to it. Don’t even use the word. You were fast asleep. Cheer up! We’re close to our beloved mother river and it’s always sunny on the Don. We can’t boil water here, we can’t risk a fire, but eat some bread and have a sip of this’ – and he handed Benya some Borodino bread and a flask of cognac. ‘Then we must move.’
‘Where to?’ asked Benya, looking around for Fabiana.
Garanzha just observed him coldly. Prishchepa smiled. ‘Home of course.’
‘Where might that be?’ asked Benya, without thinking.
‘I told you,’ said Spider Garanzha, those deceptive goo-goo eyes looping in his two companions.
Benya refocused quickly. If and when they got back to safety, they would all be questioned, and if Benya said he didn’t know where the Cossacks had been, they’d be shot as traitors. The Spider was watching him, very still, and Benya knew what that stillness meant. The crouch of the hunter before the spring of the kill.
Benya understood that the calculations required of any soldier on the steppes that summer were laden with agonizing twists, but for the Shtrafniki, who had already crossed to the other side of the river, in every sense, the choices were bleak. His three Cossack companions were there not just to rescue him but to save themselves, either by joining up with him – or liquidating a dangerous witness. If circumstances required it, Garanzha, the man who unsettled the horses, would cut his throat with pleasure, and Benya recalled how his leaden tread had quickened into an almost feminine dance step as he killed the Kalmyk traitor. Prishchepa, the thoughtless golden boy with the light lope and appetites of a carefree wolf, would finish him with even less thought. Only Panka would hesitate.
Benya was aware that troops lost behind the lines were deemed to be traitors unless they could prove otherwise; it was how decent men like Captain Zhurko had ended up in the penal battalions. If these Shtrafniki were suspected of the slightest sin, they would simply get the Eight Grammes – without even facing the tribunal. But here was the difficulty: Benya did not know where these men had been for the last few days. Had they defected temporarily to the Fascists? Had they waited to see how quickly the Germans smashed through to Stalingrad and the oil fields? Or had they decided that the Soviet Union was not collapsing as fast as it seemed when Rostov fell and changed their minds, seeking a way to cover their tracks? And if they had, did they know about his secret, Fabiana?
‘Wait,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘I ask no questions. We fought, we were cut off and found our way back to the Don.’
‘We killed Mandryka. We’ve earned our freedom – it’s simple!’ It was always simple for Prishchepa.
‘The partisans will remember we were there,’ said Benya. ‘Unless… we could do something more to earn our redemption…’
Prishchepa waved his hand. ‘The Zhid’s always worrying.’
Garanzha started to scratch his back, always a sign that he was beginning to relax.
‘So all is well,’ Prishchepa said. ‘I’m happy our brother Benya is still alive – but then you learned from the best riders on the Don. This Zhid can certainly ride, eh, Panka?’ He embraced Benya. ‘Let’s eat and sleep and then maybe swim in the Don. Have you ever swum in the Don, Benya?’