There Will Be War Volume VIII, page 14
So, it seems, does Great Britain.
Alas, with the surge of post-holocaust theorists in America it is fashionable to assume that the nation to fall the hardest will be the United States—perhaps because we have risen so high. Or possibly because we have a great deal more to lose by skirting too close to the Abyss. Yet those nations with less than ourselves may have even more to lose because they already have so little.
Robert G. Kaiser’s Russia: The People and the Power relates a Russian folk story about a circus tiger named Alma, as told by a young emigre.
“(She) was very intelligent, very well trained. But every time her trainer turned his back to her she wanted to eat him. So the trainer’s wife stood outside the cage, and whenever the trainer did turn his back, his wife would say, ‘All right, Alma, quiet, Alma,’ and the tiger knew she was being watched, so she didn’t jump. But the trainer wanted to find a better solution to the problem. For a long time he thought about how to convince the tiger that she didn’t want to eat him.
“He thought of a brilliant idea. He realized that Alma was very comfortable sitting on her round platform in the cage. So he gave her a new platform that was much smaller—so small that she could only put three feet on it at one time. There wasn’t room for all four paws, so she had to concentrate on keeping her balance. All her thoughts were directed toward staying on the platform. She no longer had time to think about eating the trainer.
“It seems to me that Soviet man is exactly the same. Like the tiger, he has to balance himself on a small platform. He’s always standing in line, always trying to buy something, always worrying about idiotic little problems. He has no time to worry about the big things—about freedom, or happiness, or changing the government. The government doesn’t give you a chance to think—there’s no time to think. If you get a chance to do a little thinking, you have to realize that life isn’t too good.
“But nobody has time to think about eating the trainer.”
With the current mood of reform sweeping the Soviet Union, that story may have new relevance. What happens if you give the tiger a larger platform?
The Benefactors
Don Hawthorne
All Power, each Tyrant, every Mob
Whose head has grown too large,
Ends by destroying its own job
And works its own discharge;
And Man, whose mere necessities
Move all things from his path,
Trembles meanwhile at their decrees,
And deprecates their wrath!
—Rudyard Kipling, The Benefactors
Sergeant Nikita Sokoloff, KGB, watched in despair as the last train left the ruins of Moscow without him. Sokoloff chased the receding cars, dodging shots from the Red Army Engineer bandits who’d stolen the train, and frequently leaping over the bodies of his fellow KGB troopers who had tried in vain to oppose the theft.
When Sokoloff came upon two figures struggling in the cinders and gravel at the side of the railbed, he raised his assault rifle, recognizing one of them almost too late.
“Colonel Serafimov!” Sokoloff lowered his weapon and ran to help his commander. Colonel Maksim Serafimov had pulled himself free from the grip of the man beneath him and was throttling his opponent in fury. Now Sokoloff could see that the figure in Serafimov’s grasp was Colonel Podgorny, commander of the Army Combat Engineers who had stolen the train.
Both men were so bloody that Sokoloff could not tell who was the more badly wounded, until he noticed that the bearlike Podgorny wasn’t moving at all.
Sokoloff tried to pull his commanding officer away from the dead man, but Serafimov paused only long enough to send the young Sergeant reeling with a backhand blow. By the time Sokoloff had regained his feet, Serafimov had dragged Podgorny’s body up to the track and was dashing the dead man’s head against the rails.
Serafimov made wheezing sounds of rage, cursing the man who was now wholly beyond his wrath. The Colonel’s motions grew weaker; Serafimov seemed to have trouble breathing, and now Sokoloff could see that in addition to a bloody head wound, the KGB Colonel’s throat was badly bruised from some harsh blow.
Sokoloff pulled his Colonel away from the corpse again, just as several more troops arrived. Those who glanced at the remains of the Army Engineer quickly looked away.
“What’s wrong with Colonel Serafimov?” one asked.
The KGB officer was gasping like a fish out of water.
“I think he’s choking,” Sokoloff began. “His throat—
Serafimov threw off the hands supporting him and stabbed a finger at the train, still in sight. “Catch… back…” The pain in his throat kept him from getting anything else out.
“We can’t catch them, sir, they’re too far ahead.”
Serafimov grabbed the front of Sokoloff’s tunic and pulled the young Sergeant’s face to within an inch of his own. “Kill…” he gasped. “All… us… catch!”
They turned at the sound of an explosion from the train; the thieves had apparently blown the linkage of the last few cars, for these had separated from the rest of the train, and were coasting to a stop as the rest continued to accelerate away from Moscow.
The train in Serafimov’s vision swam beneath tears of frustration. This will be the death of me. Me, and all my men…
He had already lost one train to raiders. He’d set up an ambush and killed all the bandits; but how could he know that Combat Engineers would dare this? True, he’d thought them suspicious, but such treachery as this was unthinkable, even from the Army! And what would his superiors in Novaya Moskva say when he informed them of this disaster?
Serafimov swore by Lenin’s beard that those Army bastards would pay for this folly. Beside himself with rage, he couldn’t even scream to release his anger. He could barely breathe, and every attempt at speech was an agony.
The KGB Colonel put a hand to his throat, wounded in his fight with that American—he had no doubt that his English-speaking assailant was an American—before that fool Podgorny had pulled them both through the window of the command car.
Of course the Americans would be involved. It’s another damned defection, that’s what; nothing less. By the end of the Global War of Liberation, Soviet losses through defections had been higher than combat casualties. When the Last Retreat began, the entire Third Army had tried to defect from the Group of Soviet Forces, Germany. Serafimov could at least take comfort in how that had worked out. But he doubted that Novaya Moskva would waste precious nuclear weapons on one train full of renegade Army Engineers. They would likely just shoot the KGB fool who had not treated the Army bastards with the caution everyone knew they required.
The rest of Serafimov’s men gathered around him. Most of his troops had not been aboard the train when the battle began. The last man to arrive was a breathless lieutenant who didn’t even bother to salute as he made his report.
“Colonel Serafimov, a company of light tanks with armored, personnel carriers has just arrived. Their commander says they were sent to safeguard the train.”
Serafimov seized the lieutenant; perhaps there was yet hope. The train was fading from sight in the beginnings of a light snowfall, but the new KGB scout tanks were fast, steam-powered, and not restricted to rails. “Where…” Serafimov gasped. “Take… me… commander.”
With Sokoloff and the lieutenant’s help, Serafimov staggered back through the train yard. They had covered only a dozen meters when the first tank hove into view with the rumbling crackle of treads on concrete and gravel.
Serafimov looked up at the commander, standing in the open hatch of the lead vehicle. Barrel-chested and big for a tanker, with pale blond hair under a black beret, fish-white skin, and eyes like old ice. The man raised his hand as his own vehicle halted, and the remainder of his force stopped as one.
The tank commander leaned forward over the rim of the turret hatch. The machine beneath him vibrated and hissed, but the man himself was motionless, fixing Serafimov with his gaze for a long moment before he spoke.
“You are Maksim Fyodorov Serafimov; Colonel, KGB?”
Serafimov tried to respond, but could only manage a painful wheeze and a nod. He began making urgent gestures, trying to get this fool to pursue the train before it was too late.
The tanker’s expression did not change. “I am Major Werner Steinmann, PRG One, out of Novaya Moskva.” Steinmann’s eyes glittered as he added in a dangerous voice: “Where is your train, Comrade Colonel?”
Serafimov nearly gagged in fury. His gestures became almost comical as he pointed down the track. Finally Steinmann held up his hand.
“Sprechen verboten!” He began rattling off commands to his driver. Serafimov was stunned to realize that those commands, like the order for silence, were in German. Only then did he notice that Steinmann’s uniform was not Russian, but East German.
Steinmann turned back to Serafimov. “And what, Comrade Colonel, is that?” Steinmann leveled his arm, pointing back down the track in the direction from which Serafimov had come. The KGB Colonel turned to see Podgorny’s body still spread-eagle across the rails.
Without waiting for an answer, Steinmann signaled his driver to move up. The machine with its black-clad commander leapt forward with the eerie grace of some bizarre metal centaur.
The tank had not fully stopped before Steinmann climbed out of the turret and jumped down to the-railbed. He turned Podgorny’s body over, then walked back to Serafimov and his men, inspecting the KGB Colonel once more.
By now, the East German infantry had dismounted from their APCs, and Serafimov was beginning to feel uncomfortably outnumbered. Steinmann considered him a moment, then signaled to one of his men.
“Leutnant, place Colonel Serafimov under arrest.”
Serafimov hid his own astonishment, but Sergeant Sokoloff was younger and far less prudent.
“Nyet!” Sokoloff threw the bolt on his assault rifle. His contempt for Steinmann’s order was undiluted by the East German’s superior rank.
A burst of machine-gun fire from behind riddled the young Sergeant, spraying Serafimov with blood. Sokoloff fell dead at his Colonel’s feet.
Steinmann’s expression had not altered. Serafimov, hardened though he was to sudden death, was unprepared for it when he was not its author. He tried again to explain what had happened to the train, but the big East German held up a hand to silence him.
“You are under suspicion for conspiracy to steal State property. You will remain in custody pending my communication with Novaya Moskva. Any of your men who resist will be shot.” Steinmann’s Lieutenant stepped up, roughly pulling one of Serafimov’s arms behind his back. Steinmann dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
Dazed, Serafimov was led from the scene of his failure. He looked back once at young Sokoloff’s corpse. Steinmann pushed it off the railbed with his foot, and it tumbled down the embankment into a wet ditch.
Serafimov put the youthful Sergeant, who had never even seen a steam engine before this morning, out of his thoughts. Sokoloff’s troubles were over.
His own, he knew, were just beginning.
South of Moscow and east of the Pripyat Marshes, the flatlands of Russia are not so much plains as vast oceans of grass and wild wheat. Scores of warlords had passed over this land in every direction: Huns, Avars, Mongols; Napoleon’s Grande Armée and Hitler’s panzers. But the only conqueror who ever truly held it in thrall was General Winter.
The first snow of the new winter had stopped falling only a few hours after starting, and it seemed as if this year, even that venerable warrior had not come in full force quite yet.
Senior Sergeant Mikhail Zorin stood on the roof of a boxcar and watched the snow melting in the thin sunlight. In the hours since the train he rode had left Moscow, the morning’s chill of a late summer snowfall had given way to a relatively warm day, for a Russian autumn.
The kind of day, Zorin reflected, for making fools expect this winter to be milder than the last. Zorin had seen enough winters to know better.
He finished his cigarette and flicked the paper-tube filter stub away. The papirosi burst in a tiny shower of sparks as it hit the ties, and was soon lost in the distance.
Zorin watched the rear for signs of pursuit, but occasionally, when the train passed through the ruins of towns or remnants of battles scattered alongside the tracks, his gaze would wander.
There wasn’t much to see. Details were still covered by the light snowfall, and that was mostly all right with Zorin. He turned to look toward the front of the train where the huge P-38 locomotive labored to pull its burden west.
Lieutenant Rostov had ordered the trainmen to make speed in silence, but Zorin couldn’t help wishing for a blast or two from the whistle. It occurred to him that one of the reasons steam whistles might first have been invented was to relieve the sense of isolation that came to solitary trains on the steppes.
Christus, Zorin thought, but it’s too true that something is needed out here.
Zorin’s own isolation was shortly relieved by the arrival of Lieutenant Rostov himself, climbing up the ladder of the boxcar and joining the Sergeant on the roof.
While Zorin was of average height and powerfully built, the young officer with the tired smile was taller and not quite so broad. He was unremarkable physically, except for a face that at first sight looked too young for his rank; even boyish. Rostov had fair hair, light eyes, and more of an open, easy manner than might be expected from a young man after six years of war. Several days’ growth of beard did little to dispel the look of youth; like all soldiers it was his eyes that betrayed him. They had seen too much, too quickly for wisdom to catch up. They were very Russian eyes, indeed.
“See anything, Starshi Serzhant?”
Zorin shook his head and searched for another papirosi in his tunic pockets. “Nyet, Leytenant. Some smoke to the southeast a few kilometers back.” Zorin paused while Rostov lit his cigarette for him. “But it was black and didn’t change position. A small fire is my guess; perhaps a camp. If they’re following us, it’s not along the rails.”
“I don’t know what worries me more,” Rostov said. “The KGB behind us or some Ukrainian Nationalist Brigade ahead.” His eyes went from the horizon to the tracks flowing smoothly back and away from beneath them. Rostov had just come from several hours at the front of the train, and it was a relief to have the wind at his back for a change.
Finally, without taking his eyes off the tracks, he spoke: “Do you think we can do it, Mikhail? A bunch of renegade combat engineers with an American officer in tow, on a train stolen right out from under the noses of the Moscow KGB; has there ever been a more unlikely group of defectors?”
Zorin shrugged. “When I was a boy, I read an old samizdat article about a Soviet ship—an icebreaker, I think—that tried to defect to Sweden. Men, officers, whole damn crew; in fact the defection was supposedly instigated by the ship’s political officer.” Zorin grunted, frowned; as if he doubted the story himself.
“Well? Did they make it?”
“Hm? Oh, no. KGB border patrol aircraft caught up with them an hour away from Swedish territorial waters and forced them to turn back to Kaliningrad.”
“Where they were all shot, of course.”
Zorin looked offended. “No, sir, by no means. The men went to Gulags. Only the officers were shot.”
Lieutenant Rostov grinned. “That is a relief.”
“Still,” Zorin added, “if they’d had another hour or two, they might have made it. Their biggest advantage was that at first, nobody who had spotted them could believe they were actually trying to defect.” Zorin cocked an eyebrow at his Lieutenant. “After all, Aleksei, what kind of fools would try to steal a whole ship?”
Rostov, whose idea it had been to steal a train for their own escape, favored his senior NCO with a rueful smile. “What kind of fools, indeed? But I’m afraid that sort of ignorance isn’t anything we can hope for. At least we don’t have to worry about aircraft these days.” Rostov folded his arms.
Zorin noticed the foreign gesture and was reminded of their American “guest,” and the part he’d played in their escape. “How is Captain Wrenn, Aleksei?”
“Better. Comrade Surgeon Blaustein cleaned and dressed his wound and gave him some painkillers. He says if infection doesn’t get him, he should regain most of the use of the hand.”
Zorin nodded. “That’s good. I like that fellow. Any man who’s willing to give up a hand to buy time for his comrades is fine by me.”
Rostov thought it odd that his Sergeant was referring to an American as a “comrade.” Still, their lives had surely been saved by Wrenn’s drastic action. If that bastard Serafimov had reached the brake cable and stopped them in the middle of the train yards, with all his KGB troops about… well, Rostov knew he wouldn’t be here wondering about it now.
Rostov took a heavily laminated photograph from inside his tunic. It showed a handsome young couple on their honeymoon, standing in front of the gilded statues of the Grand Cascades at Petrodvorets. The young blond man was holding his dark-eyed beauty of a bride, both smiling at the forgotten fellow tourist who’d offered to take the photo.
Lilia wore the sweater he had bought for her on that trip, her long black hair in her face and trailing across his as well. The two of them were smiling in the spray from the fountains and the sunny Leningrad afternoon. Rostov wondered if anything was left of those fountains, or indeed of Leningrad. More and more, when he looked at this picture, he thought he and Lilia looked strange in the civilian clothes. He sometimes felt he had been born in his uniform.
