Free Fall

CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER

One night our unit had to cross a series of fields alongside a river to reach a small town where several bloody battles had been going on for days.

There was complete darkness, and a thick cloud of fog had come down from the nearby mountains and spread over the whole town and its environs, transforming the landscape into something like the kingdom of heaven. All that was missing were the angels and saints.

A few hours earlier, when the fog hadn’t yet shrouded everything, Moscow and I had gone on recon to establish where the enemy was positioned. We hid on the grassy riverbank; I inspected one side of the village.

Everything seemed very quiet – in war, silence like that usually meant a storm was coming. I observed the facades of the buildings through my rifle scope, searching the windows and the most remote corners for a human figure, or something that might indicate a sniper’s position. Chickens pecked in the streets, pigeons and other wild birds skittered across the roofs – I felt like I was looking at a postcard of peacetime. I was almost intimidated by that melancholy world, I felt a strange nostalgia stir within me, as if someone had pulled a live string that tied me to my memories of home, of everything my past had been… But I had a bitter taste in my mouth, as I did every time I was about to tempt fate.

After a few minutes of observation I noticed that there were some oddly parked cars – they had been put one after another in front of the houses, like shields to protect against a possible attack. Some of the backyards had fences that were broken in specific places – they connected to the trenches, through which the terrorists could easily flee. All that had probably been ready for days – the trenches were well concealed, there was no suspicious activity, the enemies had decided on their plan of defence and were ready at their positions, waiting for us.

At some point, while observing the roads, I saw the fog arrive. It suddenly appeared amidst the houses, enveloping them in a thick white embrace. It covered the courtyards, the streets, the gardens, and hung there; after a while you could only see the roofs of the houses, or the electric poles that poked out from the white cloud. The dogs began to bark, and I could also hear the cries of a few farm animals, cows and sheep frightened by the atmospheric phenomenon.

When Moscow and I withdrew, the whole town was completely wrapped in fog and darkness, and the dampness went all the way to the bone. After crawling two kilometres through the fields on the edge of the little stream, once we were at a safe distance, Moscow said to me, with his usual sarcasm:

‘Looks like we’re going to be playing blind man’s bluff tonight…’

I didn’t answer. When I was little I hated blind man’s bluff, where one kid would be blindfolded and have to try to catch the others, who would run away and push around whoever was ‘it’. The idea of getting into a situation like that, facing the enemy in a town wrapped in fog and the darkness of the night, did not sound appealing in the least.

When we got back to base Nosov was in the tent talking into the handset of the field radio. He was explaining to someone in command that it made more sense to mobilise the artillery first, have our cannons and missile fire system go to work on the enemy positions, and only afterwards bring in the assault troops.

Moscow and I couldn’t hear what command was saying, but from Nosov’s face – which grew increasingly tense and sombre – it was clear that the person on the other end didn’t agree with our captain’s strategy at all. Next to Nosov sat a colonel who led a team of tankers in a paratrooper unit. He looked sad; he had an unfiltered cigarette clenched between his teeth, and from his lungs billowed a layer of smoke so thick and solid it hung in the air, filling the tent like in one of those Seventies discos so often depicted in movies from the West.

Nosov said goodbye to the person he was talking to on the radio, calling him ‘Colonel’, and then replaced the handset. The tankers’ colonel took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at our captain with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. Nosov placed both his hands on his bulletproof vest and then stared at his belly, as if he were gauging how much it had grown. Sounding exhausted, he said:

‘The operation is set to begin today at twenty-three hundred hours. All active units will move in accordance with the orders received this morning. Confirmation of operational orders in thirty minutes…’

The tankers’ colonel extinguished his cigarette in a dish, leaned against the crate of cannon shells, looked up at something only he could see, and began to speak very slowly:

‘If we go that way, as directed in the orders, they’ll wipe all of us out… What’ll we do with the burned tanks left in the middle of the road? The Arabs will use them as shields, and we’ll end up repeating the same mistakes we’ve made in the past… Those Muscovite pieces of shit at general command don’t give a shit what happens here. Since this operation began I’ve lost sixty men and twenty-three tanks. We have to come up with something…’

‘Orders have to be respected, Colonel… Tanks can’t break through a city defence alone, we all know that, they have to follow the soldiers and support them in the attack.’ Nosov spoke in a conspiratorial tone. ‘But the place is small, and if we coordinate with the assault units, I’m sure we’ll only need four or five tanks to keep the positions the soldiers have liberated… We’ll use the other tanks for transport beyond the perimeter, outside town, to guarantee our boys protection from fire…’

I listened attentively to what our captain was saying. It was no surprise that a higher ranking officer took Nosov’s tactical advice into consideration. Everyone knew that he was always able to find a strategic solution (often it differed from the original plan but still led to the desired result) that would save human lives and conserve resources while also carrying out command’s orders. Experience was everything in war – rank meant almost nothing.

The colonel seemed like a humble guy. As Nosov spoke he kept nodding.

‘All right,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll go rally the assault unit commanders. We’ll try to help each other, as always… Nosov, are you sure you can get by with just one support unit?’

Our captain lowered his eyes, resting them on the makeshift table, where the town map was spread out.

‘The less we are, the better it is. Now, they don’t know what side we’re going to attack from, and when our assault begins they’ll move most of their men to the hottest point…’ He pointed to a spot on the map and the colonel moved closer to see. ‘We saboteurs will enter from the other side and go in deep. Once we’ve found a safe position, like for example this path here…’ He ran his finger along a line traced in pencil. ‘We’ll shoot three red signal flares – at that sign your tanks and infantrymen can proceed. The important thing is for them to take this route and not take secondary roads; otherwise we’ll end up killing each other…’

The colonel looked at the map, absorbed:

‘With the dark and this damn fog we’ll have to be pretty careful…’

‘It’s not the first time – actually, it could even be useful to us…’

Nosov seemed very sure of himself, but I wasn’t so convinced. In the fog you can’t see a thing, and even the softest sound seems amplified. The captain knew very well that it was a risky mission, but he didn’t let it show.

The colonel suddenly noticed we were there and gave us a questioning look. Nosov introduced us right away:

‘The sergeant and sniper of my group, they just inspected the western side… What’s the situation, strays?’

According to military code it was Moscow’s responsibility to speak, but since I was usually the one who gave reports, I went ahead.

I gave a hint of a military salute, and the colonel invited me to sit at the table with them.

‘Show me what you saw, son…’ He was nice and casual; we could act with him as we did with Nosov.

I set my rifle on the table, sat down and took a look at the map. There were already several marks; I limited myself to indicating the points where I had seen the trenches and the cars that the Arabs had arranged to block the roads.

When I finished, Nosov said that we could go.

‘We start in a few hours… Eat something and get a good nap, and check my weapons and clips, get my vest and get everything in order – I still have quite a bit to take care of here…’

We left the tent.

Our boys were in an armoured car. Some were already sleeping; others were eating or preparing ammo for the operation. After a while we were joined by the infantry night explorer group that was supposed to come with us. I noticed how well equipped they were; the butts of American and European guns poked out from their jacket pockets. Their sniper had a rifle like mine, but his night scope was foreign, a model I’d never seen before. They seemed relaxed – they must have been through lots of battles – and this put us somewhat at ease.

I prepared my things and filled four magazines for Nosov. I tore off a piece of bread, wolfed it down, and went to sleep.

Shoe woke me up with a light tap on the chest. I opened my eyes and realised that I hadn’t dreamed anything, as often happened in war.

Nosov was already mobilising the unit:

‘Everyone get up, listen to the operational orders!’

We formed a circle by the car. Some sat on the wheels, others on crates or right on the ground. I was next to the explorer sergeant, a guy as big as a mountain; he was holding a light machine gun, which, against his belly, seemed little more than a toy.

Nosov and the explorers’ lieutenant major – a young man already ravaged by war, his face marked by a long scar that went across his right cheek down to his neck – sat down in our circle.

They unfolded a battered, crumpled map on a crate. Nosov gave a brief introduction, showing us the areas where enemy defences were likely to be, explaining our moves and predicting the enemies’. He was very skilled at this – all he needed was a little information and he could construct the dynamics of an operation with precision.

‘Snipers, listen up… We have to take the heavy machine guns down first. Logically, they should be here.’ He pointed to two crossroads on the way into the town. ‘Follow the sound and the flash of the fire. If you see a light go on and off in the middle of the fog, keep your eyes there and you can’t go wrong…’

He went on, improvising a mini-lesson on the tactics of war in the fog, insisting on the fact that the most important thing was not to be afraid and not to lose control. Since he didn’t know them very well, he seemed to be addressing the explorers in particular. To us, the ones in his unit, it was clear by then that we were going to spend the rest of the night shooting at each other in the fog.

Then our captain rose to his feet. We knew what was going to happen – in fact, we sat back to enjoy the show, as we usually did on these occasions.

The explorers, on the other hand, were looking around at one another, a little embarrassed. Their lieutenant gestured for them to stay seated and listen.

Nosov pulled a document out of his pocket, the executive order that was supposed to be read before every mission:

‘Comrade soldiers! The Nation thanks you for your indispensable service and cannot conceal the pride it feels in knowing that you will liberate it from the parasitic presence of Islamic terrorists hiding in the city of N—, which, for the sake of simplicity and military ignorance, we’ll call by a name dear to every one of us: “objective!”’ He read a little and made up a little, accompanying his performance with a series of gestures and facial expressions that kept us doubled over with laughter. ‘At twenty-three hundred hours and fifteen minutes, Moscow time – Moscow, the incomparable capital of our magnificent Country – we received the highly anticipated confirmation of our absolutely invaluable order…’

The guy next to me sniggered, his machine gun bouncing rhythmically on his belly.

‘Thus, the Nation orders you to go forth in two independent units directed towards the “objective”, enter by combating within the “objective”, breaking through the enemy defence, physically eliminating all the terrorists, Islamists, Muslims, dogs, cats and every living thing you find, until you reach the main street of the “objective”, where the nexus of communication of enemy trenches is concentrated… Upon arrival, fire three red signal flares to signal your position to the tankers and support units, take your defensive positions and wait for them to reach you… Ah, the Nation also reminds you that dying, getting hit or hurt in any way is strictly prohibited…’

At that last sentence, the sergeant started laughing so hard he lost his balance, falling off the tyre he’d been sitting on.

We had to hold our bellies from laughing, and Nosov concluded:

‘As the ranking officer of this company, I confirm receipt of the order and wish you good luck, my dear comrade soldiers!’

After a few minutes we jumped onto the armour, and in good spirits – thanks to the captain’s comic interlude – we left for our mission, even if we knew that really there was nothing to laugh about…

The car went down the dirt road, jolting up and down at every bump; so as not to fall off we hung on to anything sticking out on the armour. We could barely see a few metres ahead; everything around us was as white as milk. The car carrying the explorers followed us. The cars were equipped with an electronic navigation system that could follow the road even in the complete absence of visual points of reference, and they took us to the exact location indicated by our captain, right in the middle of the fields.

‘Get off!’ Nosov ordered when the tracks stopped. ‘From here on we’re walking.’

The car following us nearly bumped into ours. Braking hard, it stopped suddenly, and an explorer fell on the ground. Some of his men helped him up; he was fine.

Nosov ordered all of us to move in line, following him. He had calculated the exact number of steps it would take to get to the village. All we had to do was stay alert and follow him.

Walking through the dark and the fog gave me the sensation of being totally defenceless; even if I couldn’t see anyone, I was sure that everyone could see me. We went down a path in the middle of the fields. Somewhere out there in the fog were the first houses in town.

Nosov stopped all of a sudden:

‘Everyone get down and don’t move!’ he whispered to Moscow, who was behind him.

As opposed to many non-professional officers, who hide behind the backs of their own soldiers in the event of danger, our captain exposed himself without a second thought. He was like a tiger on the prowl; he perceived and processed every sound and every movement, and if something obstructed our route, while we were still trying to figure out what was going on, he was the first to aim his rifle and shoot, if that’s what was needed.

Moscow turned to inform the others, and we passed the message to everyone in the line, forming a human chain. After a moment we were still, plunged into the most total silence imaginable. I squinted, trying to make out a shape in the fog, but I couldn’t see anything other than the cold, damp substance that surrounded us like an endless white wall.

After a while we heard a series of loud explosions in the distance, from the other side of the town. Our attack had begun. Just after that the Kalashnikovs came out, and we heard the sound of glass rattling very close to us – someone must have slammed a front door. Shouts in Arabic and Chechen came from all around, and then there was a series of footsteps quickly moving away from the shots and blending in with the sound of the battle. Our tanks had entered the town with the assault units – we counted at least ten cannon blasts. Someone near us kept shouting…

Nosov got up.

‘Follow me, there’s a house nearby: their first reinforced position. We have to take it fast…’

Jumping over an old, half-destroyed wooden fence, we entered one of the yards. In the pitch dark, completely enveloped in fog, the house seemed very small, but that was just an impression.

Part of the explorers’ unit was to stay in the yard and cover the access routes to the house. Nosov pointed out a long wire running to our left: a tripwire to a mine.

Zenith broke down the door – that was his speciality. In fact, Nosov called him the ‘poet of the busted door’ – with minimal effort, he was able to break down almost any door without making much noise. He would push on them with his foot, swift and steady, and they would obediently open.

‘Moscow, Zenith and I are going first,’ Nosov said. ‘You guys break up into groups.’

Once we were inside we noticed that the hallway was long and wide – there had to be lots of rooms, so we split them up. With me there was Shoe, the explorers’ sergeant, and two of their soldiers.

The enemies had arranged a row of speakers against the walls. So as not to attract attention, the windows had been obscured with tarpaulins, the kind usually used to cover tanks. Placed on the ground, in the blind corners away from the windows, were lamps that gave off a dim light. All this gave the place a macabre aspect… The electric plant in town hadn’t been functioning for ages; the light came from a combustion generator. Lots of houses had generators – usually they were kept in the cellar or on the patio, with a pipe system built to carry away the exhaust.

We entered one of the rooms. There were just a few mattresses and some sleeping bags; the floor was covered with clothes, Turkish toiletries, boxes of vacuum-packed food (some still half-full with spoons inside) and a pot with some tea. Next to one of the mattresses there was an unopened pack of single-use syringes; in a corner there was a pile of used syringes with brown spots on them, most likely heroin. On the mattress there was a brick-sized block: a nice fat chunk of hashish. One side of it was burnt and crumbled, and beside it was a box of filters and a bag with some tobacco. This was where our enemies prepared their ‘vitamins’ so that they could get through the attacks without fear and exhaustion.

Suddenly we heard gunshots. We looked into the hall and saw Nosov, Zenith and Moscow rushing past chasing someone.

We broke down a door that opened onto a large room. A few enemies were waiting for us inside. They fired a spray of bullets at us, but we were able to dodge it. After throwing three hand grenades, we entered the cloud of dust, which smelled of burnt flesh. We kicked the bodies a few times – everyone was dead. One was literally disintegrated – only his shoes were left, and his ankle bones protruded from them; his clothes were smeared on the walls, mixed with blood and flesh. The F1 is a very powerful fragmentation grenade, and it could chop you up mercilessly. If you’re lucky you’re just left an invalid, but three F1s in one room definitely won’t spare anyone. The others must have thrown that poor wretch at the grenades trying to save themselves. They were blood-sucking junkies, with no honour or soul.

In the room there were lots of weapons and some crates of RPG-7 grenade launcher ammo, which had remained undamaged. A pair of grenade launchers was leaning against the wall. One was fine, whereas the other had been damaged by the explosion. I took the intact one and loaded a round in it, then passed it to an explorer. The RPG was a very useful weapon; if you knew how to use it well it could change the course of a battle. We only had one single-shot RPG at our disposal, which we called the ‘fly’ or ‘hornet’. But whenever we came across a trophy as valuable as the RPG-7, we took it without a second thought, and after using it we would get rid of it.

We were coming out of the room when the sergeant said:

‘Hear that?’

He turned back, and reaching out his gigantic hand he went over to a sofa where there was a blanket that, in fact, was shaking. With an indifferent face and pointed weapon, he tore off the sheet as if he were doing a magic trick. On the sofa lay a woman dressed in a military uniform, with the insignia of a group of Islamic fundamentalists sewn on the sleeve. The sergeant lowered his weapon and we moved closer.

She stared at us wide-eyed and mumbled something in an accent similar to that of the Chechens, Georgians and everyone who we disdainfully called chernozhopiy – ‘black arses’, or members of the Asian races of the Caucasus. She was speaking Russian, but what she was saying was completely incomprehensible. She was afraid to die, that much was clear.

The explorer sergeant extracted a huge knife from his right boot. It looked like something a butcher would use, very thick and with a wide blade. The woman went even paler, if that was possible, and without trying to get up from the sofa kept spitting out bursts of words that didn’t make any sense.

‘She must be their medic,’ the sergeant said, for no particular reason.

None of us was able to say a word. We were all curious to find out how this romantic little encounter was going to end.

Shoe was behind me, and with a voice weakened by the cold he said:

‘Come on, brother, shove the blade between this Muslim bitch’s legs. Now we’ll show you how real operations are done, we’ll teach you what surgery is…’

Shoe was scaring me, but I was frightened of myself too. All of us were worked up, yet at the same time disgusted at what was happening.

The explorer sergeant grabbed the woman’s neck with one of his huge hands, and held her still. She tried to scratch his face, she struggled, but he was smiling, as if she were his daughter and they were play-wrestling on their couch at home. Without any sudden movements he stuck the knife into her chest, at the left breast. The blade went in easily, and he pushed it in slowly. It seemed like he was enjoying every moment.

With his other hand he kept hold of her neck. She tried to free herself while foam started to trickle out of her mouth, and it quickly turned red. The woman’s face was purple, swollen; she made a sort of deep, guttural moan, kicking and shaking as if she were having an epileptic fit.

When the handle of the knife hit the woman’s uniform, I tried to picture the blade sunk all the way through her flesh; the knife was so long that it must have impaled her, its tip touching the fabric of the sofa. The sergeant lifted her and sat her down. She looked like a broken doll. Her eyes were empty, her arms hung limp, blood oozed from her slightly open mouth, but it was light – perhaps she had bitten her tongue as she was dying. She had the typical face of women from the Caucasus: small, barely pronounced eyes, a long and disproportionate nose. She was young, she couldn’t have been over thirty.

The sergeant, in a calm and almost affectionate tone, as if he were addressing a lover, said to her:

‘There, good girl… See, it was all fast, no suffering…’

Shoe laughed behind me.

The sergeant pulled the knife out of the woman’s body and wiped the blade on her uniform. Then he tore the insignia off her sleeve and put it in his pocket.

We all left the room without saying a word.

Nosov and the others were in the hall. They had captured an Arab. Zenith was holding him down on his knees, on the floor. Moscow kept hitting him on the head with the handle of his combat knife. His entire face was covered in blood. Nosov asked him something in Arabic, repeated the same thing a few times, then turned to Moscow:

‘Sergeant, this warrior of Islam is clearly suffering from a concussion, give him first aid!’

Moscow responded by slitting the Arab’s throat, blood spraying on the opposite wall, then he pressed the prisoner’s head against the floor with his boot, bent down and drove his knife into his left side several times. He was dead; all you could hear was the air, pushed by the blood, coming out of the holes in his lungs.

We went out of the house. Nosov was pleased.

‘We took an important position in their defence, they almost ran out of ammo,’ he said, looking at us seriously. ‘Whoever was here before must have gone to help the others against our assault units…’

‘And what now, Ivanisch?’ I asked. The fog around us had not dispersed.

‘We have to cross the main street, get rid of the other reinforced positions and signal to our tanks where to meet us…’

‘Let’s take this fucking town apart,’ Shoe said, striking his chest with his fist.

We left. The houses were empty. We found a mine here and there, but from the way they had been planted it was clear that they hadn’t had time to lay the traps carefully. We moved slowly through the fog; the real battle was on the other side of the city – no one would notice us.

We ran into a group of five Arabs in the yard of a house. Two of them were wounded; one had lost an arm. We took them out with a few blasts of gunfire; they hadn’t been expecting it, they didn’t even have time to lay a finger on their weapons. We inspected the bodies – they had some nice pistols on them. There was an American clone of the Colt 1911 with a few clips.

‘I’ll take this one,’ the explorers’ lieutenant major said, his eyes sparkling in that scar-ravaged face.

Nosov agreed. We divided up the Kalashnikov clips, and hid the weapons in an old kennel. The bodies, on the other hand, we laid along the walls of the house, so as not to leave them in the middle of the street.

The fog had become translucent and we could see much better now; we could make out human figures from a distance of about twenty metres. We went through the yards, one after another, until we reached the main street. The road was wide, with a long row of trees, many of which were broken or uprooted. There was almost no asphalt left; everywhere there were holes caused by bomb explosions. In the middle of several crossroads they had put the wrecked civilian cars, a few carcasses of burned-out armoured vehicles and some old tractors – tall piles of big truck tyres, like mountains, poked out from every angle. Everything had been arranged to keep our units from travelling quickly through the streets, even if a couple of tanks could have cleared the way in a couple of minutes.

We started to move along the walls of the houses, hunched over and not making a sound. By one crossroads there was a house with another enemy position. We were heading there from the opposite side, because as Nosov always said, before throwing yourself onto the enemy, you have to get a head start in order to make a good jump. This metaphor meant that he knew the way the Arabs prepared their defences and positioned their guards, thus he always tried to plan our strategy based on the enemy’s habits. Even though in that conflict everything was so chaotic that the enemy often didn’t follow a pattern, he just acted however seemed best at the time.

Having come within twenty metres of the crossroads, we went across the way and hid behind a wrecked armoured vehicle riddled with bullet holes. In the air was the strong scent of burnt, rusted metal, which came from inside the cars. It made an impression on me whenever I smelled it, because it reminded me that inside that car there had been soldiers my age who had died like mice in a trap.

It’s a smell that anyone who has never smelled it can’t understand, a smell that hits you like a bullet in the heart.

The only things those soldiers must have known were mud, filth, cold, a few scraps of disgusting food, military disorder and injustice, battles, blood, disfigured human bodies, souls devoured and emptied, and then death. Maybe after that, death might even be a blessing, but of course that wasn’t enough to justify it… When I had a moment to stop and really look at what was left of our fallen boys, the sadness of their lifeless bodies, I thought about how no one would worry about them anymore – they were dead, full stop. The military operations would go on, and soon someone else would come and take their place, their bodies would be put into coffins, then in zinc cases and finally sent home, where their parents could bury them with the money generously offered to them by the government. At the funeral a handful of soldiers, on loan from the nearest recruitment office, would fire three blank rounds next to the fresh grave and the story would end there.

Every time I smelled that odour I would think of all that, and I told myself that I would rather have ended up with the ‘missing’. At least that way they could spare themselves those empty shots, flags and the whole song and dance at my grave.

We were hiding behind that vehicle, while Nosov and Moscow inspected the area. The house was big, two-storey, and before becoming the private residence of some local big shot it must have been a nursery school, built during the Soviet era. The roof had been turned into a big terrace, upon which we spotted an anti-aircraft gun; we called it a ‘Shilka’. It has four powerful cannons that fire so fast they can disintegrate an armoured car in seconds. It had to be destroyed; it posed too big a danger for our units.

In order to avoid killing one another, Nosov proposed the so-called ‘closed’ assault system: one team (the assault team) comes into the residence from one entrance, a second blocks the other exit (but doesn’t shoot, just keeps anyone from going out), and finally a third covers the first two.

I was on the assault team with Nosov. Jumping over the nursery school fence, we entered the yard. We immediately noticed a group of Arabs. They hadn’t seen us; they were sitting on some chairs by the stone staircase that led up to the front door of the house. They had their guns in their hands and were talking. Nosov signalled for me to strike.

While he and I shot at the Arabs sitting outside, three of our men jumped onto the stair, flung the door open and launched three hand grenades inside. They waited for them to explode, then to be on the safe side opened up again and threw in another two. The explosions were strong – the glass in the windows went halfway into the garden. The captain and I went inside while the other group went to block the exits. I opened a door, then Nosov and I shot two volleys crossways, making a big X in bullets, and then we jumped inside, into the dust. They responded with a long blast, we threw a grenade, then we moved to the next room. Three Arabs lay on the floor. One was trying to get up, but his legs were full of shrapnel. I finished him off with a bullet to the head. Without waiting, we rushed off to the second floor…

An assault on a building, watched by someone who doesn’t know the procedure, might look insane: people running through rooms, throwing hand grenades everywhere and shooting everything that moves. But in that chaos there is also a harmony; all the participants are perfectly synchronised, and they don’t need to utter a word, because each of them knows his job. While one breaks down a door, another throws a grenade and yet another already has the next one ready; then the first shoots a spray of bullets from top to bottom, right to left; behind him a comrade does the same in the opposite direction, then they jump in, and so on and so forth… Speed and the proper use of hand grenades is very important, since if they don’t injure the enemy at least they stun him. Being able to seize those seconds to kill him is fundamental, not stopping no matter what, just keeping pushing and pushing… Getting into a fire fight with the enemy is pointless and dangerous, because then he has the time to organise himself, make a retreat and exploit his knowledge of the place. If anyone gets hurt, he’s left where he is; nobody is allowed to stop.

Jumping over a wall, running, or generally moving with any agility is very difficult if you’re wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying weapons. It’s not like it is in the movies, where soldiers break windows with their heads, start kicking at doors and jump around everywhere.

Well executed assaults don’t last long. An expert squad can ‘clear out’ a five-storey building in less than ten minutes.

I was breathing hard; I could feel my nose was full of dust. The smell of burnt human flesh intermingled with that of fresh blood, explosives and gunpowder. I ran behind Nosov, pulling pin after pin from the hand grenades, throwing one into every room. I would shoot and jump in, passing the enemies’ disembowelled bodies lying on the floor, hitting them with a few extra bullets to make sure they were dead…

We finally managed to reach the door to the roof, but we didn’t have time to break it down before it was blasted apart from the other side when a powerful grenade hit it with a burst of flaming air. Luckily we were at each side of the door, and we immediately flung ourselves to safety into opposite corners. The room filled with black smoke; where the door used to be was now a burning hole in the wall. My ears were ringing unbearably and my eyes seemed determined to abandon me once and for all. I watched the scene as if I were outside my body; it didn’t seem as if I was really there…

To keep the enemy from reloading the grenade launcher, Nosov threw a series of hand grenades into the newly-formed gap.

‘Out!’ he yelled.

Shooting madly we leapt onto the roof and into the fog. We hit three Arabs. One of them tried to flee by jumping down onto the street, but our explorers were waiting below to finish him off. We put a hand grenade on the anti-aircraft gun then rushed back into the building. The explosion was impressive – the flaming fragments scattered widely, like so many fireworks.

We went down the stairs, being careful to avoid any surprises at every turn. But the enemy had been totally eliminated.

Only once we were outside the house did we start inspecting one another, to see if we were all in one piece. As I mentioned, many times someone would get some kind of wound but not realise it amidst the chaos of the battle. At the end of an assault, everyone inspected everyone else’s vests. A little dazed, covered in dust and debris, we were otherwise fine. Shoe had a cut on his hand. It wasn’t deep but a lot of blood was coming out; we wrapped a bandage around it to stop the bleeding.

‘We can’t let our guard down now,’ Nosov said. ‘Let’s defend the perimeter of the building and prepare ourselves for a possible counterattack.’

We had to keep that house under surveillance at all costs, waiting for our units to arrive. Moscow rushed back onto the roof and shot the three signal flares in a row. There was the risk that in the middle of the fog they wouldn’t be very visible, but a few minutes later we received a green flare in response from the other side of town – that meant that our column of men would begin marching towards us.

At that point our artillery units, who were positioned a few kilometres away, shot some illumination flares. Everything was as bright as day, yet the shadows fell to the ground strangely – the flares came from several directions, and each of us had a row of faint shadows at his feet. It was unnatural, it gave me the creeps.

The time it would take to get to our position should be a quarter of an hour at most – the problem was that we could no longer count on the surprise-effect. Now our enemies could easily spot us.

Suddenly, an RPG shell came at us from the street. No one had expected such a rapid attack. The grenade hit the facade of the building, and two of the explorers fell to the ground, killed by the shards.

‘Take positions!’ Nosov shouted immediately. He too was shaken by the enemy’s speed.

Moscow, Shoe and I left the school, looking for a good position from which to hit the approaching enemies. We quickly crossed a couple of yards, then settled beside a building opposite. From the noises we heard, the Arabs had only assault rifles and no machine guns. Amidst the pandemonium of the gunfire, despite the fog, I was able to pinpoint my targets and strike them by surprise. Even if what I was really looking for were their snipers. I knew they had to be somewhere around there, because I knew the enemy’s tactics well – we often did the same things.

If a group wasn’t strong enough or big enough, they would try to ‘provoke’ the enemy by keeping a building under surveillance with a few somewhat random blasts of gunfire. Thus, when the defenders responded to the fire, they revealed their positions, and the sniper, by observing the fired rounds’ burst of flame, could pick them out and begin to work on them one by one.

Snipers could also work in teams of two or three. There was no exact rule; the Arabs often worked in pairs. Anyone who had trained in the military camps of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan or other Asian countries under NATO control was used to working in groups composed of as many as six people – three pairs of snipers who communicated by radio.

These enemy groups were fought by the elusive anti-sniper squads of the FSB – high-ranking professionals, armed with foreign-made rifles, who showed up at the right place at the right time, completed their mission, and were picked up by the support units immediately.

The individual snipers were usually poorly prepared, often mercenaries, former athletes, hunters… hopeless men who had learned to shoot on their own. For the FSB teams, paradoxically, it was harder to spot the amateur individual than a pair of professionals, because the sniper who acted alone followed different tactics from those who were taught in military schools, and was, therefore, much more unpredictable.

I was lying on the ground, between blocks of cement that in their previous life must have been the pavement kerbs. You couldn’t see much in the fog. Through the telescope, everything looked hazy, like the picture on a television with no aerial. Moscow and Shoe stood beside me, covering my position. I shot twice at the spots where I saw the bursts of rifle fire appear until the flares disappeared, and I continued observing the situation.

Our men responded to the enemy with a few short machine gun blasts and periodical rounds from the grenade launcher, which was positioned under the rifle barrels. Through the telescope I saw a guy with an RPG-7 pop out from a corner, run down the street and get on his knees, poised to shoot. I aimed at his head. He fell immediately, as if he’d been pushed from behind. His weapon slid out of his hands, the round fired, skidding on the tarmac, hitting the chassis of an armoured car.

Someone threw a grenade in our direction. It exploded about twenty metres away; fortunately there was a stack of old tyres and a wrecked car that blocked the shards. Without waiting I stood up and signalled to Moscow that we should move; by that point our position no longer served any purpose. He loaded a grenade in the Kalashnikov and fired at the enemy, then ran over to us and along with Shoe we did a loop around the building, reaching the space where at one time the garden must have been.

From the road we could hear the sound of our tanks, but we didn’t have time to identify ourselves before they immediately fired a long volley of bullets at us. Moscow quickly pushed us to the entrance to the house; the bullets flew over our heads.

‘Don’t shoot, we’re saboteurs!’ Shoe yelled like a madman from inside the house.

‘What the fuck are you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to be at the end of the street, down at the crossroads?’ they replied.

We came out. Our men were standing with their rifles pointed at us. There were ten of them; part of the infantry operation units, they were explorers and privates.

On the road, meanwhile, the tanks went over the tyre barricades and burned-out cars, freeing access to the position and blowing up the explosives the Arabs had placed between the carcasses, in case anyone were crazy enough to try to move them without taking cover inside a tank.

‘There are three of us,’ Moscow said. ‘We set up a lateral position, the rest of the guys are in the old nursery school…’

We quickly joined them. The infantry, in a lightning attack, blocked the enemy groups in the middle of the road. Some tried to escape into the fog, and our men shot them in the back. A couple of Arabs tried to launch some more grenades, but they were immediately overpowered by our numerous assault units. There were probably a hundred men, and with four tanks and five light infantry tanks they surrounded the school.

We all went inside the building and took in the massacre that had happened there. Amongst the bodies of enemies and infantrymen I also recognised their lieutenant major; his head was crushed, shrapnel from a mortar round had killed him.

One infantryman had taken a blast right in the vest, and a bullet had gone into his side; he lay next to the dead lieutenant on an old dirty rug soaked in blood, while a medic stitched his wound with no anaesthesia. He didn’t seem bothered by the pain; he was talking to a comrade who was observing the street from the window to keep up with how the battle was going.

In the meantime, more infantry arrived on board a BTR just like ours. They were equipped with a radio, and they set up an operation command post inside the building. Along with them there was a major and a lieutenant colonel, who started talking with Nosov, assessing the losses they had suffered and which strategies they should employ.

Our order, for us and for the explorers, was to join the assault units – we had to seize that town, and we wouldn’t be finished any time soon. They gave us a radio and replenished our supplies. We were able to eat a quick bite; the tankers also offered us some hot coffee, a real rarity. Then we left the school with a precise objective: breaking through enemy lines.

We were immersed in the chaos of battle all night. Our units had made remarkable progress – by four in the morning they had managed to liberate almost half the town. We saw the people fleeing and tried to guide them to a predetermined area, in order to tighten the ring even more.

Our armoured cars moved down the streets looking for smaller groups of fleeing residents, while the clean-up teams passed by to check the liberated territory, blowing up the cellars and shooting grenades at suspicious places.

At seven, with the arrival of daylight, the fog disappeared completely. The town was all ours – only one neighbourhood still resisted.

We found ourselves on the border of the area defended by the enemy; their fortified positions were fifty metres ahead. Our snipers had been trying to neutralise theirs since early that morning, receiving the same treatment in return. We were waiting for air support; the helicopters were supposed to ‘comb’ the area with surface-to-air missiles, and then we would come in. But, knowing our air units’ tendency to always enlarge the range of action, we shifted back a block, moving one house at a time to avoid giving the enemy the impression that we were retreating and thus letting them get away.

The helicopters arrived at the arranged hour, and, as we feared, started to drop missiles on the position we had just abandoned. We prayed that none of the missiles would fall on us… There were maybe five helicopters in constant motion. They swooped over the area to drop their charges, which blew everything up the moment they touched the ground, transforming the streets and the houses into one big endless fire.

When the helicopters had finished their job, we heard a weak signal on the radio. It was operations command calling us.

‘Birch, Birch, 102 here! How’s the field? When is the joust set to begin?’

These spy movie codes they used in radio messages were ridiculous, and they only made communication more complicated. We knew that the enemy monitored our radio conversations as we did theirs. But command insisted on speaking in code, and so the units would respond with simple words, often embroidering them with lots of swearing.

Nosov approached the soldier with the radio and replied personally:

‘102, 102, Birch here! Tell the air patrol to fuck off, and if those bastards shoot at us again, I’ll take them down with the RPG!’

‘Birch, answer the question, forget the rest!’

‘I won’t forget shit. Thank God we moved… In compensation, the Arabs are still waiting for us, just like before… Actually, now they’re ready because they know we’re about to attack!’

‘Birch, we order you to follow the assault units in zone B14! Confirm receipt!’

‘Receipt confirmed, 102! Zone B14, we’re heading for the position now!’

‘Over and out!’

So we went back to our burned-out positions.

Everything was black and covered in ashes; a light dust lingered in the air. There was a strong smell of explosives and acid that made our noses itch and went all the way down to our lungs. Our eyes burned, as teary as if someone had sliced up a giant onion.

We went onto the street and joined the paratrooper assault unit, whom we had been ordered to follow. They were all ready and couldn’t wait to begin.

A few minutes later came confirmation of the operational order and we set off for the first enemy-defended route. Between us, behind the assault unit, three tanks followed. On the other side of the block, a group just like ours was entering the enemy zone. We heard the first shots; they were coming from the top of our column. It was the paras firing at the Arabs, and then they moved to the next point. The tanks would come to the places to be liberated, launch a few rounds and then continue on their way, while we covered their retreat.

One of our tanks fired five rounds at a three-storey house where some machine guns were firing. Right after that came a missile from behind a fence that hit the tank full on. The explosion was extremely loud; we were twenty metres away and the powerful wave of heat blew us to the ground. This time nobody was going to deny us a nice fat shock…

The turret exploded, and after flying a long way it plummeted into a half-destroyed house. The chassis was in tatters. It was remarkable seeing such a powerful vehicle catch fire so quickly, like a box of matches. The guys inside had burned to death in less than a second.

Nosov stood up and shouted:

‘Onward, onward! Don’t stop! Everyone move!’ Then he crossed the street and unloaded a blast towards the gate from where the enemy had fired.

Moscow, from behind him, threw a hand grenade, while Zenith fired the machine gun. From inside they responded with a loud RPG blast, but it hit the inside wall of the courtyard. A piece of the wall blew up, raising a cloud of dust, and the broken bricks flew into the street. We rushed into the courtyard, shooting in the smoke and dust, and we took out the enemy.

That’s what we did, house by house, following the paratroopers. They moved very quickly, doing the majority of the work and leaving the survivors to us, tightening the ring even more.

By noon we had liberated almost the entire neighbourhood. The radio announced that the enemy had tried twice to break the ring at multiple points but both attempts had failed. Their losses numbered about five hundred men.

To conclude the operation, the infantry units joined us.

The infantry soldiers in that war were treated like beasts at the slaughterhouse. The commanders over at headquarters didn’t give a shit and used them as pawns. Fallen infantrymen surpassed the fallen in all the other units combined. Not because they were incompetent or their officers disorganised – no; simply because in Moscow they were scorned. In Russia they always say the infantry is the queen of the army. Well, if that were true, then the guys in the infantry paid too high a price to maintain that regal title.

Our group, meanwhile, had been given a street to clear. Nosov was talking on the radio with the tankers’ colonel, the one with the sad eyes who I had talked to before the beginning of the operation.

‘How goes it, Birch? Your men all healthy?’

‘Yes, all fine, it should be over soon…’ Nosov replied.

‘Did you see what happened to my “little box”?[16] The paras say that my guys exposed themselves too much…’

‘I saw it, we were right there… They stopped on the crossroads for too long; they should have fired fewer rounds and hidden behind us…’

‘Whore of a war, those were good boys… Well, good luck. I’ve sent you three light tanks for support, with ammo and food. They’ll be there within fifteen minutes…’

‘I’ll expect the tanks. Confirm receipt…’ Our captain was about to end the conversation.

‘Such shit, my friend…’ the colonel said suddenly. I could picture the melancholy look he had at that moment.

‘What shit?’ Nosov asked, knowing very well what he was referring to.

‘Fucking constitutional order…’

‘You know the only place where the constitutional order counts?’

The colonel was silent for a moment.

‘No, I can’t say that I do…’

‘It’s simple, old man: the cemetery!’

Hearing a conversation like that between two officers was like being splashed in the face with ice water – your mind began to replay the events of the last few hours and see things in a much simpler way. We were the ones who established the constitutional order, the ideal we were ready to lose our lives for, the ideal we all hated… But we knew that, in reality, such an ideal didn’t exist. At least not for our officers, not for our fallen and wounded, not for the families of the missing in action… Because if a soldier is ‘missing’, the government doesn’t pay anything for the transport of the body or for the funeral – but a missing person could also be a deserter or a traitor who abandoned his unit and went to the enemy side. Those who were truly missing were few, because in the large units the majority of the fallen were left on site – they were referred to as missing because the bodies ended up in common graves and nobody could find them. That was why we no longer had respect for the constitutional order – because we knew there was no order, the entire Nation had plunged into chaos.

About twenty minutes later three BMP-2 vehicles arrived with a group of soldiers sitting on top – they were Cossacks who had come to back us up. They were coming from the other part of town; they must have just finished an assault. The cars were dirty and the men were tired; one had a bloody bandage around his left arm. They were all veterans – there wasn’t a single young soldier among them. In order to be a little more comfortable riding on top of the tanks, they had put some old car seats on the armour.

As we approached, they came down from the vehicles and the first thing they did was have a cigarette. After smoking and eating the food they had brought, we restocked our ammo. As we reloaded our rifles, we exchanged information on how the operation was going. Then Nosov briefly explained the situation, showing them on the map the places where our intervention was needed. The Cossacks listened to him attentively, without asking useless questions, and when he finished we set off.

Within a couple of hours we had liberated three enemy-controlled positions, eliminating their scattered units, who tried to run away by hiding in the cellars.

We came to a very well-defended house and found a terrible spectacle before us. The bodies of our infantry were scattered everywhere; there must have been about thirty dead.

From the way they were positioned it was clear that the enemy had taken them by surprise. Maybe they were tired, and had made the mistake of not inspecting the area well enough, thus exposing themselves without having anyone to cover them. Many soldiers had had their throats cut and no longer had their vests, a sign that the enemy had already come out from their position to pillage them and finish off the wounded.

We stopped in a courtyard, a hundred metres from our dead men.

I examined the situation through my scope. I could see a yard blocked by three cars arranged in a row, and I could see movement in one of the windows.

‘They’re waiting for us,’ I said.

‘Zenith,’ Nosov ordered, ‘go with two Cossacks and two explorers and find a position to place a heavy machine gun across from the house. They don’t know what we’re capable of…’

Nosov, Moscow, Shoe, the rest of the group and I broke into the house next door. We went up to the second floor. Nosov loaded a round into the RPG and fired directly at the window where I had seen someone moving. After that we opened fire too.

Then Nosov moved to the first floor with Moscow; from there, he fired another two RPG rounds. One hit the wall and made a huge dust cloud, the other one went right into a window and we saw a wave of smoke billow out from inside. Then the Cossacks and explorers went out into the street and fired as they ran towards the house.

We followed. Nosov threw a hand grenade inside the house, then I threw one and Shoe another, each of us shooting at the same time we burst in. Someone responded to the fire; I could hear the bullets very close. Nosov jumped in between us and fired a long blast; Shoe and I covered him, shooting, while he reloaded the magazine.

Room by room, we went on our way; all shouting to identify ourselves so we didn’t kill one other. When everyone had stopped shooting, silence fell: we had got rid of them all.

Our men went to help the wounded. One of the Cossacks called for a tank on the radio to take away one soldier who was more seriously hurt than the others. I checked the halls. One explorer was on the ground with injuries to his face, another was the enormous sergeant who had killed the girl. He was lying down, motionless; both of his legs were bloody. Someone from his unit was opening a medi-kit to treat him.

We went into the main room, a sort of parlour with big windows overlooking the courtyard.

The silence was absolute – it was as if I had entered a church. In the middle of the room there was a table covered with open cans, pieces of fried meat, a few overturned glasses and two big bottles of vodka. There was also some fresh bread, wide, crisp and thin, which was delicious, especially with wine. On one of the chairs at the table sat a dead young Arab, his head bent down unnaturally, his chin almost touching the gaping hole in the middle of his chest. A wide dark red stain spread from the hole down to his trousers, pooling on the seat, then slowly dripping onto the floor, forming a puddle as thick as honey. Under the table there was the corpse of a dog. It was an animal with a large head, a Caucasian shepherd. The fur on his belly and neck was drenched in blood, the tongue that dangled from his open mouth was so long it looked fake.

Past the table there was a sofa; on it sat three corpses. One of them was a boy, no older than fourteen. He was wearing a shirt with American cartoon characters on it, Mickey Mouse and some others; it was bloodied, except for the sleeves, which were white, spotless. He was full of holes at the heart and the belly. He had a wide cut on his neck, like a tear – he must have been hit by several bullets there. His face displayed an expression of slight surprise, like a little boy about to burst into tears. Next to him was a young man. His chest was one gaping wound. His hands lay at his sides, as if he were sleeping; his legs were clenched together. On his right cheekbone he had a large hole; his face had become completely deformed – it was swollen, his eye bulged from its orbit, ready to pop out. A little blood was still trickling out of his open mouth, thick and black. On the floor in front of them, on his belly, was a man who looked about fifty years old. On his back you could see a series of holes; the bullets had pierced through him from one side to the other. From the position he was in, you could tell that he had been sitting next to the others. Before dying, he had tried to crawl on his hands and knees; there was a long trail of blood that went from his body to the sofa and on the floor were the marks of the bloody handprints he had left trying to drag himself along. Not even a centimetre of the tapestry behind the sofa was left intact; the whole thing had been punched out by bullets. The tapestry had caught fire in some spots; the black burn marks made it look like a work of abstract art…

At the head of the table was a chair with worn armrests and a high back. Sitting there was a man with a white beard. His eyes were closed, his head was turned to the side and his arms dangled at his sides. Next to him, leaning against the table, was a Kalashnikov. On a saucer in front of him there lay a half-smoked cigarette, still burning; a wisp of smoke wafted upwards. The man’s chest was so soaked with blood you couldn’t see the bullet holes.

Shoe went over to the table and began to eat ravenously. His jaws made a very loud noise, as if they were about to snap. He chewed on the meat and tried to shove a thick slice of bread in his mouth at the same time. Moscow went after him; he pounced on the table and took a piece of bread too, chomping on it violently, almost as if more than eating it he needed to kill it. He turned to me with his mouth full, gave me a smile, and grabbing a piece of meat off the table threw it across the room to me. I felt as if I was drunk, without my reflexes, and I didn’t put my hands up in time – the piece of meat hit my face and fell to the floor. I took a deep breath and freed myself from the straps of my bulletproof vest.

Just then the corpse sitting in the chair jolted, and then from his mouth came something that would have been a yell, but it drowned in the blood he had in his throat. The man spluttered blood on the floor and the table, started to cough, and then opened his eyes. Moscow, who was closest to him, pulled his gun out of his pocket and fired a round right in his head, without stopping eating. Then he put his gun back in place and grabbing a bottle of vodka said, his mouth full of meat:

‘Get a load of this Arab arsehole… He won’t even let me eat in peace…’

Shoe started laughing and looked out the window. Another unit of ours was approaching quickly. He leaned out and signalled to them.

I didn’t feel well. My head was exploding. I knew what I needed to do: clear a place where I could rest. I went past the table to the sofa and grabbed the two corpses sitting there by the legs. I pulled them until they fell to the floor. The body of the boy made a dull sound when it landed on the wooden floorboards, like wood against wood. The other dead man fell on top; his forehead hit the ground, making a sound like bones breaking. I examined the sofa; there was a huge bloodstain in the middle. I looked around. On the floor by a window, there was a small rug. I picked it up; it was covered in fur and stank of wet dog. I threw it on the sofa and lay on top.

The pleasure of reclining on a sofa was enormous. I knew I couldn’t stay for long, but I wanted my body to remember how it felt to lie down on a soft, comfortable bed, at least for a few minutes. It immediately gives you the impression of just having come out of a nice hot bath, being under clean, sweet-smelling sheets… I yawned savagely and tears sprang to my eyes. For a moment even the ringing in my ears went away. I felt a light tingle go through my fingertips, which then spread to my spine. My body responded with a long groan; relaxing, the muscles rebelled, it was almost like I was paralysed. I was wrecked; all I wanted to do was sleep…

But I knew I couldn’t keep my eyes closed; I kept looking at the corpses that were by the window, right in front of me. There were two Arabs and a Chechen, well armed, with two Kalashnikovs and a machine gun, some American vests and a load of other valuable stuff. So far nobody had touched anything, but I was sure that as soon as Moscow and Shoe finished eating they would pillage them…

Suddenly Nosov arrived, and threw a pair of shoes at me.

‘Here, take these. Yours are rotten…’ he said, sitting down at the table with my comrades.

It was a pair of trainers, practically new, with barely a few drops of blood. Without getting up off the sofa I took the old ones off, which were filthy, and put on the new ones. My feet felt nice and comfortable; I was content.

‘So, how are they?’ Nosov was eating some meat and had a glass of vodka in his hand.

‘Thank you, Captain, they’re perfect.’

‘Well then, don’t forget how generous I am…’

The others broke out into laughter.

The siege on the village was over. Our assistance was no longer needed, and in two light tanks we headed for our positions.

The tanks went along, shaking, shooting black smoke into the air, and we shook too, from the pounding of the tracks. We passed by the burned-out cars and the bodies of the fallen, moving down the streets where a moment earlier we were about to die.

Once we were outside the town we looked at what we had left behind: collapsed houses, smoke rising into the air… total destruction, as if every inch of the town no longer existed.

Nosov observed everything, a strange look on his face, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied; if anything, he seemed lost in a strong nostalgia, like when you see something for the last time.

Our captain stood firm, still, holding on to the turret of the tank. At some point he said, under his breath, to himself:

‘Anyone who doesn’t want to be under us will end up underground…’