Red Moth

After a three-hour flight

After a three-hour flight from Moscow in the unheated cargo bay of the Lisunov, Pekkala and Lieutenant Churikova landed at an airfield in Tikhvin, east of Leningrad. A truck was waiting for them at the side of the runway. Its windscreen had been smashed out and the driver wore a pair of motorcycle goggles to protect his eyes from the mud and grit which had splattered the upper half of his body. ‘Get in the back,’ he told them, ‘unless you want to look like me.’

‘Where are we going?’ asked Pekkala, struggling to speak since his jaw was almost frozen shut.

‘To the town of Chertova, but we had better be quick. I knew where the front was when I left this morning, but I’ve no idea where it is now.’ As the driver spoke, he removed the goggles, revealing pale moons of skin around his eyes. He licked the dirt off the lenses, spitting after each swipe of his tongue over the glass, then fitted the goggles back on to his face.

Hurriedly, Churikova and Pekkala piled into the back of the truck.

The driver battened down the canvas flap and soon they were on the move again.

‘What happens when we get to Chertova?’ asked Churikova, once they were under way. She had tried during the flight to question Pekkala about the plan for getting them behind the German lines, but the noise in the cargo plane, not to mention the cold, had prevented any kind of conversation.

From the pocket of his coat, Pekkala removed his orders of transport. ‘According to this, we are being delivered to the headquarters of the 35th Rifle Division, which must be based in Chertova. Once we arrive, a Colonel Gorchakov of Glavpur, Military Intelligence, will provide us with further instructions.’

‘But how will he get us through the lines?’ Churikova pressed him.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Pekkala. ‘At this point, I doubt that he knows, either.’

On the outskirts of Chertova, the truck pulled over beside a cemetery. The driver got out and undid the canvas flap. ‘We’re here,’ he said.

There was no sound of birds or barking dogs, or the bumblebee droning of tractors in the fields beyond the town. All they could hear was the rumble of artillery in the distance.

Pekkala peered out across the graveyard. ‘Military Intelligence?’

‘Come see for yourself,’ said the driver, his face expressionless behind the mud-splashed goggles.

Leaving Churikova in the back of the truck, Pekkala jumped down into the mud and followed the driver out into the cemetery. As Pekkala trudged along, he looked out over the crooked ranks of gravestones. Some bore the tilted cross of the Orthodox Church, others were topped by ancient weeping angels made of concrete. The oldest were nothing more than blunted slabs of stone, leaning at odd angles like the teeth of hags.

Pekkala could not see any sign of a command post. Just as he was beginning to wonder if Colonel Gorchakov had already moved on, he noticed a soldier emerge from the stone hut of a family mausoleum and disappear underground to where a bunker had been dug among the bones.

Pekkala found Gorchakov, a round-faced man with ears as fleshy as the petals of an orchid, sitting on a stone bench inside the mausoleum. Built into the walls were niches for coffins. Some of these were still in place, tassels of old black ribbon knotted to the brass carrying handles. Other coffins had been carried outside and left in a heap. Bones and tattered clothes lay scattered in the mud. Men from the Glavpur staff were sleeping in the empty spaces, using greatcoats for blankets and their helmets as pillows.

Gorchakov sat behind a small collapsible table. In front of him stood an opened tin of tushonka ration meat encased in a frog spawn of gelatine, and an almost empty bottle of home-made alcohol called samahonka. ‘Pekkala?’ asked Gorchakov, busily scooping out the greyish-red meat with his fingers and packing it into his mouth.

‘Yes, Comrade Colonel.’

‘It is an honour to meet you, Inspector.’ He picked up the bottle and held it out. ‘May I offer you a drink?’ he asked, his lips shining with grease.

Pekkala eyed the cloudy dregs of samahonka. ‘Later, perhaps.’

The colonel shrugged and drank off the last of the alcohol, his tongue writhing like a bloated leech around the bottle’s mouth. Then he tossed the empty container through the doorway. With a dull, soft thump, the bottle fell among the gravestones. ‘Now what it says here. .’ he began thrashing around amongst some papers on his table, eventually snatching up the pulpy yellow form of an incoming radio message. . ‘is that I am to provide you with a means of reaching the Catherine Palace which is, as of two days ago, no longer under our control.’

‘That is correct.’

Gorchakov nodded as he set aside the message and began scooping out another clump of meat. ‘Just you?’

‘No. One other. A woman.’

Gorchakov paused, his fingers wedged into the can of tushonka. ‘A woman?’

‘Is that going to make your job more difficult?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Not necessarily.’ Gorchakov sucked a shred of meat from between his teeth. ‘A woman is good to have along. They hesitate before they shoot a woman.’

Gorchakov pulled his fingers out of the can, licked the oil off his thumb and wiped his hands with a dirty handkerchief. ‘I can transport you as far as the front line. After that, you must continue on foot. You’ll have to keep off the main roads, which means you’ll need a guide to get you there.’

‘I am familiar with some of the terrain,’ said Pekkala.

‘It’s not a question of terrain,’ replied Gorchakov. ‘It’s a question of knowing who controls it.’ He got up and walked over to one of the alcoves, where an army doctor lay sleeping. ‘What happened to that soldier who wandered into town last night, the one you found lying outside the field hospital?’

The doctor’s eyes fluttered open. ‘I brought him back here.’

‘What is his name?’

‘Stefanov, I think. He was in that anti-aircraft battery we accidentally shelled at Janusk.’

‘Don’t remind me about that!’ snapped Gorchakov. ‘Just tell me where he is now.’

With bleary eyes, the doctor looked around. ‘There!’ he aimed one stubby finger out into the cemetery.

Pekkala and Gorchakov walked to the doorway of the Mausoleum.

‘Rifleman Stefanov!’ the colonel shouted at a hunched, dishevelled figure, whose clothes were pasted to his body by a mixture of blood and dirt. Perched upon one of the coffins which had been evicted from the mausoleum‚ the man seemed oblivious to everything around him.