Sabres in the Snow

Chapter Twelve

Boniak swung himself into the saddle and sucked in several deep breaths. His horse neighed and he patted the animal’s neck. All around him, the cossacks were making last-minute checks on weapons, forming up into ranks for the attack on Ridanski, and the youth felt his heart begin to beat just that little bit faster.

The chill wind of the night before had gone and, high above in a cloudless sky, a weak sun shone. It glinted off the crisp snow and reflected on the sharpened metal of nearly two hundred sabres and lance tips.

Girths and saddles were checked one final time then, at an order from Namarov, the cossacks formed up. The stillness of the morning was broken by the jingling of bits and bridles and, as the men moved off, the ground began to rumble beneath the pounding of so many hooves.

Boniak gripped his sabre tightly and glanced across at Petrovski who was in his usual position next to the youngster. He checked his PPSh before drawing his own curved blade.

Led by their squadron commanders, the cossacks headed towards Ridanski, first at a walk then a trot and finally, at a signal from Namarov, a canter. The ground rumbled as if it were going to split open and snow flew up in great geysers as the pounding of many hooves reduced it to fine powder. The air rushed past and Boniak gulped it down like a drowning man. His heart was pounding harder now and, as the cossacks reached the top of the slope, he felt that now familiar rush of adrenalin surging through his veins.

Ridanski lay before them.

“Charge,” roared Namarov, his voice audible even over the thundering hooves and jingling harnesses and, as one, the cossacks rode on at even greater speed, hurtling towards the village as if they meant to ride the wooden buildings themselves into the ground. They drew closer and closer, swords and lances upraised and, along with many others, Boniak found himself yelling oaths, urging his animal on to even greater speed. He glanced across at Petrovski, who was smiling. It certainly did look as if they had caught Kleiser and his men out.

Fifty yards from the first row of huts now and Namarov scanned the buildings, looking for some sign of movement.

There was none.

The cossacks roared onward.

Thirty yards.

Kuragin felt the breath rasping in his lungs as he too saw no sign of any Germans, had they just left in the early hours, perhaps taking the villagers with them?

Twenty yards and the cossacks formed one huge mass of men. A phalanx sixty men wide and three deep, as unstoppable as a tank. Like some flowing river of steel, they broke against the first row of huts, riding between the flimsy structures looking round for the enemy who they had expected to find.

For what seemed like an eternity, they rode around the village which, apparently, was deserted. Then, suddenly, above the cacophony of sound, three shots rang out in quick succession.

As if some gigantic switch had been thrown the huts suddenly seemed to burst into life. Windows were flung open to reveal the gaping barrels of machine guns, sub-guns and rifles. Even flame-throwers. Then, in a deafening eruption of fire, the like of which few of the men had experienced, the guns opened up.

Caught like rats in a trap, the cossacks were pinned in murderous crossfire which seemed to come from every angle. Horses and riders went down in heaps, dying horses falling on wounded men, riderless mounts dashing about in the middle of the melee, further adding to the confusion.

Bezhukov was hit in the face by a rifle shot which took off most of his head. He crashed from the saddle, his foot still in the stirrup, his terrified horse dashing across the square dragging the corpse.

Boniak wheeled his mount, desperately trying to find a target for his sub-gun which he had now pulled from beneath his blanket roll. He opened fire randomly, raking the front of a hut, blasting lumps of wood from it.

Up in the tower of the church, German snipers picked men off as easily as if they had been shooting ducks at a fairground. Horses fell, bleeding from many wounds as the cossacks were raked with fire, the animals dropped like slaughtered cattle. Fusillades of fire tore though them and soon the square looked like a butcher’s yard as carcasses actually began to pile up. Some cossacks even used their dead mounts as cover but, with Germans all around them, it was impossible to escape the onslaught and many were shot in the back.

Namarov and Mig rode their horses straight at a house, simultaneously firing their sub-guns at it. A stray blast hit the major’s horse and he was catapulted from the saddle but Mig rode on, tossing a grenade through the open window. Reining back as it exploded, blasting the door off the hinges. He drove his horse inside and, there, confronted the three wounded Germans using his sabre.

The first had been foolish enough to remove his helmet and Mig felled him with a blow to the skull which cleft the man’s head in two. The second tried to pull the cossack from his horse but, as he raised his hands, the Russian sliced them both off with one accurate stroke. The shrieking German staggered out into the square, both stumps held aloft, spouting blood into the air until a lance pinned him to the wall of the hut.

Mig despatched the third man with a backhand cut that laid his cheek open to the bone and sliced through his temporal artery. Then the cossack rode back out into the screaming hell that was the centre of the village.

The crispness of the air was now filled with the stench of cordite, excrement and blood. Smoke from blazing buildings added to the foul smell.

Namarov dragged himself to his knees, stunned by the fall from his horse. He was half-way up when he saw two SS men running at him, bayonets levelled. With his head spinning, he tried to rise, to use his sabres to ward them off.

Boniak saw what was happening and rode swiftly towards his superior. He managed to get between the two Germans and Namarov but, the bayonet thrusts now found horse flesh instead of human flesh. The first blade opened the animal’s side, a mass of yellowish entrails dropping, steaming, to the floor. The second pierced the creature’s neck. It keeled over and Boniak rolled clear, striking upwards with his sabre. He caught the German in the groin, driving up until the blade erupted from the man’s anus. Namarov had fallen forward by now, and could only watch, dazed, as the youth fought for his life. From point-blank range, the second SS man fired and the bullet hit Boniak in the left shoulder, exploding just above the scapula and making a hole the size of a fist. The boy shrieked but kept his sword arm firm. With blood gushing from the wound, he fought the SS man until he had driven him back against the wall of a hut then, feinting to the right, he unbalanced his opponent and, with one quick thrust, gutted the German. He then rushed back to Namarov and helped him to his feet, grabbing the reins of a riderless horse as it sped by.

Helped by the youngster, Namarov succeeded in clambering into the saddle. Still dazed, he looked around him to see his men riding frantically in and out of the narrow alleys which separated the huts, some still falling to the small-arms fire. He saw that Boniak himself was bleeding badly from the shoulder and, when the major extended a hand to lift him up, the boy slipped. Petrovski, appearing from the melee, rode up alongside the struggling cossacks and helped Boniak up, pulling him across the back of his own saddle. Gripping Petrovski with one hand and his shattered shoulder with the other, the boy hung on, his head now beginning to spin.

Rostov and two other cossacks found themselves confronted by an engineer with a flamethrower and, before the leading Russian could bring his horse to a halt, the mouth of the weapon belched fire. A screaming blast of scorching flame which enveloped both horse and rider. Rostov fired at the engineer and hit him in the leg, the bullet shattering the German’s shin, and he collapsed beside the blazing remnants of the dead cossack and his horse.

No-one was sure who gave the order, but Russians all around the village heard it.

“Fall back.”

Men bolted, there was no attempt at order, just a headlong race against death as the Germans concentrated their fire on the backs of the fleeing Russians. The snipers up in the church tower picked off a couple more men as the beaten cossacks thundered out of Ridanski. Rostov turned in the saddle and fired a long burst from his sub-gun, aiming it at the offending snipers and was gratified to see at least one of them plummet, screaming, from his lofty perch. His body hit the roof of the church then rolled off, crashing into the blood-stained snow beneath.

Wounded cossacks were put on horses and led away, at a gallop, by their comrades. Others were merely dragged up onto saddles or, in some cases, draped over them as the Russians rode madly for safety. Riderless horses joined the flight, one or two dragging dead horsemen whose feet were still in the stirrups.

The cossacks reached the slope and rode up it, seeking the relative safety of the ground beyond but, not until they had reached their original camp-site did they finally rein back. Men and horses gasped for breath and some collapsed into the snow. Those who had not been hurt leapt from their saddles to attend either to wounded men or injured horses and now the moans of wounded men became quite loud in the stillness of the morning.

Boniak felt powerful hands pulling him from the saddle, the pain in his shoulder intensifying as they did so. He was laid carefully on the ground and, as he lay there, even the cold snow did not seem to chill him as it normally did. All he was aware of was the burning pain in his shoulder and the steadily-advancing wave of unconsciousness which seemed to be filling his mind. He heard words. They came floating at him through a haze of pain, almost unreal:

“Nothing broken.”

“The bullet went clean through.”

Then he sank into the merciful oblivion of senselessness.

“So what the fuck happened?” roared Rostov, kicking at a heap of snow nearby.

“They were ready for us,” said Namarov, taking a long pull from the vodka bottle. He gazed around him at the remnants of his unit. Men were putting down dying horses, some wounded lay in long lines, covered with blankets to keep out the worst of the cold. Those cossacks who were unharmed sat on their mounts or stood around hastily-built fires in small groups talking quietly, still stunned by the horrendous slaughter.

“What the hell do you mean, they were ready for us?” Rostov demanded.

“They knew we were coming,” the major said, draining what was left in the bottle and tossing it aside.

Rostov looked puzzled.

“That’s impossible,” he said.

“Then why were they prepared?” Namarov said. “We rode into a trap.”

Rostov was unimpressed.

“Coincidence,” he insisted.

“If they knew we were coming, why did they hang around in the village? Why not just leave during the night? They knew they were outnumbered but they stayed there because they knew they had the advantage of surprise.”

“But how could they know?” Rostov demanded, more angrily this time.

Namarov was silent. His eyes scanned the faces of the men before him. Rostov. Petrovski. Kuragin. Amassova.

Kuragin swallowed hard and dropped his gaze.

Namarov remained silent.

“You’re trying to say that there’s a traitor amongst us?” said Petrovski.

“All I’m saying is, Kleiser knew we were coming. That ambush was too well organised to be coincidence,” said the one-eyed officer.

“Most of us have ridden together for two years or more and now you suddenly decide that one of us is a traitor.” Rostov gaped. “I think that bang on the head must have been harder than you first thought.”

Namarov rounded on him.

“Then how do you explain what happened in Ridanski?” he said, angrily.

“Well, I don’t think it was anything to do with a traitor for one thing,” Rostov told him.

“Who would want to betray us, Andrei?” said Petrovski.

Namarov did not speak.

“We attacked at the wrong time,” said Rostov. “We should have gone in before dawn, slaughtered the bastards in their beds.”

“It would have made no difference what time we attacked,” Namarov said.

The other men stared at him for long moments, all except Kuragin who was still gazing at the ground beneath his feet.

“How many men did we lose?” the major wanted to know.

Amassova spat a stream of tobacco juice into the snow.

“Twenty-seven dead, nearly forty wounded. We lost about thirty horses,” the cossack told him.

Namarov nodded slowly.

“So now what do we do?” demanded Rostov.

“We can’t move on yet,” the major told him. “I think we should spend the night here. Give the horses and the wounded time to rest, then we go after Kleiser tomorrow.”

“And the people in Ridanski?”

At last Kuragin spoke.

“What about them?”

“They’re probably dead already. They probably were when we attacked this morning,” said Namarov, eyeing his companion suspiciously. “There’s nothing we could have done for them.”

All heads turned as, from far away, the sound of gunshots split the air and, as the men watched, the first of many plumes of dark smoke began to rise into the sky. Their source was the village of Ridanski.

Through the relative stillness too, came the sound of powerful engines gradually receding until there was only silence again. The cossacks watched those plumes of smoke which rose like accusatory fingers, prodding the skies which were already heavy with cloud. The sun was swallowed up by them and the golden rays were wiped away.

It began to snow lightly. Small flakes, as if the heavens themselves were weeping for Ridanski and its people.

Kuragin walked away, his boots making deep indentations in the snow, and no-one saw the single tear that trickled down his cheek.

When Boniak awoke, it was dark. He sat up quickly, the pain in his shoulder biting at him like a snapping dog. He touched the wound tentatively and found that it had been heavily bandaged. Beside him another cossack, his head bandaged, slept peacefully. The boy rubbed his eyes and blinked hard, things gaining clarity as he looked around.

There were a number of camp-fires burning-men, as usual, huddled around them. He caught sight of Rostov, that familiar pipe in his mouth, chatting animatedly with some other men from his squadron.

Petrovski was sharpening his sabre. Mig was cleaning his with an oily rag, wiping the last blotches of dried blood from the razor-sharp steel.

“Feeling any better?”

The voice startled the youth who turned a little too quickly and hurt his shoulder again. He winced, squinting through the darkness to see Namarov at his side.

“How long have I been out?” asked Boniak, rubbing his injured shoulder gently.

“Ever since we came back from the attack,” Namarov told him. “Seven hours. Perhaps more.”

Boniak lay back once more, one hand across his forehead.

“What happened this morning?” he said, dreamily.

“We rode into a trap,” the officer told him.

Boniak looked up, puzzled.

“A trap?”

Namarov nodded.

“Kleiser and his men knew we were coming,” he said. “They were ready for us.”

“But that would mean…”

Namarov cut him short.

“A traitor.”

Boniak nodded.

“Who?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t be sure.”

“But you have an idea?”

“What I have is twenty-seven dead, forty wounded and thirty dead horses. The rest I can only guess at.”

The two of them did not speak for long moments then Namarov coughed, almost selfconsciously.

“You saved my life this morning,” he said. “Thankyou.”

Boniak smiled.

“Then that makes us even,” he said. “Because, if you hadn’t found me in that cave that day, I would probably be dead by now.”

Namarov smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair.

There was another long silence, finally broken by Boniak.

“What about Kleiser?” he said.

“He got away,” Namarov told him. “We go after him tomorrow. It shouldn’t be difficult to pick up his trail. I’ll send six men to watch his movement.” The major got to his feet. “I think you’d better get some rest now, there’s a lot to be done come daybreak.”

Namarov walked slowly away, murmuring words of encouragement to some of the other wounded as he passed.

Boniak gazed up at the dark sky, his mind turning over the events of the day and also what was to come. Would they catch up with Kleiser and his men or would the bastard escape once more? He took one of the bear claws from his pouch and held it before him, studying the curve and the sharp point. It reminded him of a miniature version of his own sabre. He looked at it a moment longer, then dropped it back into the pouch.

He ate some of the soup which was brought to him by Voronzov but it was thick and made him feel sick. The man next to him, with bandaged head, ate his own and then offered to eat up Boniak’s too and he let him have it, watching as the man drank from the shallow metal bowl, using a piece of stale bread to mop up the dregs, he belched loudly and was asleep within ten minutes.

Boniak however, lay awake much longer, listening to the hooting of an owl and the soft neighing of the horses as they padded the snow. Sentries rode slowly back and forth along the perimeter of the camp and, one by one, the camp-fires were allowed to burn out.

Night took hold of the land and did not release it for another six hours and, in that blackness, Boniak lay thinking of Kleiser and of revenge.