Free Fall (30 page)

‘What the fuck are you doing in there? Come on!'

We went through the opening, one at a time, almost joyfully. In an instant we had that damned mountain behind us, and we were running down the hill. At the bottom, near the edge of the woods, Zenith showed us the place where the enemies had been shooting at us moments before. I was running so hard I was almost out of breath.

When we went into the woods, Spoon came up to me, nudging me with his shoulder:

‘What was that? We thought you were a goner! We saw that blast you took . . .'

Gasping as if drowning, I replied:

‘That wasn't me, it was the captain . . .'

Spoon whistled, and then looked at Nosov. At that moment he was resting with one hand against a tree and the other on his chest.

‘What, soldier,' he said to Spoon, ‘you think your captain would abandon you and let you go fuck around? Certainly not . . .' He spoke with a joking tone, even though the blow he had taken must still have really hurt.

‘Shit, that's some luck . . .' Zenith remarked, his machine gun levelled to cover our retreat.

‘Come on, boys,' Nosov said, ‘our men will already be down there waiting for us.'

We could hear the battle continuing behind us – it was definitely our men who had succeeded in pushing the enemy somewhere and were smashing them to bits.

We walked through the damp morning air that rose from the wet soil and shimmered in the sunlight; the warm sunbeams shone through the tangle of branches, forming a mosaic of long, twisted shadows at our feet. There, in that fantastic theatre of nature that unfolded before our eyes, suddenly replacing the scenes of war, I was absurdly gripped by a thought; just as we were killing each other like maniacs, the world went on. While we were fighting, pushing ourselves to madness and brutality, nature went on existing. There it was.

I knew perfectly well that such philosophical thoughts usually came to me when my psycho-physiological state had reached total exhaustion. I began to worry. So as not to get lost in that mental spider web, I tried to remember the details of the events that had just happened . . . I thought it was important for me to make sure what had happened to me didn't happen again. Only then did I comprehend the gravity of my actions – I had abandoned my weapon and lain on the ground, putting my comrades in danger.
I was a disgrace walking through the woods with a rifle
. I could feel my cheeks burn. I thought about the lecture the captain was going to give me, and with good reason . . .

Nosov had picked up the pace – the shots were closer now, maybe an enemy detachment had entered the woods. Soon they would catch up with us . . . The exit onto the plain had already come into view. It was a straight, wide road; there was lots of mud and few trees. In the distance we could make out the hills and some uncultivated fields, abandoned for who knows how long.

I saw an armoured car about a hundred metres from the road, but then a blast of gunfire came towards us. We all dropped to the ground.

‘Don't shoot! It's our men!' the captain told us. Nosov and Shoe began moving to the side, to get to them without being seen and tell them who we were. They quickly crossed the road and disappeared behind the trees. A few moments later we heard the armoured car start up – it was crossing the muddy plain to take us to safety. The bullets whistled over us, lodging into the bark of the trees.

Then we heard Nosov's voice:

‘Saboteurs, on the armour!'

We got up and rushed over to the car. It wasn't ours – it had a red symbol on the side, the insignia of some infantry unit I didn't recognise. Nosov sat on top and next to him, thank God, were Moscow and the explorer lieutenant. I smiled and grabbed Moscow's hand, and he helped me up.

‘Where's Deer?' I asked, a little anxious.

‘He's inside, safe with the others,' Moscow said, patting the car's belly.

The car backed up about twenty metres and then,
turning in the mud with its ultra-powerful wheels, went forward, heading for base.

I watched the woods fade into the distance. I could hear the sounds of the battle and it was as if I was still there, amidst all the trees . . . A cold shudder went down my spine. A grenade exploded somewhere – I could see the smoke rising from the forest, spreading over the trees like a cloud and rising towards the outline of the mountains, where it dissolved in the air and faded into nothing.

After a while we were joined by the four other cars that had been waiting for us to form a convoy. They belonged to an elite unit of the ‘internal troops', as they called the military police, a force that focused on special operations such as investigating corruption cases or assisting the arrest of terrorists, arms dealers or the various bands who tried to cross the Chechen borders.

Once we were back on base, we were met by the young lieutenant who had told our captain the true story about the blown-up helicopter, the same one who had helped us out by supplying us with weapons and ammunition.

As we found out from him, a few hours after we had left for the mountains, soldiers from the internal troops, officers from the military prosecutor, and even some agents from the FSB, the Russian state security organization that had replaced the KGB, had arrived on base.

They arrested six officers, about ten lieutenant colonels and all the authorities in command. One lieutenant colonel
had managed to lock himself in a trailer that doubled as a kitchen, and at the legal officers' pleas to come out and turn himself in to the military police, had shot himself in the head with his own gun.

They wanted to send someone to try and stop us, but our armoured cars were already on their way back, and since we didn't have a radio it was impossible to get in touch with us. Meanwhile, in the other part of the mountains, a motorised infantry unit and a
spetsnaz
unit were in the middle of an anti-terrorist operation . . . That night in the mountains by pure chance we had crossed the line dividing the area controlled by our units and the area occupied by the terrorists. The two groups we had eliminated, the young lieutenant explained to us, were wounded and exhausted men who had been wandering around the mountains for days, pursued by our relentless infantry. This was confirmed by the helicopter pilot who took the
spetsnaz
to the other side of the mountains – they were supposed to go across, block the enemy group in the valley and exterminate them.

That night, in short, we had risked getting killed by our own men much more than by the enemy.

They let us sleep on base for a whole day and night. They gave us a ton of good stuff to eat; there was even hot soup, with potatoes and meat – a very rare thing, especially in the big units, where provisions were often scarce.

Even after resting and with a full belly, the shame over
what had happened to me in the mountains hadn't left me – on the contrary, it had become even more oppressive and wouldn't leave me in peace.

I went walking to and fro around the base. I was restless. At some point I ran into Deer, and I thanked him for saving me when the hand grenade had almost exploded on me in the mountains.

‘Don't mention it, brother,' he replied, a smile behind his kind eyes.

But I still wasn't calm.

I went to the captain to vent my feelings. He was sitting at the table, taking apart his gun in order to clean it. He listened to me attentively, without interrupting at all. When I finished my sob story, he smiled at me and said:

‘Rest easy, soldier. No one will ever know. I already talked to Shoe about it. I told him to forget the whole thing . . .'

I was happy. I felt as if an enormous weight had been taken off my chest. I gasped with joy.

Nosov went back to cleaning his gun. But suddenly he paused, as if thinking back on my words. He looked up and asked:

‘Are you sure you felt yourself die? Maybe you were just tired, don't you think?'

Before answering I thought about it for a minute. I wanted to remember that exact sensation one more time. Once I did, I felt a strength awaken inside of me and take hold of my heart. A feeling that had no explanation.

‘Yes, I really thought it was death. I did. But I didn't feel horrible, it wasn't so bad . . .'

He spoke without looking me in the face, setting the spring inside the shaft:

‘Well, now you know what it's like to be dead. It's a good thing.'

_______________

*
This is what transport helicopters are called in military slang.

*
The soldiers in the Russian army often called the Chechen soldiers ‘Czechs' –
echy
, the same term used to indicate the people of the Czech Republic – to distinguish them from civilians.

*
Military slang for precision rifle.

*
This was what we called a small group that went on reconnaissance and had no contact with the rest of the unit.

*
The Afghani authorities called the Taliban
dushman
, or ‘enemies'; the Russian military abbreviate the word to
duch
(‘spirit' in Russian), probably because they appear and disappear so quickly.

 

The Russian soldier has three types of enemies. The first, the most dangerous, is in Moscow, the Russian capital: it's the government, which is afraid of its army and thus desires its death. The second is the air troops, because they often make a mistake and bomb their own units. The third enemy is the least dangerous: the one in the war against the Russian soldier.

Proverb of the Russian army veterans of WWII

Orders must be communicated promptly and without hesitation to the officers of the unit charged with their execution. After an order has been communicated, it may be submitted to appraisal by command, the request supported with valid reasons in conformance with army regulations. If the order were found to conflict with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the officer in charge may not carry out the order and may immediately obtain a second assessment of the order.

From old Russian army regulations
*

There is no Heaven or Hell – anyone who does wrong and commits serious sins is simply reincarnated as Russian.

Proverb often quoted by my grandfather

When the unit entered the city

it was a time of human kindness.

The people have gone on holiday,

flowers wilt in the squares.

It all seemed too peaceful,

like in the movies when a trap awaits.

Long ago the clock tower struck noon

of some day now far in the past.

Captain Voronin chewed on a blade of grass

and thoughtful he looked around.

He knew that everyone watched him in the glass,

and could hear his steps from afar.

But men trusted in him like a father,

they knew he would make a choice.

He was known as one who was never in a hurry,

especially when there was nothing to lose . . .

From ‘Captain Voronin' by Boris Grebenshchikov, a Russian musician in the pacifist anti-communist movement

_______________

*
Regulations were hastily modified during the First Chechen campaign, since many officers refused to follow orders due to their content, which they considered unconstitutional.

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.