Redemption: Supernatural Time-Traveling Romance with Sci-fi and Metaphysics (27 page)

“Sir?” said Helen, speaking with
her instructor after class one morning. “I’ve heard rumors that Hitler may
invade the Soviets. What are your thoughts on that?”

The instructor looked up from his
desk, peering at her over his small glasses. “It seems highly likely, Helen.
The Nazis and the Russians are hardly good bedfellows and it’s only a matter of
time before there’s an invasion from one side or the other.”

“But Stalin and Hitler signed a
non-aggression pact, I thought they were allies. Isn’t that, I don’t know,
against the rules or something?”

“Rules?” he let out a bark of
laughter. “The Nazis make their own rules. And break them as they see fit. And what
with Stalin having shot most of the Soviet command a few years back, I wouldn’t
be surprised if Hitler seizes his chance to attack the headless monster sooner
rather than later.”

And sure enough, only a few
months later, just after Helena’s twenty-fifth birthday, she heard the news
that Hitler had launched an attack on Russia. There had been no warning, and
the Soviets had been caught completely unprepared. Only three days after the
attacks began, the Germans seized the city of Minsk. Hundreds of thousands of
soldiers of the Red Army were captured. Finally, Helen’s time had come.

“We have to send an agent into
Russia,” said her instructor, having gathered his students together the next
day as soon as the news came in. “This will be a dangerous mission. This is a
real, bloody war that has been started over there, and while we have the basics
of a plan, this is still going to be very risky indeed. As such, we have
decided to ask if there is any volunteer among you who is prepared to take on
this mission.”

Helen’s response was immediate,
stepping forward, her arm upraised. “I will go, sir,” she said, in perfect
Russian. “I have been waiting for this opportunity! I understand the dangers
and I am ready. Send me in, sir!”

Her parents were not happy when
an excited Helen came home and shared the news that she was being sent to serve
in Russia.

“Helen, are you serious about
wanting to go to this country infected by the virus of Communism? And at a time
when they are at war?” asked her mother, tears welling up in her eyes.

“It’s no more dangerous than
anywhere else out there, said Helen, disappointed at her parents’ reaction. “At
least it’s not northern Africa. That’s the real danger zone at the moment.”

Her father, sitting in his
armchair by the fire, his usual place when the day’s farming was over, cleared
his throat. “So what is the army expecting you to do out there? What’s the plan
exactly?”

“I…” Helen began, longing to
share with them the exciting work of gathering intelligence behind enemy lines
that she would be doing. But the mission was top secret. No one outside the
military could know, and even there, it was for the eyes of only a handful of
personnel. “I can’t tell you, dad, I’m sorry. You know how it is. But it’s
important work. Trust me. I just want you to be pleased to know that I will be
involved in vital work for the good of our country.”

“You want me to be pleased?” said
her mother, her tears flowing freely now. “Pleased that my daughter is being
sent off to war? Pleased that she is leaving and may never come back?”

Helen’s grandmother, sitting in
her rocking chair on the other side of the fire, had been watching this
exchange in silence. But now she leant forward and placed her wrinkled hand on
Helen’s knee and whispered to her in Russian.

“There’s no greater thing than to
serve, even to die, for your country.” The silence that followed these words
echoed around the room, broken only by the sobs of Helen’s mother.

Barely a week later, Helen
parachuted into Russia, a short distance from the city of Smolensk, under the
guise of a Russian officer, who had escaped from the German invasion in the
Minsk region. Her mission was to keep the United States military briefed with
the strategic and tactical actions of both the Russians and the Germans.
Although this was as dangerous a task as her instructor had said, Helen was
thrilled to find herself in her grandma’s homeland and to have this opportunity
to serve her own country.

Apart from the uniform, all she
had was a Soviet gun, a compass, a three-day ration of stew and bread, and
Russian papers with her new name: Elena Mikhailovna Smirnova from Minsk,
lieutenant of communications. But most people call her Lena.

~

“Lena!” She opens her eyes, her
ears ringing, to find herself still gazing up at the patch of blue sky. “Lena!”
Turning her head she sees Katya crawling towards her across what is left of the
bunker, her face covered with blood.

“Katya?” she says, her voice
shaking and oddly distant. “Katya. Are you okay?”

Katya reaches up and wipes some
of the blood from beneath her eyes. “Yes,” she says. “This isn’t mine. The
sergeant was between me and the bomb, which shielded me from the worst of it.”
A look of sadness flickered across her face. “This is his blood, Elena. He’s
dead.”

Aching all over, Elena clambers
slowly to her feet, still dazed from the shock of the blast.
So strange, I’m still alive,
she thinks
as she glances across the bunker to the Sergeant’s remains.
He was only a boy! And no doubt his mum is
waiting for him to come home.

“Come on!” she says, putting an
arm on Katya’s shoulder to steady herself. “There’s no point staying here and
waiting for another bomb to land on our heads. The radio’s busted. Let’s just
hope the message got through.”

Yartsevo, Russia. December 1941

Chapter Twenty-five

T
he message got through. It’s over! The Germans have abandoned their
attack on Moscow.”

Throughout the morning, this news
spreads across the town of Yartsevo like wildfire, and that evening, despite
the devastation and the ruins around them, the people gather to celebrate.

“Can it really be over?” says Elena
as she and Katya try to get themselves as ready as possible, considering the
limited washing facilities. “It seems too good to be true.”

Katya looks up at her friend as
she runs a broken comb through her hair. “Hardly
that
good, Elena! Don’t forget the hundreds of thousands of our
people those Nazi bastards have butchered since June. I wish they’d left
sooner!”

“True,” says Elena, continuing to
brush her clothes. “It’s not like it was in the war with France, over a hundred
years ago. Kutuzov was the Field Marshal back then and he decided to surrender
Moscow to Napoleon to save the Russian army.”

Katya stares at her, openmouthed.
“How do you know this stuff?”

“From War and Peace. The novel,
by Tolstoy. Have you read it?”

“No way! It’s far too thick. And
to be honest I hate the stories about the tsar and all those aristocrats.”
Katya spits out the word in disgust.

Interesting
, thinks Elena. R
ussian aristocrats, the cream of the nation,
people with the best education, able to speak several languages, with the best
traditions and inheritance… It’s only taken Stalin twenty years to brainwash
these poor people in the Russian land.
She doesn’t say anything to Katya,
however. Instead she keeps the knowledge to herself. As long as she holds silent
about such things, she is safe.

She thinks back over the five months
since she arrived in the thick of the warfare. Both she and Katya have nearly
been added to the numbers of the dead themselves several times, their near-miss
in the radio bunker, their narrow escape from the German’s pincer movement
around Smolensk and then almost being discovered as they hurried along the road
to Yartsevo.
But here I am,
she
thinks, a smile creeping across her face.
Still
alive and well, with my cuts and bruises nearly healed and my undercover status
still intact!
She stands up and begins to pull on her uniform. “But let’s
try and forget about all that, just for tonight, at least. Let’s go and enjoy
ourselves!”

When they arrive in the town
square, a crowd of several hundred townsfolk and soldiers have gathered for the
party. Everyone, from farmers to officials, from privates to officers, join
together to celebrate and drink to the failure of the Wehrmacht invasion. There
is not much fancy food, and what little there is is mostly root vegetables and
stew, but from somewhere a large stash of home-made vodka has been produced and
it is not long before the party starts to pick up, with plenty of singing and
dancing from all involved.

At first, Elena hangs on the edge
of the crowd, more a spectator than a participant. She sips at the drink she
has been handed, the oily liquid burning its way down to her stomach, and goes
to watch the people dancing.

Look at them,
she thinks, gazing in
wonder at the men squatting down and kicking out their legs in time with the
music.
How skillful they are! It’s just
amazing!
She begins to edge round to get a better view, and then she sees
him
. He is engaged in conversation with
an older, grey-haired officer. Elena admires his Slavic profile from her
vantage point a few meters away. His dark hair is cut short beneath an army
issue cap, and on his shoulder the epaulets mark him as a captain.

Suddenly he turns his face
towards her, and his brown eyes meet her own. Elena’s breath catches in her
throat.
He looks exactly as I imaged the
wonderful Prince Bolkonsky. But Andrei Bolkonsky is not real. He’s just a
character in War and Peace. This man, however, definitely does exist!

She glances down at his chest,
where two great medals have been pinned. She recognizes one as the Star Hero of
the Soviet Union and the other, a medal of Suvorov II degree.
He’s not only a captain, but a hero too!
Looking
back up at his face, she notices him smiling at her and she decides to walk
over. A few steps away, she stops, hoping that he will come to her and, he does
so.

“Good evening,” he says, his
voice a rich baritone. “I am Konstantin.”

Like the great Rokossovsky,
she
thinks.
Could this guy be any more
perfect?
But aloud, she simply says, “I’m Elena.”

“May I have the pleasure of a
dance?”

Although her heart is already
pounding at the thought of being close to him, she pauses for a moment, as if
considering the offer, though in fact she is trying to control her breathing.

“Certainly,” she says at last,
holding out a hand to him. He takes it, leading her into the center of the
square, where other couples are already dancing as a small group of musicians
from the town accompany them with a waltz. The captain draws Elena close to him
as he begins to lead her in the dance, and she feels a shiver of thrill run
through her body as they begin to move together.

As the music draws to a close,
she pulls back slightly and looks at his face, lit by the flicker of the many
fires that illuminate the square. Even in the tasteless dark-green military
uniform, he really is handsome, his swarthy features striking, typical Slavic
nose and mouth, thick, black eyelashes and brown eyes. He exudes confidence and
calm and she finds herself being drawn in, sinking into those eyes.

It’s almost magical,
she thinks, as
the music starts again, and they draw closer together.
I wonder if this is how Natasha felt when she first danced with Prince
Andrei Bolkonsky. And tonight it is my love story, my world.

Later that night, as the
celebrations subside, Elena and Konstantin walk together, leaving the dying
fires and last revelers behind them. Away from the square, the town is silent,
ghostlike, and the moonlight sparkles on the frost covered buildings.

“It’s not as cold as it has been
the last few weeks,” says Konstantin, turning to look at Elena.

“Quite,” she says, watching her
breath drift away on the air. “It feels almost like spring! Look here.” She
stops, lifting up the lantern she is carrying to better see a tree a short
distance from the path. “What a beautiful fir. “

“So peaceful and sturdy,” says
Konstantin. “It’s hard to believe we’ve been at war for months.” He laughs and
leaps off the path, down the slope towards the tree.

“Careful!” says Elena. “It looks
pretty steep!”

“Don’t worry, Lena. I’m sure I’ll
be fine, as long as this tree doesn’t fight back.” He reaches up and, with some
effort, twists off a low branch full of large fir cones. He looks up at her,
still standing on the path, and smiles. “It’s not much, I know. A lady like you
deserves a whole garden full of roses, but this will have to do for now.” He
holds up the branch to her. “Well? Aren’t you coming down?”

“I would…” she looks down
uncertainly, her lantern still raised. “But I’m not sure I can manage.”

“Come on,” he raises his arms to
her. “Trust me, Lena. I’ll keep you safe.”

She hesitates for a moment, then
steps off the path towards him. It is even steeper than she realized and she
finds herself stumbling slightly, slipping on the icy ground. But Konstantin
catches her, wrapping his strong arms around her body. She breathes him in, her
face pressed against his body, delighting in his manly smell and the scent of
tar soap. Something hard digs into her chin and she realizes it’s one of his
medals.

“What did you get these for?” she
asks, fingering the medals.

“These?” he says, as though he
has only just noticed them. “Oh, they’re for my role in holding back the German
Panzers in a tank battle, just outside Moscow.”

“Both of them?”

“Well, this one,” he points to
the medal, “is for assuming command of the tank division when our battalion
leader was killed. This one,” he says, tapping the star, “is for taking down
twenty-eight of the German tanks.”

She looks up at him, her eyes
wide and bright. “Really? That’s amazing! What happened?”

“When we heard the German Panzers
were heading to Moscow, I was put in charge of one of the tanks as we headed
out to cut them off at Klimt. It was tough going, but worse for them than for
us, I think. On the third day of the combat the commander’s tank took a direct
hit from one of the German shells. It blew the poor bastards to bits and caused
no end of panic across the battalion. Someone had to take control, so I stepped
in and tried to get things organized again.”

“Just like that? You took charge
of the whole division?
 
Thousands of
soldiers, hundreds of tanks?”

“Just like that,” says
Konstantin. He smiles at Elena, though there is a sadness to it and his eyes
have a slightly haunted, far-away look. “Though it was hardly the
whole
division. We were being swiftly
whittled away by the Germans. But then we got a lucky break. We managed to
ambush a column of their tanks, taking out the front two with one masterful
shot each.” He mimes shooting with a finger. “Once they were immobilized, the
tanks behind got snarled up, with the whole lot bunched up, unable to get past.
At this point, we struck the tanks at the rear a couple of devastating blows,
leaving the whole column stranded, with no way forward or back. It was like
shooting fish in a barrel. My tank alone destroyed twenty-eight of the German
machines. It was beautifully done and that’s how I got the Star of Hero.”

“You hit twenty-eight German tanks?”

“Don’t sound so surprised!” he
says with a laugh. “It may well have been more. It’s hard to concentrate on
counting when you’re busy looking for the next enemy, while trying to take
ground at the same time. Anyway, I can hardly take the credit for it. It’s
Mikhail Koshkin who should get the medals. He designed the T34s. We just point
them at the enemy and pull the trigger! It’s simply the best war machine in
existence and it’s a Russian one!”

“Better than the German tanks?”
she asks, as together they make their way back up the slope towards the path.

“They don’t even compare!” he
says, helping her up. “Look at it like this. The Germans have their Panzer III
and IVs. Admittedly they’re pretty accurate, but their shells have hardly any
effect on our T34s if they get much further away than a pistol shot.” He
gestures to the gun hanging from his belt then, realizing he is still holding
the fir branch, he hands it to Elena with a smile. “Here you are, my lady.”

She mirrors his smile. “Thank
you, Kostya. You were saying?”

“Yes, so those are the German
tanks. Our T34, however, is far superior. Its armor is thicker and stronger,
almost impenetrable to enemy shells unless they get right up close, maybe fifty
meters or so. But they won’t want to get close, since we can penetrate a Panzer
at fifteen hundred meters! Not only that, but the T34 can move more easily over
the churned up, muddy ground. Like I said, it’s superior in every way!”

“Wow!”

“Quite,” says Konstantin, taking
her arm as they continue their walk through the quiet town. “And when the
rounds get there, they hammer straight through the Nazi Panzers. Hence being
able to take out twenty-eight of them with a single T34!”

“I guess that’s quite impressive,”
Elena teases, though she finds it hard to conceal her admiration. Thinking back
to the years of preparation for her own mission, she asks, “You must have been
in training for years to handle a tank so skillfully, yes?”

He laughs at the apparent absurdity
of the question. “Years? As if we can afford such a luxury! My training
consisted of one week being shouted at, dragged on thirty-kilometer marches and
shown which lever and which button in the tanks did what. That was it!”

“One week?!” Now it is Elena’s
turn to marvel at this absurd idea and almost chokes on the words. “Surely not!”

“One week for tank training isn’t
actually that bad! But I got three years of training as an infantry officer at
the military academy beforehand. It’s better than most. The vast majority of
our soldiers were non-military personnel before all this kicked off. Training
and mobilizing so many people in such a short space of time is simply an
amazing feat! I’m proud to be part of such an army. Our army. The Red Army.”

They continue in silence for a
while as they are both lost in their own thoughts.
No doubt he’s thinking about how wonderful Soviet Russia is
, she
thinks, and that the Red Army is unbeatable.
I bet he believes every bit of propaganda they spew out. He’s blinded
to the fact that Stalin, the self-proclaimed “Leader of the People”, and his
cowardly cronies are using them as cannon fodder. Thousands of men and women,
like that poor sergeant in Smolensk, all of them thrown in front of the German
Wehrmacht with only a handful of decent weapons in the hope that sheer numbers
will make a difference. Moscow was only really saved because Hitler made some
mistakes and failed to realize just how bad winter is here, just like Napoleon.
But what about next time? What happens if the Germans return when it starts to
warm up again? How many good men like Konstantin will be mown down then to
protect Stalin?
She glances up at him, still silent, and imagines him in
his full uniform, his strong features framed by the helmet worn by the tank
commanders.
Oh, I bet he looks good in
one of them!