Red Army

Shilko was almost as proud of the big guns with which he had been entrusted as he was of his men. When he had entered the service, his first unit had been equipped with field pieces designed before the Great Patriotic War, towed by Studebaker trucks from the war years. Now the enormous self-propelled pieces in his battalion made those little towed weapons seem like toys. Shilko felt that he had seen enormous progress in his lifetime.

"Comrade Battalion Commander," Romilinsky said, "you seem ad-mirably relaxed."

53

Ralph Peters

"The sleep did me good," Shilko said, content to wait and think through these last minutes.

But the chief of staff wanted to talk. "I believe we are as ready as possible."

Shilko accepted that the needs of other men were different from his own. If his chief of staff needed to talk away the final minutes of peace, Shilko was willing to oblige him.

"I'm confident that we're ready, Vassili Rodionovitch. This is a good battalion. I have great faith."

"I can't help thinking, though, of things we should have done, of training that should have received more stress . . ."

Shilko waved the comment away. "No one is ever as prepared as they should be. You know the dialectic. A constant state of flux."

"Five minutes," a voice announced.

Shilko looked up at the clock. Then he sat back. "You know," he began in his most personable voice, "when I was a junior lieutenant, I was horrified by the conditions I found upon arrival at my first unit. Nothing seemed to be as we had been promised at the academy. Nothing was as precise, or as rigorous, or even as clean. I was very disturbed by what I viewed as a betrayal of the high standards of the Soviet military. Oh, I wasn't especially ambitious. I never expected to change the world. But this unit didn't seem as though it could go to war against a pack of dance-hall girls. Half of the equipment didn't work. The situation seemed intolerable to a brand-new lieutenant who had been coached to go up against the capitalist aggressors at a moment's notice. Anyway, my commander was a wise man—a veteran, of course, in those days. He watched my struggles with some amusement, I think. Then, one day, he called me into his office. I was worried. It wasn't so common for a battalion commander to speak to a lieutenant in those days. And it usually didn't happen because the lieutenant had done something to be proud of. So I went to his office in quite a state. I couldn't think of anything I'd done incorrectly. But you never knew. Anyway, he asked me how I enjoyed being in the army, and how I liked the unit. He was teasing me, although I didn't realize it then. I talked around my real feelings.

Finally, he just smiled, and he called me closer. Very close to his desk.

And he said he was going to reveal to me the one military truth, and that if only I remembered it, I would do very well in my military career."

Shilko looked around. Everyone was listening to him, despite the unmistakable tension.

The clock showed two minutes to go.

Shilko grinned. "You know what he said to me? He leaned over that 54

RED ARMY

desk, so close I could see the old scars on his cheek, and he half whispered, 'Shilko, wars are not won by the most competent army—they are won by the least incompetent army.'"

His audience responded with pleasant laughter. But the undercurrent of anticipation had grown so intense now that no man could fully master it. The tension seemed almost like a physical wave, rising to sweep them all away.

Romilinsky gripped the field telephone, ready.

Less than one minute to go.

In the distance, a number of guns sounded, startling in the perfect stillness. Someone had fired early, either because of a bad clock or through nervousness.

Shilko looked at the clock one final time. Other batteries and full battalions took up the challenge of the first lone battery, rising to a vast orchestra of calibers. Shilko turned to Romilinsky, utterly serious now.

"Give the order to open fire."

55

FOUR

Junior Lieutenant Plinnikov wiped at his nose with his fingers andordered his driver forward. The view through the vehicle commander'soptics allowed no meaningful orientation. Rapid flashes dazzled in theperiscope's lens, leaving a deep gray veil of smoke in their wake. The viewwas further disrupted by raindrops that found their way under theexternal cowl of the lens block. Plinnikov felt as though he were guidinghis reconnaissance track through hell at the bottom of the sea.