their feet from fatigue, the medical staff was tidying up the operating room. From the vestibule came a woman’s shriek. Vera and her colleagues rushed to the sound of the voice. A young nurse, neither alive nor dead, stood pressed against the wall: her hands spread wide, and her fingers clenched in a death grip on the iron door handles. Not far from her there lay the dog with a swollen belly and remains of the human flesh in his teeth. In the middle of the vestibule lay a hand.
Vera shifted her horrified look on the orderly.
‘Where did you take the amputees?’ frowning Vera asked Akim.
‘As always, I carried them out in the bags,’ the orderly uttered defensively, innocently staring at her, ‘maybe the dog picked it up on the platform.
But it’s tied up here!’
Akim took a step forward and, bulging out his chest, rammed against Vera. He scowled angrily and yelled,
‘You’re depriving soldiers of food to feed a damn dog!’
‘I don’t eat a bite of my food but give it to the dog! And it was this damn dog that pulled 500 wounded soldiers from the battlefield!’ the woman screamed in anger. She took a step toward the orderly resolutely, ‘how will he work now that you’ve fed him?!’
‘Oh, screw you! It’s a mere dog!’ Akim pushed people out of the exit and jumped out of the car.
Lunch. The medical staff came to an iron dog’s bowl to share their chows with the dog. One spoonful, two, somebody dumped the half of one’s plate out. Having caught sidelong unkind glances of his colleagues, Akim reluctantly threw Rudy a piece of bread.
The railways had been restored. The train started and, gradually accelerating, left the station.
Heading into the rear
Vera walked through the cars, examining the wounded. She was slowly moving between the soldiers lying close to each other when she stopped near a very young boy. Suddenly the guy winked at her. Vera did not react but staggered out of the car into the vestibule. It was over! It was the last car. Exhausted, she leaned against the wall and crouched down. The woman closed her eyes and pressed her fist hard against the chest. She felt like to howl, but instead, she started to sing softly,
“The spring shall come, but not for me,
I shan’t see the Don spill its sparkly waters.
Where’s a girl’s heart in a raptured thrill
Shall race its beat, but not for me.”
Sounds burst from the woman’s heart, getting amplified by the sound of the wheels. She had not even noticed how loud her singing became. The words of the song caught the soldiers’ ears. Somebody’s hand slightly opened the door to the vestibule. Through Vera’s song, almost by the skin, they could feel the pain that had swelled in the soul of this small and fearless woman. When the song ended, there fell total silence. Not a single moan could be heard. Only the monotonous sound of the wheels filled the train: ‘choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo…’ The train carried the red army into the rear.
Chapter II
Military-sanitary train
On the way
Vera was on the doctor’s round.
‘No, you’re not going anywhere. And now you’re not a doctor at all, but a stubborn patient who always wants to be restrained!’ Vera gently scolded Konstantin Gavrilovich, holding him in the bed while he was trying to get up.
‘Vera, I won’t walk. I will examine those who can walk into the bandaging room by themselves. Look at these girls – they’ve got bows on their hair. They barely finished school, slipped through the two-month nursing courses, they don’t even know how to bandage, and here I am, the doctor, lying in bed. Vera! Let me go,’ demanded the man removing Vera’s hands away.
‘Okay. We’ll see tomorrow,’ she covered the doctor with a blanket and hurried to the next car. Konstantin Gavrilovich pulled his head through the doorway and called out to the woman:
‘How’s our Palych? Who’s driving the train instead?’
Vera came back to the doctor. The woman struggled to hold back the tears but failed. She uttered in a choking, heart-breaking voice:
‘Poorly. He’s suffering. His burns are too extensive. He was burning but continued uncoupling the cars. I’ll operate him the day after tomorrow. I’m going to need your help, that is why I need you strong. And we’ve found a new machinist – a nimble old guy,’ the woman’s nerves finally gave up. Her teeth clenched her lower lip, and she hurried to get out of the car.
Konstantin Gavrilovich got up and slowly walked in the opposite direction. He moved towards the bandaging room.
* * *
The train had started to slow down, approached the station, and stopped.
The medical personnel left the cars. The bright hot sun hurt people’s eyes. Crowds of children rushed down the platform towards them. They swarmed around Vera, stretching their thin bony arms out to her and asking for bread. She looked at those little emaciated faces, into their beady eyes where the despair gave way to the hope of gaining at least the bread crumbs. The station’s military commandant strode towards the woman.
‘We’ve got 136 people injured,’ the man said, holding out his hand to Vera over the children’s heads.
‘We have nowhere to place them. We have people lying in the passageways. We can hardly breathe.’
‘I know. We’ve prepared several empty platforms with mattresses and are organizing coupling now. As soon as it’s done, we begin the loading.’
‘Okay!’
Vera turned around. Through the cars’ windows, the injured looked at the children.
‘Kids, let me through! I’ll get you some food,’ she said, but the children did not listen and trotted along with her to the car.
Vera jumped on the train and ran to a secluded place where she had hidden her suitcase. She threw off the rags and opened it.
The woman hesitated: she stretched her hands to the suitcase but paused for a few seconds.
‘Oh, Gosh,’ whispered the woman. Tears ran down her face. From a suitcase full of groceries, she drew cookies, hardtacks, candies, halva, and put everything in a bag. Tin soldiers fell out of an inner pocket. Vera had put them in back again, closed the suitcase, and covered it with rags.
* * *
Meanwhile, the wounded soldiers were passing a bowl from hand to hand. They put their rations in a common plate – a slice of bread, a piece of sugar, boiled potatoes. Having collected a full bowl of food, the soldier asked Akim to take it to the children. The orderly proceeded into the vestibule and closed the door. He picked lumps of sugar and bread slices and shoved them in his wide pockets hurriedly. Rudy sat near the car entrance. The dog observed the man.
‘Oh, you again. Get out!’ Akim shooed the dog.
The door creaked. Akim shuddered and looked with the startled eyes at Vera entering the vestibule. Rudy snarled, glancing askance at the orderly.
‘I have some food for kids, but your dog doesn’t let me pass,’ Akim said.
Vera pulled the dog away from the passageway and stepped out in the street with the orderly, where the children were waiting for them. The woman had picked an older boy from the crowd, gave him the pocket, and said sternly,
‘You’ll divide it