Free Fall (29 page)

‘Moscow, Deer,' Nosov said lucidly, ‘you go with the infantry.'

Then he turned to the lieutenant:

‘Relax, we'll be here to cover you . . .'

We had to continue keeping the enemy occupied, and about twenty minutes after the infantry group had left we would start to make our retreat.

I was still stunned by the bomb explosion. I was
shooting along with the others but I was slow, I didn't really know what was going on. Nosov must have noticed:

‘Kolima,' he said, ‘take cover. I'll take your place.'

I moved to the side of the path, in between the boulders.

The infantrymen were able to retreat without any losses. I could hear the gunfire continue, but now our men were limiting themselves to firing single rounds. The enemy fire had become a little less intense – they probably wanted to retreat too; maybe there were few of them left or maybe some of them were wounded.

Often, in firefights between small groups, the following phenomenon would occur: a series of blasts, even violent ones, would be exchanged for a few minutes, and then suddenly, both sides, as if by unspoken accord, would withdraw. It was a kind of pact of mutual trust between the two groups taking part in the conflict, a chance, time-restricted choice of non-violence against the enemy.

There were various reasons for doing this. One unit might be in a hurry to reach another target and didn't want to lose time or risk their lives on an unplanned battle, so they tried to evade it, to ‘slip out', as we would say, or leave without provoking the enemy at all. In many cases, however, this tactic would be used when a group had reached the limit of their capacities – if they didn't have much ammunition, if there were any wounded, or if they couldn't establish a decent stable defence.

Sometimes, obviously, this tactic could be a good way
to trick the enemy. A small group of soldiers would detach from the unit, approach the enemy positions and pretend to have wound up there by accident. They would put on a real show, making the enemy think they were completely confused. They would pass themselves off as soldiers who were lost and trying to find a way out of the area. One of them would yell things like ‘Where are we? Who has the map?' that sort of nonsense, acting like idiots. At that point, if they'd been loud enough, the enemy would open fire, thereby revealing all their positions. The others would respond, while within a short time the larger group – alerted via radio by their ‘decoys' – would come to back them up.

It was a strategy that the Russian army was really fond of, and one used often in both Chechen campaigns, especially in the city, where the streets were usually occupied by various units, everything was chaotic and nobody could figure out exactly what was going on. The Chechens quickly learned this tactic, and on occasion used it to lead the Russian troops into traps in the woods or the mountains.

Sheltered behind that rock I sat with my eyes closed for a moment, but my head started spinning straight away. It was like being on a merry-go-round, I felt nauseous . . . So as not to fall into the trap of exhaustion – which in war can cost you your life – I decided to take part in the battle anyway. I took my precision rifle and began
inspecting the area where the enemies were. As far as I could tell they didn't have any snipers; they must have hit Moscow purely by accident – when a sniper shoots at someone from fifty metres away, that person doesn't stand a chance . . .

A few rounds were exchanged, but we were all pretty weak. It was obvious that the enemy was also trying to find a way to pull out of the skirmish.

I had to do something to get rid of the headache that was eating away at me, keeping me from thinking. I could feel exhaustion creeping over my entire body, my knees and back ached . . . I felt weaker and weaker . . .

Thinking back on it now, I feel horrible and ashamed, yet in those moments, when I thought that if I closed my eyes I was going to go mad, I would repeat to myself, like a prayer, the phrase ‘I have to kill an Arab', until I was able to regain control of myself . . . I don't know exactly how the subconscious works, but at those times it was as if my body were running on automatic pilot, as if a part of me had gone to sleep, surrendering to my hunting instincts.

As I was looking through the scope, I heard a loud explosion. I immediately hid behind the rock, and there was a series of powerful explosions just like the first. From the sound, it seemed like they were coming from an AGS, a kind of automatic weapon that shoots grenades instead of bullets. Our men had arrived! We all pressed ourselves to the ground – the rocks falling on us were so scorching hot we could feel the heat through our uniforms.

The AGS was a very efficient weapon; it could clear out an area in a very short time. Soon we would smell burnt flesh – we just all hoped that it would be the enemy's and not ours . . .

When the AGSs stopped shooting, Nosov shouted:

‘Withdraw immediately!'

We started running in the direction the infantrymen had gone. I had a brutal headache, but I just put one leg in front of the other. I remember asking God to put a stop to all this chaos around me, because I wasn't at all sure I could make it with the little strength I had left. I ran without feeling anything, only fear and confusion.

Often, especially after a long and arduous mission (when I had a ringing in my ears that wouldn't stop, and everything around me looked like a surrealist painting seen from a speeding train), I would get overwhelmed by strange emotions . . .

At certain times I would suddenly think I had forgotten something, but I couldn't work out what. I felt like I didn't have my rifle, whereas I actually had it in my hands; or I was convinced I was wounded – sometimes all it took was the
idea
of a wound, and immediately I'd have a phantom pain in some part of my body, which didn't subside until I was able to make sure that I really was okay.

One time, right in the middle of a battle, for some inexplicable reason I couldn't find a pair of trainers that I was sure I'd just taken off an enemy's fresh corpse. I looked for them everywhere. I blamed Deer, insulting him and accusing him of having taken my shoes. ‘You have
them on, you dick,' he said to me. When I looked down and saw them on my feet I was shaken – I really didn't remember putting them on at all . . .

Following my comrades, I felt the cold on my face. I couldn't tell whether my mouth was closed or open, I couldn't control my muscles too well, it was as if I'd been given partial anaesthesia . . . It was one of the effects of concussion: your hands start trembling, your eyes start twitching; you need to rest, avoid making sudden movements . . . but you have to follow through with the rest of the unit all the way to the end of the mission.

Behind us we could hear the sounds of the battle that was still going on as we walked down a very narrow path. The rocks jutted out over our heads; the sunlight hadn't completely reached us yet. I was last in line, and I felt like I was in one of those dreams where you're trying to reach a point, but the further you go the more distant it becomes. Soon this will all be over, I kept telling myself in order to keep calm.

We were almost at the end of the path where there was an opening with a thin ray of light coming through. We could feel the cool air coming from the other side. Nosov said that we were to go through the opening and would find a steep slope overlooking a densely wooded area. We just had to go down the slope and we would finally reach the plain.

Zenith and Spoon went first. Then it was Nosov's turn.
After him went Shoe, and last was me. When our captain entered that sort of vortex of light, I thought I saw something strange. For a moment his figure completely blocked the current of damp mountain air, and the rays of sunlight seemed to erase the features of his face, making him look like a kind of luminous ghost . . . I was about to ask Shoe if he saw the same thing, when a spray of bullets came right through the opening.

I saw Nosov fall on his back, his arms outstretched like Christ on the cross. It was so unexpected that for a few seconds I was paralysed.

Shoe, on the other hand, responded to the fire immediately, shooting madly into the light.

Spoon and Zenith could have been anywhere. Wounded, dead, or in the clear.

‘Get him, take him to shelter!' Shoe yelled at me while still shooting.

I grabbed the captain by the jacket and dragged him over to a small cave in the mountain that we had passed earlier.

I tried to determine whether he was seriously wounded. I looked on the ground to see if there was a trail of blood, but as I was moving him I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

I remember fearing Nosov's death almost more than my own. The loss of our captain, for me, would be tantamount to the end of our entire unit. Up to that moment he had been the truest, strongest thing we had encountered in that war. We all knew very well that we risked our lives carrying out his orders, but no one had
ever thought that he could be the one to die. Of course, we had been given instructions on how to lead the unit in the event of losing our commander, and maybe we could have got by on our own, but Nosov was the very incarnation of our faith as soldiers, our security, a talisman that we always had with us through the chaos. As long as he was there, nothing could really scare us, nothing could defeat us. The idea that he too, like the rest of us, could lose his life during an operation, was so terrible that none of us had ever dared bring it up. To us Nosov was sacred.

And at that moment I was dragging that sacred person, who was giving no signs of life, away from the battle . . . We reached the cave; I sat down and caught my breath. In my head, everything was frozen at the instant when that blast came, like when you pause a movie. I couldn't think or make decisions. I looked at Nosov's body, dazed, trying to work out what to do. My hand shaking, I put my finger under his nose and felt a light puff of air; I touched his neck and realised that I could feel his pulse. His heart was pumping hard.

‘Thank heavens,' I said to myself. He had only passed out; his eyes were closed and the muscles on his face were relaxed, like when a person is resting or having a good dream.

I rapidly inspected his vest – it had a pretty big dent in the middle and the central plate was broken in half.

I propped him up against the wall of the cave and then stepped outside. I could hear the bullets coming from both sides – we were caught between two sources of fire.

I rushed over to Shoe, who was still swearing and cursing the entire Islamic community.

‘Is he alive?' he asked me.

‘He took a blast in the chest . . . He doesn't seem hurt. He's breathing, but he's still unconscious . . .'

‘We have to get him out of here, this is a bad spot,' he said, changing his rifle clip.

‘But where?' I asked, shooting a couple of times into the opening myself, even though nobody was responding to our fire. ‘If we turn back they'll kill us for sure. It's better to try to go this way. Maybe there aren't that many of them . . .'

Shoe looked at me without saying a word. I stopped shooting, and for a second we fell silent, trying to guess what the situation beyond that opening was. Everything seemed still; there was just a faint gust of wind, making the same sound as a conch shell when you put it up to your ear.

‘I wonder where those two ended up,' Shoe said suddenly.

There was no need for him to name them. I too had tried to imagine what happened to Zenith and Spoon after they went through there . . . Then my thoughts went back to our captain, who was propped up nearby, unconscious, thrown in a corner like a broken toy.

I was desperate. I felt far too close to the ‘end of the line', as we call the point of no return in war, the moment when a soldier can't take it anymore and becomes catatonic or goes mad with fear and desperation.

Amongst all the confused thoughts spinning around in my head, there was one that seemed stronger than the
others until it became a cement wall that was about to bury me. It was a phrase, simple and definitive, one that could paralyse me completely. It went:

‘This is the end.'

And then I felt a great lightness go through my body, and I thought I had died for real . . . I didn't notice that my rifle had slipped out of my hand, nor did I realise that I was lying on my back on the ground, like a real corpse. Even if I was seeing things as a living person for the last time, I wasn't sad at all – the sensation was like being a body carried away by the current. I could feel everything, the air passing over me, the ground beneath me, but it was as if it had lost all value, had suddenly become invisible, unimportant . . .

Shoe was shouting at me, but his voice didn't really reach me; it seemed distant – it was much better to stay down, motionless, dead. I don't think this episode lasted very long, but I felt as though I had fallen into eternity. I don't know what that scene looked like from outside; I remember that I wasn't anxious or worried – on the contrary, I was very calm, if only because by that point I was sure I no longer existed . . .

Suddenly I felt a strong jolt, like someone was shooting at me, and then a loud, booming voice
filled
my head – I don't know how else to put it. The voice went through every molecule of my organism, and now it was bringing me back to life.

‘Soldier! On your feet, you stupid bastard! Take up your weapon!' Captain Nosov, furious as a beast, was standing over me and shouting right in my ear.

I was on my feet in a heartbeat, my rifle in my hands. I looked at Nosov like Mary must have looked at the sepulchre of the resurrected Christ. On the captain's face there was a horrible grimace of pain, and he had a nasty black bruise on his neck that he must have got from the broken plate of his vest hitting him.

From the distance we could hear Spoon's voice, which seemed to come from the sky, like a messenger angel: