Linksshifter II

Militärgestände

(originally published as "The Status of Forces")

Irina looked skeptically down at the sludge of beets and chicken skin in her mess tin, slopping against the chunk of bulletproof rye bread, then cocked an eye at Pål. "Seriously, is this it? What the hell happened – I know we still have meat for shishlik." The troops couldn't be happy about this – two years in the field not getting paid, and now they were getting crappy field borscht out of a fuel-drum field kettle again – it was getting to be as bad as the old Tsarist army again.

The Hungarian exile slumped his shoulders and leaned over the kettle, stirring at the scraps of soup in the bottom. "Look, don't blame me. Nobody asked me. Nobody ever does ask me. Commissar's orders – be lucky you're getting this, he's told me I'm cooking for the command mess from tomorrow, and someone else is going to have to take over the bakewagon and the stewpot." He dragged the ladle across the bottom of the kettle, and it seemed like he himself was going to melt right over the edge.

Irina gritted her teeth and stabbed at the borscht with her bread, breaking it up and mixing it through. If these commissars from the west were going to act like the old nobles out here, they would end up like the old nobles – and then some other gang of exploiters, probably the Japanese, would come in while they were weak and put the halter around their necks again. This was a soviet, damnit – everybody was supposed to have a voice in important decisions, and for troops in the field, it didn't get much more important than grub. But if Commissar Vasilov was getting his subcommanders together for a war council, that was more important, the one thing more important: finding and defeating the enemy so they could hang up their guns and live in peace. She bolted at her soup with her spoon as she walked over towards the conference, the Browning shotgun's sling heavy on her shoulder. Omsk had fallen, and the Whites were weak; the Americans and British pulling out and thinking better about dealing with the actual people of Russia instead of just their bosses. The war was almost over: if they kept the hammer down, soon they'd be free, and then it was only a matter of time till they cleared to Khabarovsk and Magadan and Vladivostok, and the red banner of freedom waved from Petrograd to the Pacific. If they just kept the pressure on.

"And so," Vasilov was saying, gesturing at a map on a table someone had dragged out of the narrow railway clerk's office, "we needn't worry about losing touch with the enemy last night; their relief train cannot have left Svobodny before this morning, not before about now if it was the armored train, and they cannot possibly reach it before tomorrow. We will load up in our train – Merkulov is already getting steam up – and advance along the railway, screened by our cavalry, until we find the enemy, then attack ruthlessly, until they are destroyed. Tell your men to fall out and prepare to embark."

Irina squinted at the map on the table. "Comrade Commissar, what evidence do we have that the enemy's going to retreat by the line of the railroad? Between here and Taldan, the train takes a bunch of loops to get through the mountains, but east across the river, it's flat floodplains – easy country for an army, even infantry, now that the floods are gone and it's dry again. We should scout with the cavalry to actually make contact with the enemy, advancing with the infantry on the rail line, so that if we catch them away from the rails, we can catch them between two fires."

Vasilov waved a hand. "Comrade Kudrina, that is exactly why they won't leave the line of the railroad – the Whites aren't familiar with this country, and if they leave sight of the rails, they fear they'll be swallowed up forever. We'll advance according to plan; if you want to take your section and go looking for phantom royalists to the east, you may do so; Comrade Captain Sopchuk's section should be enough to screen our advance. But you'll do so unsupported: you're on your own until you re-attach to this command. Understood?"