The Third World War: The Untold Story

“It's a habit,” was the reply, with a shrug. “It does not matter a great deal how we address each other now, anyway. What I recall is that our difference of view was on a question of all or nothing. I thought we should use none. You thought we should use the lot. I do not think either of us was in favour of anything in between. We both recognized, I imagine, that once nuclear weapons were introduced there would be no possibility — as some misguided folk in the West seemed to suppose — of controlling their use at some arbitrary level.”

“Using all we had was in the Russian traditional mode of making war. Using none was not. Never mind that now. What happened in the event was that the really incredible decision was in fact taken to do neither one thing nor the other. We would not use the lot nor would we refrain from using any. We would instead attack an important city (though not the capital: we should want that) of a major satellite in one high-yield strike and then ask for negotiations with the United States. It was almost unbelievable. I always thought the old man had gone over the top…”

“Did you ever say so?” asked the former Supreme Ideologist.

“No, of course not. Neither did you, and for the same reasons. Even in his dotage he held all the strings.”

“Never embark on a journey, they used to say where I grew up, unless you mean to arrive. To go half way, or even less, and allow yourself to stop there, is asking for trouble.”

“That is precisely what got us here,” said Marshal Nastin, the former Minister of Defence.

Through the little window high up in the wall, behind its heavy iron grille, a paler shade of night heralded the approach of dawn.

“Can't be long now,” said Malinsky.

Even as he spoke boots sounded in the corridor outside and a key rattled in the lock.

There had been good times, in the past, difficult times, but good times. That was all over now.

The cell door opened.

“Come,” said a voice. “It is time.”[29]

Postscript II

Dimitri Vassilievitch Makarov had to find Nekrassov's father as soon as he could but he had first to make some enquiries. Soviet prisoners of war, after their surrender, were only lightly guarded, the policy of the Western allies being early controlled dispersal. For many of their guests in the concentration areas there was no great incentive to leave. Food was freely available here but very scarce outside. Considerable freedom of movement was allowed during the inevitably long delays before the very large numbers of ex-members of Warsaw Pact forces involved could be got to wherever in this huge area they wished to go, making the utmost use of what had lately been their own military transport.

Officers and men had been collected and concentrated at the places where they laid down their arms, so that the personnel of divisions remained more or less together, at least for the time being. Nevertheless, it was more by luck than good management that Makarov found the man he was after. This was Boris Ivanienko, the driver of Andrei Nekrassov's BMP who, Makarov had learned, was still alive. Dimitri Vassilievitch heard from him of many others in the battalion who were not. Andrei's old Sergeant Major from No. 3 Company, for example, Astap Beda, with whom Andrei had maintained touch till near the end, was dead. Little Yuri had disappeared. Boris Ivanienko, however, before he found transport back to his Ukrainian home in Poltava, had much to tell Makarov in his own quiet way. He had got very close to his officer. Little could be said on either side but this was a relationship in which, on his side at any rate, there had been understanding and sympathy. He felt that there had been the same on the other, too. He spoke of how a compassionate and sensitive young man, good professional though he was, seemed increasingly to suffer under the strain of the madness that had engulfed them all, so that the bmp driver sometimes feared for his reason. What Makarov heard moved him greatly.

Boris still had with him the soldier's kitbag with the drawstring at the mouth, carried by officers as well as men to hold the few little articles of spare clothing and personal possessions each carried, the whole material sum of a private life on the battlefield, which he had taken from Nekrassov's body when the cannon-shell from the American gun-ship helicopter had struck him down. He handed it over, with its meagre but highly personal contents, to Makarov.