Across the River

It was almost midnight when the train finally got permission to cross over the repairs and pull into the railyard of Kherson.  Yuri had spent time with the train engineer looking at maps.   The track they were taking crossed the river well north of town.  It was miles before the tracks reached the main train station.  All along the way was a series of roads near the tracks.  The Ukrainians had blown up two trains unloading at the station.  Why not unload miles from the station?  Cross the river, then stop along one of the roads.  Unload where the local troops could collect the ammunition and use local roads to get it to their artillery?

The engineers had agreed long before Yuri completed his explanation.  Miles short of the train station would mean less time in Kherson and a quicker return to the east side of the river.  The ammunition would be where it was needed – west of the river – but the train would not be where the Ukraine artillery expected it to be.  This might be a trip they survived.

Except, like most plans in wartime, this plan fell apart almost immediately.  It began well enough.  They made it across the river.  Almost a miracle in itself.  Across a half mile long bridge that had been under bombardment.  Lots of odd noises from below, and several jerks to one side or the other, but the engineers kept their speed down and made the far side.  They were across the Dnipro.  Now to find a place to unload.

A large highway ran along the tracks.  Yuri stood with the engineers staring at the ground along the tracks.  They needed flat.  They needed close.  They got it in just a few miles.  What they didn’t pay attention to was the apartment buildings near the tracks.  Men sprinted out of the passenger car as soon as the train stopped moving.  Apartments.  Probably abandoned.  Certainly filled with goods not available in Russia.  Two of the noncoms fired their guns in the air and then pointed them at the men who hadn’t already disappeared into the dark.

“I will let you loot.” 

Yuri put himself between the men and the apartments and made a promise he never thought he would make.  But he wanted the train unloaded.  He stood before the remaining men, noncoms and officers standing behind him, weapons ready.

“For each crate you get to that road there, I will let you bring back one item.  Unload quickly and you will have time to search for the best computers and washing machines.  But you will unload first.  The officers will guard that road.  If they see you cross it before the train is unloaded, they will shoot you.”

Enough said.  He pointed to the first freight car.  Men got the door open and started muscling ammunition crates to the door.  Six men carried them to the road.  Two noncoms held guns on them until they set the shells down and went back for more.

It took an hour for the first car.  Yuri knew the others would take longer as the men tired.  He had radioed the local commander, but no one from the Kherson regiments brought food or water.  Or sent men to help.  Yuri guessed why.  Besides the usual laziness, there was fear.  The train was a target.  Two trains had already been blown up.  Who would go near a train that might be next?

Yuri started taking shortcuts.  No one would help.  Fine.  Let them drag their own ammo to the road.  He had his men just leave the crates next to the tracks.  By the third car they were actually stacking the crates next to the car doors and using them as staircases.  They were stepping on ancient crates filled with shells back from the days of the Soviet Union.  If a crate broke and a shell was hit hard, the entire train would vaporize.  But they were Soviet crates and Soviet shells.  Built by men who were underpaid, but men who had at least a minimal sense of honor.  Not the current collection of crooks.

Yuri walked up and down the explosive staircase and even helped move some crates. 

They got ten cars unloaded before the air raid siren screamed.  Some men dove under the rail car they were unloading.  Yuri went running for the engineer.  He shouted as he ran.

“Time to go.”

The engineer had been sitting in the locomotive.  He came to the door.

“Are you done unloading?”

Yuri looked up at the man. 

“Do you want to die?  We need to leave now.  We can return another day with more shells.  There is an endless supply of shells.  Is there an endless supply of trains?”

“No.  Load your men.”

The train was already starting to back away as men climbed aboard.  Noncoms pulled them up the stairs.  Yuri waited for the last man, then jumped on.  As the train backed away, he could watch men rushing from the apartment block, televisions and washing machines on their backs.  The looters got to the train tracks just as the first shells landed.  One staircase of shells took a direct hit.  In an instant, all the unloaded shells went up.  The blast blew the windows out of the locomotive as it backed away, but the train kept to the tracks and kept gaining speed even as a heat wave set fire to Yuri’s sleeve.

Yuri’s uniform was soon put out, but fires grew in every direction.  Whatever looters – and citizens – remained in the apartment block were quickly consumed.  It was brighter than daylight.  It was deafening.  It smelled.  Concussive waves pounded the train.  And men in the train screamed every time.

Twenty-seven men remained on the benches in the passenger car.  All were coated in sweat and confused from concussions.  None of them complained about lack of food or water as the train spent seven hours backing to Sevastopol.  They slept, or cried, or turned their heads to one side and puked on the floor.  Yuri stood at the door and watched Kherson burn in the distance.