The group got to Luga Station at six-thirty and waited for the train.

The train did not come, but at seven o’clock Tatiana heard the German planes. The volunteers were huddled inside the small station that had at first seemed so safe, the building made of brick and looking as if it could withstand a little shelling and gunfire.

But during the raid one of the women became so afraid that she screamed and ran outside, where she was instantly cut down. The other eight people watched in horror, but it soon became obvious that what the Germans wanted was to take out the very station that hid them. The Nazis were intent on knocking out the railroad. The planes weren’t leaving until the station was no longer standing. Tatiana sat on the floor with her knees to her chest and pulled the green helmet over her closed eyes. She thought that the helmet would muffle the sound of death.

The train station crumbled like wet paper. Tatiana crawled from the beams and the fire, but there was nowhere for her to go. Through the smoke she could feel bodies around her. Hot and faint, she felt for them with her hands. The gunfire came from right outside the door, but when the lattice beam fell from the ceiling, all sounds faded away, all faded away, and there was no more fear. Only regret was left. Regret for Alexander.

6

Alexander started to lose hope. In the distance across the river, the natural front boundary, he could see the Germans amassing their troops and tanks and battalions of gun-ready, aggressive, and impeccably trained soldiers who would stop at nothing, certainly not at the hundreds of shovel-bearing volunteers.

As far as his eye could see, there were only two Soviet tanks. On the other side of the river there were at least thirty Panzers. Alexander’s platoon of twenty men had been reduced to twelve, and fields of mines now lay between him and Leningrad. Three of his men died when a mine they were planting went off. They didn’t have experience with mines, only with rifles, but all of their rifles had been taken by the army, all but Alexander’s and his two sergeants’.

Turning away from the river, he didn’t know which way to look.

In the late evening the new colonel called Alexander into his command quarters. Alexander didn’t like him nearly as much as he had liked Pyadyshev.

“Lieutenant, how many men do you have left in your charge?”

“Just twelve, sir.”

“Plenty.”

“Plenty for what?”

“The Germans have just bombed the Luga train station,” the colonel said. “Now the trains from Leningrad carrying more men and ammunition can’t reach the front. We need you and your men to clear the debris scattered on the railroad tracks so the engineers can repair the railroad and we can resume service by tomorrow morning.”

“It’s getting dark, sir.”

“I know, Lieutenant. I wish I could give you daylight, but I can’t. The white nights are behind us, and this has to be done immediately.”

As Alexander was about to leave, the colonel said, almost as an aside, “Oh, and I heard there were volunteers hiding out in the station when the bombs destroyed it. You might want to remove them.”

At Luga Station, Alexander and his men used kerosene lamps to survey the damage. The once brick building lay broken on the ground, and the rail tracks were knocked out for fifty meters.

Alexander called out, “Is anybody under there? Speak up!”

No one answered.

Coming closer to the wreckage, he repeated, “Anybody in there?”

He thought he heard a moan.

“They’re all dead, Lieutenant,” said Kashnikov. “Look at it.”

“Yes, but listen—Anyone there?” He started moving the large pieces of stone himself. “Help me, will you?”

“We should get to the tracks first,” suggested Kashnikov. “So the engineers can restore electricity to the railroad.”

Straightening out and leveling his cool gaze on him, Alexander said, “Railroad tracks before people, Sergeant?”

“On orders from the colonel, Lieutenant,” Kashnikov mumbled.

“No, Sergeant! On orders from me. Now, move.” Alexander pushed away boulders and bits of window and doorframes. There was little light, and it was hard to see. Dust and debris settled on his hands, and he cut himself on the broken glass without even feeling it. He realized it when the blood dripped from one hand to the other.

Alexander definitely heard something besides crickets. “Did you hear that?” he said. It was a soft moan.

“No, sir,” said Kashnikov, looking at him with concern.

“Kashnikov, have your hands fallen off? Quicker, I tell you.”

They worked quicker.

Finally, underneath the brick and burned beams, they found one body. Then two. Then three. Then a pile of bodies lying one on top of another in a pyramid underneath the rubble. Alexander thought they were too neat. Random force could not have stacked them. They had been placed this way. They could not have stacked themselves. He strained to listen. There was that moan again. He moved one dead man, another dead woman, anxiously shoving the kerosene lamp into their faces. Another moan.

At the bottom, underneath the third body, Alexander found Tatiana.

Her back was to him, and on her head was an army helmet. He recognized neither the clothes on her body nor the helmet on her head, but even before he removed the helmet, he knew it was her by the shape of the soft, small frame he had watched so intently for many days.

“Tatia…” he said in a disbelieving voice.

Alexander threw off the rest of the bodies, cleared off the last of the beams, and pushed the hair back from her face. She was barely conscious, and in the bleak yellow light from the lamps she looked barely alive, but it was from her that the soft moans had come and were continuing every few seconds.

Her clothing, her hair, her shoes, her face were covered with dust and blood. “Tania, come on,” he said, rubbing her cheek, kneeling by her. “Come on.” Her cheek was warm. That was a good sign.

“Is this the Tania?” asked Kashnikov.

Alexander didn’t reply. He was thinking of how best to pick her up. He could not tell, covered in blood as she was, where she was injured.

“I think she’s dying,” said Kashnikov.

“Oh, you’re a fucking doctor now?” Alexander snapped. “She’s not dying. Now, stop talking. Stay here with the men to clear the area. They need your help. I’m putting you in charge, Sergeant. Afterward quickly make your way back to Leningrad. Do you hear me? Can you do that? We’ve given them our arms, and eight of our men, and we found her. We are finished here in Luga. So hurry.” Carefully he turned Tatiana over and lifted her into his arms. She was limp and still moaning.

“What about the wounded, Lieutenant?”

“Do you hear any more noise? You didn’t even hear this one. Now suddenly you’re concerned. The rest are dead. Check them out yourself if you wish. I will get her to the medic.”

“Do you need me to come with you? She’ll need a stretcher,” Kashnikov said.

“No she won’t,” said Alexander. “I’ll carry her myself.”

It was eleven o’clock at night by the time Alexander had walked three kilometers back to the encampment with Tatiana in his arms and searched for the medic.

He did not find him, but he found the medic’s assistant, Mark, asleep in a tent.

“The medic is dead,” Mark said. “Fragment cut him in two.”

“Do we have another medic?”

“No,” said Mark. “I’ll have to do.”

“You’ll do.”

He took one look at Tatiana’s soaked body and said, “She’s bled out. Leave her outside.” He lay back down on his cot.

“She’s not bled out,” said Alexander. “I don’t think it’s her blood.” The assistant obviously wanted to be asleep again. Alexander wasn’t having any of it.

“It’s hard to tell with so little light,” Mark said. “If she lives till morning, I’ll look at her then.”