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Chapter Fourteen

MP-18 Machine Pistol

Waffenbau Bergmann, Suhl, Germany

As it turned out—and it cost Brinkmann three days and a lot of difficult walking, aided by his cane, to find this out and fix it—the place to go was not Gaggenau, in Baden, but Suhl, in Thuringia. That was where Hugo Schmeisser worked, and that was where initial production of the MP18, the Machinenpistole of 1918, was being made.

In a side office, slightly insulated from the intense sounds of steel pounding or grinding steel, a tired and harried-looking, to say nothing of balding, Hugo Schmeisser faced an equally harried-looking and nearly exhausted Major Brinkmann. Between the two lay a table on which sat a shiny new submachinegun, with a brace of odd-looking magazines to either side, an inexplicable tool, plus one magazine that made a good deal more sense across the stock.

“Yes,” said Schmeisser, “we’ve received an order for fifty thousand of the things from the army. It shouldn’t be hard to divert sixty or even one hundred to General Hoffmann’s request. But it’s important you understand what you’re getting, Major.

“There is, in the first place, no option for single fire; it is fully automatic and fully automatic only.

“Secondly, at almost four point two kilograms, it is by no means light. Note that that is heavier than our standard infantry rifle, the Gewehr 98. Empty. Loaded, it is worse.

“There is no option to attach a bayonet.

“On the plus side, though, at that weight, firing a nine-millimeter round, even on fully automatic, the recoil is negligible to a fighting man. It might be negligible to a not very large woman, for that matter. Indeed, I would say that the amount of recoil is perfect for getting a spray of bullets just broad enough to increase the probability of a hit, or multiple hits, at likely ranges. Moreover, the sheer bulk of metal, which is what’s driven the weight, serves as a heat sink to help keep them from overheating.

“But then there’s the magazine.” Schmeisser reached out and picked up the box magazine, holding it out for Brinkmann to examine. His voice quivered with rage. “We gave the army this as a design, cheap, simple, reliable, compact.” He dropped the box magazine with disgust, then picked up a drum magazine, normally found with the Artillery Luger. “This is what the army insists we use; complex, not especially reliable, quite expensive, overly large, and a true taste of hell to load in the dark in a muddy enemy trench. Never mind how much it unbalances the gun!”

“Why?” Brinkmann asked.

“Because we were already making these drum magazines, a fact not known to me back in 1915 when I undertook to design this piece. It would save time, they said. Never mind the time I spent redesigning the gun to take the drum magazine. Idiots!”

“I don’t suppose . . .” Brinkmann began.

“Remaking them to take the box magazine? No, Major; that would be most impractical unless you have a few months to spare.”

“No, no, we don’t.”

“I’d rather thought not.”

“How many magazines can we have?” Brinkmann asked.

“Six or seven per; call it four hundred to six hundred,” Schmeisser answered. “Production isn’t quite what the General Staff anticipated. Loaded, they’re not exactly light, either. And we’ll have a loading tool—Oh, I can’t wait to tell you about loading these things!—per weapon, too. We don’t make the bags to carry the magazines in; there you’re on your own.

“And so, would you care to fire the thing before you take delivery?”

Camp Budapest, Bulgaria

The messenger from the quartermaster’s shop found Kostyshakov in the officers’ shower. “Sir! Sir! The Germans have come through for us! Captain Romeyko says you should come immediately. We have the machine pistols we were promised. Oh, beautiful things they are, too.”

Hiding his own excitement, Daniil said dryly, “Please tell the quartermaster that I will certainly take his request under advisement.”

No sooner was the runner gone than Daniil was furiously working to remove the soap from his body, then dry himself on the thin and miserable ersatz towels that were all Germany could provide at this stage of the war. Still dangerously damp, he wrapped his feet, pulled on his uniform and then his boots, donned his overcoat and began to walk briskly the eighty or so meters to the quartermaster’s shop.

“So show me this marvel of Teutonic weapons design,” Kostyshakov’s voice boomed, as he strode through the cloth-hung door to the shack.

Daniil took one look, then pointed his finger at the same runner who’d come for him. “Get me all the officers in the battalion, plus the sergeant major—both sergeants major—and the first sergeant for the Grenadier Company. Have them meet me in the officers’ mess.”

As the runner scurried off, Daniil looked at Romeyko. “Can you show me how to use this thing?”

“No,” the quartermaster answered, “but Feldwebel Weber has been shown how by Major Brinkmann, and he knows how.”

“Please, then, Feldwebel, show me how this works.”


There’s no delaying it anymore, Daniil thought, as his senior leadership tramped into the officers’ mess, lit by half a dozen flickering oil lamps. Now we’re going to have to do the sorting, and the commanders of First, Second, and Third companies are going to be crying fit to put them on stage as damsels in distress at what they’re going to have to give up.

“Gentlemen,” Daniil began, “let’s talk reorganization and assignments. Cherimisov, you first. What parts of the Grenadier Company are filled?”

“Just half the headquarters, the platoon leaders and platoon sergeants, the snipers, the Lewis gunners, and the flamethrower men from the engineers. Comes to sixteen men in total.”

“Okay. You’re going to be filled up to your full complement before we leave here. First Company; Baluyev?”

“I’m overstrength, sir, as you know.”

“Yes, I know. Everyone is. Now nominate two medics, four pioneers, one of them a corporal or sergeant, and two signalers.”

“ ‘I expected this, but not so soon,’ ” Baluyev quoted a graveyard joke. He began listing names but stopped after Cherimisov began violently shaking his head “no.”

“No, Lieutenant,” the Fourth (Grenadier) Company commander said, “two good medics, not two castoffs.”

Oh, well, it was worth a try. With a sigh and a grimace, Baluyev asked, “Corporal Kosyakin and Shulepov good enough for you?”

“They’ll do,” Cherimisov agreed. “Keep going.”

Baluyev began calling off names, about two thirds of which were accepted. Finally, he gave up the last couple.

Cherimisov nodded his acceptance at Kostyshakov, who said, “Number Two Company, your fair share would be twenty-eight riflemen and noncoms, soon to be submachine gunners, for the most part. Give them up.”

Captain Dratvin, commanding Second Company, said, “I asked for volunteers. There were seventy-two out of my current strength of two hundred and thirty. I am not nominating anyone who didn’t volunteer. Seventeen of those I am not going to nominate because—as God is my witness—I don’t think they’re quite good enough.”

“Right,” Kostyshakov agreed.

“Cherimisov, I’ve also scrambled these names. I’ll call a name, and you tell me if you want him. If you don’t want him, he’s out of consideration. If there are less than twenty-eight names you accept, you’ll have to go to the battalion commander to somehow convince him that the men you rejected in the first place were somehow good enough.”

“All right,” agreed Cherimisov, “with reservations.”

“Lebedev.”

“No.”

Dratvin crossed a name off the list with a pencil. “As you prefer. Vasenkov.”

Cherimisov spared a look at his first sergeant, old one-eyed Mayevsky. “Fucker never falls out. He never complains. Sure, he’ll do, sir.”

“All right on Vasenkov.”

“Ilyukhin,” Dratvin said.

Cherimisov spared a glance at Mayevsky, who said, “The boy’s a coal miner’s son. Brave men, they are, those who go down into the mines, never knowing when they might be buried alive. And the fucking acorn never falls far from the oak.”

“Ilyukhin’s fine.”

“He ought to be,” Dratvin said. “Zamyatin.”

Again, Cherimisov spared a glance at Mayevsky, who put out his hand, palm down, and wriggled it.

“No.”

“What?” demanded Dratvin. “There’s nothing wrong with Zamyatin!”

“Nonetheless, I don’t want him.”

It was at about that time that the arguments began.


Kostyshakov stepped out into the sun, exhausted, bleary-eyed, and desperate to never again endure another such meeting.

It was, indeed, morning before Cherimisov had his necessary eighty men, plus five more overstrength in case anyone got hurt or washed out. The officers shuffled back to their own companies to give the necessary orders, while the senior noncoms puzzled over how to move people around with the minimum disruption.

Those selected, when notified, felt a mix of satisfaction and fear. Cherimisov, after all, did have a reputation. And he never really smiled, almost inhuman, that way, he was.

Range Complex, Camp Budapest

Over on Range B, the machine gun range, Feldwebel Weber was putting the Grenadier Company, by platoons, through weapons familiarization on their new machine pistols. It was a waste of range, since the MP18s were close quarters weapons, while Range B was well over two thousand meters deep. On the other hand, they had to shoot the things somewhere; it might as well be some place where the sound of massed automatic weapons fire wouldn’t be thought unusual for anyone listening from afar.

Every man got to load—with much cursing, especially at the loading apparatus—and fire six drum magazines, 192 rounds, before moving on.

Note to self, thought Weber, This is going to take a thousand rounds per man, maybe two thousand, before they get good at it. Will the magazines take that much beating? I’d best ask Major Brinkmann about finding another six hundred or so.


From there, they rotated to the Range V, the grenade range, where each man threw two live grenades at close range and then fired their American-made M1911s. This was done under Lieutenant Federov’s and Sergeant Major Nenonen’s tutelage.

The pistols were actually more of a challenge than the MP18s had been. While the machine pistols were, broadly speaking, close to a rifle in terms of feel, weight, and handling, hence all the men had a fair idea of how to go about it, almost none of the enlisted men had more than seen a pistol. Thus, what was intended to be a quick refresher turned out to be a half day course.

Worst were the ones who were simply terrified of firing a pistol, and there were three of those. Nenonen or Federov had to stand next to these, gently coaching them through every step and every shot.

And I don’t think I will ever forget Dudnik, squeezing off the rounds with tears of abject terror coursing down his face. Though, on the plus side, terrified or not he didn’t quit.

And it’s not enough, mourned Nenonen. They need another two days, and then more every week until we set off.

It is beyond idiotic, Nenonen thought, watching First Platoon march off to the G ranges, to issue each man two incompatible weapons, a nine millimeter machine pistol and an eleven millimeter semi-automatic pistol. And I’d complain about it, I would, if I thought we had the slightest choice at this point. Still, I foresee problems.

On the other hand, to be fair, that big American pistol’s eleven millimeter, plus, bullet will put someone on his ass a lot more readily than a nine millimeter will, unless, as with the machine pistols, you hit him a couple of times. So maybe it makes some sense, if not logistic sense.


As Federov and Nenonen finished with one platoon of twenty-six men, including supernumeraries, they were sent over to the G Ranges and Captain Cherimisov, who would explain to them the drill he and Mayevsky had worked out for room clearance.

The G ranges—of which there were four of increasing size and complexity, plus non-firing, above ground buildings—were all for building clearing and noncombatant rescue. In the case of G1a1, what that meant was a one room shack with mostly open walls, one of four, above ground, in which squads could run through room clearing drills, in full light, without live ammunition, before descending into the underground room, G1, where they would practice with live ammunition.

Cherimisov waited until the entire platoon was seated, then began, “The first sergeant and I, with considerable input from the battalion commander, have spent a lot of time and expended a lot of thought on how to do this. By this point in time, everyone knows how to go into a building or bunker and clear it, leaving no one alive.”

The captain scowled. “That’s not our problem. It’s not a tenth of our problem. Oh, no; we have to go into a strange building, and kill some of the people inside, while not harming a hair on the head of any of the others. Moreover, the people we’re supposed to kill, once they realize what’s going on, are going to stop trying to kill us, and put their efforts into killing the people we’re trying to rescue. And if we fail to get the people we’re supposed to rescue out, alive and to safety, we will have failed. Miserably.”

Cherimisov gave the platoon a not quite smile. “It gets worse and harder. Because the enemy will try to move, or just go ahead and kill, the people we intend to rescue . . . hmmm . . . why don’t I stop being indirect with my terminology here? The enemy are the Bolsheviks, and I’ll call them that from now on. The people we’re trying to save? You already know this; the ‘people we’re supposed to rescue’ are the royal family, the Romanovs, tsar, tsarina, tsarevich, and the four grand duchesses, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. We have no particular idea at this point what any of the Bolsheviks look like, but you will all be studying pictures of the Romanovs diligently. Why? Why because if we have a choice between saving some maid or footman, on the one hand, or one of the Romanovs, on the other, the maid or footman lose.

“Remember, that value judgment is implicit in our oaths.”

“So, where was I? Oh, yes; the Bolsheviks, with any warning at all, will try to move the Romanovs, if they can, or kill them, if they feel they must.

“From there we can infer several principles we must follow. One is surprise, which comes in several forms. First is strategic or operational surprise; we cannot let them know we’re coming. The second is tactical surprise; when and where we hit”—Cherimisov slapped the back of the fingers of his right hand into the palm of his left—“it must be as a bolt from the blue. The third is technical surprise; the detailed manner in which we assault must be something so new to the Bolsheviks that they are shocked as nearly into passivity as possible.”

Cherimisov held up his left hand again, displaying his rather rare wristwatch. He tapped a finger against the crystal of the watch, saying as he did so, “Our second principle is speed. Every advantage we gain from surprise is fleeting. The longer we are in the area where the royal family is being held, the greater the chance we’ll be spotted. The longer it takes us to clear a room, the greater the chance one of the Bolsheviks will recover his presence of mind sufficiently to shoot the tsarevich.

“Oh, and by the way, the tsarevich is a bleeder. He will probably not survive even a flesh wound. If it ever comes down to you or him—or me—we must stand in front of him and take the bullet. We’ll have a chance, at least, of saving one of us.

“Our third principle is violence. We attack, attack, attack continuously, until the Romanovs are secure. We take no prisoners—no, not even if they try to surrender; every Bolshevik must be not only shot down without hesitation or compunction, but should be reshot once he’s down, to make sure.

“And, finally, we must be able to discriminate. I mentioned you will study the Romanovs. That’s not going to be all that helpful, for most circumstances. One thing we’ll have going for us is clothing. Probably most or all of the Romanovs, when we go in, will be in their nightclothes. These will probably be white or, at least, light in color. Probably the most dangerous Bolsheviks will be the ones on guard duty; they can be expected to be wearing some kind of uniform, no different from the ones you lot are wearing. Five of the seven Romanovs—the women—should have long hair. We won’t shoot people with long hair until we can examine them more closely.

“We’ll have a couple of things going for us, with regards to discrimination. One will be the flash grenades, that will blind anyone in any room where they’re used. Couple these to the dynamo lights you will be issued in a few moments. These you will wear on your chests, and activate just before entry. By their light, no great shakes but better than nothing, you will be able to see somewhat, while the Bolsheviks—oh, and the Romanovs, too—won’t be seeing much of anything. Secondly, we’re going to try to get the Romanovs to help us distinguish them.

“The entire family speaks English. So I want to you repeat after me, ‘Romanovs get down!’ Do it.”

After a chorus of barely intelligible attempts at that, Cherimisov decided, “We’re going to have to work on that one. A lot.

“All right now; everyone on your feet. Line up to draw dynamo lights, then the first sergeant and I will talk you through the room entry and clearing drill.”


Mayevsky lined up the first squad of the first platoon, six men, in three dyads, front to back. The rest of the platoon clustered round in a semi-circle.

“This,” he said, “is your standard formation for assaulting and clearing a room. Now listen carefully, shitheads; the way this is to be done is that the first pair have their machine pistols ready, the second pair are prepared to throw flash bombs, and the third pair stand by, but also have their machine pistols ready.

“Step one; kick the door open . . .  Well, what the fuck are you waiting for; kick the door open!”

The front pair, consisting of the squad leader and one guardsman, looked at each other blankly.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Mayevsky. “This should be obvious even to you half-witted shitheels, the one who kicks is the one on the side of the door where the doorknob is. Now kick the door!”

The squad leader did kick it. The door opened violently.

“Step two, which should happen as soon as the door is open, is that the second pair pull the detonation cords on their grenades and throw them through the door. Man on the right throws gently, just hard enough to get it inside. Man on the left throws to hit a far wall. As soon as the grenades are thrown, they announce ‘Flash!’ and everybody closes their eyes and looks away, too.

“Okay, second pair, the door is open, do your part.”

That was satisfyingly quicker; the grenades went sailing immediately, even as every man closed his eyes and looked away.

“Idiots! You forgot to announce it. Try again.

“Fine. Now everyone waits until they see the dim outlines of two flashes getting just past their eyelids. This brings us to step three, use the thumbs of your firing hands to grab the ring from the dynamo lights on your chests and give them a sharp pull down. Do that, now.

“Will wonders never cease? You managed not to fuck that step up. Now you’ve got about five seconds of light to clear the room. If you’re both quick and accurate that’s all you need.”

Mayevsky then went to the door and stepped inside. “This step, the fourth one, is more fluid. First pair, come to me and go through the door.”

When they got to the door, a matter of half a step, the pair bounced off each other. “Problem one, two shitheads cannot normally get through one door at the same time. So who goes first? The door kicker! He shouts, as the captain said, ‘Romanovs get down!’ He then enters and takes to the wall on his side. He slides along this, with his back to the wall, shooting any man standing after the order for the Romanovs to duck. He continues sliding along the wall, shooting generally in the direction of the opposite wall.”

Mayevsky physically pushed the first man to do what he wanted.

“The other man in that pair goes in after the first man, slides along the other wall, the one perpendicular to the one the first man has his back against. He also shoots anyone standing.

“Now note here; we think that if a blinded Bolshevik is going to be able to orient at anything it’s going to be the door. Get out of the fucking door as quickly as possible, or you might well catch a random bullet.

“The next pair does the same thing, doorkicker side first—no, stop right there, numb nuts; your back is to the wall!—then the other man after. They look low for any threats—from the base of the opposite wall towards themselves—and take them out.

“Third pair follows the same pattern, doorkicker side goes in first. They look from the middle of the floor upward . . .”


Mayevsky took two of the open walled shacks, while Cherimisov took the other two, including the one with the platoon leader’s squad, which still had to be ready to jump in and take the place of any other. With the sun going down, it was obvious that, “No fucking way, sir; these men are not ready to advance to the live fire room below ground yet.”

Cherimisov reluctantly tended to agree. “Another day, do you think, or two?”

Mayevsky shook his head, doubtfully. “Could be three or fucking four, sir. They’ve got the basic idea down, but—if we’re reading the problem rightly—this requires clockwork precision and that the shitheads do not have. Also . . .”

“Yes?”

“Sir, I think we need an obstacle course, something to restore their coordination for the kinds of obstacles we’re likely to encounter.”

The captain nodded, thoughtfully. “The obstacle course is a good idea, Top; I agree. The rest? This is going to fuck up the schedule pretty badly. Here’s my thoughts; let’s make arrangements to send them back to Weber, Federov, and Nenonen, tomorrow, for a day’s more weapons work. We can pretend that was the plan all along. Then, later tomorrow we work on Second Platoon, here. First can practice tomorrow all the time they’re not actually on the ranges. Then Second goes to the weapons ranges again, and we run First through this. If they’ve got the precision down, we can take them down to the simple live fire room.”

“Yes, sir. Makes sense to me. I’ll make the arrangements.”

Range G1, Camp Budapest

There was an old Russian technique, going back at least as far as Victor Suvarov, in the late eighteenth century, of having the troops chant their principles of operation, which is to say, their doctrine. Thus First Platoon double timed to the range chanting, “Surprise . . . speed . . . violence . . . discrimination . . . surprise . . . speed . . . violence . . . discrimination . . . surprise . . .”

Mayevsky met the platoon by the entrance to Range G1—a pair of uprights and a crosspiece with the name emblazoned—and then, in a flurry of pointing arms said, “First squad . . . second . . . third . . . headquarters! Medic; your ass stays with me. The rest; form up at the doors to your buildings and stand by to assault on my order or the captain’s.”


The first squad to actually convince Cherimisov and Mayevsky that they were up to executing the simplest room clearing problem with live ammunition was second squad, under Sergeant Yumachev. They moved from the open walled shed down to the ramp leading to the underground room. This was an open excavation—whatever else might be said of the Russian soldier, he could dig—about twelve by fifteen feet, covered with logs and the logs then covered with dirt. The sides had also been revetted with split logs, or it would likely have collapsed before they were done with it. The door was hung on nailed canvas hinges, which allowed it to be turned around and upside down to change the position of the knob. For this run, however, the knob was on the left hand side, just as they were for the open shacks, above.

There was canvas laid over the top of the ramp leading down, to give the mens’ eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness they could expect in the room and when they executed the actual mission, presumed to be at night.

Inside, three dark painted wooden targets waited, erect, along with two narrower white painted ones on the dirt floor. None of these were anything much, solid but thin wood held up by very thin sticks. A bullet strike should put them down.

One final word Cherimisov said, before giving the order to go, “You’ve heard this before but it can’t hurt any if I repeat it; if I or anyone calls ‘cease fire,’ you are to immediately take your fingers off the triggers, pull and lock the bolt of your machine pistols to the rear, remove the magazine, then clear the chamber. Are we clear on this?”

“Yessir, yes, sir, yessirir, yes,” came the answer.

He looked over the group. Sergeant Yumachev looked ready to kick the door. To his right, tensed like a wound spring and quivering with anticipation like a racehorse in the gate, stood Sobchak. Behind those two, Guardsmen Yurin and Ilyukhin gripped flash grenades and the pull cords. The grenades were the real article, this time. Both had their machine pistols hanging from cords over their left shoulders. In the rear, Sotnikov on the left and Corporal Poda on the right held their MP18s muzzle-up by one hand, the thumbs of the others in the pull rings of their dynamo lights.

We need, thought the captain, to tie cords from the weapons to the dynamo lights so they can pull them without ever giving up control. Discuss with Top, this evening.

“Stand by,” said Cherimisov, “make ready . . . two . . . three. . . . GO!”

Yumachev’s foot lashed out, practically ripping the door from its hinges. As soon as it was out of the way, Yurin and Ilyukhin pulled the porcelain beads attached to the cords, and threw. Both threw to the far wall, which was not to plan.

“Flash! Flash!”

Every man closed his eyes and looked away. There was, however, only a single boom.

“Cease fire!” Cherimisov ordered. Fuck! Defective grenade. It would have to be early on, wouldn’t it? Couldn’t be the last try of the day; oh, no, that would never do. Now we have to wait half an hour. Double fuck.


The defective grenade not being their fault, Yumachev’s men didn’t lose their place in the order of march. Instead, with the defective grenade dragged outside with a grappling iron on a rope, and new grenades issued, the six of them once again stood in three ranks of two, ready to clear the room.

Once again the captain said, “Stand by . . . make ready . . . two . . . three. . . . GO!”

The door flew open under the shock of Yumachev’s boot. The first and second man in the stack each pulled the porcelain bead on their grenades, then flung them through the door.

“Flash! Flash!”

And there were two great flashes, following two smaller booms.

Yumachev opened his eyes and looked up. His right thumb pulled the lanyard of the dynamo light, then went back to gripping his machine pistol. The others followed suit. He stepped through the door and immediately opened fire on one of the dark targets. It went down.

As Yumachev stepped left while turning half right, keeping his back to the wall and scanning for more targets, Sobchak jumped through the door, firing. He, mirroring Yumachev, stepped right, put his back almost on the right wall, and fired again.

Unfortunately, Sobchak neglected to distinguish between a light painted target and a dark one. The target labeled “Grand Duchess Maria” fell over.

Next in was Yurin. He hadn’t gotten very far before Cherimisov shouted, “Cease fire! You all forgot to shout, ‘Romanovs get down!’ Now clear your weapons if you already haven’t, get out, and go practice that until you get it right. And tell the first sergeant to send down another squad.”

Camp Budapest

“Did any members of the royal family survive?” asked Kostyshakov, that night in the officers’ mess.

“Not a one, sir,” Cherimisov answered, with misery in his voice.

“Is the problem with the drill we’ve worked out?”

The captain shook his head, slowly, answering, “I don’t think so, sir. I think it’s a case of needing more practice in making quick distinctions.”

“You have any ideas?”

“Yes, sir, but it’s going to require a lot of ammunition. We need another underground range, this one in the form of an obstacle course of a sort, but different from the above ground one we put in, with dozens of targets, some light, some dark. Maybe some we get painted with civilian features, girls’ features. They have to be targets that appear very fleetingly, from odd places. It has to be confusing. And it has to make the men think quickly. And before we waste any more ammunition on something they’re just not up to yet, we need to get them to perfection on distinguishing these things in an instant. And I don’t want to use Range G4, the multistory complex one, because that’s supposed to be a graduation exercise. Besides, the light sucks more than we’d want for this.”

Kostyshakov thought about that for a few moments, chewing over the idea in silence. “No,” he said, finally.

“ ‘No?’ ”

“No, there’s enough time to build what you want. There’s not enough time to build it and run everybody through. So we’ll do something different.

“I’m going to task both Second and Third Companies to build one maze each. Well . . . not really a maze; just think of a wide, deep, snaking trench. No cut and cover, we’ll just dig down. The spoil we’ll pile on either side as bullet stops.

“We’ll put some platforms across so that the men running it can get from section to section. Then we’ll have all kinds of wooden targets—some we’ll paint as girls and boys—that can be moved, controlled, or released to gravity. We can move those around, too, so it remains unpredictable. Also, we can get or throw together some furniture and such to make it kind of an obstacle course.

“Let’s suppose we make them four arshin by four, and about sixty arshin of trench. That’s about eight cubic arshin per man in each of the two rifle companies. One day’s digging; call it. Then another day to set up platforms and a target system.

“Then we can run every man in each of your assault platoons through three, maybe four, times a day, for three or four days, if we must.”

Cherimisov thought about that. “I think that will work, as far as it goes. But I really wanted to be able to do it under limited light.”

Kostyshakov tilted his head to one side, looking at Cherimisov as if the latter had suddenly grown an extra nose on his forehead. “Have you never, young captain, heard of these things called ‘sunset’ and ‘night time’?”

Head straightening, Kostyshakov looked more closely. “When was the last time you slept, Cherimisov?”

No answer being forthcoming, he said, “That’s about what I thought. Go to bed. I’ll put the other companies to work on ranges G5 and G6.”

“Yessir.”

With a sketchy salute, Cherimisov stood, turned, and began to make his way from the mess to his own tent. On the way he heard several familiar voices—notably Mayevsky’s and the two assault platoon sergeants—discussing the day’s events. It was possible there was a slight trace of alcohol in the voices, but it could have been fatigue.

The troops will always bullshit, Cherimisov thought. Wish we could put it to some good use. I’ll just keep to myself and listen for a bit . . . 


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