Free Zinky Boys by Svetlana Alexievich Page A

luxury we can’t afford!
    â€˜You are a medical unit! The medical unit is the cream of the airborne forces! Repeat!’
    Extract from a soldier’s letter: ‘Mum, buy me a puppy and call it Sergeant so I can kill it when I get home.’
    Army life itself kills the mind and saps your resistance to the point that they can do what they want with you. Six a.m. — reveille. Three times or more, in succession, until we’ve got it right: reveille — lights out! Get up — lie down! You’ve got three seconds to fall in for take-off on a strip of white lino — white so that it needs to be washed and scrubbed every day; 180 men have to jump out of bed and fall in in three seconds; 45 seconds to get into number three fatigues, which is full uniform but without belt and cap. Once someone didn’t manage to get their foot bindings on in time. ‘Fall out and repeat.’ He still didn’t manage in time. ‘Fall out and repeat!’
    Physical training was hand-to-hand combat, a combination of karate, boxing, self-defence against knives, sticks, field-shovels, pistols and machine-guns. You have the machine-gun, your partner just his bare hands: or he has the shovel and you have your bare hands. Hundred metre hurdles. Breaking ten bricks with your bare fist. We were taken to a building-site and told we’d stay there till we’d learnt it. The hardest part is overcoming your own fear and of not being scared of the smash.
    â€˜Fall in! Fall out! Fall in! Fall out!’
    Morning inspection involved checking buckles — they’ve got to be as shiny as a cat’s arse — and white collars. You have two needles and thread in your cap to sow into your collar a clean white cotton strip each day. One pace forward — march! Pre-sent arms! One pace forward — march! Just half an hour free per day — after lunch. Letter-writing.
    â€˜Private Kravtsov, why aren’t you writing?’
    â€˜I’m thinking, sarge.’
    â€˜I can’t hear you — speak up!’
    â€˜I’m thinking, sarge.’
    â€˜You’re meant to yell, you know that! Hole training for you, my lad!’
    â€˜Hole training’ meant yelling into a lavatory bowl to practise military responses, with the sergeant behind you checking the echo.
    There was constant hunger. Paradise was the army store, whereyou could buy buns, sweets and chocolate. A bull’s-eye at target practice earned you a pass to the shop. If you didn’t have enough money, you sold a few bricks. This is how it works. A couple of us big tough soldiers find ourselves a brick and go up to a new boy who’s still got some money.
    â€˜Buy a brick!’
    â€˜What do I need a brick for?’
    We edge a bit closer. ‘Just buy a brick!’
    â€˜How much?’
    â€˜Three roubles.’
    He hands over the three roubles, goes off and throws the brick away, while we stuff ourselves silly. One rouble buys you ten buns. ‘Conscience is a luxury the para can’t afford! The medical unit is the cream of the airborne forces!’
    I must be a pretty good actor. I soon learnt to play the part. The worst thing that can happen is to be called a chados , from the word chado, which means a weakling or baby.
    After three months I got leave. It was a different world. It was only twelve weeks since I’d been kissing a girl, sitting in cafés and going dancing, but it seemed like twelve years.
    My first evening back at camp and it was: ‘Fall in, you apes! What’s the first thing for a para to remember? Not to fly past the earth!’
    We went on a twelve-day patrol. We spent most of our time running away from a guerrilla gang and only survived on dope. On the fifth day one soldier shot himself. He lagged behind the rest of us and then put his gun to his throat. We had to drag his body along, including his backpack, flak-jacket and helmet. We weren’t too sorry for him —