“I won’t let you down,” Kathy said.
After he’d left, they agreed to start at opposite ends and work to the middle.
The time passed, and images of battle, highly stylized by the dictates of Soviet socialist realism, fled under their sorting. The Russians were big on machines, with the T-34 the most prized of them all. That meant a lot of Panzers, Panthers, and Tigers were depicted, most of them burning or spilling burning men. After a while Bob grew bored with the German beasts catching the raw end of every exchange, especially since the casualty lists said otherwise, but the tank battle was the undeniable king of postwar combat art, with the air fight the second. The Russians, like all who had suffered terror on their behalf, hated the Stuka almost as much as the King Tiger tank, so any perusal of socialist-realist war art yielded fleets of burning, smoking Stukas, their dome canopies shredded by spiderwebbed galaxies of machine-gun fire, their gulled wing joints leaking flame and smoke, their unfoldable landing gear turned to scrap, as they augured in for a last rendezvous with Planet Earth while just behind them a triumphant Yak-3 or some other Red war prince was already into its victory roll. The aviation artists seemed to have a special gift for cloud work; these storied dogfights always took place against a vivid panoply of tumbling, backlit vapor architecture that could have supported Valhalla, either knifed by lighting or rouged to a healthy sun glow.
Of land warfare, much less, perhaps because the figure work was a little shaky. Only a few of the artists called upon to serve had much luck coming up with men hunching behind cover or running through fire, and even less with the ragged sprawl of combat trousseau worn by such men in such circumstances. In this view of war, the tunics and shirts were always immaculate, pressed, precise, because nobody wants to deal with rips, folds, drapes, weathered stains, salt crust, all that hard stuff of fabric under stress as worn on a body under stress. As well, unfolded, the uniforms were a proper platform for display of rank and medal, which seemed to be a fetish on both the Russian heroes and the German villains, many of whom—in fact, nearly all of whom—were members of the SS. From the paintings, you’d think the SS had invaded Russia with just a few trucks and autos from the larger German army in the background. That was the one war the Waffen-SS had won—the war for art direction. They had the coolest uniforms, no doubt about it.
Of partisans, more bridge and rail blasts, a few vehicle convoy ambushes, a few martyrs’ executions and/or heroic passings. Bak died two or three times by two or three different techniques, once shot, once hanged, once bleeding out in the arms of his men.
Other images of sacrifice enjoyed some popularity. Heroic doctors and nurses were a tradition, some operating even as the fighting raged outside the medical tent or the shells detonated not too far away. Our Fearless Leaders was a theme that pretended the Russian general staff wasn’t drunk for four solid years and were all men of such physical prowess that they could have played interior linemen in the NFL, including, always paramount, the big boy himself. Leading Charges appeared to be a close second to Our Fearless Leaders in the human-interest category, and it seemed the primary requisite of leading a charge between 1941 and 1945 on the Ostfront was the strength to lift a handgun high, whether it was a nice Tokarev automatic or an antiquated Nagant revolver. Swagger had done three tours in Vietnam and didn’t believe he’d ever unholstered a pistol, much less led a charge with one, much less seen it or heard about it, but it seemed to ignite the Russian imagination.
Even defeats were occasionally chronicled. The 113th Transportation Brigade Defends the Bridge at Chortkiv was one, featuring truckers shooting it out with German paratroopers at some long-forgotten medieval bridge the airborne people had dropped in to demolish. Bob could tell they were airborne because of the distinctive helmets and camo battle smocks they wore and the odd weapons they carried, all unique to Fallschirmjäger, as the socialist-realist artist had clearly researched his stuff. And Bob saw the argument that painter was making: the truckers were noncombat guys miles behind the lines, but when the commandos appeared from nowhere, they gunned up and did their best, though outclassed by the presumably more proficient special operators who, in the picture, commanded the bridge and the far slope of the river and pretty much martyred the transpo amateurs. It must have been a good day to be a German paratrooper and a bad day to be a Russian trucker.
And yes, now and then, some sniper imagery. The best was a partisan in a tree, in full camouflage, barely visible in the foliage that surrounded him, giving his all to his M91 and PU scope. It had all the nuances of the sniper’s craft right and proper, though Bob had never been in a tree in his life, but the tension in the body, the tightness of the musculature, the lightness of trigger on finger, all that was right. Sniper Viktorvich Brings Death to the Enemy, a brass title plate announced, after Reilly translated it; he had no doubt that Sniper Viktorvich had indeed brought death that day. Bob would have proudly bought that one had it been for sale.