The lawn, dotted with unnamed wildflowers, was littered with bodies lying in disarray. A young man wearing a dark vest had his legs blown off at the knees. He lay in the grass wailing, struggling to crawl toward the direction of the pond. Behind him, a crimson trail of blood stained the wild grass, extending to a wooden shed nearby.
A pair of mud-stained high boots trampled through the knee-high wild grass, catching up to him. A gleaming bayonet stabbed into the young man's back, twisting viciously. The spurting blood sprayed onto the surrounding wild grass, splashing into the nearby pond. In the pond, filled with dead leaves and weeds, a corpse with a nearly charred back floated face down in the water, its blood-matted hair swarming with flies.
Shivering, Viktor woke up from the nightmare, opening his eyes to find the bloody scene gone. In front of him was still the faintly leather-scented carriage. At this moment, the vehicle was parked in an open area below the river embankment.
On the road built along the embankment, a convoy of over a dozen tanks was slowly passing by, accompanied by infantry walking on the slope of the embankment. Behind the tanks were trucks responsible for transporting soldiers and supplies.
This was a unit coming from the direction of Yarmolintsy, with an unknown unit number and unknown purpose. Viktor had received orders from his superiors to remain silent about the arrival of these units and to calm the local population.
"These?" Yes, the order used this word, implying that this unit from the rear was not the only one, and more were likely to follow.
Besides calming the public, Viktor received another task: to block all routes leading from Shevchenkovo to Poland, temporarily closing the entire border region and strictly forbidding anyone from passing through. This order was also issued to the border guard system, and every unit had to enforce it strictly.
Considering the time, it was already mid-August. Although his superior's orders did not mention what these units were here for, Viktor, with his limited historical knowledge, could guess that these units were being transferred here for the upcoming invasion of Poland.
Having just taken a nap and had a nightmare, Viktor felt a bit stifled. He reached out to push the car door open slightly and then reached into his pocket, wanting to light a cigarette.
Outside, the sound of galloping hooves grew louder. In a moment, a warhorse neighed and stopped on the grass beside the car. A soldier carrying a rifle on his back leapt off the horse and quickly approached the car, saluting Viktor and saying, "Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich, comrade, a guerrilla unit attacked the Novobelaya collective farm half an hour ago, but the farm's militia repelled them."
"What are the casualties?" Viktor bent down to look out from inside the car. He gave a perfunctory salute and asked.
"Not good," the soldier said. "Four people were killed, and several others were wounded. However, the guerrillas also paid a price. They left behind two bodies, and two others were captured. The farm's militia asks for instructions on how to handle the prisoners."
"Have a proper public trial and then execute them," Viktor said without hesitation.
"Aren't you going to interrogate them? They might have valuable information," the soldier suggested.
"We don't need any information from them right now," Viktor shook his head with a smile. "What we need is to make it clear to everyone what the consequences are for opposing the Soviets and betraying the motherland, that's all."
After saying this, he waved his hand and said, "Go, Corporal, convey this order."
"Yes," the soldier saluted again, turned, mounted his horse, and rode off quickly.
Listening to the sound of the horse's hooves fading away, Viktor fell into deep thought.
The blockade policy adopted in the previous phase had clearly been effective. In the past, these guerrilla units wouldn't target collective farms; their targets were mainly military facilities, such as radar stations, border guard posts, grain warehouses, etc. Now that they had started attacking collective farms, it indicated that the farms had something they needed.
What did they need? Obviously, it was food. In other words, their food supply had encountered problems, and they had to take risks to obtain provisions in this way.
Recently, Viktor's counter-guerrilla operations in Shevchenkovo had been very successful. The strategy of three-way clearance he adopted had been fully implemented in thirteen collective farms. Meanwhile, with the cooperation of the border guards, they had swept through four guerrilla camps hidden in the forest, killing nearly seventy guerrilla members and capturing fourteen prisoners.
The most crucial point was that from the captured prisoners, he obtained the identity of the leader of the Serchyak guerrilla unit, Shtoher Zelinski, a former captain of the Polish National Army, who had now retired.
Although it was just a name, the intelligence was very important. The higher-level internal intelligence department easily found more detailed information through this name. Now, wanted posters with Zelinski's photo were plastered all over the Soviet-controlled Ukrainian region, with a reward of 5000 rubles, enough to make people envious.
As the counter-guerrilla achievements became more prominent, Viktor's name also started to become well-known in the Shevchenkovo forest area. The more guerrilla members he killed, the more he became a thorn in their side. According to the intelligence department, the guerrillas had also put a bounty on Viktor's head. Anyone who could kill him could get a 5000-ruble reward from the guerrillas.
5000 rubles? Well, that's no small amount of money.
Pulling his thoughts back from daydreaming, Viktor took off his spotless blue military cap, placed it flat on his knees, and said to Valenka, who was driving in front, "Let's go back."
Valenka had apparently fallen asleep. After being startled awake, he confirmed the destination again before starting the car and driving towards Shevchenkovo.
Half an hour later, the jeep was slowly driving through the streets of Shevchenkovo town. The originally dirty streets had been cleaned up recently, with some coal slag spread on the surface. Although still uneven, it was at least less muddy.
As the jeep appeared, pedestrians on both sides of the street quickly made way, and some even hid in the corners from afar. If people in the town used to avoid Viktor proactively, now most didn't even have the courage to look at him.
In the past, executing someone in the camp required at least a "three-person tribunal" to make the decision. But now, the "three-person tribunal" had been abolished, and the power in the exile camp was concentrated in the newly established state security department. In other words, Lieutenant Viktor alone could decide the life and death of any prisoner, simply by fabricating a charge against them.
The jeep stopped outside the stone building. As Viktor pushed the door open to get out, he glanced instinctively at the window of his room. A shadow flitted past the window, where the curtains were drawn.
"Bring me lunch at noon," Viktor said to Valenka as he shut the car door and walked up the steps in front of the building. "Make sure to include plenty of beef or chicken. I don't want to eat those damn potatoes anymore."
"Yes, comrade," Valenka replied cheerfully. Since joining the state security department, this young man had been perpetually cheerful. Perhaps for him, wearing that blue cap was the greatest joy of all.
Ignoring the easily satisfied Valenka, Viktor quickened his pace, climbing the stairs and entering the small building. He walked through the dimly lit corridor straight to his room.
As expected, inside the room, a slightly frail girl was organizing files at the desk. She wore a traditional long Belarusian dress, the snowy white linen fabric highlighting her fair skin with a harmonious beauty.
This was Anlina. Two weeks ago, no one would have associated this refined girl with the dirty, grime-covered one she had been. Even now, she didn't dare wear this dress home; the patched grey long skirt was still her usual attire.
Seeing Viktor enter, Anlina stopped what she was doing, bowed her head, and moved to the side, holding her breath.
Viktor locked the door behind him, unbuttoning his military jacket as he quickly walked to the desk. As he passed by Anlina, he grabbed her dry hair and pushed her down onto the desk, then bent down to lift her skirt.
Anlina stayed silent, lying quietly on the desk, waiting for the man to approach her, letting out a brief, muffled groan.
Lying on the girl's somewhat bony back, Viktor couldn't recall what he felt while violating her. Since his rebirth, especially in the past two weeks, he had seen too much death and issued too many orders to kill. Guerrilla fighters resisting to the end, farmers providing food and intelligence to the guerrillas, negligent militiamen, and so on—his dreams were filled with blood and dismembered bodies, with cries and wails for mercy.
The fear and the deepest sense of guilt buried within him never gave him peace. He even began to suffer from migraines. It seemed that only when he had this girl in his arms could he find a moment of tranquility and sleep soundly.