“Things must indeed be improved if you are this magnanimous.”
“They are, Comrade. Another tank division lost to Germany. Well, he needs it more than we. I tell you, we will sweep the Arabs aside like dirt on a smooth tile floor. In truth we always could. There are not so many of them, and if these Arabs are like the Libyans I saw three years ago-these have no mountains to hide in. This is not Afghanistan. Our mission is to conquer, not to pacify. This we can do. I estimate two weeks. The only problem I foresee is the destruction of the oil fields. They can use scorched earth as a defense just as we have, and that will be difficult for us to prevent, even with paratroops. Still and all, our objective is achievable. Our men will be ready.”
9 – A Final Look
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
“There’s something to be said for instant traditions, Chuck.” This was their fourth Russian movie via satellite. Toland handed over the bowl of popcorn. “It’ll be a pity to lose you back to the Corps.”
“Bite your tongue! Sixteen-hundred hours Tuesday, Colonel Charles DeWinter Lowe goes back into the Marine business. I’ll leave the paper shuffling to you squids.”
Toland laughed. “And you won’t miss the evening movie?”
“Maybe a little.” Half a mile away a satellite receiver was tracking a Soviet communications satellite. They’d been pirating signals off this satellite and two of her sisters for weeks now, to keep tabs on the Soviet TV news, and also to catch the evening movie. Both men admired the work of Sergey Eisenstein.
And Alexander Nevsky was his masterwork.
Toland popped open a can of Coke. “I wonder how Ivan would react to a John Ford Western? Somehow I get the feeling that Comrade Eisenstein might have been exposed to one or two.”
“Yeah, the Duke would have fit in pretty good here. Or better yet, Errol Flynn. You heading home tonight?”
“Right after the movie. God, a four-day weekend off. Can I stand the strain?”
The titles showed a new frame, different from the one on his personal tape of the movie back home. The original soundtrack dialogue had been retained and cleaned up somewhat, but the music had been redone by the Moscow State Symphony and chorus. They did true justice to Prokofiev’s evocative score.
The film began with a view of the Russian . . . steppes? Toland wondered. Or was that supposed to be the southern part of the country? Anyway, it showed rolling grassland littered with bones and weapons from an old battle against the Mongols. The Yellow Peril, still a Russian bugaboo. The Soviet Union had absorbed a lot of Mongols-but now the Chinese had nuclear weapons and the world’s largest army.
“The print is terrific,” Lowe observed.
“Hell of a lot better than my tape,” Toland agreed. A pair of VHS machines was recording this, though the Navy wasn’t supplying the tapes. Each officer had bought one himself. SACLANT’s Inspector General had an evil reputation.
All this happened pretty close to the Baltic coast, Toland reminded himself. The introduction of the main character was made through a song as he was evidently out directing some men with a fishing net. A good socialist introduction, the officers agreed: the hero out doing manual labor. A brief verbal confrontation with the Mongols, then a musing about which danger to Russian integrity was greater, the German or the Mongol.
“Jesus, you know they still think that way?” Toland chuckled.
“The more things change . . .” Lowe popped open his own Coke.
“I kinda wonder about this guy, though. When he went back into the water after the net, he ran like a girl, what with his arms flying all over.”
“You should try running in knee-deep water,” the Marine growled.
And the scene shifted to the German Danger.
“A bunch of out-of-work knights, just like the crusades. Hell, just like Indian movies from the thirties. Chopping people up, throwing babies into the fire.”
“You suppose they really did things like that?”
“Ever hear of a place called Auschwitz, Bob?” Lowe inquired. “You know, in the civilized twentieth century?”
“Those guys didn’t bring a bishop with them.”
“Try reading up on the crusaders’ liberation of Jerusalem. Either they killed, or raped first and then killed, all for the Greater Glory of God, with bishops and cardinals cheering them on. Nice bunch. Yeah, it’s probably true enough. Christ knows the Eastern Front in ’41-’45 saw a lot of it on both sides. Nasty campaign, that was. Want some more popcorn?”
Finally the people mobilized themselves, especially the peasants.
Vstavaitye, 1yudi russkiye, na slavny boi, na smyertny boi. . .
“Damn!” Toland sat forward. “They really punched that song up.” The soundtrack was almost perfect, even accounting for the satellite transmission difficulties.
Arise, you Russian People, in a just battle, in a fight to the death: arise, you people free and brave, defend our fair native land!
Toland counted more than twenty specific uses of the word “Russia” or “Russian.”
“That’s odd,” he observed. “They’re trying to get away from that. The Soviet Union is supposed to be all one happy family, not the New Russian Empire.”
“I guess you’d call it an historical quirk,” Lowe commented. “Stalin commissioned the film to alert his people to the Nazi threat. Ole Joe was a Georgian, but he turned out to be one hell of a Russian nationalist. Strange, but he was one strange dude.”
The movie was clearly a production of the 1930s. The strident characters were right out of John Ford or Raoul Walsh: a stand-alone heroic figure in Prince Alexander Nevsky, two brave but buffoonish sidekicks, and the de rigueur love interest. The German enemies were arrogant and for the most part invisible behind unlikely helmets designed by Eisenstein himself. The invading Germans had already divided up Russia amongst themselves, one knight made “prince” of Pskov, where in a horrible example of pacification the invaders had slaughtered men, women, and children-the children were thrown into a bonfire-to show who was boss. The great battle scene took place on a frozen lake.
“What kinda lunatic is going to fight on a frozen lake when he’s wearing a half ton of sheet steel?” Toland groaned. Lowe explained that it had really happened that way, more or less.
“I’m sure they played around with it some, like They Died With Their Boots On, ” the colonel observed. “But the battle really happened.”
The battle was a truly epic scene. The German knights attacked with casual disregard for proper tactics, and the Russian peasants, ably led by Alexander and his two sidekicks, encircled them with a Cannae-like envelopment maneuver. Then, of course, came single combat between Prince Alexander and the German chieftain. There was no doubt of the outcome. Their commander vanquished in single combat, the German ranks came apart, and when they tried to rally on the edge of the lake, the ice gave way, drowning nearly everyone.
“That’s realistic enough,” Lowe chuckled. “Think how many armies have been swallowed up by the Russian countryside!”
The remainder of the movie resolved the love interest (each buffoon got himself a pretty girl), and liberated Pskov. Curiously, while the prince hoisted a bunch of children into his saddle for the ride in, he never showed the slightest interest in female company-and ended with a sermon, Alexander standing alone and speaking about what happens to people who invaded Russia.
“Trying to make Nevsky look like Stalin, eh?”
“There is some of that,” Lowe agreed. “The strong man, all alone, a fatherly benefactor-some benefactor! Anyway you cut it, this is just about the best propaganda movie ever made. The punch line is that when Russia and Germany signed their non-aggression pact a year later, Eisenstein was detailed to direct a stage production of Wagner’s The Valkyries. Call it penance for offending the German sensibilities.”
“Oof. You study these guys more than I do, Chuck.”
Colonel Lowe pulled a cardboard box from under his desk and began to load up his personal effects. “Yeah, well if you have to face the possibility of fighting a man, you might as well learn all you can about him.”
“You think we will?”
Lowe frowned briefly. “I saw enough of that in Nam, but that’s what they pay us for, isn’t it?”
Toland stood and stretched. He had a four-hour drive ahead of him. “Colonel, it has been a pleasure for this squid to work with you.”
“It hasn’t been half bad for this jarhead. Hey, when I get the family set up down in Lejeune, why don’t you come on down sometime? There’s some great fishing down there.”
“Deal.” They shook hands. “Good luck with your regiment, Chuck.”
“Good luck here, Bob.”
Toland walked out to his car. He’d already packed up, and drove quickly out Terminal Boulevard to Interstate 64. The worst part of the drive home was the traffic to the Hampton Roads tunnel, after which things settled down to the usual superhighway ratrace. All the way home, Toland’s mind kept going over the scenes from Eisenstein’s movie. The one that kept coming back was the most horrible of all, a German knight wearing a crusader’s cross tearing a Pskov infant from his mother’s breast and throwing him-her?-into a fire. Who could see that and not be enraged? No wonder the rabble-rousing song “Arise, you Russian People” had been a genuinely popular favorite for years. Some scenes cried out for bloody revenge, the theme for which was Prokofiev’s fiery call to arms. Soon he found himself humming the song. A real intelligence officer you are . . . Toland smiled to himself, thinking just like the people you’re supposed to study…defend our fair native land…nashu zyemlyu chestnuyu!