The Execution — Chapter from the Novel "Stone" by Volodymyr Shablia

The Execution

Stone — Book One: First Steps Toward the Light and Back — Chapter 8

 by Volodymyr Shablia

September 1941. The southern Ukrainian steppe.

The column of prisoners being transferred eastward had been marching at an accelerated pace for nearly a full day without food or water, trying to slip from the jaws of the German armored spearheads.

As if sensing the approach of autumn storms, the furious rays of the sun seemed determined to display their full power one last time — so fiercely that these men who fancied themselves makers of history might fall to their knees and beg the Lord for a single mouthful of water. Above them stretched a boundless blue sky, indifferent and relentless, adorned only by a few fleecy clouds along the horizon. It seemed to draw the very life from the wretched prisoners. Thick saliva clung unpleasantly to their mouths.

Whenever Peter raised his head and looked upward, it seemed to him that, with just a little more effort, that cynically beautiful void would swallow his very soul and carry it away into the unreachable heights of eternity.

Artillery thundered somewhere nearby.

The vast fields, flat as tabletops and devoid of a single tree, tempted German pilots to attack any target that appeared against the monotonous landscape.

Twice the exhausted, terrified prisoners came under machine-gun attack from Junkers dive bombers returning from their missions and eager to expend their remaining ammunition. At the command of the group's leader, State Security Sergeant Aroskin, everyone scattered in all directions. Even so, nearly twenty people — including several soldiers — were cut down by the bullets of the German vultures whose sirens wailed across the sky.

Another twenty or so were executed by the guards.

The Execution

Anyone seriously wounded or unable to continue marching was shot.

Attempts by the convicts — driven half-mad and savage with thirst — to snatch discarded watermelon rinds or drink from puddles beside the road became increasingly frequent. At first, the NKVD men simply shot those who dared break ranks and rush toward water. Now the situation was slipping beyond their control.

When the prisoners spotted yet another small puddle flashing in the sunlight, practically the entire column charged toward the miserable source of water, heedless of death, heedless of the desperate shouting and gunfire of the guards.

They fought and clawed at one another with animal fury for the right to press their lips against that life-giving moisture.

Peter reached the puddle among the first, but several men were already lying in it, greedily gulping water and preventing others from drinking. In a fit of rage he seized one of them by the clothing, hurled him several yards away, threw himself into the vacated spot, and pressed his mouth desperately to the water.

He drank ravenously.

For the first few minutes he felt nothing except a mingled ecstasy of relief, pleasure, and joy at the quenching of his thirst. Only when he tasted mud instead of water did awareness gradually return.

The water was gone.

He was lying in dirt, pinned beneath a heap of human bodies.

Little by little the realization spread among the prisoners that the puddle had been drained dry. One after another, they crawled down from the mound of bodies and staggered away.

Meanwhile, the State Security sergeant commanding these men who were rapidly turning into beasts was frantically trying to think of a way to keep the crowd obedient.

No matter how he searched for an effective solution, nothing seemed better than plunging them into a panic greater than their thirst — a raw, animal terror.

‘Yes,’ Aroskin concluded. ‘It's the only method that will work.’

And immediately he acted.

"Prisoners!" he thundered in a sepulchral voice. "You have disobeyed your guards. Those who remained at the puddle were the first to leave formation and are therefore the instigators of this disturbance. Under wartime regulations they are subject to execution."

He paused.

"I order the guards to take the ringleaders ten paces aside and carry out the sentence. Let everyone understand: I will not tolerate disorder or sabotage. From now on, every act of disobedience will be punished. In addition to those killed while attempting escape, the guards will execute ten instigators each time."

Then he turned to his subordinates.

"Vasilyev! Zeldin! Fedorenko! Kvakusha! Kripak! Take the offenders ten paces aside and carry out the sentence!"

The named NKVD men advanced resolutely toward the soaked, mud-covered prisoners who had by then become the designated "ringleaders." There were fifteen of them.

Peter stood near the left end of the group.

He had heard the sergeant's words. Inside him, the euphoria brought by the water and the terror of approaching death wrestled desperately for dominance.

"Organizers of the disturbance!" Aroskin addressed the filthy, frightened men. "For failure to obey orders, under wartime law, you are sentenced to death by shooting. Ten paces to the right. Form a line!"

Holding his revolver in a bent arm, he indicated where they were to stand.

Along with the others condemned to die, Peter shuffled toward the appointed place.

The meaning of what was happening finally sank in.

Fear seized him.

A terrible hopelessness engulfed his entire being.

During those few seconds' walk to the execution site, his whole life flashed through his mind. The brightest, happiest, most vivid moments of his brief existence burst across his consciousness like fireworks.

‘Why is everything ending so quickly? It's not fair! I still have so much strength, so much life inside me. Was I really born only to die this absurd, meaningless death at twenty-one?’

The unanswered questions, mingled with overwhelming fear, confusion, and pity for himself and his ruined life, crashed through his mind like an avalanche.

His eyes filled with tears.

Two thin streams rolled down his cheeks.

"Down on your knees, saboteurs! On your knees!"

The sharp voice of the State Security sergeant cracked across the steppe like thunder from a clear sky. His merciless expression left no doubt that the execution would be carried out.

"Take your positions!"

The NKVD men formed a firing line opposite the condemned.

"Aim!"

Peter sank to his knees with the others.

His hands touched the withered steppe grass.

He plucked a stem, began chewing it, and tasted its faint bitterness. Then he looked up into the endless blue sky.

He remembered how, in his youth, he had gazed into that same boundless blue and dreamed of serving the homeland he loved.

He hadn't managed it.

They hadn't let him.

Why?

Another tear slipped down his cheek.

"Fire!"

The volley thundered.

The prisoner kneeling beside Peter pitched forward lifelessly into the earth.

Three more men fell elsewhere along the line.

"Reload!" the sergeant commanded. "Aim!"

At that moment a cool evening breeze swept across the steppe.

After the merciless heat, the pleasant chill ran across Peter's skin and stirred his sweat-matted hair. The grasses shivered softly.

The blood-red sun, descending toward the horizon, watched the scurrying of human beings with complete indifference.

Peter turned his gaze toward the firing squad.

A rifle aimed directly at his chest.

Its bayonet pointed straight at him.

He looked into the muzzle.

‘Can a crude piece of lead truly destroy — wipe out forever — my one and only soul? My beautiful soul, unique and irreplaceable, delicate and alive? No. That's absurd. Only something equally complex yet evil could destroy a soul. Only the soul of the Devil himself...

No. This can't be real. It's an illusion. A nightmare. Such a thing simply cannot happen.’

Fear. Terror. The desperate desire to live. Racing thoughts.

Everything blended together within him, becoming a vast, transparent black sphere that eclipsed consciousness itself.

Then, in a state of emotional shock, he felt himself separating from reality.

He seemed to rise above the chaos, soaring into a luminous silver height.

Down below, his body remained kneeling on the ground.

But his essence — his soul, standing upon the threshold of eternity and tasting the wonder of union with the divine spirit — looked down upon the scene with quiet irony.

His gaze turned toward the beautiful radiance pouring from the heavens.

‘Leave everything behind and fly, rush toward that glorious, beckoning light, where all is beautiful and peaceful, where the majestic purity of universal wisdom will receive me without asking anything in return!’

The thought came like salvation.

But suddenly something changed.

An irresistible longing seized him.

He wanted to return.

To become one with his body again.

At once his soul rushed back toward the flesh, entered it, merged with it, and experienced a fleeting, almost imperceptible moment of exquisite ecstasy.

Peter stirred.

The rifle was still aimed at his chest.

Yet now he was no longer afraid.

He knew that his soul could not die.

It was impossible.

His essence, his spirit — and therefore he himself — were immortal.

A surge of exultation flooded him. He felt united with eternity, a tiny part of an infinitely vast divine spirit.

He fixed his clear blue-green eyes defiantly on the rifleman's face.

The man could not endure the gaze.

He looked away.

‘Perhaps the Devil is the sergeant,’ Peter thought. ‘We'll see what he can do against the strength I've found.’

But when he looked closely at Aroskin's face, he suddenly perceived something hidden beneath the mask of stern resolve:

a cornered creature silently begging God's forgiveness.

Aroskin raised his hand, signaling the firing squad to prepare.

Yet Peter was smiling.

He had glimpsed a higher truth and no longer believed these miserable play-actors possessed the power to determine the fates of others.

"Stand down," the sergeant said at last, relief evident in his voice.

"This time you are pardoned. But if there is another act of sabotage, there will be no mercy. Return to the rear of the column and continue marching."

Then, addressing everyone, he added:

"In roughly two hours we will reach our destination — a railway station where there should be water. Everyone will be able to drink there. But if we are to stay out of German hands, we must keep moving quickly and without stopping. Don't make fatal mistakes. Don't force me to take extreme measures."

"Forward march!"

The column moved on.

Only after several hundred yards did Peter begin to regain his sense of physical wholeness. Gradually he became aware of terrible pain in several places. Bruises — the result of the struggle at the puddle.

But such things seemed insignificant compared with the bliss of quenched thirst.

Frightened by German aircraft, the nearby sounds of battle, and the critical state of discipline, the guards shouted over and over every few minutes:

"Pick up the pace!"

"A step right or left will be treated as an escape attempt — we shoot without warning!"

Or simply cursed at the prisoners.

For some reason Peter paid little attention.

Revived by the water, his body seemed to have found a second wind. Compared with the exhausted men around him, tortured by unrelieved thirst, he now marched with surprising vigor.

The remainder of the journey to the station passed relatively uneventfully, apart from two prisoners who refused to go any farther and were shot by the guards in accordance with regulations.

At the very edge of the settlement the column came upon a well.

Aroskin allowed the prisoners to drink in an orderly fashion and to fill their canteens and whatever containers they had with water.

Continue Exploring Stone:

Read Stone in English

Explore the novel, quotations, and the author's biography on Goodreads

Stone by Volodymyr Shablia on Facebook

Read or download the complete books in Ukrainian:

Stone — Book One: First Steps Toward the Light and Back

Stone — Book Two: Difficult Roads to Hell

Stone — Book Three: Unrealized Expectations

Stone — Book Four: The Turning Point