Folks,

OK, I see by the counters that we have even more hits this month than the record breaker last month. Thanks for dropping in. You deserve a treat and we have one here for you. The treat is in two parts. Part one is my sincere promise that I will not be posting anything that I have written.

We will pause now for the deafening cheers and rippling applause to subside........

Alright, and for you greedy souls who think that is just not enough, the second, and certainly the most enjoyable part, is that I am posting an Olga Saga from the delightfully twisted mind of Old Dux.

Again we will have to pause for a brief interlude of roaring applause, stamping of feet and loud whistling.......


Graphic By JRT 2003

A FISTFUL OF RUBLES
By: Old Dux
HWH Continued
11/10/2003
Page Unknown

All afternoon Olga had been moving furtively from one building to the other around the troop entraining depot at Litlapninn. Only a few minutes ago, the platform had been deserted and with only the eddying swirls of powdered snow for company, she had been gazing out over the snowclad terrain towards the still smoking Hangar No. 6.

If the investigating authority on the airfield had accepted that she had met her end in the crash, they would not be looking for her but she dared not take any chances while still in the vicinity.

But that was a few minutes ago. Now the platform was alive with soldiers as they milled around with rifles and accoutrements clattering while awaiting the order to climb aboard the waiting train.

Olga was now able to relax a little as she became embroiled in the seething mass of soldiery.

A large cauldron of gruel simmered over a wood fire while the cook ladled out the steaming bilge to the men. Moving further towards the engine, she noticed that the Soviet Film Unit were in action setting up a propaganda effort and already had the camera and lights in position.

The actors were easily distinguishable from the poor scruffy wretches who were genuinely destined for the front line. Clean shaven, tailored uniforms, polished buttons and all obviously chosen for their idealistic bearing.

Olga suddenley checked her progress and moved backwards as she recognized one actor in particular. He was undoubtably Klintonevska Estvodopov the internationally handsome raconteur, wit, epicure and sometime rent-boy of the Soviet Central Committee.

She had to keep clear because he would certainly recognize her. When temporarily attached to the Central Committee, he had given her a gift of after shave which she still retained and indeed often used on special occasions.

How she treasured that item. Such a beautiful art-deco bottle with a most tasteful gold label entitled 'Encounter in Stalingrad'- London New York Paris Rome Grimsby. But there was no time to dwell on such sentiments now.

A large crowd had gathered around the engine footplate and the delicious aroma of roast pork assailed her hairy nostrils. In the time honoured fashion of enginemen the world over, the crew in the cab had burnished their shovels and were using them as cooking utensils. A blob of fat, several pieces of belly pork and a few eggs were placed on the shovel and then thrust into the roaring firebox. In no time at all the shovel was withdrawn and the smoking food placed between hunks of bread.

Gratefully, the men took their ration and devoured them ravenously after the shovels went in time and time again. Finally, as the last few turned away, sucking the hot fat from scalded fingers, officers moved in to give boarding orders.

The cauldron attendant had long since lost any takers and the handle of the ladel now protruded forlornly out of a half inch thick surface of congealed fat.

Olga selected the penultimate coach which was adorned with faded decoration and high quality woodwork. Obviously a relic of the opulent vehicles which once served high officials in Czarist days. The interior, which bore many examples of the finest coachwork, had been mostly looted and stripped of the finer fittings but enough remained to impress the peasantry now settling down.

Some of the compartments had been pulled apart and in the enlarged spaces, stoves were already lit, someone strummed a balalaika and smoke from the stoves and cigars settled in layers. Cards and dice would wile away the hours on the long, slow journey west.

Olga's eye was drawn to a Major who was doing good trade with his card school. As the money rolled in he stuffed it into his tunic, smirking continuously while fleecing the gullible troops.

After an hour or so the train jolted and began to move slowly westward with its long train of coaches.

Olga soon grew tired of lounging in the wreckage of the corridor and entered one of the packed compartments, where she found that the Major had now entered and was seated and eyeing her lecherously. He beckoned to her.

'Babushka! Come and sit by me and we'll share this bottle of Bols. A fine woman like you need not stand. Afterwards you can shake hands with the devil!' The disgusting beast nodded down to his gaping flies and gave her a smile which revealed teeth that looked like a worn out artist's palette. Olga tossed her head contemptuously to one side but the effect was spoiled when her cap stayed exactly in the same position and the peak now hung over her right ear.

The Major bellowed with mirth and rose to approach her.
'Hey! I like a woman with a sense of humour' His hand reached out to ward her bosom.'Can you do impressions?' he chuckled.

'Yes', replied Olga, 'Try my Joe Louis impersonation!' She brought up a vicious left hook which even the great Max Baer wouldn't have seen coming. It landed with a meaty thump, right in the chops, below the right eye. A molar richochetted into the corridor.
The Major slumped back into his seat and she pulled his cap over his eyes.

Looking around, she decided that more room was needed - much more room. Coiling the hanging straps around her wrists, she braced herself and with gritted teeth and eyes screwed tightly shut, ejected the deadliest cloud of gas since the Great War.

Within seconds, six specimens of the hardy genus; Coleoptera - phillobius sp., dropped from the ceiling, stone dead. Battle hardened, seasoned troops scrambled on all fours gagging and retching as they fought to reach the corridor before they expired.

Now, the compartment was hers save for the unconcious Major and a young lad of about sixteen in a baggy uniform. He had lost his sense of smell during a German counter-attack in the Pripet Marshes.

She sat by the broad, curtain framed window, swung her feet on to the seat opposite and began to eye the youth with her usual malevolent interest. He blushed and turned away, pretending to study the the framed pictures of pre-revolutionary Russia above the luggage rack. 'Oh, don't mind me!, she exclaimed. 'I'm just an old tease'. He smile uncertainly, nervously.

'Here,take one of these'. She proffered a cigarette. 'They are the last of my private stock - specially distributed among the staff while I was attached to The Moscow Diplomatic Corps. They are made from yak hair, sawdust and recycled cement bags skillfully blended with powered trousers.' The lad took one gratefully.

'You must have been one of the 'diplomatic bags' then?' The question came from the Major who had just come round.

Olga let it ride. It's a long road that doesn't turn, and she would have another chance.
One side of his swollen face had turned an angry purplish red, rather like a baboon's arse. Olga offered him a cigarette. 'Let bygones be bygones eh?' she suggested.
The Major scowled and turned away so she offered the remainder of the pack to the lad whose attempts to smoke the first one had imbued him with a ghastly green complexion.

Eventually, as night fell, the Major left the compartment to continue his crooked gaming spree while others slouched in to bed down for the night. Olga watched the golden oblongs of light from the carriage windows as they undulated along the trackside snowbanks. How warm and comforting they looked as they swept the glittering wasteland, seemingly imparting an instant illusion of mellow cheer in the bitter dark. As the engine laboured on with steam escaping from a score of creaking joints, she imagined the lights from the last carriage, passing on, abandoning each drift to the freezing and utterly silent night.

Under a brilliant emerging moon, Russia presented herself as a most beautiful and charming host, ready to welcome those who would cherish her. But she was a host who would murder her guests should they venture unprepared.

The stiff grey cold of early morning found them at a junction where the troops would be provisioned for the final leg of the journey. As they thronged the platform, Olga lingerd in the coach enjoying a mug of coffee, when a single shot sent a ripple through the mob.
She swigged the dregs, belched, broke wind and stepped out from the rear balcony and on to the track.

A few yards away, the young soldier lay in a pathetic bundle, the light snow already settling upon him. Just a few feet further back, the Major stood grinning, rifle under one arm and clutching a few roubles and the cigarettes which Olga had given to the lad. The Major knew from the look of Olga that it would be him or her.

With all the confidence of a man who knows that he has the drop on his opponent, he raised the rifle until it pointed directly at Olga's ample bosom. His forefinger took up first pressure.....

Imagine now dear friends, the haunting theme of Enniopovich Morriconevskaya as the protagonists face each other....

The 7.62mm round passed through his throat. He staggered back, regained his balance and fixed Olga with a gormless, quizical, half surprised stare. Then his knees buckled and he fell face down into the track ballast.

Olga stood impassively, right sleeve tucked into right pocket, right hand tucked under her bosom, clutching the Tokarev TT-33 automatic. She gazed down ruefully at her gymnastika and poked a finger out through the smouldering hole.

Already, ravening wolves in Soviet uniform were turning over the Major's body and ripping open the tunic. They scrambled and fought for the money which spilled out and over the tracks. Olga returned to the coach for more coffee.

The sky had lightened a little by mid-morning and once again, the order to board drew in crowds of soldiers. Olga made her way to the observation platform on the end coach and gripped the handrail as the train jolted forward. Soldiers were running from the scrub covered marshes carrying petrol, salvaged from a crashed IL-2. Others dragged the parachute packs which had been cut from the concrete hard bodies of the crew.

A couple of officers had joined her on the verandah, sucking on their black cigars. They followed her gaze back down the track to the two low stone cairns on which she had laboured during the morning. They turned away awkwardly.
She picked up a discarded cigar and watched until the mounds had all but disappeared, almost obscured by the southward drifting smoke from scores of campfires.
Just two sons of Russia, unknown, unloved, unmourned. But perhaps someone would remember them. Maybe there was someone, somewhere who would cry.....and wait.

Olga recalled the Russian Soldier's Poem.

Wait for me, and I'll return,
Only wait very hard.

Wait when you are filled with sorrow,
As you watch the yellow rain.
Wait when the winds sweep the snowdrifts,
Wait in the sweltering heat.

Wait when others have stopped waiting,
Forgetting their yesterdays.

Wait even when from afar no letters come for you,
Wait when all others are tired of waiting.

Wait when even my mother and son think I am no more.
And when friends sit around the fire drinking to my memory,
Wait, and do not hurry to drink to my memory too.

Wait for I'll return,
Defying every death.
And let those who do not wait say I was lucky.

They will never understand that in the midst of death,
You, with your waiting, saved me.

Only you and I will know how I survived.
Because you waited, as no one else did.

Olga bit through the black cigar, spat it out, and turned to enter the carriage.