Matthew Funk

VOR

The Eastern Front of World War II as it really was.  A secret Soviet assault that changed
the course of the war.   A hopeless hero out to do the impossible
– survive them both with his soul intact. 

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“…He drew his finger along the gory and broad line of the Voroshilovgrad Railroad – the VOR – as he spoke, west to east, west to east, and told me in his empty, loud voice about the strike missions already mapped and the many, many wings of planes that would execute them.  From Izyum along the Donets River to the Agricultural Combine near Prishib was a narrow basin of marshland barricaded by hills to the south, and when Ivan came at us, Phelps said, that basin would become a lake of jellied gasoline with bubbles of high explosive, stirred by auto firing cannons.  Our dive bombers and level bombers would plow the land into a graveyard and pave it with burning chemicals.  The Soviets wouldn’t have time to drown in the Donets, and this would “refuse them the operational flexibility needed to reinforce any local successes”.  We, the ground troops, would only be sent in to “make sure the bodies stayed still”. 

I had no doubt this was how he saw it. Phelps never touched the bottles he constantly straightened; he was perpetually shit-faced on the history he was writing.  He was a falling-down, pissing believer.  Yes, he knew about the Soviet divisions – about the whole Soviet corps – that FHO, Foreign Armies East, reported annihilated only to be found marching into the line less than two weeks later.  Yes, he knew the 8^th Guards Army and the 1^st Guards Mechanized Corps, both units looming over the VOR on his section map, were veterans of the Stalingrad fighting, and yes, he knew the Soviets could dig in whole battalions over night if even a single patrol got ignored by some sleepy grunt.  The Soviets could dig, dig as deep as they wanted, Phelps said; they were, after all, their own graves.  Dig them as deep as they want; it didn’t matter.  They could even keep coming and keep coming and keep coming until the German lines broke, just as they always did, and they could use their terrorists to explode trains and hospitals and entertainment centers just like they always did.  It didn’t matter, because dig or come or explode as they may, they wouldn’t be getting through the goddamn Donets river line.  They wouldn’t be getting to the VOR.  And the VOR, that was all that mattered – the red line running under his finger, west to east, west to east.” 

“We were just southwest of Bogorodichnoye when the opening barrage hit.  Approaching the town from that direction meant going from the steep ravines that held some of the 679 Infantry’s positions directly into a lattice of small dells that led all the way up to the sloped field on its perimeter.  The field was in sight, just over the scrubby brush and small wire entanglement that bordered it on the south side, when I heard the yelling.  Not the high, singular whine of a sole gun, or the moan of a falling mortar brought down by some observant fire controller – we didn’t draw this fire onto ourselves.  It came at us because we just happened to be there, somewhere along the Donets, and it came to set the river on fire and bring down the mountains around it.  It was the yelling of the entire sky, the whole of the heavens torn open; stars, clouds, spanless black all bellowing in pain as metal shoved through it.  I knew it instantly for what it was.  The Guards Army was coming across the river. 

A heavy was the first to fall – a 240mm at the least.   This was a shell the size of a small car, and its approach sounded like an entire village screaming in pain.  When it hit, we were already on our way to our bellies, and it bounced us there with a stiff, flat hand of concussion.  The impact had been nearly five hundred meters to our rear, smack on a trench that held a squad of ten riflemen.  Had these men been bullshitting these past hours, bragging about breaking whores or cooing about their wife and kids’ sparkling personalities, or had they been taut as triggers and canny wolves?  It didn’t matter.  The shell flew faster than its own sound, grabbed that trench, those men and all within 20 meters around it, powderized it and blew it across the valley.  A piece of a shoelace pierced the cartilage of Lyman’s ear.  That was all those men meant to the living here on the VOR.   Before we could even be shoved down, dozens upon hundreds upon thousands of other shells hit.  In a pair of seconds, the German lines were smashed.”

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