The young mistress got out of the car.

The woman in the cap shouted: ‘Coming to help us dig?’ and the others laughed.

The general’s girlfriend, who looked about thirty, put her head down and walked back along the road the way the car had come. The volunteer in the checked cap shoved her, but she dodged between the hedgehogs and started to run. The volunteer ran after her. The mistress was wearing tan suede shoes with a high heel, and she slipped in the wet and fell down. Her fur hat came off. She struggled to her feet and started to run again. The volunteer went after the hat, letting the mistress go.

All the suitcases now lay open around the abandoned car. The workers pulled the boxes from the back seat and turned them upside down, emptying the contents on to the road. Cutlery spilled out, china broke, and glassware smashed. Embroidered bedsheets and white towels were dragged through the slush. A dozen pretty pairs of shoes were scattered across the tarmac.

Bobrov got to his knees and tried to stand. The woman in the blanket hit him with the spade again. Bobrov collapsed on the ground. She unbuttoned Bobrov’s fine wool coat and tried to pull it off him. Bobrov struggled, resisting. The woman became furious and hit Bobrov again and again until he lay still, his cropped white head covered with blood. Then she discarded her old blanket and put Bobrov’s coat on.

Volodya walked across to Bobrov’s unmoving body. The eyes stared lifelessly. Volodya knelt down and checked for breathing, a heartbeat or a pulse. There was none. The man was dead.

‘No mercy for cowards,’ Volodya said; but he closed Bobrov’s eyes.

Some of the women unstrapped the piano. The instrument slid off the car roof and hit the ground with a discordant clang. They began gleefully to smash it up with picks and shovels. Others were quarrelling over the scattered valuables, snatching up the cutlery, bundling the bedsheets, tearing the fine underwear as they struggled for possession. Fights broke out. A china teapot came flying through the air and just missed Zoya’s head.

Volodya hurried back to her. ‘This is developing into a full-scale riot,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an army car and a driver. I’ll get you out of here.’

She hesitated only for a second. ‘Thanks,’ she said; and they ran to the car, jumped in, and drove away.

(ii)

Erik von Ulrich’s faith in the Führer was vindicated by the invasion of the Soviet Union. As the German armies raced across the vastness of Russia, sweeping the Red Army aside like chaff, Erik rejoiced in the strategic brilliance of the leader to whom he had given his allegiance.

Not that it was easy. During rainy October the countryside had been a mud bath: they called it the rasputitsa, the time of no roads. Erik’s ambulance had ploughed through a quagmire. A wave of mud built up in front of the vehicle, gradually slowing it, until he and Hermann had to get out and clear it away with shovels before they could drive any farther. It was the same for the entire German army, and the dash for Moscow had slowed to a crawl. Furthermore, the swamped roads meant that supply trucks never caught up. The army was low on ammunition, fuel and food, and Erik’s unit was dangerously short of drugs and other medical necessities.