Part 4, the long escape.

The Russian evacuation vehicle crashed through the wreckage of the forest, passing the upturned

splintered poplar trees and cratered roads.

The men riding on top wherever they could find space to cling could barely hang on

moaning. Ivan knew he needed a plan urgently otherwise they would send him back

into battle right away.

Whether it had been writing itself through his mind all along,

or whether he thought of it on the spot, he would never know.

But the answer was self-evident.

He needed to insist on surgery for his back.

Years earlier Ivan was holding Sasha in his arms when he fell down hard. Pain shot up his leg and back.

It was a herniated disc.

Ivan began trying to remember how Roman limped when he came back from the S. V.O.

So he could replicate it. He decided that his gate should be more laborious. He needed to

really wince when he put weight on his foot. When the vehicle pulled up to a field hospital,

it was a broken building with no window panes,

just polyethylene flapping over the frames.

There were medics writing down what kind of injury each man had.

Ivan observed that most of the assembled could rip open their uniforms

and show some kind of blood. He needed to think. He let everyone pass him.

What have you got? The medic him my back what you got hit in the back wounded no my back's jammed hernia

the guy eyed him all right I'll put you on the other list.

...