Derek Lambert - Vendetta

The lieutenant, knowing the answer, called Chuikov. Back came the answer: assemble a civilian storm group and bring back Antonov.

The lieutenant mustered a group, one of the units formed to infiltrate the German lines during darkness when the battleground wasn’t laid bare to the enemy reconnaissance planes.

It consisted of an assault party armed with sub-machine-guns, grenades and spades sharpened for close fighting; a back-up group carrying mortars and explosives; a couple of snipers to give covering fire.

The storm group was commanded by an engineer named Gordov. His nose was flat, his eyes sunken and bloodshot, his brown beard embroidered with grey. Antonov, observing from above, sensed that the mission didn’t appeal to him: his job was to kill Germans, not to save one pampered sniper.

Misha led the group back to Gorki Theatre where Antonov saw himself lying beneath the wrecked stage beside the carousel. It had stopped snowing and occasionally moonlight, finding windows in the clouds, shone through the floorboards.

The back-up party, four of them, strapped him to a stretcher and set off towards the river while two scouts went ahead and two snipers brought up the rear.

They would have made it to the command post if a German patrol hadn’t spotted them 100 metres the wrong side of the Russian lines. And they then might have been decimated if the Germans, aware of the reputations of night assault parties, hadn’t opened fire prematurely.

As it was the two scouts were hit and the stretcher-bearers were forced to veer away from the command post. Then the back-up gunners started shooting and the stretcher-bearers escaped.

‘Misha will tell you why we’re here,’ Razin said. ‘He knows about these things.’

‘The Fritzes made another last-ditch attack,’ Misha said. His voice had shrunk since Antonov last spoke to him, but it was still sharp with flints. ‘They reached the river and cut us in two.’

‘For the third time,’ Razin said.

‘We’re with Lyudnikov’s division to the east of the Barricade factory. He’s only got 500 men left and his 650th Regiment is down to thirty-one men. To the north of the German bridgehead Gorokhov is holding out.’

‘Just,’ Razin said.

Antonov opened his lips and, like a man trying to conquer a stutter, attempted to mould words.

Razin held a tin mug to his lips. ‘Here, this might help.’ The water was cold and sweet. ‘Sugar,’ Razin explained. ‘Part of our rations. Five grams of sugar and a couple of rusks. Very fortifying.’

Water dribbled down Antonov’s chin. Was he paralysed? But some of the water oiled his tongue. When he spoke the words rolled out slowly like marbles. ‘Last-ditch… Why last-ditch?’

Misha said: ‘Because we’re about to counter-attack to the north-west and south-east of Stalingrad. They say we’ve assembled over a million troops right under the noses of the Fritzes and their allies, Rumanians, Hungarians and Italians,’ he explained. ‘I heard that we’ve brought up 900 tanks and more than 1,000 aircraft,’ he added casually.

‘And here in Stalingrad?’ The words came more easily and Antonov enjoyed them. ‘How many troops?’

‘Not many. Forty-thousand perhaps. Five hundred in this pocket. But we’ll hold out until the counter-attack comes.’

Razin said: ‘We’re holding onto the west bank of the river by our bootlaces. And when the counter-attack comes we’ll still be here encircled with the Germans.’

Another voice intruded, the deep voice of a man fortified by a beard. Antonov stared into the frame of grey sky and saw that Razin had been joined by a man who had to be Gordov. His face was pale and dirty but the black-and-grey beard looked freshly combed.

He perceived the beard as the man’s pet and decided that the flesh beneath it was very soft.

Gordov said: ‘Don’t be so defeatist, comrade. When the attack comes the vermin will have to turn and meet it and the pressure will be off us. Then we’ll get supplies, guns, ammunition.’

‘How? Through the ice floes?’

‘From the air. In any case the Volga will freeze soon.’

‘From the air! Everything they’ve dropped so far has fallen into the river or into the German trenches.’

‘You don’t have much faith, comrade. What’s your name?’

‘Winston Churchill,’ Razin said. ‘What’s it like holding a gun instead of a screwdriver?’

Old soldier versus civilian. But Antonov knew Razin was wrong to antagonise Gordov. Gordov had been invested with authority through battle: war had made him and he was brave with it. Lying there in the dug-out surrounded by battle Antonov knew many things.

He managed to turn and smile at Misha. Don’t take any notice of them, the smile said. Misha smiled back.

Gordov combed his beard, his pet, with his fingers. ‘What’s it like being a wet-nurse? Why don’t you nurse some of those poor bastards over the top?’

Misha explained to Antonov: ‘There are 400 wounded lying beside the river. They’ve been there in the rain and snow and they can’t get across to the other side because of the ice floes.’

‘And because of an MG 34 mounted over there.’ Gordov pointed. ‘We’ve tried getting them across in row-boats but that bastard opens up and sinks them every time. But don’t worry,’ he said to Antonov, ‘we’ll do our best to get you across,’ although he didn’t sound enthusiastic.

‘I don’t want to go across,’ Antonov said. ‘I want to stay here.’

‘Chuikov’s orders,’ Razin said. ‘According to the medic you’ve got a suspected hairline fracture of the skull. You can’t hunt Meister with a broken head.’

Razin had two faces again. A Stuka came in low, Jericho siren screaming. Its bombs fell close by, the earth shuddered, stones rattled into the dug-out.

Gordov said: ‘Those fell among the wounded.’

A snowflake hesitated over the dug-out, dying as it got near the stove. Turning his head, Antonov noticed four or five other members of the assault group warming themselves round the glowing haunches of the stove. They wore shapki with the flaps pulled over their ears and knee-length boots and their faces were bleak with exhaustion. They were passing round a mug and smoking thin cigarettes rolled from newspaper. Occasionally one of them glanced dispassionately at Antonov. Razin joined them.

Misha, following Antonov’s gaze, told him that the night before the rescue Gordov and his men, armed with pistols, knives and spades, feet muffled with sacking, had crept up to a German observation post, a wall of rubble in one corner of the devastated Red October Plant, and killed all the occupants in two minutes.

‘Night is our time,’ Misha said. The skin was tight across his cheekbones and his eyes, almost black, were deep in their sockets.

‘And day is the German’s time? Meister’s time?’

‘Day is your time too,’ Misha said.

‘We wouldn’t have found Meister in the school, would we?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. He might have been away looking for you.’

‘We wouldn’t have found him because you would have found a way of warning him. Why, Misha?’

Misha didn’t answer for a moment. For one startling moment Antonov saw ancient wisdom in his eyes. Then he said: ‘Because he’s like you.’

And Antonov felt like confessing that he was glad he hadn’t reached the school because he didn’t want to kill Meister but he couldn’t because boys must have heroes but he was glad he had confessed to himself.

But why don’t I want to kill him? he asked himself. And then it occurred to him that not so long ago none of the millions of Germans and Russians engaged in combat had wanted to fight. That they set about killing each other simply because they were told to, taking lives without compassion because they were strangers to each other.