Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

‘Has a car with a divisional pennant come by here? With an escort of two armoured cars?’

‘Nope,’ answered the crew leader, without taking the lit cigarette from the corner of his mouth. ‘Could be we just didn’t notice, though. We’ve got other things on our mind right now.’

Breuer stepped out of the car. He was following the gaze of the crew leader, whose eyes were suddenly trained on the horizon.

‘Oh Christ,’ Breuer exclaimed, ‘that looks like trouble!’

A dark mass was flowing like syrup over the snow-covered ridge on the far side of the village. A dense swarm of Russian cavalry!

‘It’s not as bad as it looks, Lieutenant,’ said the artilleryman. ‘That’s the third time they’ve done that today already.’

‘Don’t you want to fire a couple of rounds at them?’

‘We’ll wait until they’re all over the ridge. Then it might be worth it.’

Meanwhile, Lakosch, who was far less perturbed by the incident than the first lieutenant, had been searching about elsewhere.

‘There they are!’ he exclaimed, pointing at the burning supply depot at the entrance to the village. Breuer immediately recognized the two armoured scout cars. A little further away, parked beside the wall of a house, stood the general’s limousine. Lakosch put the car into neutral and coasted down to the village. The general was standing in the middle of the road in his field-grey inner fur coat with its wide cuffs, and with the beaver collar turned up. The abandoned vehicles, the agitated soldiers dashing past, the Russian POWs wandering about aimlessly – none of this bothered him in the slightest. He also seemed oblivious to the flying bullets and to the flak rounds that now came arcing high in the air above him and, landing on the far side of the village, tore terrible gaping holes in the massed ranks of riders there. He only had eyes for the tank crewmen, who were busy dragging a crate bound with steel bands from the smoking ruins of the supply depot.

‘No, no, it’s claret again!’ he shouted furiously after reading the label on the side. ‘Get back in there! There must be a crate of cognac somewhere!’

He scrutinized the cases of cigars that one of the men had just turned up with.

‘Hmmm, Charles V!’ he said rather despondently. ‘Oh well, smokable in an emergency, I suppose. See if you can’t find a couple of cases of Brazilians, though! They’re always good.’

Breuer stood observing the scene for some while, dumbstruck by what he was witnessing.

‘General, sir!’ he said finally, pulling himself together. ‘Lieutenant Colonel Unold has sent me to inform you—’

The general spun round to face him.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘The divisional staff is relocating to Golubaya, and I’ve been ordered to—’

‘I don’t give a damn where the staff is going!’ roared the general, his face beetroot-red with fury. ‘Go to hell!’

Although Breuer knew there was little chance of him being able to carry out the general’s final order to the letter, he considered his duty discharged, and so walked back to his car without another word. No sign of Lakosch – where had that bloody rogue got to again? ‘Lakosch!’ he yelled. ‘Lakosch!’

Then he spotted a figure emerging through the smoke of the smouldering warehouse, its face blackened with soot, the pockets of its greatcoat stuffed, and clutching two cases of cigars under its arms. Breuer couldn’t help but guffaw at the sight.

‘The heat hasn’t affected the crispbreads,’ said Lakosch, putting the cigar cases down on the running board of the car, ‘but I’m afraid the chocolate’s a bit cremated.’ From his trouser pockets, he also produced a bottle of Martell and three tins of canned meat. ‘Oh, and the cigars are Brazilian,’ he added. ‘After all, the general says they’re always good!’

The billet to which Sergeant Major Harras assigned the Intelligence Section was one of the so-called ‘Finnish tents’, which had been pitched a little way outside the village of Verchnaya-Golubaya in the middle of a copse of stunted conifers. These circular dwellings with conical roofs comprised a wooden frame with panels of weatherproofed cardboard nailed onto it. They only warmed up if you half-buried them in the ground. But no one had taken the trouble to do so here. From a distance the group of tents looked like a kraal.

Corporal Herbert and Private Geibel had gathered firewood and got the small field stove glowing red-hot, but an icy wind was still blowing through the thin walls, instantly dissipating any heat. Sonderführer Fröhlich, wrapped up in his entire stock of coats and blankets, was lying on the sparse bedding of straw left by the tent’s previous occupants and snoring. Today, he’d found nowhere where he could deploy his customary optimism, and so he’d resolved to sleep through the critical period if he possibly could. Breuer, who’d spent his day frantically running around doing adjutant duties for Unold, only arrived at their new quarters after dark.

‘What a shithole!’ he announced. ‘Five hundred metres from the rest of the staff sections and no ’phone line. Right, that’s fine by me! At least it means they’ll leave us in peace now.’

He put his boots near the oven to dry. Then, without more ado, he flaked out fully clothed on the rank-smelling straw, with his cap still on his head, and dropped off to sleep instantly. Lakosch covered him solicitously with all the blankets he could muster and then enquired what was for supper.

‘Bon appetit!’ replied Herbert grimly. ‘We’re on half rations as of today. And the canteen van hasn’t even been round yet.’

‘Great, that’s all we need,’ grumbled Lakosch. ‘In that case,’ he continued, reaching into his jacket, pulling out one of the tins he’d purloined and passing it to Herbert, ‘magic us a roast veal dinner with all the trimmings out of this!’ He sat down on the woodpile near the stove, pushed his cap back and rubbed his hands together. Geibel was sitting on a sawhorse he’d found somewhere and flicking idly through a frayed synthetic leather wallet.

‘By the way, you’re on sentry duty tonight from midnight to two,’ he said casually.

‘What, me?’ exclaimed Lakosch, outraged. ‘Lissnup must be off his rocker! I’ve been driving round the whole day, and then I’m expected to keep watch half the night as well? Not a bloody chance!’

‘Maybe it’s in lieu of those “three days’ work details” he threatened you with that time,’ said Geibel. He held up a photograph in the glow cast by the oven. ‘Get a load of this, though,’ he announced proudly. ‘It’s my wife!’

But Lakosch wasn’t in the mood any more. He cast a desultory glance at the picture. It showed a buxom young woman who was passably pretty.

‘Shame she’s shacked up with such a halfwit,’ he muttered.

Geibel took that as a mark of respect from Lakosch, and as a mark of his gratitude, he asked, ‘No photos of your own to show us, then?’

‘What am I, some kind of photo album?’ grumbled Lakosch, but he still pulled a dog-eared passport photograph from his pay-book and passed it over to Geibel.

‘But this is a picture of you!’

‘Well spotted!’

‘So, you were a storm trooper, eh?’ said Herbert in astonishment, looking over Geibel’s shoulder. ‘No, wait a minute – the National Socialist Motor Corps,’ Herbert corrected himself, ‘and a squad leader, what’s more!’

‘You don’t miss a trick, do you?’ remarked Lakosch drily.

‘I’m a Party member, too, you know,’ said Geibel, somewhat peevishly, as he handed the photo back to Lakosch. ‘I really didn’t want to join at first, but my wife kept on at me. And it’s actually better now that I am, given that all my customers…’