David Robbins - War of the Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad

The first men boarded and sat on the deck. Two soldiers in the line in front of Tania, boys no more than eighteen, took a few steps, then froze in place. The other men ignored them, sliding past them in the line as if the two did not exist.

Tania came up behind them quickly. “Keep moving,” she said. “Don’t do this. They’re watching.”

Tania walked in front of the boys to face them. She saw their eyes fixed across the river at the inferno.

She shook one of them. “Move to the boat. Move!”

The young soldiers turned to Tania, then looked to each other. One licked his lips. An older soldier grabbed Tania’s arm to pull her away.

“They have their fates, comrade. We have ours. Come.”

Tanja let herself be tugged several steps, still looking back at the youths. She turned her head and marched in line.

After a few steps she heard Danilov scream from the deck of the barge.

“Stop! Stop immediately!”

All the soldiers halted and turned back toward the crowded landing. The boys had bolted out of line to run for the trees beyond the beach, dropping their rifles and ammo belts and shedding their packs to leap over barrels and cartons. Their quick footfalls, hard and hollow on the planks of the landing, mingled with the muffled roar from across the Volga. The dock grew silent while the two young cowards ran out their lives.

Tania heard their cries to each other, frantic and afraid. “Run! Oh, God! Keep running!”

Guards fired over the boys’ heads and yelled for them to halt and come back. The two ran.

Three more guards in greatcoats appeared from the trees at the edge of the sand. They hustled toward the boys, shooting.

One boy went down, wounded. The other stopped running. He turned, looked, and died where he stood. A guard walked to the wounded one, put his pistol to the boy’s forehead, and fired.

Tania and the soldiers resumed their march to the barge. The older soldier walked beside her.

“A waste,” she said to him.

He looked down at her. “Boys,” he said. “Boys the age of my children.”

Tania heaved her pack higher onto her shoulders. She moved away from him.

“Forget your children,” she said.

TANIA CHOSE A SPACE NEAR THE PORT RAIL. SHE SAT with her knees pulled up to her chest. Several men asked her to move to the safety of the middle of the deck. Tania tossed her shoulder-length hair and held her place.

The barge moved onto the river.

Three Stukas found the boat quickly. The crooked-wing fighters banked, buzzed high in triangle formation, and screamed down. Plumes of water erupted in the white light of phosphorus flares. Tania blinked at the geysers licking at the barge.

Along the rails, NKVD guards, known as “Green Hats,” stood with arms folded. A few had their hands inside their coats. Fingers on triggers, Tania thought, in case anyone gets a notion to jump overboard. Tania knew the Green Hats well, knew them to be the grimmest and most ruthless organ of the commissariat. She’d seen plenty of their work: they examined credentials and asked curt questions. Any soldier caught leaving the front without orders was dealt with swiftly. Hundreds of bodies had littered the road to Stalingrad, dreadful reminders to Red Army deserters to rethink their fears.

Another detonation sounded deep off the starboard rail. Shrapnel bit into the hull. Cold water soaked the soldiers on deck. No diving Stuka had shrieked before the explosion. That was a mortar shell, Tania thought. The big cannons are throwing in alongside the Luftwaffe. We’ve been spotted by the whole German army.

Water ran off the sides of the tilting decks. Commissar Danilov made a show of marching to the bow, swinging his boxlike torso and arms. He climbed onto the large stack of ammunition cartons where everyone could see him. He raised his arms over his head and pointed his hands straight up like antiaircraft guns into the noisy, deadly night.

“Fuck you!” he cried at the sky. “You fuckers of mothers. You whores!” Danilov scowled down at the soldiers. They were bunched together, wet on the trembling deck.

“Come on, you Russian heroes! Fuck those Germans up the ass! Come on! Let them hear you!”

A few voices rose. Then, like an engine catching and throttling to a roar, every one of the soldiers screamed out curses, exiling their fears into the night at the planes and flames and explosions of water and earth.

Tania thrust her fist in the air. “Bastards!” she screeched. “Murderers!”

While the troops spent their rage, Danilov called for the postman to come forward. “Mail call!” he shouted.

The postman handed up his canvas sack of letters. The commissar dug into the bag. Above the bedlam, he called out the names on the envelopes.

“Tagarin!”

“Here!”

“Antsiferov!”

“Over here!”

The postman took the letters from Danilov and scurried among the men. Twice he fell into their laps when the boat shifted on the roiling river.

Another tower of water reared off the port stern. A hand tapped Tania on the shoulder. Behind her sat the older soldier who’d pulled her away from the two deserters on the landing.

“Would you like some bread?” he asked.

“No, thank you. I have my own.”

“Please,” he insisted, “have some of mine.”

Tania looked at the cropped white beard and tanned face. The man’s blue eyes were set in the middle of deep, strong wrinkles like indigo marbles laid on straw.

“Of course,” she said, “but only if we share my cheese.”

They dug into their packs. A third, younger soldier reached out a half-full liter of vodka.

“Please,” he said, “may we have a picnic?”

The three began to exchange their food and drink. A shell exploded on the port side, closer than the last. Tania sheltered the bread from the spray.

The young one extended his hand. “My name is Fyodor Ivanovich Michailov. From Moscow.” He appeared to be eighteen or nineteen, a freshman. His face had a peculiar quality even in the flashing night— Tania couldn’t recall ever before seeing an entire face take part in a smile the way his did. His forehead, nose, chin, and eyes all crinkled at once. He shines, Tania thought quickly.

“I’m a writer,” he said, taking the cheese.

“What do you write about, Fedya?” the older soldier asked.

“Love stories. Poems.” He shrugged. “What can I write about? I’m Russian. My choices are love, government, or murder.”

“Write about Stalin and you’ll have all three.” The older man laughed alone. “Yuri Georgiovich Pankov.” He took Fyodor’s hand. “From Frunze in Kirghizia. I’m originally from Tashkent.”

“An Uzbek,” Fyodor recognized.

“A simple man.” Yuri tapped his chest. “No dreamer like you. I’ve spent my whole life wide awake.”

Tania looked at Yuri’s hand shake Fedya’s. His fingers were thick and powerful, with blunt nails. The knuckles were gnarled from labor. She guessed he had worked on one of the millions of Soviet collective farms. In Fedya’s smooth white grasp, Yuri’s calloused hand looked more like a tan bag of chestnuts than flesh.

“Well,” said Fedya, looking across the river at Stalingrad, “I’m awake now, I can tell you that.”

Yuri smiled at Tania. “And you, little tough one? Miss Sit-by-the-rail? You have a name?”

“Yes.” She wiped her hands on her trousers to clean off the bits of cheese. “Tania Alexeyevna Chernova.”

“And where are you from?”

Tania pursed her lips and hesitated. “New York.”

Yuri’s blue eyes popped wide. “New York, America?”

Fedya leaned over the cheese and bread. “New York City?”

“Yes,” she said in English.