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

Fourteen rifle bolts rammed new cartridges into their chambers. This time, when the shots rang out at Zaitsev’s command, Tania heard the ping, ping of many of her squad bouncing rounds off the Nazi tank below.

“Good!” Zaitsev called out. “Good shooting, hares! Let the Nazi bastards in those buildings out there hear you.”

Tania set her scope to 425 meters, adding the one eighth required for shooting downhill. She allowed for windage by granting the right-left wind a millimeter. She waited in the midst of the rifle shots around her. Zaitsev gave her the word. She pulled the trigger evenly. The rifle punched into her sore shoulder.

Ping.

AFTER AN HOUR AT THE SHOOTING GALLERY, THE BEARS walked through the rubble behind them. Zaitsev called the hares away from the windows, telling them to sit and watch quietly.

Like Zaitsev before him, Sergeant Medvedev lectured his group on the advantages of keeping the sun at their backs when setting up a shot. The big Bear called their attention to the tank on no-man’s-land. He explained its significance, then moved carefully to the window sill. In seconds, he lined up his sniper rifle and clanged a bullet off the iron cross.

The hares snickered amongst themselves without rebuke from Zaitsev while one by one the bears missed the target. Medvedev grimaced at them, but it served only to dampen their chuckles, not stop them.

After the dropped-bullet demonstration and the lesson on aiming, the bears began finding the target. The metal-on-metal sound of striking bullets rang in the rail yard below.

Once Medvedev was satisfied with the bears’ marksmanship, he called them away from the windows.

“Come sit beside your comrades, the laughing bunnies.”

Fedya lowered his large frame beside Tania. He crossed his legs and laid his rifle across his lap.

Zaitsev knelt at the front of the assembled trainees.

“This is the end of the second day of your sniper training. Now you know just about everything Master Sergeant Medvedev and I can teach you. You can only add to your knowledge by what you teach yourselves on the battlefield. Practice often, until the windage and distance rules become second nature. And don’t forget: learn not only from yourself but from your enemy. I’ll spare you any more wisdom. I know you’re anxious to use your new rifles on the Nazis. Tomorrow each of you will take part in your first mission as a sniper.”

Fedya whispered to Tania, “Not me. It’ll be my second.”

Medvedev joined Zaitsev at the front of the trainees. He looked to be the essence of the Russian fighter, big, dark, determined. Beside him, Zaitsev seemed small and light, yet like an engine, burning from the inside. They were day and night, these two. But Tania understood their reputations; they might well be the most lethal pair in all the Red Army.

Medvedev began. “Tonight, Sokolov’s Forty-fifth Infantry is crossing the Volga. At least two battalions will be here by dawn. They’ve been given orders to keep the enemy away from the river between the Barricades and Red October plants. German machine gunners have moved to within five hundred meters of the Volga. That places our last ferry landing directly under fire. If we don’t secure this area, the Nazi infantry will follow behind the machine guns and we’ll lose another portion of the riverfront. Tonight you’ll move to positions on the southern side of this corridor to shield the flanks of the Forty-fifth while they get into place in the morning. Chief Master Sergeant Zaitsev and I will come get you at midnight to take you to your positions. For now, you’re dismissed. Go back to your quarters or go down to the shop and take some more practice shots. And get some rest.”

Both groups rose and shouldered their rifles. Fedya stood tall next to Tania. Zaitsev and Medvedev left, wending their way into the rubble. The hares and the bears followed.

Tania said to Fedya, “Stay here.”

He sat while Tania joined the group heading for the stairs. After walking in the rear of the line for a minute, she doubled back. She found him seated at the foot of a window, looking over the rail yard through his scope.

Tania sat next to him. She brought up her own rifle and surveyed the field with him.

“Do you see the railman’s shed?” he asked. “It looks so close through the scope. I can almost see the curtains you were going to put up for me.”

Tania moved her reticle across the shed’s roof. It did not seem close to her. It looked and felt far away.

“Fedushka.” She lowered her rifle. He continued to scan the battlefield. The rifle looks good in his big palms, she thought. He holds it well.

She laid her hand on his shoulder. He lowered the scope.

“Fedushka. Tomorrow morning we go into battle. It starts for us.” She added softly, “Let’s say our goodbyes now.”

He set his rifle down. His gaze went into his hands.

“Please,” she said. “Please, I can’t carry anything more. Don’t add to my weight.” She took his hands in her own. “Another time, Fyodor Ivanovich. Maybe another world.” She smiled. “Say goodbye to me.”

Tania rose and stepped back from the open window to face no-man’s-land; beyond it lay the horribly scarred city, the enemy running through its veins. She put her hands on the sides of his head and kissed him on the forehead. She rubbed his hair.

“Tania,” he said quietly, “I can’t.”

“You will, Fedya. Whether you can or not doesn’t matter. You will. Do it now.”

She slid her fingers down his neck onto his shoulders and pushed away. She left him sitting at the window looking at the dusk dripping over the ruins.

Tania walked away several paces, then turned back to look at his strong, broad outline. His rifle lay at his side. Again, she thought of a stylized image of the Russian soldier, the Red Ivan, defender of the rodina. Fedya’s sad vigil was a snapshot of it, a portrait in the dying light framed by the window.

It’s good, she thought. It’s proper that the poet from Moscow sits and stares. Keep your eyes and heart open, Fedushka. We will all need your ppems when this war is over.

KOSTIKEV WOKE TANIA IN THE HARES’ QUARTERS. HIS wound was dressed and he brandished a newer, wider smile to set off his golden teeth. After fifteen minutes and a cup of tea from the samovar, Zaitsev appeared in the doorway.

He brushed back the blanket. “Snipers, ready?”

Zaitsev led the soldiers out into the night wind. Tania hunkered into her parka while they hurried through the network of trenches. She wrapped her hair up under a black watch cap. At the edge of no-man’s-land, Zaitsev did not take them across the rail yard. He turned east toward the Volga.

Walking along the cliffs overlooking the dark water, Tania spotted the outlines of a flotilla disgorging a thousand men onto the threatened landing stage behind the Red October plant. These were the first companies of Sokolov’s division. The sky was quiet; no artillery or darting Luftwaffe planes broke the peace beneath the shrouded moon and the snapping, buzzing breeze.

The hares arrived at a wide avenue between the Red October and Barricades plants. On the south side of the street, Zaitsev deposited his snipers in twos and threes into the tallest buildings. His instructions were to go as high as they could to watch north across the avenue. Nazi activity was expected to build in the wreckage and alleys after word of the Forty-fifth’s arrival spread to German headquarters. The trainees were only to monitor Nazi traffic. They were not to fire unless given the order directly from Zaitsev or Medvedev. The order would come in the form of two red flares from the western end of the street.