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

Thorvald turned slowly, then moved his head in a quick jerk at Nikki. Nikki stood straighter under the gaze of the colonel.

“This man,” Thorvald said to the lieutenant without taking his eyes from Nikki, “is he brave?”

Ostarhild shrugged, as if to admit he did not know what to make of the question.

“Yes, Colonel. He is. Very brave. And not foolish.”

“Has he fought? Does he know the battlefield?”

Ostarhild raised his hand to Nikki. “Corporal, tell the colonel something of your experiences.”

“You tell me, Lieutenant,” Thorvald said, his voice even, dissecting. His look remained fixed on Nikki. “I don’t want to hear what he thinks of his own courage. I want to hear what you think. If he is a brave man, a brave man will not say so.”

Ostarhild spoke to the back of the colonel’s head. “Corporal Mond has fought through the worst of Stalingrad. And I can tell you, Colonel Thorvald, the worst of Stalingrad is the worst of hell.”

Thorvald’s stare at Nikki broke, a smile riving his face like a sudden crack in white ice.

“Good.” The colonel faced Ostarhild. “I would like him to be my guide and spotter.”

The lieutenant sat forward. “Colonel, as I said, I’ve arranged for one of our snipers to be your spotter. He knows the battlefield as well as this corporal and he has experience with the Russian snipers.”

“I don’t want anyone with experience against Russian snipers. I don’t want advice and tidbits. This Zaitsev has made a science of studying German snipers. I don’t want someone who’ll get me killed. I want someone who’ll do what I say. This corporal of yours knows the battlefield. He’s obviously a survivor. You say he’s a fighter. And I know he understands fear. I can see it in his eyes. He knows what it can do.”

Ostarhild shook his head. “Colonel, with all due respect, one of our snipers would be—”

Thorvald interrupted him. “Snipers are cowards. All of us are. We kill without fighting. Remember, Lieutenant, I taught your German snipers everything they know.”

The colonel rose. “Corporal, have you killed men?”

Nikki nodded.

Thorvald spoke to Ostarhild. “I have never killed a man. I’ve shot hundreds but I’ve never killed a man. I merely take away their lives. They fall down when I pull a trigger half a kilometer away. That’s all.” The colonel pointed at Nikki. “I can’t do what he can. I can’t fight. I only shoot. That makes me a coward. I know it. This man is no coward. He comes with me.”

Ostarhild stood also. “Yes, sir. Of course. Corporal, you will join the colonel at dawn. Go back to your quarters and get some rest. I’ll meet you here in the morning. Dismissed.”

Nikki saluted the two officers. He walked out the door into the dimming evening light. The snow had eased. He guessed it would stop within the hour.

Ostarhild’s offices were on the first floor of the remains of a department store, across the street from a park. North of the park was the central rail station and a tourist hotel. East of the store was a set of concrete steps that once had led through statues and fountains down to a river walk, then along the river to the main ferry landing. From the landing, pleasure boats had carried bathers out to the sandy beaches of the islands in the Volga. Shops, bakeries, kiosks, the local newspaper, a folklore museum, boat rentals, a political auditorium, an open-air market, a church—the shattered remains of all these lay around him like giant scattered skeletons while he walked to his quarters.

This city, he thought, has been stripped and smothered by a war so vast and powerful it can mow down a row of buildings like a scythe. Now this stomping, charging, consuming war is slowing down, shifting its focus to become personal. Now it’s one man, flown in all the way from Berlin, assigned to kill one man.

Will this war overlook nothing, Nikki wondered? Is it beginning to hunt for us now by name, one at a time?

NIKKI LAY ON HIS BEDROLL. HE’D MADE HIS QUARTERS in the basement of a bakery. Bread ovens and cooling racks stood against the walls. The strong flooring overhead had held through the bombings. Nikki knew he was lucky to have such a secure and private place to lay his head.

He spent several hours in front of a lantern with maps of the factory district and workers’ settlements spread on the floor. He rummaged through his knowledge of the front, searching for clues to where the Hare might be operating. It’s unlikely, he thought, that Zaitsev will stalk the northernmost of the plants, the Tractor Factory. We swept it of almost all resistance at the end of October. We own it, and it’ll never be worth what we paid for it. The middle factory, the Barricades, is finally tilting our way after weeks of fighting. But every step there in that monstrous web of steel and concrete is incredibly dangerous. Besides, there’s nothing but privates and corporals throwing their lives down like dice in the Barricades. Zaitsev likes bigger fish, the kind that make it into the Russian press: officers, artillery spotters, machine gunners. He likes drama. My guess is he’s working the Red October or the corridor between the Red October and the Lazur. Or the eastern slope of Mamayev Kurgan. The Russians are strongest in these areas. Zaitsev wouldn’t waste his skills or endanger himself in losing battles.

Nikki turned down the lamp. What did the colonel mean, that all snipers were cowards? Even the Russians? Was Zaitsev a coward? He thought back to some of his own battles, others he’d observed for Ostarhild. He recalled the Red soldier who’d been shot while holding a flaming bottle of antitank fluid. The soldier dropped the bottle and was engulfed in flames. Knowing he was as good as dead, the man picked up another bottle, ran through his agony at a panzer and smashed the liquid against the radiator to ignite the tank. Where were the Russian cowards? He hadn’t seen one. The cowards had all died first. There couldn’t be any left.

Lying in the dark, his eyes riveted open, Nikki stared into his memories. His mind soared like a hawk above the past two months. The houses. The factories. The green Volga. He listened to his heartbeat: it was the beat of mortar shells. His breathing rasped like the gasps of the dying. The dark cold and silence of the basement were the thumb of death pressing down on him. His senses swirled. He felt not only like he was falling but as if he’d been hurled downward.

He sat up. He had to skid it all to a halt; the parade of violent scenes and numbing explosions was overwhelming him. He tumbled in the heart of a fireworks display; the memories were so bright, popping and crackling on all sides.

Stop, he thought, stop it. Where is sleep?

NIKKI SAT UP IN THE DARKNESS TO THE SOUND OF footsteps from above. Ostarhild called out to alert Nikki that he was in the building. It was a precaution not for Nikki but for the officer.

He lit his lantern and carried it to the foot of the steps.

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant. Come in.”

Ostarhild walked down the steps. “I’m sorry to wake you, Nikki. I need you to take care of something for me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Early tonight, five battalions of the Three thirty-sixth Pioneers arrived. Paulus is going to make another big push at the Barricades. A telephone cable has been broken between my office and the rail yard south of the Lazur plant. I need this line open with the Three thirty-sixth while they get into place.”

Nikki nodded.

“I’ve already sent one man out to fix it, but he disappeared. I’ve no idea what happened to him. He was a freshman private, so anything could’ve gone wrong. I thought I could let you rest, but now I’ve got to bother you.”