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

When I leave, Thorvald thought, I won’t come back, even when it is Ostland. I don’t like this place, this gloom, this wind.

Standing before the statue, Thorvald stepped over the low marble wall onto the fountain floor. A gown of snow from the night before lay on the bottom, making the surface slippery. He slid up to the figure of the boy and ran his finger over the ebony left eye. A gray smudge came off on his finger. The copper jacket of the round had flattened upon impact with the harder iron. The muddy smear was a splash mark from the lead core. He checked the other eye and found the lead mark low on the cheek. The rifle is true enough, he thought.

Waiting at the top of the steps was the soldier he had requested that Ostarhild assign to him.

“Good morning, Corporal,” he said. “How did you sleep?”

“Sir?” The young man seemed taken aback by the question.

“Just an inquiry. Manners. Like ‘How’s the weather?’”

The corporal reached for Thorvald’s rifle.

“Yes, sir. I didn’t sleep that well. The lieutenant sent me out in the middle of the night to repair a phone line.”

“Was it close to the Russian lines?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you repair it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were you scared?”

The corporal shook his head and spit in the dirt. “I’m always scared, Colonel. You get that way here.”

Thorvald walked alongside him into the street, north toward the Russian lines.

“Why aren’t you carrying your rifle?”

“I figured today we were just going to look the front lines over, sir. If you want, I’ll go get it.”

Thorvald shook his head. “No. Don’t worry. We won’t get close enough to the Reds to get in any trouble. Let this Zaitsev work along the front lines with his balls in the mud. From the articles I read, he seems to be addicted to it. Besides,” he added, clapping the boy on the shoulder, “I don’t need to be so close to him as he needs to be to me.”

The two walked in silence through the ruins. The corporal seemed quite certain of where he was going and knew the best routes to get there. Thorvald marveled at the destruction of the city. This was devastation, absolute and complete. There was nothing left whole. The buildings were mangled, ripped apart. Who could fight in this? Who could hold out through this?

The Russian wind seemed to say to him, I can. Thorvald huddled into his coat.

He waved his white-gloved hand at the ruins. “Where do you think he is, Corporal?”

Mond spread a map of the city on the ground. The colonel knelt beside him.

“Look here, sir. We’ve split the Russian force into three parts.” Mond sketched with his finger three rings on the map.

“Here,” he said as he pointed into the first, northernmost circle, “in Rynok above the Tractor Factory, they’ve got a full division. South of there, in the Red October factory, we’ve fought right through the middle of them all the way to the Volga, isolating this force.” He jabbed the finger down into the Red October circle. “This small pocket deep in the shops is almost impossible to break.”

Mond looked up from the map. “I’ve seen the Russians take artillery pieces apart in there, drag them through the rubble to the front line, then put them back together and blow us to bits.”

The corporal laid his fingertip on the southeast corner of the Red October. He traced a line west from the building to the eastern slope of Mamayev Kurgan, the hill that commanded a view of the city. From there, he slid his hand south to encompass the Lazur chemical plant, the rail yards, and ten kilometers of riverfront to a point north of the main landing stage.

Thorvald looked up from the map into the top of Mond’s head. The corporal did not take his eyes from the map.

“Where is he, Corporal?”

“My guess is he’s in this southern pocket, the largest one.”

“Why do you think he’s there?”

“It’s just a guess, but it gives him the most room to move, the most targets. He could get trapped in one of these smaller pockets. And I don’t think they would want that. Besides, it’s mostly a stalemate right now in these smaller areas. Zaitsev has over a hundred and forty kills. I think he’d want to work where he can find the most game.”

“Game? Why do you say game?”

Mond shrugged as if to express how simple the logic was.

“He’s a hunter from Siberia. That’s how he thinks. He hunts. Sir, did you read the articles from In Our Country’s Defense?”

Thorvald nodded. “Yes, Corporal, some. Not all of them. I perused them. Let’s say I got the highlights.”

The corporal lowered his eyes.

Thorvald responded quickly. “I’ll read them all, I assure you. I was tired yesterday.”

“It’s all right. They’re mostly brag.”

“You say Zaitsev sees us as game. I take it you’ve read the articles. What kind of game are we to him?”

Mond studied the question, then answered. “Wolves. Siberian timber wolves. He thinks he’s got us figured out. The Germans do this, the Germans do that. He reads tactics and routines like tracks, like we’re animals.”

“Then,” Thorvald said, rising, “we will behave like Siberian timber wolves. We’ll be dangerous but conventional. We’ll let him think he has us figured out. And then we’ll spring a surprise on him.”

Thorvald smiled, liking what he was creating for the young corporal. After all, Zaitsev was right. The German sharpshooters were predictable. Thorvald knew it; he’d been the instructor for many of the snipers Zaitsev killed. He was certain they’d behaved like animals here in Stalingrad: dull and predictable. He’d seen it in their eyes while training them in Gnössen, the careless Aryan confidence of the Nazi youth, boys ruling the world before they’d fired the first shot. No respect for the enemy. No longer any respect for the power of fear. They’d fought in the streets with knuckles and beer bottles and considered those city squabbles to be their crucibles, their proof under fire. These young snipers entered the war already sure they were brave, convinced that the world waited to open before their courage like gates to a password. “Just show me how to do it” was all they seemed to want from him in training—”I’ll take care of the rest, old man.” They’d forgotten that fear, not the bullet or the bomb, is the most devastating weapon of war.

Hitler has taken fear away from the German people, Thorvald thought; that’s the Führer’s greatest power. He’s almost done that for me, almost freed me from it.

“And this Zaitsev,” he mused while Mond folded the map. “We’ll treat him like a duck. We’ll hide ourselves in a blind and then flush him into the open. We’ll make him fly from fright and then shoot him down in a burst of feathers.”

Thorvald looked at the corporal, who turned to walk north toward the Lazur plant and no-man’s-land.

“I’m certain we can make Zaitsev come to us.”

Mond nodded.

“The key,” he said, “is to let him know I’m here.”

The corporal’s face dropped. “How…” The boy hesitated. “How can we do that, Colonel?”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll think of something, you and I.”

TANIA LOOKED UP FROM HER JOURNAL AT THE SOUND OF metal clanging against the bunker. A tin mess plate clattered on the dirt floor. Sidorov, a young private with the sniper unit for only two weeks, had thrown the plate at Shaikin.

The two men’s voices swelled. She stared across the room at them, both standing, ready for blows.

Zaitsev and Kulikov jumped to the two antagonists. Chekov did not move.

Kulikov took Shaikin’s arm to pull him back. Zaitsev stepped between the two flushed faces.