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

Nikki shook his head. No, the factories were no place for the colonel.

We’ll stalk the lines heading south. The Lazur chemical plant is a strong Russian outpost, behind a giant no-man’s-land of rail tracks. Also, the corridor to the Volga between the Red October and the Lazur has plenty of traffic. A third focus could be downtown in the five kilometers between Tsaritsa Gorge and Krutoy Gully. The gorge is like the spotter’s hill, pregnant with crevices and bunkers, full of snipers and targets. Downtown, the Reds are crawling through the decrepit buildings, clinging desperately to the slopes of the riverbank, in some places within fifty meters of the Volga. The hunting will be good in any of these areas where the fighting has been reduced to waiting.

We’ll draw Zaitsev out, just as the colonel said. We’ll leave a trail for him to follow; then, when we’re sure he’s behind us, we’ll stop hard, turn around, and catch him right between the eyes.

Nikki thought about what he’d seen Thorvald do on the spotter’s hill, the way he’d fired his sniper rifle almost like an automatic weapon. Thorvald scared him, not because he was dangerous to Nikki but because he was too powerful to be left uncontrolled. He was like a machine that needed a strong hand on the wheel. Without a tight grip, the machine would fly into wildness. Thorvald will shoot a thousand men with those eyes and hands of his. In the process he’ll get us both killed. It’s hard to believe, but Thorvald seems inexperienced. He lacks patience and battle wisdom. How did he become a colonel in the SS? Connections? Obviously. No, I’ve got to contain him, manage him into this duel with Zaitsev.

Duel.

I can’t even tell him this is a duel, that I made it one when I shouted out to the Russians his presence in Stalingrad.

Nikki stopped in the trench and turned to the colonel strolling behind him.

“Colonel, sir, could we talk for a minute?”

Thorvald held out his hands for his pack. Nikki slid it off his shoulder. The sniper laid it on the ground and sat on it.

“Yes, Nikki?”

Nikki squatted on his heels. “No disrespect, sir, but I’ve been noticing something.”

Thorvald waited. Nikki felt his eyes on him, like hands. He imagined for an instant that Thorvald was staring down a scope at him. It set off prickles under his skin.

“Colonel, I don’t know anything about being a sniper. But I’ve learned my share about staying alive on a battlefield. We can be a better team, sir, if you let me in on some decisions about when and where to shoot. I think if we don’t work together, we’re going to get killed out here. Sir.”

Thorvald rubbed his hands together.

“You didn’t like me shooting at the dummy.”

“It wasn’t that. Neither of us knows enough about what the other is going to do. I know I need to learn more about being a sniper, and you need to know—”

Nikki pulled up, afraid he’d chased his tongue over a cliff.

Thorvald cleared his throat. “It’s all right, Nikki. I need to know more about being a soldier. Too right. Well, I suppose we are a team. Without you, we both know I’d get lost in a minute and wander right into Moscow. And without me, you’d… hmmm.” Thorvald rubbed his chin. “Well, I suppose without me you’d be all right, wouldn’t you?”

Nikki grinned. “No more so than anyone else in Stalingrad.”

The colonel clapped once. “I’ll tell you what. When we’re done with this Zaitsev, I’ll see what I can do about keeping the team together and taking you back to Berlin as my assistant. We’ll get you out of Stalingrad. There. How’s that for a deal?” Thorvald spread his palms like a magician who’d just made something unlikely appear. “Now you have to keep me alive.”

Nikki breathed deeply. This was fantastic! It was better than he could have hoped for. He reached out to bind Thorvald to his word with a handshake.

Zaitsev was now Nikki’s prey, too. He was Nikki’s wings back to Westphalia. He thought of Thorvald’s immense abilities in his own hands. We can do this. We can get him. And we can go home.

“Where do we start?” Thorvald asked.

Nikki cooled his excitement and thought about the translations of the several articles he’d read in In Our Country’s Defense, the ones he was certain Thorvald hadn’t read very carefully. Zaitsev isn’t like Thorvald. The Hare will wait, he’ll work, even suffer to let loose that one bullet for his one mark. He’s a prideful man, living the legend as it happens to him, a day at a time. He’ll never be unfaithful to the legend. He’ll die according to it before he defiles it.

It’s funny. Zaitsev is the man and we’re the wolf, just like the colonel said. The man is limited by his humanity, his rules of engagement. Zaitsev’s burden is to be a hero, an example for the Communists and his army, even his entire people. But the colonel and I don’t carry that burden. We’re the invaders; this isn’t our land, so we can ravage it. These are not our people, so we can destroy them. We’re not heroes, so we can act with purpose. We’re free from the blinding glitter of humanity.

Nikki knew this about himself: Since his first moments in Stalingrad, he’d killed only to stay alive. Not once had he used a weapon in revenge or battle passion. He killed those who threatened him and his unit in their missions, none others. And though there has surely been enough killing in Stalingrad to fill ledgers and history books, he thought, there can be a few more deaths at my hand. And though it won’t be my finger on the trigger, it will be me who kills Zaitsev.

So let’s begin. Let’s do some killing, Colonel. Just enough to be worthy of Zaitsev. It’ll make him come at us hard and fast. He’ll have every one of his hares out looking for you, Colonel. I know this, though I can’t tell you. It doesn’t matter. The Hare will run to wherever they report death that looks like the work of the master sniper from Berlin. We’ll be there waiting.

Nikki considered the corridor between the Red October and the Lazur. He’d watched and made notes for Ostarhild while Russian sniper activity had trebled there in the past few weeks. “Let’s go north,” he said.

“All right. Why?” Thorvald picked up his pack. He tossed it to Nikki and handed him his rifle. Not everything changes just for asking, Nikki observed.

“Zaitsev won’t notice if we shoot a dozen machine gunners or soldiers. Even a few officers won’t make him sit up fast enough.”

Nikki shouldered the rifle. He turned to lead Thorvald down the slope. “But if we take on some of his hares, he’ll get the message. And I know where we can find them.”

THREE HOURS LATER, NIKKI AND THORVALD SAT IN THE basement of a gutted building, the headquarters bunker of Captain Manhardt of the Seventy-sixth Infantry. Manhardt slouched on a stool, speaking to Thorvald.

Nikki squirmed in his chair. The white camouflage parka and drawstring pants the colonel had secured for him that afternoon made him sweat. Thorvald had laughed when Nikki put on the outfit fresh out of a box, pointing at the crease marks: “You’ll blend in well as long as the snow is neatly folded.”

Captain Manhardt scratched under his arm absentmindedly. He fidgeted while he spoke. Twice he interrupted his descriptions of how his men were being butchered in the Tractor Factory and in the corridor to murmur, “Fucking lice.”

He answered Thorvald’s questions. “Seven dead. Maybe more, I can’t be sure.” The man’s misery was palpable, as if he were just trying to finish the interview and be done with these two white-clad meddlers so he could scream alone in his basement.

“Stupid bastards.” The captain laid his tongue behind his lower lip, swelling it like he’d been punched there. After a sad moment, he continued: “They hear a noise in the rubble. A rattling sound, like someone kicking a can. Then some stupid bastard looks up over the trench and gets a bullet for it. It’s been going on since dawn, up and down the railroad mound. I’ve been out there. I’ve told them, goddammit, this is obviously sniper shit! They’re throwing those cans from somewhere or making that noise I don’t know how. I’ve told them, I’ve ordered them! Don’t look up when you hear that! But what can they do? They’ve got to look. They know the Reds. The Ivans’ll do this for a day, two days, and they’ll get the men to where they won’t look over the trench for anything. The men will just sit there, blind, afraid to move, afraid not to move. Then at dawn, the Reds’ll sneak through the heap and jump down my boys’ throats because they wouldn’t look up.”