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

“Hmmm. Well, no surprise there. I suppose we’ll have to be good instead of lucky, eh, Nikki?”

Thorvald pointed at the Moisin-Nagant. He’d seen plenty of them at Gnössen, had taught on them. They were good rifles, dependable in rough conditions if a little slow.

“If there were two dead,” he asked, pointing at the Moisin-Nagant, “why only one rifle?”

Thorvald handed his Mauser to Nikki in exchange for the Moisin-Nagant. The Russian weapon was heavier. It felt awkward, crude, like a plow horse, he thought. But plow horses, the Russians understand, don’t break down.

“Well, Corporal,” he prodded, “where’s the other rifle?”

“The other rifle,” Nikki said, his face distant, perhaps back in the trench seeing something again, “was no good. I left it.”

“That’s fine. No need carrying damaged guns across that rail yard. You know, and I did mention it before you left, I thought something might be wrong with one of those Russian rifles.”

Thorvald busied himself looking through the Moisin-Nagant’s 4X sight. He turned his profile to Nikki and swung the rifle up and down—Mark! Pull! No, no good for traps, too head-heavy.

“What, in fact, was wrong with it, Nikki?”

Nikki paused. Thorvald concentrated into the Russian scope and waited for an answer in the confident way a man waits for a ball to drop when he has tossed it up.

Nikki shuffled his feet in the dirt.

“Nobody’s that good, Colonel.”

Without looking, Thorvald knew Nikki was staring at him. The young corporal was hooked to him now like a fish on a lure, to what he’d seen in the trench.

Thorvald swung the Russian rifle up, then down again. Clumsy. But reliable, deadly. I can hit with this, oh, yes.

“Indulge me, Corporal. Tell me about the other rifle.”

“The other rifle had been shot through the scope.”

Thorvald lowered the Moisin-Nagant. He grinned. “Really?”

Nikki slung the Mauser’s strap over his shoulder. He reached out to take the Russian rifle from Thorvald.

“Quite a shot, Colonel.”

Thorvald slid on his white mittens and walked behind Nikki down the steps into the street. Soldiers scattered urgently in all directions.

“Not really a shot,” Thorvald said into the air. “More of a calling card, actually.”

Thorvald didn’t care where he was going; he knew Nikki would guide him well. He’d been right to choose this boy over one of Ostarhild’s snipers. The young corporal knew the battlefield. Even though Thorvald had done the actual shooting, Nikki had brought him to this morning’s targets and thrown the rock that had sealed the Red snipers’ fates. The young corporal had crawled out at his command to retrieve the Russian rifle, to ascertain if Zaitsev had been a victim, and to verify his “calling card.”

Good, he thought. It’s all working well. Nikki needed to see what I can do.

THEY TRAVELED FIVE KILOMETERS WEST TOWARD THE rear, where the rush of men and machinery slowed. The battle sounds receded, and the thumps from mortars and tanks grew muffled in the maze of streets and alleys. A motorcycle messenger shot past them toward the tumult. Even the rasping spit of the speeding bike faded quickly into the blackened stones and brick piles around them. The decimated city seemed to swallow sound, light, life.

Thorvald stopped and sat on his pack. He called Nikki to sit also. He wanted to talk.

Thorvald glanced at the ruins. Over their tops, the sounds and smoke of the German offensive rose like newly released spirits into the sky. The city rumbled, the two armies clawed at each other.

“Look around, Nikki.” He swept his arm over the smorgasbord of destruction. “Look at all this. Tens of thousands of men, all headed in one direction. And you and me, we’re off on our own, just the two of us. We’re fighting a different war.”

The pounding of mortar shells amplified his point. “We’re not using the same weapons as the rest of them. We’re not knocking everything down, trying to root out every Russian we can find. We’re working alone, on our own private seek-and-destroy mission. We’re not looking for Red divisions with bombs and tanks and ten battalions. We’re looking for just one man with these.”

He jabbed his finger at the Russian and German sniper rifles Nikki had laid down.

“How do we do it? How do we find one quiet man in all this noise? It’s got me confused and, I’ll be honest, a bit worried.”

Thorvald looked at the wreckage surrounding them. Concrete ghosts, he thought, carcasses of debris everywhere you look, Zaitsev could be anywhere, in any of those windows, cellars, trenches, gullies, gorges, ruins, tunnels. And the next day, the next hour, he could be someplace else. He could even be lying dead from another soldier’s bullet or from a stray piece of shrapnel. And I’ll be handcuffed here searching for a dead man, or at best a moving, hidden target who doesn’t even know I’m looking for him.

What am I doing? I can’t keep this up, I can’t keep following this boy around Stalingrad, shooting at whatever he points out for me. I can’t spend my every waking hour engaging Russian snipers in every quadrant of this infernal city, sending Nikki out two or three times a day to see if I’ve managed to put a hole in that bastard Zaitsev. No, this is an absurd and fatal plan. This is me, alone with a bold, bloody teenager trying to find one pinprick of a man in an endlessly hellish haystack. And Nikki wants me to engage every Red sniper we can find like a trick sharpshooter in a traveling sideshow, just to catch Zaitsev’s attention. At this rate, I’ll probably draw a bullet long before I can deliver one to the Hare.

“Nikki,” he said at last, pleased suddenly by the feeling of being conclusive, “we don’t have time anymore to parade all over Stalingrad looking for Zaitsev. Even though we’ve just started, we have to change our plan. I wasn’t sent out here to clean the city of snipers. Just one man. That’s all we need to get us both a ride home.”

Nikki’s head hung. He fingered bits of gravel.

Thorvald continued. “Let’s figure out a better way to let Zaitsev know I’m here. He won’t be able to stand it. The legend, the hero, he’ll come charging right at us like a mad bull. What do you think?”

Nikki made a fist around a stone and stared into the dirt.

Thorvald repeated, “What do you think?”

Nikki looked up.

“It’s already done.”

Thorvald laughed. What was the boy talking about? What’s done? Zaitsev couldn’t know I’m looking for him. He’s not so powerful a hunter as to be clairvoyant.

Thorvald tossed a pebble over his right shoulder. It was a prayer for good luck learned beside the ponds of his childhood. Their waters shone behind the green estates of his kin, far away. “What? That fancy shot through the scope? I’d have to make that shot ten more times before Zaitsev would even notice. He’ll think it was an accident.”

“Not that shot, Colonel. Zaitsev knows you’re here. He’s known for a couple of days.”

The words pulled Thorvald upright. He touched his fingertips together.

Nikki looked down again. He spoke into the ground.

“I told them.”

Thorvald blinked. “You… you what? You told whom?”

“The Russians.”

Zaitsev knows I’m here? Thorvald’s senses rang with alarms. This boy told Zaitsev I’m here? How could he have done that? How could he have spoken with Zaitsev? What is this corporal, a Red agent? A spy, a traitor? Thorvald’s thoughts raced, their brakes yanked off suddenly by Nikki’s admission. Why is he telling me this? He looked at Nikki’s feet, the two rifles lying there, both loaded. They were the only weapons within reach except for the knife on Nikki’s hip.