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

Zaitsev held her. His arms were wings, freeing her from the ice, flying her high into the cloudburst, into the wind blowing through the ruins of the city beneath her, soaking in her rain.

BLOOD HAD SEEPED THROUGH THE THIN LINEN COVERING the body, blotting into a rosette above the head. Damn it, thought Zaitsev, with the number of blankets they’re airlifting to us over the Volga, couldn’t they spare just one thick one to lay over Morozov?

Konstantin Danyelovich Morozov had been one of Viktor’s bears and a friend of Zaitsev’s in the 284th, a fellow Siberian. Now he was a large corpse, shot through the cheek beneath the right eye, the back of his head split open. The bullet that killed him had bounced off his telescopic sight, smashing it.

Zaitsev stepped away as two men lifted Morozov’s stretcher onto the back of a sled. They would pull it to the caves at the water’s edge, the storage area for the dead, to await evacuation and burial once the river froze.

After the Volga turns solid, he thought, we’ll see these bodies link into a stream of sleds, like black ants teeming away from a picnic, thousands without end. Bodies going, blankets and vodka returning. But still no ammunition. No reinforcements.

That’s a sure signal that something is up. The Germans have hurled as many as ten divisions at us since August. We’ve countered with less than five divisions of reinforcements. My snipers haven’t had a full complement of bullets to work with in the entire month of November. Even Atai Chebibulin has been frustrated in his efforts to find extra ammo.

The generals and politrooks keep telling us to hold out. Hold out for what? We’ve been given the job of drawing as many Nazis into the city as possible and then keeping them here. We could wipe them out of Stalingrad right now with enough men and ammo on our side. The Nazis are shivering, hopeless. The force has gone out of them. They’re not soldiers any longer, just the limp, molted skins of former fighting men. But Stalin and his generals are holding back their thrust, hoarding our ammo, keeping us in check. It means they’re building up to strike back. They must be. They haven’t forgotten us.

Something is coming. And it’s coming soon.

Thorvald knows it, too. He must. He’s a colonel. He’s not like me, a dirty little sergeant getting his information through the grapevine or out of sterilized articles written by the likes of Danilov. He’s been flown in to kill me, just me. He goes home when he’s done it. He’ll want to do it soon.

Zaitsev looked across the frosty crust forming at the river’s edge. He’d seen many frozen rivers in Siberia. He knew this ice wouldn’t be thick enough for trucks and horse-drawn carts until mid-December.

And Morozov, also a Siberian; Zaitsev shook his head. Morozov would see no more rivers, nor sky nor life.

Zaitsev turned away. Another friend. Another hero carted off on a sled like baggage, one more memory to safeguard and avenge.

Morozov.

This has Thorvald’s smell. Thorvald is talking to me. He’s writing messages, drawing a map of where to meet him, scribbling in the blood of Baugderis, Kulikov, Morozov.

And Shaikin.

Ilya Shaikin had been shot through the neck while spotting for Morozov in sector fifteen on the southern rim of the city center. The sector ran along the front line below the. Lazur in the afternoon shadow of Mamayev Kurgan. In this thin slice of downtown, Red soldiers were burrowed inside several formidable and well-placed buildings. These had become impregnable strongholds, with wave after wave of Germans crashing against them only to be repulsed by withering Russian counterfire. These fortresses were so steadfastly defended that they’d become landmarks on Red Army maps. In most instances they carried their former names, such as the House of Specialists, the state bank, and the beer hall. But in a few cases the previous stature of a building had been superseded by a new identity, arising out of the remarkable adventures of its Russian defenders. Such were the L-Shaped House and the Old Mill, whose names evoked murmurs of awe for the fighting prowess of their guardians. The most famous of all the strongholds was Pavlov’s House. The badly damaged apartment building had been unofficially renamed for the indomitable Russian sergeant Jacob Pavlov, who with twenty men had occupied the ruin on Solechnaya Street on the front line since September 29. Pavlov continued to deny the Nazis access to the Volga, which was only two hundred meters behind him. He’d held so long in place that the commanders had taken to calling him “the House-owner.”

In the past three days, Zaitsev and Viktor had received reports of renewed German sniper activity south of Mamayev Kurgan, near the city center. Medical units had come under fire while evacuating the wounded in the alleys and streets in the area around Pavlov’s House. Two officers and a private had been shot through their hearts. One nurse had been killed by a bullet under her chin, another wounded by a bullet through the neck.

It made sense to Zaitsev that Thorvald would avoid the factories: the sheer numbers of dead there would obscure his handiwork. It would hide his scent, the scat of slaughter, which he trusted would draw his quarry, the Hare, to him.

That dawn, Shaikin had volunteered with Morozov to scout the reports of German snipers in sector fifteen. “You can’t be everywhere at once, Vasha,” Shaikin had said at the end of the meeting in the snipers’ bunker. “Just in case it’s our Headmaster shooting up the place. I’ll go have a talk with the wounded nurse. Then Morozov and I will take a look.

“Oh, by the way,” Shaikin said, readying to leave, lifting the blanket in the doorway, “I’m sorry about yesterday afternoon. Chekov and Tania talked me into it. She should never have been in that cellar. You were a good fellow about it.”

“Why should you be sorry, Ilyushka? Why would it matter to me if Tania was there?”

“Vasha,” his friend said with a smile, “let me use Chekov’s words, his exact words, when he told me. He said, ‘Comrade Zaitsev is a very silent sniper, you know. But he’s quite a loud loverboy.’”

Shaikin’s last laugh was muted behind the dropping blanket.

Now Shaikin lies in a field hospital for evacuation. Tania had run to tell him about it in the afternoon. “Vasha! Morozov is dead, a bullet to the brain. Shaikin has been shot through the throat. Shaikin dragged Morozov’s body out of their trench to where an artillery spotter saw them and sent help. Morozov’s body is at the Lazur. Shaikin is in the hospital in sector thirteen in critical condition. They said he had his hand clamped over his neck, Vasha, to keep the blood in.”

“ILYUSHKA.”

Shaikin opened his eyes, the begging eyes of a maimed animal.

Shaikin gasped, “Vashinka.” The name was almost lost in the gush of air from the wounded man’s mouth, as though he had to fully empty his lungs to push the word through the gauntlet of pain in his throat.

Zaitsev looked down on his friend. Shaikin was sunken into a stretcher propped on bricks. His neck was wrapped in clean gauze. His hand was crusted red between the fingers from his own blood.

Shaikin clenched his eyes. Inhaling, his mouth remained open in a suffering circle, a small dark well. Zaitsev was stricken by the gurgling deep in his friend’s throat.

“Don’t talk, Ilya.” He put his hand on Shaikin’s bloody fist. “Nod your head. Was it Thorvald?”

Shaikin squeezed Zaitsev’s fingers. His eyes opened. His head shuddered up and down. Yes.

“You talked to the wounded nurse? Was it him, too?”

Shaikin winced. It seemed not from pain but from a thought.