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

“I didn’t hear you shoot, Colonel,” he called into the hole. “Did you?”

“Yes.” The canned voice sounded tired.

“One-two, Colonel?”

“One-two.”

Nikki waited, then asked, “Was it Zaitsev?”

Thorvald blew out a breath. Nikki imagined the colonel rolling over now to nap in the warmth of the blankets and the afternoon heat radiating from the metal sheet, like a bear that has eaten its fill.

“We’ll find out tomorrow.”

FIRST LIGHT WAS AN HOUR AWAY. NIKKI SAT BESIDE Thorvald, their backs against the stone wall. The colonel rested before his crawl down the shallow trench into his shooting cell.

Nikki’s anticipation ran high on this fourth morning at Ninth of January Square. He agreed with Thorvald that the Russian snipers of the previous day had most likely been only some of Zaitsev’s recruits. The Red master sniper himself was probably not among them. The ruse of carrying the helmet had been too basic, too poorly executed to be the work of the Headmaster. Had Zaitsev, the keen man of the forest, been the one watching, he wouldn’t have taken the bait. Surely he would have recognized the feint as the work of an ordinary German marksman and would not have gone on the attack the way those two Red snipers did. Zaitsev’s goal was Thorvald, no one else. The Hare would not have given up his position for any lesser prey. But if the Ivan snipers across the park had been just a hunting party, perhaps scouting on Zaitsev’s behalf, they would have been more likely to engage any target that presented itself, especially a German sniper heartless enough to fire on wounded and medical staff.

Today and tomorrow will tell. If Zaitsev is dead, there’ll be no response. The Reds won’t send any more pupils after Thorvald. He’s shown them several times over that such an act is suicide. If there’s more Red sniper activity across the park this morning or tomorrow, it’ll be Zaitsev.

At last, it will be Zaitsev.

Thorvald had rested enough. He gathered up the pack containing his thermos and the sandwiches made from his remaining cheeses and meats. He had enough to keep them in lunches for four more days. That, the colonel supposed, should be ample.

Thorvald took up the captured Moisin-Nagant. He grimaced, turning to crawl into the cell. Nikki wondered, Where does he get the patience to watch and wait all day? Look at him. He’s flabby and delicate. Where does the will come from to be this supersniper, the most dangerous marksman in the Third Reich? If there were such a powerful force inside him, wouldn’t it be on his outside as well, in his muscles, in his flesh?

But it is, it is, Nikki; he could hear the colonel’s voice explaining it to him. It’s in my eyes and in my hands, you’ve seen it. Sometimes in my voice. I put it in my bullets. The will is in the flash of powder, it flies inside the lead and copper jacket. I become the German supersniper when I grip my rifle.

“Stay on your toes today,” the colonel said. Thorvald was up on his knees. “Don’t move until I give you instructions. I think we might snare ourselves a rabbit before the day is out.”

The colonel crawled on his belly behind the wall and under the metal sheet. He pushed his pack and rifle in front of him through the light snow that had fallen in the night.

Nikki sat bundled in a blanket. The dawn smelled crisp. The wet, heavy weather that had lain over Stalingrad like a damp sponge for the past week had sailed through the night before; this day was going to be clear, with little wind.

The last star of the waning eve winked low on the eastern horizon above the Volga. The star fought with the rose and purple hues of the climbing sun for its last glowing moments. Sound and sight will carry a long way today, Nikki mused. It’ll be a good day for hunting.

NIKKI WOKE TO THE SUN FULL IN HIS FACE. HE RAISED his chin to warm his neck. He pulled back his white camouflage hood and took off his helmet. The sun was not high enough to warm the top of his head, but the absence of wind gave the chill a pleasant touch. He thought back to the dry cold and powdery snows covering his father’s fields in Westphalia, how the cattle and sheep stood still in the middle of the great white open spaces after a snow, stupidly wondering where their earth had gone. He thought about his sister, how on those coldest days she made lunches of ham and cabbage for him and his father when they came in kicking snow and dung off their boots. They’d sit in the kitchen beneath the brown photo of his mother, dead many years, as many years as Nikki was old. She would have made you a good mother, his father always said, and Nikki would smile at his sister across the table, the sister who mothered him.

It was never so cold at home, never so deep in the bones as the cold you felt in a foreign country, at war, waiting to die, to kill, to survive, waiting.

He took off a mitten and reached for his two sandwiches. He unwrapped one of them and ate it. He should have saved the food for when he grew hungrier later in the day. But uncertainty made him eat it now, when he wanted it.

Nikki sat in the cemetery silence of the wall, the rare blue sky and the hard wreckage strewn all around. For a while he did not think about Thorvald, curled up fat and white on the ground like a grub. Nikki looked up to the height of Mamayev Kurgan, at the railroad tracks running behind the alleys, everything charred and broken, so clear today. He imagined himself the only man alive in Stalingrad. What would he do if that were so? Build himself a home from the pieces? Rise to his feet and walk away… to where? No, he would sit right here in the sun. He’d eat his last sandwich. Maybe he’d go into the grub’s nest and eat his sandwiches, too.

Nikki sat through the afternoon. He couldn’t move away from his spot near the break in the wall, for Thorvald might at any moment need him. He stretched, rolled onto his stomach, and pulled the blanket over him. He wanted to hum or sing to himself but would not. He wondered, Does the colonel believe in God? Does he ask God for strength? Or is he like me, a believer only when he needs God, when he’s in trouble? God, get me out of this. Please, God, I believe, I always believe, even when you don’t hear from me. Get me home safely and I’ll believe harder, I promise.

In the late afternoon the sun splashed long shadows across the park, lowering itself to shine over Thorvald’s hidden shoulder in his hutch. Nikki ate his last sandwich after playing a game with himself to see how great a hunger he could accumulate. He’d passed the hours watching the hunger grow. The pang in his stomach helped keep him alert.

Thorvald’s voice. “Nikki. Are you there?”

Nikki, so long bored, had to think of an answer.

“Nikki?”

“Yes, Colonel, I’m here.”

“It’s time to see if we have any company.”

Nikki held his breath.

“Did you see anything, Colonel?”

“Perhaps. I’m not sure, but I might’ve just caught a flash in the same spot where the two snipers were yesterday.”

“Is it the Hare?”

Thorvald’s stunted, buzzing voice carried a grin. “Well, it’s where I believe Zaitsev would be.”

Yes, Nikki thought, it is. Zaitsev, the newspaper hero. He would come to the same spot where his friends had died. His sense of revenge would bend toward the dramatic. The Hare doesn’t know Thorvald, but the colonel knows him. He’s been watching that same spot all day, waiting for the sun to drop just so, to create just such a reflection.

“Put your helmet on the shovel handle again. Move fifty meters to the left, then hoist it and walk to the right.”

Nikki scrambled for the shovel. Behind him, he heard Thorvald speak, or sing, to himself in his nook.