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

“Shit!” Danilov shook when he said the word. He brought his eyes up to Zaitsev kneeling beside him.

Zaitsev laid his hand on the commissar’s good shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’ll live.” He paused. “I’ve never been shot before. It hurts.”

“So I hear. We’ll have to get you back now.”

“I’d love to stay, but I think I’m bleeding.”

Zaitsev smiled. Danilov blinked and parted his lips in an unsure, weakening smile.

Danilov made as if to lie back. Zaitsev put his hands under the commissar’s neck and back to lower him. Danilov sighed.

“Thank you, Comrade Hare.”

Zaitsev leaned his face close. “What did you see? Where were you looking.”

“I was looking at the wall, as you told me.” Danilov’s voice carried a quiver of displeasure, as if the question implied he could have been looking elsewhere, not properly following Zaitsev’s instructions.

“Yes, of course.” Zaitsev eased his tone. “What did you see? You said you saw him.”

“Yes, I did.” Danilov held up his left hand for Zaitsev to pull him to a sitting position. The politrook spit once in the dirt. It was in anger, though it seemed one good spit was all he could muster.

“I saw the bastard’s helmet,” he said. Spittle, veined with crimson, dangled from the commissar’s chin, hanging unwiped and sad. “He was walking along the wall. That’s what I saw.”

Zaitsev was not surprised. Of course. The Headmaster, the Head Gamesman. Still the freshman bit, is it? Still trying to make me mad enough to jump. His game worked, but he bagged an unintended prey.

Zaitsev looked to Kulikov. “Nikolay, did you see anything? A muzzle flash, a reflection?”

Kulikov shook his head. “Nothing.”

Nor had Zaitsev seen anything. Thorvald had made the first move, just as he’d warned Danilov. And Zaitsev had gotten nothing to show for it but a wounded bulldog commissar.

“Commissar, allow me, please. I must take a look at your wound.”

Danilov’s eyes opened a little wider.

“No. It’s all right,” he replied weakly. “I’d rather a doctor look at it.”

Zaitsev stroked the commissar’s shoulder gently.

“Comrade, the wound might tell me something about where Thorvald is hiding. There are ways.”

Danilov squinted his eyes.

“It will hurt a little,” Kulikov said from behind.

Danilov nodded drunkenly. “Yes. Of course. Proceed.”

Grunting through gritted teeth, Danilov helped Kulikov to unbutton his greatcoat, pulling it gingerly off the right shoulder. The sea green jersey beneath the coat was muddy with blood. Zaitsev cut the tunic away from the wound. He carved a piece of cloth for a wipe and another for a bandage.

“Hold still. I need to clean it.”

“As you see fit.” Danilov leaned back against Kulikov.

A red trickle spilled from the wound’s lower lip. Danilov’s meaty shoulder was thick with black hair. Zaitsev toweled the blood from the area, making Danilov wince.

“Only for a moment,” Zaitsev whispered.

The puncture was clean and round. A purple bruise had painted a uniform circle around the hole. This indicated a straight-on bullet path, according to the old lessons grandfather Andrei had taught him on the skins drying on the walls of the hunter’s lodge. Look at the entry wound, Vasha, the old man had said, pointing with his walking stick. The bullet leaves a track against the skin, just like a paw in the snow. Thorvald is probably at ground level. What do you think, Grandfather? It’s hard to tell at what angle Danilov’s chest was turned to the park. But the commissar’s injury has bought us one bit of information, at least.

“You were facing straight ahead, weren’t you?” Zaitsev asked while Kulikov helped Danilov replace the tunic and coat over the right shoulder.

“Mmm-hmmm. Yes, I think so.”

“I’m sorry this happened.”

It’s his own damned fault, but why add insult to injury? Now isn’t the time to lecture him.

He rubbed the commissar’s blood from his hands with the strip of cloth. I shouldn’t have brought Danilov along. I should have refused, even after Tania’s intervention. But Tania will have her way; she wanted Danilov here, and here he lies. This is what she intended, the result she foresaw. She coldly sent Danilov to this bullet, manipulated me into allowing it. Why? To help me find Thorvald or to rid us all of Danilov? In either event, the commissar will be leaving Stalingrad alive. He’s lucky. The doctors at the field hospital will take out the bullet lodged in his shoulder, and then, when the river freezes, it’s a sled ride across to Krasnaya Sloboda for you, Commissar. Ah, well. Whom the gods choose to spare, let them live in peace. Perhaps the commissar has spirits swarming about him, protecting him. If so, then spirits, listen to me: go with Danilov. Repay him for his injury in your service and protect him. He has pluck and toughness, even if he’s dangerous and stupid. In the ways of the forest, like an animal, that makes him an innocent.

Kulikov helped Danilov to his feet, keeping his head low. Zaitsev watched them leave. The two walked in rhythm, attached to each other, skinny and fat like a boy with his hurt pony.

Zaitsev thought of the bullet in Danilov’s shoulder and the blood he knew was warming the commissar’s side and legs, perhaps pooling in his boots. How did this come to be? Batyuk gave me this assignment, to find and kill the Headmaster. Why? He’s just one man. Why all this effort to wipe him out, why the bullets lodged in Shaikin, Morozov, Baugderis, Danilov, the nurses, the wounded? Why am I sitting here, dueling to the death with a single sniper instead of working in the factories to protect Russian troops, furthering the battle for the city?

There in Danilov’s aching, wounded posture was his answer. Stalingrad is no longer just a battle for a spot on a map. It has become a war of ideas between Hitler and Stalin, between the generals of both armies ripping up this land, toppling these buildings. Stalingrad is Hitler’s deepest stab into Russia. He won’t allow himself to be stopped here. Likewise, Stalin is making his firmest stand here in the city named for him. Knowing its strategic importance to Hitler, Stalin has marked the city for death in order to preserve the rodina s life. And the real result of these two leaders’ ideas, hatched in the safety of their mighty castles, is dripping out of Danilov right now: blood. Bodies and destruction—these are far more real than ideas, yet so much less important to the leaders. And here, squared off like fighting cocks, Thorvald and I are no longer men but ideas. We’ve been made larger, given importance beyond our bodies. For the watching propagandists such as Danilov, for the opinion makers and the newspapers and the generals, for Hitler and Stalin, it’s the Hare versus the Headmaster, the Russian legend against the German marvel. Whichever of us gets the bullet, he’ll bleed not just blood but a headline and a story; one dictator’s schemes will be furthered, the other’s will be discredited. And one more body will be made cold and dead as the black ink of the newspapers and propaganda that will surely flow with the blood.

Oh, well, Colonel. Musings won’t kill you for me. I’ll need a bullet. So let’s begin in earnest.

Zaitsev took up his helmet and put it back on his head; the steel was cold from lying on the ground. He picked up Danilov’s periscope. I saw nothing. Kulikov saw nothing. Danilov saw the walking helmet.

How could Thorvald shoot without Kulikov or me seeing a flash? The Headmaster is at ground level. But he must be deep in the shadows, hidden in darkness, nestled in it. He can’t shoot without making a flash. Where would he be, to see us but not worry about his muzzle glare or have no fear of a reflection from his scope? He must be in an extremely well disguised spot, someplace I wouldn’t think to look for him, someplace he’s confident I wouldn’t be looking when he squeezed the trigger and his barrel sparked.