War of The Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad - [World War II 01] (3 page)

Thorvald smiled at the young men. No hands went up. They knew better than to speak during his stories, even to answer a question.

They are so ready, Thorvald thought, looking at the faces, the ease of confidence in their movements, the juice of youth in their veins; they’re tugging at the reins to go off to battle to earn their own reputations, to move their crosshairs over the hearts of real men. I know how a man can kill. But I wonder how he can be so anxious to risk his life to go and do it.

“The lesson, my young, ignorant boys,” he said, holding his hands out to them as if to show the breadth of his sizable wisdom, “is this: don’t be a hero, on horseback or otherwise. Stay behind cover.”

* * * *

TWO

MINUTES AFTER HOFSTETTER’S BODY HAD BEEN ca
rried to the rear, orders came for Nikki’s company to move from their position west of the Tractor Factory. The final assault on the next factory, the Barricades, was under way. This offensive would be the knockout punch; it should take just one or two more weeks to push the Reds out of the Barricades and into the Volga.

Captain Mercker split the eighty-man company into patrols of ten. Mercker was leery of snipers and migrating machine guns that might carve into his troops and bog them down in a firefight if they moved as one. He counted out the first ten men.

“Corporal.” He pointed at Nikki. “You know our objective?”

Nikki nodded sharply. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re in charge of the first squad. Get to within fifteen hundred meters of the Barricades. Find a secure spot for the company to assemble.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep your head down. Move.”

Nikki looked at the nine men assigned to scurry behind him through the gauntlet ahead. All young, pale, grimy faces like his own. All interchangeable, he thought, each one dispensable, like a throw-away rag. He said a quick and silent prayer that there would still be nine when he next counted.

“Go only where I go,” he said. “Move only how I move.”

Nikki bent at the waist and knees. His rifle hung in his hand almost to the ground. He stretched his neck like a tortoise and lifted his head. In this position, which was torturous but made a man as small a target as he could be when running, Nikki moved clear of cover and into the open street.

He ran in bursts, shadowing the contours of the buildings and rubble. His nine charges mimicked his every step. They ducked and waited one at a time behind the debris he chose. They lay panting for breath in the craters and ditches where he had lain. Nikki picked each position with care, knowing that every step he took had to be taken nine more times. He never allowed himself to be without cover for more than ten meters. In that space, a sniper would have to be extraordinarily good or lucky to line him up and hit. If he ran into the sights of a Red machine gun, he might still have time to dive for the ground and scramble behind something, anything. His biggest concern was his nerves; he knew that if he made a mistake, it might kill not him but perhaps the fifth or last soldier behind him.

Twice, rifle shots rang out. Nikki froze. The shots did not find his men and were not followed by more action. They were just the random convulsions of combat in Stalingrad, as if too much silence broke some unwritten rule. He caught his breath, then pressed on.

Nikki had the objective in sight for a long time. The three gargantuan factories stood in a line, their backs against the river—the Tractor Works, the Barricades, and the Red October. Around them for a kilometer in all directions lay open battleground plowed by bombs, the broken machinery of war scattered over it like coal shoveled across a floor. At fifteen hundred meters from the middle factory, the Barricades, Nikki sprinted across the remains of a wide boulevard and tumbled into an abandoned trench. He waved to his men to gather beside him and wait for the rest of the company.

After the grueling three-hour, six-kilometer traverse through the city, Nikki’s reward was nine sweaty faces, their eyes rolling as if to say, Corporal, don’t make us do that ever again.

The Barricades, like the other two factories, had been gutted and dismantled by battle to where it had fallen in on itself. A row of broken smokestacks rose above the giant heaps of steel. From this distance, the factory looked deserted. Nikki knew it was not.

To his left were the ghostly shambles of several stone buildings. The corner structure was the largest. Its top was missing, crumpled at its feet like a skirt that had been dropped. That building will make an excellent strong point, Nikki thought. We can occupy several floors and control the approaches from all sides.

The squad waited in the trench for the rest of the company to arrive. Nikki wondered about Lieutenant Hofstetter’s body.

Where is it now, six hours after being alive for its last moments? Is it being readied to fly home, boxed in pine for a military funeral with flags and honors like we’ve all been promised? Or has it been dumped into an unmarked grave in the Russian sod with a hundred other corpses? Did his arms and legs fly akimbo when he landed atop the other dead, to stay that way into eternity, sliding down the pile, going to Judgment upside down?

I don’t want to die like Hofstetter, a bullet in the brain fired from half a kilometer away blasting out the back of my head. He was just drinking from a canteen, he wasn’t even fighting; he didn’t get the chance to die thrashing or screaming to give his life some sort of send-off, a final moment of note. Drinking out of a canteen: he didn’t know he was marked with the crosshairs of a sniper, a damned killer who crawled away with no blood on his hands.

I don’t want to die like that, branded with an invisible black cross like one of war’s ten million cattle. It isn’t a proper death for a soldier; it’s just an ending. It’s even a bit stupid, a silly, facedown, ripped-open, awful ending.

I don’t want to be buried in Russia, Nikki thought. I want to go home.

In ten minutes the first soldier from the second patrol appeared in the ruins to the rear. Nikki’s men beckoned him into their trench. For two hours, the afternoon sun lowered its gaze and the rest of the company assembled. Captain Mercker arrived at dusk with the last group of ten. There had been no encounters with the enemy. The Russians must be withdrawing, Nikki guessed, to concentrate in the factories and ready themselves for the coming German hammer blow.

Mercker held a quick meeting with his lieutenant and five sergeants and corporals.

“We’re going to take this big building on the corner, gentlemen. I want the men to move in their ten-man squads. Corporal,” Mercker said, locking on Nikki, “you go in first again. You seem to be good at it.”

Nikki nodded. A hell of a thing to be good at, he thought.

“Send word when the building is secure. If we hear action, we’ll come running.”

“Yes, sir.” Nikki collected his squad.

Nikki led the way for his men, ducking and weaving. Bursting in the front door, his squad moved quickly down a long, dark corridor with machine guns poised and grenades ready. They scraped their backs against the walls before erupting into rooms. Every nerve was raw while they scoured the shadows for any sign of Russians. Nikki shouldered the last door. It opened into a large assembly hall, perhaps a ballroom. He sent a private to tell Mercker to come ahead. He suggested the large room at the end of the hall as the place where the unit should gather and spread out to fortify the building.

Once all eighty men were assembled, the captain ran down assignments. Spotters, large-caliber machine guns, and mortars would go to the top floor. Antitank gunners were sent to the middle floors to shoot down onto Russian tanks. For street-level defense, light machine guns and the rest of the men would be on the ground floor. Mess and communications were in the big hall.

Nikki stood beside the door to the hallway. At Mercker’s signal, every man in the unit was to dash to his assigned position. Nikki prepared to fling the door open, plant his feet, and aim his machine gun down the hall to protect the men scurrying up the steps.

“Ready?” asked the captain. “Go.”

Nikki flung open the door.

A grenade sailed past his face. On the other side of the hall a door slammed shut.

Nikki screamed, “Down!”

He flung himself to the floor. The grenade rolled into the crowd and exploded ten meters from where he lay. The blast was muffled. Nikki brought his head up from his arms to see the jerking body of a soldier who’d leaped onto the grenade.

Men recoiled from the door. Every weapon they could handle was pointed forward while they backpedaled. Chambers clattered as rounds were slammed into firing position. Eighty fingers poised on triggers as the boom of the detonation faded. Near the door, alone, the body of the dead heroic soldier lay smoking.

“Russians!” a voice shouted. “Goddammed Russians are across the hall!”

“How’d they get in there?” Mercker was furious. “Damn it, how? I thought we checked this floor!”

The captain stabbed his finger at six men; Nikki was the sixth. Mercker waved them beside the door, then made a fist, his battle signal for them to stand guard.

Nikki rushed forward with the other men. He sat quickly and hoisted his machine gun stock to his cheek. He aimed at the doorknob of the door across the hall. If it moves, he thought, I’m blowing it off its hinges. Another soldier slid along the wall and slammed their door shut.

The captain ordered two heavy machine guns set up and aimed at the doorway in case the Russians mounted a charge. Guards were placed at the three windows into the room. The Reds might try crawling around the side of the building to toss in satchel charges. Secure for the moment, the captain stepped to the center of the room.

“We’re ordered to hold this building,” he growled, “and that’s what we’re going to do. I don’t know the strength across the hall, so we’ll keep our position until we have more info. Or until we find a way to get the Reds out of here.”

A soldier spoke up. “Why don’t we just rush them, sir? There can’t be more than a few.”

“How do you know that, Private? There are eighty Germans in here. Would you like to hold us off with just a few? I don’t think the Russians would, either. I doubt that’s all they brought with them.”

Nikki looked at the grimy faces leaning into the officer’s words.

“No,” Mercker said, “I’m not ready to turn this into a slaughterhouse. We’ll wait them out. See who gets scared first. Probably they’ll sneak out a window tonight and go report that the Reich has got this building now.”

Nikki moved to the center of the room and sat. He watched two men lift the martyred soldier out of his smoldering blood and carry him to a window. It was Private Kronnenberg. A boy his own age, nineteen or twenty. They’d spoken only a few times. Kronnenberg was new, just called up. He’d been hopeful, still certain that Germany needed Russian soil. A young patriot. He was no longer young, Nikki thought. Kronnenberg was dead. He couldn’t get any older than that. He was lowered out the window gently.

Nikki’s eyes fixed on the door. The Russians are just like us, he thought. There’s a hundred of them. They’re huddled in the middle of a big room. They’re making plans to spend the night, too, figuring we’ll creep out through the windows as soon as we’re sure we don’t want to die enough to keep this building.

Nikki was scared. He marveled that he could still be afraid for his life. When would the fear leave him completely? When would he have seen enough, run and crawled enough? He didn’t shake after the battles in these buildings anymore. He no longer curled up in a corner under the clearing smoke, looking breathlessly at the dead of both armies. No longer. This was a bad sign. He didn’t want to get used to this. But it was happening.

* * * *

THREE

“COMRADE CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT. COME IN. SIT
down.”

Zaitsev stepped down onto the dirt floor of Colonel Nikolai Batyuk’s bunker. Batyuk stood and motioned to a keg as a stool. The commander of the 284th Division was taller than Zaitsev but just as slim. His dark hair was combed back to show a high, pale forehead.