War of The Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad - [World War II 01] (33 page)

Satisfied with the setup, Zaitsev took a position ten meters to the right of the dummy. With his pack shovel, he dug a slit in the lip of the trench. He placed a brick on either side of the channel for an embrasure. He laid his tied-up gloves in the trough and his rifle on top of them to face the twenty-degree arc he’d baited with the head of the dummy, Pyotr’s head. He gave a thumbs-up to Danilov, who waited on the trench floor.

The commissar flicked the switch on the microphone and blew into it. The speaker pitched a noise into the air like a tree splitting. He had it turned up very loud.

The commissar arranged a few pages in his lap and brought the microphone close to his mouth to begin the propaganda. Zaitsev listened to the foreign tongue spit out through the loudspeaker. He’d never encountered German before he came to Stalingrad. When he’d finally heard it from prisoners and deserters, or on the lips of the dying, or screamed during close combat in the houses downtown, he’d judged it an ugly language, a battle tongue. German was spoken back in the throat, bitten and chewed with the teeth. By contrast, he considered Russian to be liquid; it was a language to be cradled on the lips, swirled in the mouth like cognac. Russian could be whispered through a keyhole to a lover on the other side to stroke her into unlocking the door. German was the language to knock the door down. It was how you spoke to your dog or cleared your throat.

Zaitsev looked past Danilov to Tania. She surveyed the field from behind cover through her periscope. He chose to scan through his rifle scope. The 4X rifle sight offered a smaller range than the periscope, but the optics were better for clearer definition. He swiveled slowly across his expected target range. Though the morning was aging, the sun was still behind him.

Danilov’s amplified voice tore the air. The hard German consonants, sharpened by the loudspeaker, banged out an edgy echo flung against the hillside. That’s obnoxious, thought Zaitsev, even if they can’t understand a word he’s saying.

The pamphlets in Danilov’s lap were of the sort used by both sides, usually dropped from the air over the battlefield. The leaflets were a common sight, blowing across the ground between the two facing armies as if scurrying out of the way.

Zaitsev looked up from his scope. The rising landscape seemed void of life. Danilov’s voice sailed over it like cawing electric buzzards. No movement at all. But Zaitsev knew that the depressions and gashes on all sides of him held soldiers and guns, German and Russian. He’d learned months ago never to be deceived by calm in Stalingrad.

He brought his eye back down to his scope. After a few moments of searching, he noted the barely visible barrel of a Nazi machine gun 350 meters away. It was not manned. That meant nothing. It could have been jammed and abandoned. It could just as easily be a fake position made of wood; it might also be a working machine gun with its crew hidden in the trench while a camouflaged spotter kept watch. Nothing is what it seems out here, thought Zaitsev. The softness of the snow is just a sheath over a jagged hillside. The stillness, seemingly blind, has a hundred eyes. Danilov’s crackling voice even appears to come from a man’s form that is actually a stuffed dummy.

Suddenly Zaitsev heard the thumping of bullets plow into the earth and bricks around the loudspeaker. The chattering of a machine gun flew past him. Danilov broke off his shouting; Zaitsev glanced from his scope quickly to the commissar, who was curled on the floor of the trench. He had dropped the microphone to shield his head with both hands from the brick shards and dirt falling on him while the machine gun raked the loudspeaker. In the heart of the action, Pyotr stood unscathed behind his bricks.

Zaitsev hunted to his left through the scope. The machine gun he’d seen moments before was still quiet. The gun firing at the loudspeaker must be operating to his right, outside his targeted killing zone. Before he could lift his rifle out of its slit, he heard Tania fire.

The machine gun fell silent.

Good. She got the bastard. One minute.

Zaitsev glanced at his watch.

Another machine gun came alive, aiming not at the loudspeaker but far to his left. Tania! They’ve spotted her.

Zaitsev rammed his eye against the scope and found the unmanned machine gun. It now had the head and hands of a soldier planted behind it, flailing away at Tania’s position. Another German was beside the gunner, binoculars up.

Zaitsev exhaled to push his pulse out of his head. He watched the gunner work, to let the target take over his thoughts, away from the battle pitch. Let him draw the bullet. Let him open up for it. There’s no hurry. Make it good. One shot. One squeeze.

Without anticipating it, the rifle jumped into his shoulder. He heard the loud report of the bullet on its way. This was how he accomplished his best shots: without telling himself “now” but simply thinking the bullet into the target, pulling the trigger on instinct, surprising himself a little.

In his scope, the gunner’s helmet whipped backward when he fell from the gun. One of the soldier’s hands caught in the grips. The gun swung upward under the hanging weight of the dead Nazi, still firing, bullets blasting into the air. The spotter pulled the snagged fingers free, then ducked behind the trench wall and, with the body of his comrade, dropped from sight.

Zaitsev gathered up his periscope and pack and scuttled to where Danilov sat dusting himself off. Bits of red brick and dirty snow lingered on his shoulders and fur hat.

Tania arrived, her rifle and gear in her hands, ready to go.

“Good work,” Zaitsev said, kneeling beside the commissar. Danilov smiled, gathering his spilled pages. He dug between his legs and pulled the microphone out of the dirt.

“That worked well,’ Zaitsev continued. “But we need to get out of here now.”

“Go? Why? I’m not finished.”

Danilov’s smile tightened and flattened like a pulled string. He pressed the microphone trigger and blew into it. The loudspeaker sizzled to life.

“I’ve got a bit more to say to you whores!” he shouted in Russian. His voice emerged from the battered bell with a buzz. Zaitsev was amazed the thing still worked.

“No. That’s not a good idea.” Zaitsev pushed the microphone down from the commissar’s lips. “Our game worked well. Very well. Now it’s time to go. Remember, we’re on the front line.”

“I know perfectly well where we are.”

“Then you know we’d better move, and now.”

As Zaitsev finished his sentence, his eyes locked onto Tania’s face on the other side of Danilov. She heard it, too. The whining, falling whistle of a mortar shell.

Zaitsev grabbed Danilov by the lapels of his coat. He flung the commissar onto his face on the trench floor and dug down beside him.

The ground bucked with the explosion. The first shell landed above them, blowing shrapnel and shock waves past the top of the trench. More eruptions followed. Dirt rained onto their backs, pattering on the crowns of their helmets.

They waited with faces in the dirt through six explosions. The ground shuddered with each shell. When he sensed the bombardment was finished, Zaitsev tugged on Tania’s leg. She raised her head.

Danilov reared up. Dirt and snow stuck to his mouth and eyebrows. He spit once to clear the debris from his lips.

“Comrade Zaitsev,” he said, “I agree. We should go.”

The three gathered their equipment. Danilov collected pages off the ground. Zaitsev grabbed at a few sheets to speed the commissar. He looked up at Pyotr. The dummy had stood through the barrage, the pipe firmly in his back.

With all his papers in hand, Danilov wound up the cord for the microphone and pocketed it. He reached his hand over the top of the trench to pull down the loudspeaker.

A bullet ricocheted off a brick lying just below the bell, splitting it into bits and dust. Danilov fell to the floor of the trench as if scalded. Tania and Zaitsev stooped quickly.

The commissar stared into Zaitsev’s eyes. “What was that? Who the hell’s shooting?”

“Stay low,” Zaitsev replied.

He snagged his backpack and scrambled with it to the right. He pulled out his periscope and hoisted the mirror and lens above the top of the trench. Surveying the field quickly, he saw nothing of note against the rumpled white slope but the two dead machine gun positions.

He lowered the periscope. Just a German sniper who got caught napping, he thought. We woke him up with the broadcast and artillery and now he wants to get in on the show a little late. He figured he’d wait for someone to retrieve the loudspeaker. Clever move. I would’ve done the same. But I wouldn’t have fired at a hand. I would’ve waited for a head.

Zaitsev decided to let the Nazi sniper have his fun. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow with Tania and take care of him. Maybe not. He’s probably not worth it.

He looked up at Pyotr. Take him down, he thought, give the cotton boy a rest. Put him back up tomorrow and drill this snotty little sniper.

Zaitsev scooted over to Pyotr. He reached to pull the dummy down by the arm; suddenly, the cloth head snapped back. Pyotr’s helmet rang out and jerked, flying off to fall backward. It hung there, caught by the chin strap wrapped around the neck.

Zaitsev leaped away. He looked at Tania and Danilov, and the faraway sound of a rifle report skittered down the hillside. Their eyes were fixed on Pyotr’s head.

Zaitsev looked up at the dummy’s face. In the center of the once featureless visage was a hole. Stuffing peeked out to give Pyotr a ragged nose.

Zaitsev hoisted his periscope again. This sniper must be in my killing zone, he thought. He must be. There’s no other alley from which to see Pyotr’s head.

Before he could focus the periscope, another bullet ripped into the cloth face. The round clanged into the helmet strung behind the neck. Pyotr shivered but stood firm against the pipe.

Zaitsev was rocked. This bullet had struck within moments of the last, perhaps as fast as four seconds! The report of the rifle skipped by, faint and distant.

Another shot slammed into the helmet, fanning Zaitsev’s amazement. It followed the bullet before at an incredible clip. Maybe three seconds, three and a half. Pyotr’s head joggled back again as if in surprise himself.

Zaitsev flung his shoulder against the trench wall, lifting his periscope. He scanned the target zone furiously. The periscope had a range of 350 meters. This sniper must be inside 250 meters to have that kind of accuracy and speed, he thought. But the sounds of the reports were eroded, as if they’d rolled down from far up the hill.

Even if the enemy sniper was close, this quality of shooting was hard to explain. So fast to be so murderously accurate. Maybe it was a team of snipers taking turns with their shots.

Another bullet shook Pyotr. This one passed through the neck and cut the leather strap when it banged into the helmet. The helmet clattered to the floor of the trench, spilling the four spent slugs onto the trench floor. Zaitsev saw nothing. No muzzle blaze indicated a sniper’s position; no bobbing head or cigarette smoke, no movement against the icy backdrop betrayed any of the hill’s white secrets.

Shit, thought Zaitsev. Where is he? He’s got to be close. I must’ve missed him, looked right past him. Them.

This is ridiculous, he thought. He lunged to the pipe buttressing the dummy and yanked it down. Pyotr fell and tumbled across his lap. The wisps of stuffing protruding from the holes made a skewed pair of eyes, a nose, and a small, marveling mouth.

Zaitsev picked up the fallen helmet. He took from its bottom the four smashed bullets and hefted them in his hand.

Tania scooted over to him. She shook his outstretched leg.

“Let’s go, Vasha,” she said. “Somebody is crazy out there.”

Zaitsev did not move or take his eyes off the shells. Deep inside him, he caught a glimpse, just a flash, of the two gray eyes of fear glowing in the shadows. The eyes crouched; the fear snarled once.

He closed his fist over the spent bullets. Tania jerked again on his leg.