Last Flight to Stalingrad

by Graham Hurley

  ‘Put this stuff on.’ His breath clouded in the icy air. ‘It’s been through the treatment.’

  The clothing was Russian. It smelled of shag tobacco and the powder used for de-lousing. Nehmann knew Wehrmacht veterans who swore by this kit. They said the Russians didn’t skimp on woollen serge. These people understood the cold, respected it, unlike the sharks and budget-mongers in Berlin.

  Messner said he’d be back in half an hour. When Nehmann asked how long he might be in Stalingrad, Messner offered what might have been a grin. He was wearing gloves Nehmann hadn’t seen before, pilot’s gloves, the thinnest grey leather, and he seemed – for once – almost cheerful.

  ‘Depends,’ he said.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On whether anyone kills you or not. I’m not sure whether it makes any difference…’ he was looking at the mountain of blankets on Nehmann’s camp bed ‘…but you’ve still got time for a prayer.’

  *

  They took off nearly an hour later. The ground crews and the pilots called the big three-engined Ju-52s Tante-Ju. Auntie Junkers. All the seats had been removed and the yawning space behind the pilot’s bulkhead had been packed with a jigsaw of wooden boxes, jerrycans full of fuel, and bulging sacks of mail addressed to the men in Sixth Army. Three more of the big transports were scheduled for take-off and two of them were already bumping across the airfield towards the end of the runway. Snowfall during the night had left a thin, crisp blanket of white that stretched in every direction and once Messner had completed his start-up checks, and fired up all three engines, he set off in pursuit.

  Nehmann was riding in the cockpit alongside Messner. There was no one else on board. Earlier, walking out to the aircraft, Messner had warned that Soviet fighter pilots were becoming keener by the day. They were flying decent aircraft now, thanks partly to the blessings of the Lend-Lease agreement with their allies, and when the weather offered the opportunity they didn’t hesitate to get stuck in. The big old transports were sitting ducks to a Hurricane or a Thunderbolt in the right hands but Fliegerkorps VIII could still muster a respectable number of Bf-109s and he anticipated no problems en route to Stalingrad.

  Nehmann had met some of these fighter pilots. Many of them had tasted combat at the hands of the French, and above all the British, but the war in the east, they all agreed, was a war apart. They said that the Ivans flew the way they drank, with a wild abandon. In the early days after the invasion, appearing in neat little formations, they’d been easy meat, but they had radios now and they’d lifted a trick or two from the Luftwaffe rulebook when it came to the intimate violence of a dog fight. Take the enemy by surprise. Stay close. Then get closer still.

  Nehmann was shivering again. At ground level he’d been grateful for the warmth from the cockpit heater, but as they climbed away from the airfield the temperature was rapidly sinking and even Messner’s extra layers of clothing seemed to make no difference. Already, when he shaded his eyes against the blinding sun, he thought he could see the towering columns of smoke that had to be Stalingrad.

  ‘One of our fighter guys mentioned a friend of yours,’ Nehmann shouted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A friend of yours. Dieter Merz?’

  The roar of the engines was deafening but they both had headsets and the name sparked a nod from Messner.

  ‘We called him der Kleine,’ he said. ‘Lovely man until his luck ran out.’

  ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘All but. He lives with that wife of mine. Maybe I should be grateful. Maybe she should, too.’

  Nehmann blinked. This was a new Messner, someone he hadn’t glimpsed before. The sheer act of flying seemed to have transformed him. He was carefree. He’d shed whatever had tethered him before. His gloved hands were steady on the control column. His fur-lined flying jacket was zipped to the neck. Folds of silk scarf were just visible beneath his chin. He’s loving this, Nehmann thought. It’s set him free.

  The Bf-109s slipped into formation around them, half a dozen of the sleek little fighters, the pilots saluting the big old Tante-Jus with a cavalier wave. Nehmann watched them a moment, silver-grey fish against the blueness of the sky, throttled back, riding little cobblestones of turbulence with a grace that seemed itself a thing of beauty. The sight was deeply comforting and Nehmann smiled to himself, the icy cold forgotten. Then, without warning, they were gone.

  Nehmann looked across at Messner. His eyes were on the move now behind the aviator glasses, his head swivelling left and right. The 109s had peeled away, climbing for height. Then came a blur of movement, right to left, something stubby and fat that seemed to pass an inch in front of the Junker’s nose, and Messner swore softly, pushing the Ju’s nose down, as another Soviet fighter suddenly filled the windscreen. Nehmann caught the twinkle of cannon fire and felt the airframe shudder as the shells found their target. One of the engines was already trailing black smoke and Nehmann watched as Messner’s right hand danced along a bank of switches, triggering the fire extinguishers, trying to minimise the damage. The beat of the engine slowed, and the propeller began to mill in the airstream.

  Nehmann could taste fear in his mouth. So sudden, he thought. And so final. This was the violence that the fighter pilots he’d talked to found so hard to describe. One moment you have a seat in the gods, omnipotent, invulnerable. The next, you’re the plaything of gravity, probably on fire, a hostage to bad luck or your own lousy judgement. Half a second, that’s all it takes. Half a second, and then an eternity of regret.

  The dog fight, as far as Nehmann could judge, was in full swing. Looking up through the glass canopy, he could see a Bf-109 chasing one of the Soviet fighters, quarry and hunter, the Bf matching the Ivan’s every move, wingovers, stall-turns, and a sudden gut-wrenching dive that nearly worked. Then came a brief burst of fire, the Luftwaffe-blue tracers clearly visible, and the powerful little Soviet fighter was suddenly cartwheeling away, one wing severed, a tiny black dot falling out of the cockpit. Moments later came the blossom of the parachute and a grunt of triumph on the R/T.

  Nehmann stole a glance at Messner. The grin, at last, was unforced and Nehmann realised what he should have known from the start, that Messner’s face had been wrecked for exactly an occasion like this. Go through a windscreen, even at ground level, even in the clutches of the Berlin blackout, and moments like these were what remained of life’s pleasures.

  ‘Kamerad.’ It was Messner. He was nodding at the windscreen, talking to himself. The grin, if anything, was wider than ever.

  Nehmann tried to focus. At first, he could see nothing. Then, out of nowhere, came a huge engine, wings, a tailplane, even a face in the cockpit. Messner held his nerve. The Ju was falling like a stone, a nearly vertical plunge that made the airframe beg for mercy. The entire aircraft was shaking. Something had come adrift in the cargo area behind them and Nehmann heard a splintering of wood before the big old aircraft began to level out, Messner hauling back on the control column, every metal panel groaning around them.

  Below, almost within touching distance, was the first scatter of buildings that signalled a major city. Bomb craters instead of gardens. The charred remains of house after house. Tottering brick chimney stacks. Tank tracks across a patch of grass that might once have been a school playground. Then, all too briefly, a kneeling figure in Wehrmacht grey, crouched over a series of red and white panels. He glanced up, one arm raised as they thundered over.

  ‘Scheisse.’ Messner’s voice in Nehmann’s headset. ‘We’re too far fucking north.’

  *

  They landed minutes later. The airfield at Pitomnik was fifteen kilometres west of the city centre. Of the Soviet fighters, mysteriously, there was no sign. The storm had gathered and broken and now – apart from curls of oily smoke from the port engine – there was absolutely nothing to indicate how close they’d come to disaster.

  Nehmann let Messner shut the engines down before he removed his headset. The edges of the airfield were littered with the wreckage
of planes that would never fly again, broken toys in this pitiless war, but here beside the waiting trucks a line of Tante-Jus were being unloaded. Already, Nehmann could hear hands tugging open the big door in the rear of the aircraft, then a voice raised as someone clambered inside. The whole plane began to rock as the stack of jigsawed cargo was unpicked and the first wooden boxes found unseen hands below. The entire workforce, it seemed to Nehmann, were wearing items of Soviet clothing.

  ‘Thank you.’ He leaned across and extended a hand. ‘I mean it.’

  Messner peeled off a glove. His flesh was warm to the touch and he held Nehmann’s gaze.

  ‘You see what we do?’ The grin again, exultant. ‘You see what happens? The guy that came at us? That was an I-16. We called them Ratas in Spain. They run out of ammunition, but it makes no difference. Mano a mano, my friend. You speak Spanish?’

  Nehmann nodded. What little he knew was enough. Mano a mano. Hand to hand. No quarter.

  ‘He was trying to ram us?’

  ‘Of course.’ Messner smacked a fist into his open palm. ‘Bam. You wake up in heaven with an aeroplane in your lap. Tell that to your Promi friends. We were lucky, Nehmann. He could have pushed forward, caught us on the dive, taken our tail off. He didn’t.’

  Luck? Nehmann shook his head, struggled out of his harness, still living those moments when his forward view, the rest of his brief, brief life, held nothing but the certainty of oblivion. The oncoming Rata. The manic face in the cockpit. Not luck at all, he thought, but raw nerve, and years of experience, and the fabulous gift of those precious milliseconds that can spare you for another dawn.

  ‘I used to believe in levitation.’ Nehmann put a hand on Messner’s arm. ‘Now I know it’s true.’

  21

  STALINGRAD, 17 SEPTEMBER 1942

  Nehmann’s contact in Stalingrad was to have met him at the airfield. In his absence, Messner conducted a brief check of his battered Ju, peering at the damage to the engine, pointing out the oil streaks on the bottom of the wing, using his fingers to explore a deep tear at the base of the metal tailplane. The cannon shell, he grunted, had failed to explode. In one side of the fuselage, out the other. Nehmann walked round the tail in the dirty snow to see for himself. Messner was right. The exit hole was even bigger, the aluminium bursting outwards like a flower.

  ‘Didn’t believe me?’ Messner was stamping his feet again. In the wind, it was freezing.

  ‘Just checking. Life’s all small print, my friend. Your Generaloberst said that last week and he’s right. In my trade, if you get the details wrong it doesn’t matter because no one recognises the truth any more.’

  ‘And in ours?’

  ‘You probably die.’

  Messner nodded, tight-lipped. Something had changed between them, and they both knew it. Nothing needed spelling out any more. Friendship was a big word but Nehmann was prepared to give it a try.

  Already, the plane was half empty. An engineer, according to Messner, would be along to check out the damaged engine. There’d be nothing he could do to mend it but two engines, with a modest load, would be enough to get Messner airborne again and back to Tatsinskaya. Forward maintenance, he said, was a joke. In all probability the plane would have to be returned to the Reich for proper repair, just another reason why Richthofen was beginning to run out of aircraft.

  Nehmann nodded. Messner had never been this candid before. Blutsbrüder, he thought. Blood brothers.

  ‘Is it like this all the time?’ Nehmann was looking east, towards the city centre, where invisible Heinkels were dropping hundreds of bombs and at least two of the gaunt apartment blocks appeared to be on fire. As well, from time to time, he could hear the distant howl of Stuka sirens as they dived through the murk to find targets among the wreckage below. If there’s a choir in hell, thought Nehmann, it would sound like this.

  ‘It’s a shithole,’ Messner said. ‘You’ve talked to any of the Russian prisoners? Come here a year ago and the place was a model city, everything new, everything working. That’s why Stalin gave it his name. Now? You wonder what’s left to fight for.’

  They’d arrived at the edge of the airfield. A handful of men were gathered around a brazier, warming their hands. What might have been coffee was bubbling in a bucket, suspended over the burning wood. Messner bent for the ladle lying in the snow. A corporal in a mix of Wehrmacht and Russian uniform wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gave Messner his empty mug. Messner spooned coffee into the mug and passed it to Nehmann.

  ‘You first, Kamerad,’ he said.

  ‘Kamerad?’

  A new voice, rough, amused. Nehmann spun round. There was a smile on the battered face, which was unusual, but there was no mistaking the rest of him.

  ‘Schultz? Willi? What are you doing here?’

  Messner was looking surprised.

  ‘You know each other already?’

  ‘We do.’ Schultz nodded.

  ‘Then why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘You never asked. You’ve been with Nehmann for a while? Then you’ll know what we all know. The man is a wraith, a phantom, here today, gone tomorrow, which maybe explains his charm. What you see is never what you get, and what you get is often a very big surprise. I thank you for delivering him intact, Messner. He’s mine now, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t come to grief. Alles gut?’

  Messner nodded and extended a hand to Nehmann. No Hitler salute. Nehmann watched him as he turned on his heel and made his way back towards the aircraft. Nehmann still had the mug of coffee.

  ‘Give it to someone else,’ Schultz grunted. ‘There’s much better where we’re going.’

  *

  Schultz was driving a VW Kübelwagen. The canvas top was shredded and where the bonnet and the spare tyre had once been was open to the elements, the ribbed metal floor of the cargo space already rusting. Schultz stirred the engine into life and told Nehmann to get in. A couple of days ago, he said, he’d made the mistake of leaving the KW out in the open too close to the bomb line. The Ivans had been busy with their heavy mortars that night and a couple of bombs had straddled the vehicle. Next day, engineers had got the engine at the back running again but the little runaround had definitely lost its looks.

  ‘Much like the rest of us, Nehmann. Whatever they tell you at Tatsinskaya, this place isn’t where anyone sane would ever want to be.’

  They were bumping along a cratered road towards the towering smoke that marked the city centre. Waste land to the right seemed to serve as a field and Nehmann caught a glimpse of an old woman bent over what looked like the carcase of a horse. She had some kind of blade in her hand, and she was sawing back and forth, pawing at her shawl from time to time to ward off the snow. To Nehmann’s surprise, the area seemed abandoned and there was little evidence that most of Paulus’s Sixth Army had come to a halt here.

  ‘People go underground, Nehmann. It’s human nature. Whether it’s rain or high explosive, you get your head down.’

  Nehmann nodded. Schultz was driving fast, zigzagging around one pothole after another. It was snowing hard now, driving fresh needles into Nehmann’s face. There were bucket seats in the open KW, and he hung onto the bare metal of the grab handles, his hands already numb. He knew that Schultz’s connections extended to every corner of Berlin’s intelligence establishment and guessed that he had a secure line to Abwehr headquarters.

  ‘So, what are you telling them, Willi?’

  ‘Nothing. Yet.’

  ‘Because nothing’s happened?’

  Schultz, fighting the wheel as they skidded on yet another patch of ice, threw him a look.

  ‘We took prisoners last night. One of them was a lad from Georgia, one of your lot. He knew more about Sixth Army than we did.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘He’s in and out of Chuikov’s headquarters. He told us they’d intercepted a message from the General Staff main intelligence department.’

  ‘In Berlin, you mean?’

  ‘Ja. The l
ad had it word perfect. He said it made him laugh. You want to know why? Listen to this…’ Steering one-handed, Schultz fetched a scrap of paper from the breast pocket of his tunic. He flattened it against the middle of the steering wheel, squinting hard through the driving snow. ‘Stalingrad has been taken by brilliant German forces. Russia has been cut in two parts, north and south, and will soon collapse in her death throes.’ Schultz refolded the message and tucked it carefully back into his tunic. ‘Taken? Death throes?’ He gestured towards the smoke. ‘How does any of that sound?’

  Nehmann said he didn’t know. Vasily Chuikov was the Soviet Army Commander in Stalingrad, charged by Stalin with holding the city whatever the cost. Gossip back at the airfield gave him gold-crowned teeth and a deep bandit laugh, both of which had endeared him to Nehmann.

  ‘So what’s the truth?’ he asked.

  ‘The truth is we’ve got a fight on our hands. The Ivans are still dug in around the Mamayev Kurgan and we can’t winkle them out. They’re also hanging on in that fucking great grain silo down by the river. We’ve shelled it non-stop for days. It has to be full of smoke and dust. It must be hell even to breathe in there, let alone fight, and as far as we can tell they’ve got nothing but a couple of old machine guns, Maxims, can you believe that? They must have run out of water by now. They must be pissing in the cooling jackets. We sent an interpreter last night under a flag of truce. The odds they’re facing are horrible. Tanks, tanks and more tanks. And then a whole fucking infantry division. We spelled this out. They knew we weren’t bluffing. All they needed to do was surrender. And you know what those fuckers did? They tried to shoot the interpreter. You get the feeling we’ve upset these people. Whatever Berlin says, they’re definitely in no mood to give up.’

  Whatever Berlin says. The message from the General Staff had Goebbels’ fingerprints all over it and yet Nehmann doubted that even the Minister for Propaganda had the authority to draft official communiques like this. More likely, he thought, the seeds that had germinated in the Promi had now taken root in every corner of the Reich’s capital. Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes, as if by magic, the truth.