War of The Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad - [World War II 01]

by David Robbins

  “Are you used to this?” She rubbed his hand, feeling his veins, his fingernails. She pressed his hand higher on her thigh.

  “I’m from Moscow, Tania. This is the one thing we’re all used to there.”

  “Well,” she whispered, “I’m in New York. It’s so much smaller than Moscow, it’s easy to get lost there. Why don’t you lead me again for a while?”

  She whispered into the ear hovering at her mouth. “Go on, Fedushka. Lead me. I’ll take over when we get to the minefield.”

  Fedya whispered in return. She felt the warmth of his words on her throat.

  “The minefield, Tanyushka?” he whispered. “Too late. I’m already in the middle of it.”

  * * * *

  FEDYA WAS WRONG. THE RAIL YARD HAD NOT BEEN MINED. Crawling in the darkness, Tania felt ahead with her fingers for detonator spikes, black barbs that would stick out of the earth only a centimeter. She found none.

  She slid along the ground in as straight a line as the terrain allowed. She stopped at the hulk of a German tank. One of its treads had been blown off by an antitank rifle, further evidence for Tania to believe the Red Army was in the building in front of them. If not, the Germans surely would have towed this tank away and repaired the tread.

  She and Fedya rested beneath the tank. They were halfway across the yard to the gray building rising out of the night, with another four hundred meters to go.

  Tania was not worried about crossing the distance. The evening was quiet and dark. No flares scratched the sky. There was plenty of debris to slither behind. But she knew there were eyes behind and in front of her, sights fixed across the rail yard staring at each other in suspicion and hatred, watching for any activity. Her main concern was their first encounter with the Russians. They would be in the forward trenches, guarding their fortress from nighttime infiltrators. Like Fedya and her.

  Tania lay still until her strength returned. Fedya’s breathing eased long before her own did. He’s powerful, she thought, recalling his strength in the sewer, his embrace on the dusty mattress.

  Tania crawled from the cover of the tank. She led Fedya over more tracks and under rail cars to within seventy-five meters of the building. With the walls towering above them, Fedya pulled on her foot and dragged himself beside her.

  “Now what?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know.”

  Fedya rolled his eyes into his brows. He laid his forehead on the backs of his hands in the dirt.

  Tania stared up at the building. She scoured the ground, examining every bump and mound for the defense works and Red Army guards she knew were there. To surprise those guards in the dark would be fatal. To be caught in no-man’s-land at sunup before they could make themselves known as Russians would also be certain death.

  She touched the top of Fedya’s head. “Stay here.”

  “What? Where are you going?” His head jerked up. “Tania?”

  She pushed his head back down onto his hands. “Keep this down if you want to keep this.”

  Tania stood. She raised her hands over her head.

  “Nicht schiessen!” she called out, walking forward, away from Fedya. “Nicht schiessen, bitte!” Don’t shoot!

  The night calm was splintered by rifle chambers slamming shut. She knew the barrels were aimed at her heart.

  She cried again, “Nicht schiessen!”

  Russian voices called out from the debris twenty meters ahead. “Who’s there? Identify yourself.”

  She inhaled to answer. Her lips formed the first sound in Russian. Ya Russkaya. I’m Russian. Then she stopped herself. She stepped carefully.

  “Nicht schiessen, bitte,” she called to the voices.

  With a clatter, a dark shape leaped out of the ground and ran to her. The soldier seized her roughly, grabbing down one of her raised arms. Tania allowed herself to be pulled and then tossed over the lip of a trench. She tumbled onto the dirt floor.

  A kicking boot rolled her onto her back. A rifle barrel was thrust into her throat, pressed hard there, making her gasp.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?” a shadow demanded.

  He was joined by two others with rifles ready. “Talk!”

  Another voice said angrily, “Spreche!”

  Tania kept still, moving only her lips.

  “I’m Russian. The 284th. My transport was blown up. last night crossing the Volga. I floated downriver behind the lines.”

  The gun pressed deeper into her throat. Hands felt along her arms and legs, frisking her for weapons.

  “How do you know German?”

  Tania’s voice gurgled. “I was a partisan in Byeloruss. We had to learn a little German.”

  The gun eased at her throat. She took a breath and cleared her throat. “Not like you Ivan dicks who only know how to sleep on guard and throw women around.”

  One of the voices laughed. The gun was taken away.

  “The 284th?”

  “Yes. Under Batyuk.”

  A soldier leaned down. She heard sniffing.

  “Damn, what is that smell?”

  Tania laughed. Fedya’s armor, she thought.

  “It’s shit. I’ve got it all over me. It’s a long story.”

  “Don’t tell me.” The soldier reached down to help Tania off the floor of the trench.

  “Sorry,” he said. “We didn’t know who you were. All I saw was someone stand up right in front of me and shout in German. I thought you were an infiltrator.”

  Tania looked at the three soldiers. The hard treatment was no less than she’d expected.

  “If I’d been an infiltrator, would I have called to you in Russian or German?”

  Two of the three answered after a moment of considering in the dark trench. “Russian.” The third nodded.

  Tania smiled at her guess. Another chance I took. I’ll hear about this one from Fedya, too.

  She told the soldiers about leaving Fedya lying in the dirt twenty meters away. She called to him.

  “Fedya, it’s all right. Come in. We’re back!”

  He scrambled to the trench and was frisked as soon as he tumbled down.

  Tania did not approach him. “Comrade Michailov,” she said.

  “Comrade Chernova.” He nodded to her, then shook hands with the soldiers, smiling, thanking each of them for not shooting at them. “Good job,” he said. “Nice work. Excellent.”

  Tania turned to the men. “Could you help us get some clean clothes? And a meal?”

  One of the guards stepped forward. “Clean clothes will have to wait until morning. We can’t leave our posts. As for the meal . . .”

  The soldier reached into his coat to pull out a flask of vodka. He handed it first to Fedya.

  “Welcome to Stalingrad.”

  * * * *

  EIGHT

  “EVERYONE ON YOUR FEET, LET’S GO!”

  Viktor Medvedev walked into the huge shop bay. Thirty soldiers jumped up from their seats on the scattered bins, barrels, and crates.

  The high brick walls of the massive basement glowed with the salmon light of dawn. Once a machine shop for the Lazur chemical plant, the room’s heavy machinery had been evacuated across the Volga in early summer, leaving a gray expanse of bare floor. Like all the large buildings in Stalingrad, the Lazur had been reduced by the Luftwaffe’s bombings to scorched steel and cinder block until it could neither fall apart nor burn more. The Red Army had burrowed into the rubble of the Lazur and the wreckage in the rail yard surrounding the plant. The basement had survived intact beneath the mounds of collapsed brick and girders above. This morning the late October chill spilled through shattered windows high overhead. The room was quiet, its vast emptiness devouring sound.

  The thirty soldiers standing before Viktor were the first sniper volunteers from the 284th. Commissar Igor Danilov had told the Hare and the Bear he wanted to limit the school’s first class to soldiers from their own division, to encourage other divisions to start sniper initiatives.

  Most of the volunteers
had read about the formation of the sniper unit and the exploits of Chief Master Sergeant Zaitsev in the flimsy news sheet In Our Country’s Defense, put out twice a week by the Communists to the defenders of Stalingrad.

  Viktor stubbed out a cigarette and began.

  “You are all here for one purpose only. You will learn to be snipers to kill Germans.”

  The Bear held up a rifle with a telescopic sight. “No matter what your battle experience has been before today, fighting as a sniper will be different. You’ll need skills beyond those of an infantry soldier. You’ll need greater intelligence and discipline. You will no longer be part of a thousand-man battalion doing only what you’re told. You will be snipers, acting on your own impulse. You must think, then move, then act. If you don’t, you’ll be killed. That I guarantee you.”

  Viktor stepped closer to the front row of recruits.

  “This unit is the first of its kind. Until now the Russian sniper has been a brave but largely disorganized and ineffective tool. We have served well, but we can serve better. Over the next several days you will learn how to hunt down your opponent. You will kill him in his own lair with the silence and terror of distance. You will strike at him in his most vulnerable moments: while he smokes his morning cigarette, when he takes a piss, scooping his evening beans and horse meat into his mouth. You’ll kill him when he makes the smallest misstep. Fear will haunt him every moment, the fear of wearing the silent brand of our crosshairs. He won’t know when the bullet is coming for him or the man next to him. But he will know there is no safe ground for him in Russia. That is your charge.”

  Viktor raised the weapon. “Your telescopic site will bring your prey close. You will stalk and watch the enemy, perhaps for hours or days at a time. You’ll see his face, see his teeth, watch his head explode.”

  The Bear lowered the rifle. “This type of killing must be done with patience and without heat. This is cold death. You will know the man you’re putting a bullet into.”

  Viktor sat on an empty crate. He laid the rifle across his knees as if resting an oar from rowing.

  Through the shop door came Zaitsev, his footsteps clicking on the concrete. He cast his eyes over the recruits, continuing the scrutiny he’d begun outside the doorway, listening to Viktor’s opening remarks. Six of the soldiers in the room he already knew: Baugderis, Shaikin, Morozor, the giant Griasev, Kostikev, and little Kulikov. In the past few days, he’d asked each personally to join the sniper unit after seeing them in action. He’d met Baugderis, Shaikin, and Kostikev while hunting on Mamayev Kurgan, watching the three, all farm boys from Tbilisi in Georgia, calmly drop Nazis at two hundred meters using only open sights. Viktor had found Griasev, a mammoth with arms and hands like jackhammers, at the Tractor Factory, throwing grenades over fifty meters with alarming accuracy, an unheard-of feat. Kostikev was a Siberian from Zaitsev’s company in the 284th. He was as skilled with a stiletto as with a rifle and was the calmest man Zaitsev had seen in close combat. And Zaitsev had spent hours watching tiny Nikolay Kulikov at the Barricades Plant crawl a dozen times under enemy fire to bring supplies to a squad pinned down in a trench.

  This first class of volunteers looked gritty and battle-hardened. Their sizes ranged from the hulking Griasev to a short and flabby Armenian woman, one of two women in the group.

  “My name is Chief Master Sergeant Vasily Zaitsev. I am your instructor. I am assisted by Master Sergeant Viktor Medvedev.” Viktor raised his cigarette in the air. “And of course by Commissar Danilov.” Zaitsev smiled at the commissar, but the man scribbling against the wall did not look up.

  “Your sniper training will last three days. Today we will discuss weapons, fieldcraft, and tactics. Tomorrow we’ll teach you to aim and shoot with a rifle and scope. On the third day you will each be sent on a mission. Those of you who live to the fourth day will be reassigned to your companies as snipers.” Zaitsev turned on his heels. “Viktor.”

  The Bear rose from the crate and snatched up two rifles. Screwed to the tops of both weapons were telescopic sights. Stopping in front of the trainees, he laid one of the guns down.

  “When you came into this room this morning, each of you was told to leave your old rifle in the hall. Those rifles will be given to the infantry. You will be issued new weapons tonight.”

  Viktor surveyed the soldiers’ faces. No one looked away. The Bear commanded attention. “I understand that two of you actually came in without any weapons at all.” Viktor shook his head and smiled. “You two must be very dangerous fighters.”

  The group laughed with Viktor. He held up one rifle.

  “This is the weapon of your enemy. The Mauser Kar 98K. It has been fitted with a four-power scope and fires an eight-millimeter load. This rifle is a piece of shit that can kill you.”

  Viktor snapped the stock against his shoulder. In a flash, he leveled the barrel at a private ten meters in front of him. The soldier recoiled, then gained his composure and sat up.

  Viktor nestled in behind the scope, wrinkling his face to aim. “The optics are poor, with a limited field of vision. The scope has a cross reticle, which in my opinion worsens the sense of roaming. The balance of the weapon is pitiful. It jams frequently, and the gas system can fail in cold weather.”

  He pulled the rifle’s trigger. The hammer clicked. Instantly, without lowering the rifle from his cheek, he levered the bolt, pretending to chamber another round.

  “The bolt is well located right above the trigger for fast reloading. The average Nazi sniper can get off two shots in four-point-five seconds with this rifle.”

  Viktor let the Mauser fall with a clatter. With his foot, he shoved it away to send it skidding against a wall.

  The Bear picked up the second rifle. He held it over his head with both hands.

  “This,” he said, spinning the rifle like a baton, “is also the weapon of your enemy. It’s the Russian Moisin-Nagant model 91/30 sniper rifle with a four-power scope. It fires a seven-point-six-two-caliber load, is reliable under all combat conditions, especially the cold, and is the weapon of choice for both Russian and German snipers.”

  The trainees smiled at Viktor. The Bear did not smile back. “Your job,” he said, “is to not die and let these rifles fall into the enemy’s hands. Let them keep using their German shit. These are Russian guns. Understand?”

  Viktor again jerked the rifle up under his chin. He trained it at the head of the same recruit. The private, surprised for the second time, leaned away from the barrel, then righted himself again, embarrassed.

  “Excellent optics, with a post and sidebar reticle, leaving the top of the field of vision open. The scope has internal windage and elevation adjustments. It’s also mounted high enough above the barrel for you to see under it and use the open sight for shots under one hundred meters. The rifle is nicely balanced but a few grams heavier than the Mauser.”

  Viktor lowered the rifle, smiling now at the young soldier who’d been in his sights. “What the hell,” he said, “we’re Russians. We can carry it.”

  Viktor brought the weapon into firing position, again at the selected private, who this time sat stolidly. Viktor pulled the trigger, then slammed the bolt in and out without lowering the gun from his cheek. He squeezed the trigger again.

  “It has one design flaw,” he said, holding the rifle at his chest. “The bolt is too far forward for fast repeat firing. The average Russian sniper can fire two shots five to five and a half seconds apart. That means your first shot had better hit, because your enemy is going to be a second faster with the next bullet.”

  He tucked the Moisin-Nagant under his arm. “You will all be issued this rifle later today.” Then Viktor turned his back to the trainees. “Vasha.”

  Zaitsev rose from the crate. He handed over his half-smoked cigarette in exchange for the Russian rifle. Zaitsev looked over at Danilov. The commissar remained bent over his notebook; he flipped to a new page, then shook out the fingers on his writing hand.

  Zaitsev hefte
d the weapon. He walked up to the private who had jerked twice under Medvedev’s aim. The soldier was seated with five others on a metal pipe.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  The private began to stand for his answer. Zaitsev motioned him to stay seated.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Chekov, Chief Master Sergeant. Anatoly Petrovich.”

  Zaitsev looked at the small rips in Chekov’s uniform, the scruffiness of his boots. The man’s eyes showed no fear. His lips were tight, his breathing was even.