by Roy Jacobsen
“0635 hours: Hünersdorff to Raus. Enemy attacking from north-east with infantry regiment, from south-east with tanks, have counted twelve so far. Tank attack repulsed, four shot to pieces, am in pursuit.”
Markus was asleep.
Kuntnagel was writing. At 0910 hours he was still writing, he was writing down Hünersdorff’s shouted communications in Beber-like block capitals: “Enemy still attacking from north-east, now with more tanks …Enemy attack from south-east held so far …0915 hours: Urgent. Send air support…” And immediately afterwards an order from Raus: “Attack north-east, across Farm 1. Targets must be achieved.”
Kuntnagel gave a start and tore off his headphones.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he yelled, and Markus woke up. He could see his comrade only very vaguely through the icy veil.
“Farm 1?” he mumbled drowsily and fumbled with the chart. “Er …seven kilometres north-east of 110.4…”
“No, no. The General Command – is that Hoth or Raus?”
Markus thought for a moment.
“Unless it has been sent from here, by Manstein? Have you spoken to Stahlberg?”
“No.”
“Anyone else?”
More headshaking. “Then we’ll just have to wait and see what he answers.”
“If he does answer, that is.”
Markus got up to stretch his legs and went into Command H.Q., where he was told by the young man he had helped with the photographs that the cartographer was probably asleep, went over to the quarters and found Jakob bent bare-chested over a washbowl with lather on his face and a razor in his hand, peering at the portrait of Frederick II of Prussia which adorned the flaking wall next to the mirror.
“What were you about to tell me yesterday?”
The cartographer blinked in the mirror.
“I thought you ought to know,” he said, drawing the blade across his throat in short, rasping strokes. “Then I thought, what does it matter …but Manstein has asked Hitler for permission to withdraw two divisions from the Myshkova and send them back over the Don to avoid a total collapse. He asked him yesterday.”
“To call off the relief operation?”
“I suppose that’s the gist of it, yes.”
“And why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Hitler hasn’t answered yet, so nothing has been decided.”
Markus shook his head and ran back to the radio room. “1005 hours: Hünersdorff to Raus. Facing heavy attacks from the north-east and the south-east. Holding out only with extreme difficulty. All resources in action. Physically impossible to carry out attacks ordered. The General Command can come and see.”
“He’s inviting Hoth to the front line!” Markus laughed. “To put a stop to the crazy demands they keep making…”
Now Beber was awake, too.
“They’re not going to give up now, are they?” he said grumpily. “They were on the point of breaking through.”
“When it’s ‘physically impossible to carry out the attacks’?” Markus bawled, suddenly losing his temper. “Don’t be stupid, Beber. Go back to bed. Hünersdorff has to be withdrawn. There’s no other way. He has to be withdrawn. He’s just committing…!”
Beber was breathing heavily and Kuntnagel was shaking his head. Markus put his head in his hands for a moment, turned to the snow-reflected sunlight streaming in through the small porthole and saw a moth stray into the shaft of light and become transformed into a fleck of gold before turning into a moth again after it had crossed through. Markus rolled a lump of barite in his right hand a couple of times and again thought of the Cossacks and Hiwis fighting in the cauldron: they must have known a way out but didn’t make use of it, the chaotic attrition that has always been at the heart of the Cossack art of war, that is probably how they see their way out, as late as yesterday he had heard laughter in their barracks, pranks and frivolity, a peasant in a kaftan was dancing on the tables and the guards were laughing and clapping their hands.
The only thing left to do was wrap up in a winter coat and go out and see the same cold expanses – my eyes, my valiant eyes, help me across these plains and into a dense forest, give me trees, filtered sunlight and rain pattering down on the thousands of leaves, give me sheltering walls of trees and roofs of boughs and branches, enclose me and keep me whole so that I won’t be cut to shreds and whirled away like these hellish snowflakes …Markus wanted to speak to Manstein but his feet guided him to the mess, where he had a chat with the chef about the meals, no, can’t grumble, this is an army camp, ha ha. “Oh, we’ll be alright, I suppose,” the chef said after examining Markus’ sunken cheeks and grey face. “Haven’t you slept, Herr Leutnant? You have to sleep and don’t drink the coffee, look, I’m almost ready with the stew.” “Mm, nice. Where are you from?” “I’ve already told you…” And Markus stammers, there are too many words and his mouth is too small, like an army that wants to flee over a bridge and becomes easy prey for rapid pincer movements, his honeymoon by the sea, Nella pregnant and careful not to sit in draughts – “Take care of the firstborn, the others will take care of themselves…”
“1220 hours: Hünersdorff to Raus. Heavy infantry columns moving towards Vassilyevka from north-west. Urgent, send air support. Critical now. Five kilometres north-west of village. Heydebreck launched attack at 1146 on Birsovoj. Repulsed enemy attack.”
“Who the hell is Heydebreck?” Kuntnagel asked in a weary voice.
“23rd Division,” Markus speculated, once more at Kuntnagel’s side. “That means he’s got support from the right flank …Birsovoj. Birsovoj – Beber, the map! Oh no, Jesus, that’s three kilometres south of the river…”
“1335 hours: Hünersdorff to Raus. Situation unchanged. Heydebreck’s attack on Birsovoj has ground to a halt. Intense enemy aerial activity – rockets.”
Markus passed out.
This is the man who wondered whether sleep would ever return and carry him off under its warm wings. But at some point he will wake up and discover that he wasn’t lying on his back in the airy boarding-house room by the sea worrying about Nella’s welfare as a mother bearing his first child, but on the floor of the radio room, with cold, bootless feet, and that it is the coal fumes from the stove, not Nella’s dainty steps, which have awoken him, a dreadful coughing fit, and he can see from the wet marks on the wooden boards that someone must have been outside for fuel, Beber, the floor around his boots is wet, his heaving frame hangs over the back of the chair, patches of dark sweat around each armpit, like eclipses of the sun, but he is shaking, and Markus hears shouts, voices, and a chill draught sweeps in across the floor, of course it is them coming to grab the big man and handcuff him – him, the man who hasn’t even got anyone in the cauldron, it is Jaromil and two of his friends, but it wasn’t Markus who sent for them, it was Kuntnagel, and then he sees the envelope containing the letter about the land issue fall out of the fat lump’s torn back pocket and flutter to the floor like the wing of a dove, the door slams shut again and Kuntnagel bends down with a snort of contempt, picks up the white envelope, tears it to pieces and scatters them about, he has been waiting for this opportunity – but why doesn’t he wake me so that I can help him to get rid of these horrible scraps of paper – they have to go into the woodburner! Now he does it himself, bit by bit, and casts a glance at me, almost ashamed, but why doesn’t he wake me, now I will be asleep all day, while he sits there on his own, poor Kuntnagel, the solitary back, bent over the radio, unmarried – such a terrible word, childless…
“1900 hours: Hünersdorff to Raus. Targets for December 23: 0500 hours – Hauschild Battalion attacks to take hills in the north-west. 0700 hours – Remlinger Battalion attacks to recapture 110.4. Afterwards regroup to push north.”
“110.4 is lost!”
Kuntnagel’s unmistakable voice: “He’s lost 110.4!” he repeats to himself and God because no-one else is there.
“It happened yesterday,” Markus says from behind him. He is sitting on the mattre
ss with a frozen foot in each hand, massaging them to get them warm. He pulls on his boots and gets up with a creak from his back muscles.
“I’m off,” he says.
“Where?”
“Nowhere.”
27
Let’s make this absolutely clear. It is dark again. Some stars, but they go in before Markus can remember their names. He makes a bold foray into the quarters, has a swig of vodka, comes out and is swallowed up by the night, nothing matters anymore, everything is the same, the wind is coming from the north, yes, another snowstorm is in the offing, predicted by Galileo with his usual self-confidence. But then he glimpses a dim light in Manstein’s railway carriage, so he heads for that, stumbles up the icy iron steps and feels the brass handle burn against his palm, goes in and finds the General alone behind his majestic desk and readies himself to give an immaculate salute, but is held back by the small brown eyes, which again hit him like jets of hot water.
“So there you are, Hebel. I have to say you have shown yourself to have perseverance.”
“I’d like to know what Hünersdorff’s chances are tomorrow,” Markus said, surprised at the firmness of his own voice, that it could be heard at all. “Herr General,” he quickly added, transferring his weight to the other foot.
“He is not alone in deciding that, I’m afraid.”
“What are the other dependent factors?”
“Tatsinskaya falling at any moment, the Chir Front not holding, where two of our most battered divisions are up against twelve Russian ones.”
“So Stalingrad will have to fend for itself?”
“The airlift will continue from other airstrips. But I have to choose between letting Chir fall – and creating a Stalingrad of the whole Eastern Front – or moving Hoth’s troops from the Myshkova to the Chir. Then, the way I see it, we have a realistic chance of keeping the Russians at bay until Army Group A gets out of the Caucasus. After that we will be able to regroup further west, behind for example the Donetz river.”
“Will Hitler give permission for an evacuation from the Caucasus?”
“Probably have to, sooner or later. Well, what’s your opinion?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you!”
Markus shrugged.
“The decision is not mine to take.”
Manstein fixed his eyes on him and calmly said:
“Yes, it is. Read up on the situation, make a decision and come to me as soon as you have decided – and I will do what you say.”
Markus’ jaw dropped.
“You can’t do that, put all the responsibility on my shoulders, an ordinary soldier, a civilian, a poor wretch who is unable to think clearly about anything at all on the battlefield.”
He had long forgotten why he was here, as a representative of both eternity and those left behind, to put his finger on the flaws in the Feldmarschall’s actions, to find the right address for fury, sorrow and a somewhat more refined quality of human thought, and he realised with limited clarity that this jewel of Enlightenment philosophy was precisely the authority the Feldmarschall’s conscience had to invoke in order to ward off the same accusations, but as usual his superior officer came to his rescue:
“That is exactly what makes you the right person, Hebel. I don’t need any military advice or suggestions, I have plenty of them, I don’t need any more intelligence reports, I need an intelligent civilian, an educated man with his wits about him, deeply rooted in Christian and European tradition, with moral values and an ambivalent attitude towards heaven and earth, a farmer and an artist, an inventor and an ordinary man, I need a common denominator like you, Hebel, with three languages, two nationalities and eternal life, with more empathy than rational thought, a man who is able to show consideration for these horse thieves we’re dealing with here in the frozen wastes. You are exactly the man I need.”
Dazed, Markus shook his head.
“You…” he stammered. “You know I can’t stand this kind of pressure, it will blow my brain and I’ll be easy prey to my basest instincts.”
“What nonsense. You have to keep a cool head and choose between 250,000 men and a million.”
“These choices don’t exist!”
“As you wish. But Hünersdorff won’t get any further, as far as I can see. What do you think?”
I’ll wake up soon, Markus thought with a hint of a smile. Then the panic hit him again:
“But I have no guarantee that what I decide will…!”
“Of course you don’t. You didn’t when you got married, either. You have to make a decision based on what you know now and what you believe will happen in the future, unless you can read the stars. And now you can’t fall asleep, seek refuge in a coma or some civilian nonsense or whatever it is you do when you’re not here. You will have to write the order to retreat to Hünersdorff yourself, if that’s your decision, but don’t be afraid. I’ll sign it. I’ll also take the full responsibility.”
Markus could see that the conversation was at an end, unless of course he threw in the towel there and then, but he couldn’t, once again he had to see Eismann and Busse’s analyses, read Stahlberg’s reports, and he thought that if you’re awake and want to go back to sleep, you don’t pinch your arm, but what on earth do you do then? He laughed at this crazy idea, and as he went out into the storm, for the first time he could inhale the Steppes air without difficulty, God’s own breath, as at the dawn of time it had breathed life into the ground he was standing on, except for the Steppes, so he began to walk around in the blacked-out village, watched shooting stars flash through the scudding, granite-coloured clouds, the storm Galileo had solemnly predicted with knitted brow and stiff upper lip. And perhaps the decision is not so difficult, it has already been made, not by him, Markus Hebel, the man and human being with two passports and three languages and a lost son, but by hundreds of others like him, like-minded, in times past as in times to come, it is just a question of fitting in with tradition, of yielding to probability and credibility and experience, yes, the truth, if I might be so bold, but then a new thought struck horror into him: he had spent half his life criticising and despairing over the decision he now had to make himself, and also reconcile himself to it – both futile, for here he stands, having come to the same fateful conclusion as Manstein: a military conclusion, the greatest of them all, at least since Napoleon.
Markus claims that he spent a whole day pondering all this while Hünersdorff held on by the Myshkova, but there is every reason to take this information with a pinch of salt, the aforementioned “half his life” would be a more precise measure of time, and what we have described is only one version of the many thoughts that went through his mind, whether the most credible or the most mendacious, who knows, and what does it matter, the seconds are ticking away, and whether it is done now or at some other time is of no consequence either, yes it is, it has to be done now, yes – there we are, but it is already the evening of December 23, so he runs as fast as his legs can carry him through the drifting snow and finds Manstein at his desk in his imperial railway carriage again, quietly nodding, still showing no sign of tension.