The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02]

by David L. Robbins

  When the war is over, Churchill thinks, those two may indeed have the power. But this, this is the glory.

  The ride across is smooth and unchallenged by enemy attention. Upon landing, Churchill strides in front of Simpson, who tries with his armed cadre to be the first ashore. The Prime Minister steps on the quay on nimble legs. The rap of artillery and small arms fire bowls out of the hilly plain beyond the small town. Churchill does not hesitate, he heads for it, the cavalryman without a horse. Simpson catches up and stakes a position to block him.

  “No, sir.”

  “General, why come this far if not to see some of the action?”

  “We’ll just have to be satisfied with being close enough to hear it, Prime Minister.”

  “Oh, pishposh.”

  “We’ll walk around the riverbank as long as you want, but no farther inland.”

  “General.”

  “Prime Minister, as you say, this is my front.”

  Churchill pauses to take this in, but there is no question he will obey. After a moment of good-natured obstinacy, he pops his cigar into his mouth like a dart. He says in a voice warped by the dark tobacco tube, “Right! Quite right!”

  He calls to the others, Field Marshals Montgomery and Brooke, ”There we are, men. Let’s take a stroll about the riverbank, shall we? Marvelous!”

  For half an hour the coterie tramps about, with Churchill in the lead, narrating: “Hah! Yesterday there were Nazis here! Masters of Europe, my hat! Where are they now, what? Blighters!”

  On the return voyage, Churchill remains luminous with enthusiasm. In the middle of the Rhine he appeals to be taken downriver to Wesel, the town at the center of the offensive. Simpson shrugs in reply, he’s only along on guard duty. Montgomery stands and points the way for the still-awed sailors running the launch. He seems proud of his Prime Minister’s urging and pugnacity. The boat turns with the current. In minutes a chain across the river stops them from reaching the town.

  Churchill chomps his cigar in disappointment until Montgomery slips close and says, “Don’t worry, PM. We’ll go have a look at Wesel in my car. What do you think?”

  Returning to Büderich, the party climbs into three cars, Churchill with Montgomery. They take off for Wesel. After a ten-minute ride Montgomery pulls up to the remains of a railway bridge at the outskirts of town. Churchill steps from the car and climbs into the piles of twisted girders and masonry. He marvels at the force of the Allied bombs which fell here just this morning, pretends to feel the heat of them emanating from the rubble. He plays alone in the wreckage and does not mind.

  A mile away, an artillery shell lands in the river and explodes on contact with the bottom. Churchill stops his meandering and goes wooden like a hunting dog, his nose and cigar pointing at the report. In seconds two more rounds break the river into fountains of spray, the impacts come closer to the bridge.

  Churchill stands his ground, though he senses Simpson shoving through the morass of material to fetch him. More shells whoosh in, one flies directly over their heads to detonate within a hundred yards of their parked cars. The blasts send a thrill into Churchill’s abdomen. He catches sight of Montgomery and Brooke. The two soldiers are in crouches, looking like their next move will be to the ground and their bellies. Simpson reaches Churchill in the ruins.

  “Prime Minister. There are snipers in front of you. They are shelling both sides of the bridge. And now they’ve started shelling the road behind you. I can’t accept responsibility for your being here and must ask you to come away.”

  Churchill wraps his arms around a protruding steel beam. He lets go only when General Simpson makes it clear that he will pry the Prime Minister from it.

  ~ * ~

  * * *

  March 28, 1945, 2245 hours

  Küstrin, Poland

  in his life ilya has never thought much on god.

  He was raised in a military family with those traditions, of honor and country. God hovered over everything, but thinly, like the glow from candles.

  From a hilltop on the east bank of the Warta River, Ilya watches the aerial bombardment of another citadel. Invisible Red Air Force planes ruffle the night sky, moving between him and the stars to make the pinpoints of light wink. Bombs whistle unseen in their fall, until they strike the fortress to erupt flashes and sailing sparks which are embers of burning logs and hot concrete into the air. The explosions weave a vaguely religious fabric in Ilya’s head. The ancient citadel of Küstrin stands on an island formed by the confluence of the Warta and Oder Rivers. The blasts and flaming debris reflect in the water, making the scene appear even larger. Ilya recalls that hell stands across a river. Hell burns, there is darkness even beside the fire, there is pain and struggle without end.

  It’s a surprise that God tries to come to him like this, unbidden, in blotted-out stars and a detonating enemy fortress. He’s had plenty of other moments to enter Ilya, quieter moments, why pick now with this magnified cacophony going on?

  Ilya remembers what little he was taught as a child of God. God rules heaven and all the angels. God created the earth. He gives and takes life.

  This last bit troubles Ilya.

  Stalingrad first made him doubt; the citadels have made Ilya certain. God only gives life. He has delegated to man the task of taking it.

  Ilya takes a swig of vodka from a cool bottle. Always on the nights before attacks, jiggling, ringing cartons of vodka are laid out in plenty for the men. Ilya has never been a drinker, not on the scale of most Soviet soldiers. But tonight he is thoughtful, and the bottle seems a willing and quiet partner. He will not get drunk, the bottle serves just to fill his hands. He can’t tolerate much smoking. He thinks he’ll quit and leave that vice to Misha.

  Beside him Misha gazes through binoculars at the besieged citadel. The little man’s lips move beneath the goggles the whole time the bombs fall, his voice drones with the propellers of the fighters and bombers flying low and uncontested.

  “... are bombing the main fortress, see? This way, the Germans will head out into the field fortifications. Then, tomorrow morning, we’ll bomb the center again, I bet. The Germans will think they’re smart, but what we’re really doing is flushing them out from behind the walls where we can get at them with infantry and artillery. Oh, man! Look at that one go up!”

  Ilya listens with half an ear to Misha’s intelligence and projections of strategy. Misha is another reason Ilya is convinced God does not kill. God could not be so enthusiastic about it, reduce it to such science, as man.

  Misha will be right. He’s always right in these matters. In the morning the war will happen just as the little man says. Ilya thinks sometimes the scar has given Misha another, almost occult, power to know what will happen. Sometimes the scar seems to do the talking.

  More hours into the night pass like this. The fortress stays under assault from above. Misha narrates as though Ilya cannot see the citadel for himself. Ilya contemplates against this backdrop. They share a white blanket over their shoulders. Ilya is so much larger than Misha that the two appear to be a mother swan with a wing draped about her gosling.

  Men die inside the citadel. Each bomb takes another and another. Ilya imagines the sparks are souls liberated and aloft. He marvels, in three years at war he has never once considered any man’s soul. He does not feel remorse at the enemy deaths, or the thousands on both sides that will follow in the morning when the infantry attacks. He doesn’t fear for his own life. No life concerns him.

  But thoughts of God nag him. It’s the sixty again. It’s them. “What about us?” they ask Ilya in the explosions. Shut up, he answers. You were bound for death, either in the camps of Siberia or on the journey to your prisons. “No, it’s the way we were taken. Like animals.” And what of animals, Ilya retorts. What in your conduct lifted you above animals? Was it your torture of civilians, your rapes and pillaging, your death factories? “We were men, simple soldiers like you, Ilya Borisovich. Duty defined us, that’s all, not the acts o
f others you’ve heard about.” Shut up You paid for those acts, whether you did them or not. “Who made you the collector of that debt, Ilya? Was it God?” Shut up about God. He watched you be butchered. He didn’t care. “Ilya, you watched us butchered. You didn’t care.” Shut up!

  “Ilyushka? Am I bothering you?”

  Ilya starts at the voice. Misha lowers his binoculars.

  “Ilya?”

  “Misha. I ... sorry.”

  “You told me to shut up.”

  “I didn’t mean to say that.”

  “You sounded like you meant it.”

  Ilya says nothing. The citadel on the river continues to suffer.

  “Ilya?”

  “What?” His tone is annoyed.

  “You’re shaking.”

  Ilya flings an arm outside the blanket and stands. A breeze chills the back of his neck. He is sweating.

  Behind him and Misha the rest of their platoon has gathered on the hillside. They are all wrapped under woolen blankets too, some on their sides trying to sleep, most watching the fireworks on the river. Ilya strides off among them.

  “Tomorrow, Sergeant,” they say, “we’ll get them, right? German bastards. We’ll kill every one we get our hands on. We’ll give it to them. Tomorrow, Sergeant.” Ilya hears reverence in their voices, they worship what they’ve heard about Ilya Shokhin, his remarkable ability to take life.

  He stomps past the tongues and huddled shapes. He walks until he finds a place under a tree where he cannot see the river. He sits on a jumble of roots and looks up through bare branches. In this moment the last bomb strikes the citadel, no more whines come from the sky. The throb of airplanes recedes to the east. The night seems to collapse like a boxer into its corner, gasping for breath, hurting for this quiet. No more, it says, no more. But Ilya knows the sun will bring more, the sun like the boxing bell will ring another round, and many more days’ suns will do the same. Don’t feel your body or your mind or you can’t go the distance. Just fight. Fight.

  Ilya sits in this spot until morning. When the sun climbs he has a conclusion. He’s talked with the sixty, dozed some, and talked with them again. They have helped him come to a resolution.

  God must take back the responsibility. He can’t trust man anymore to do it for him. God has to do the killing.

  At first Ilya didn’t know what course to take. How to make God do anything? You can’t, after all. But Ilya has a talent. God gave it to him. So he’s going to use it to influence God. He’s going to steep himself in so much killing that God will have no choice but to admit that it’s madness. God will have to stop Ilya. And all the madness. If He chooses to let it continue, there will be no one left.

  The breakfast wagons clatter over the hills before Ilya rises. In his gut is a driving appetite, his hunger is another surprise to him. For the first time in weeks he’s eager for the taste of greasy ham and wheat paste, mopped up with black bread, chased with steaming tea. Ilya stretches, his muscles are taut from the brisk night but he feels fine. He walks to the top of the hill; the citadel below waits in a bath of perfect orange light. A long shadow floats on the river behind the fortress, like a compass needle pointing west, in the direction of Berlin.

  Ilya approaches a wagon and helps himself to an extra portion. The cook says nothing. Ilya sits where he can look over the citadel. Something of the prescience he attributes to Misha’s wound comes over him. Perhaps this is a bonus God throws into the bargain when you make some arrangement with Him, the way Misha has with darkness. Ilya can see the coming attack. Without knowing a reason, even chewing, he smiles.

  For months the island citadel of Küstrin has been the anchor of a German corridor stretching eighty kilometers all the way from the Oder River to Berlin. Counterattacks out of the fortress have prevented Red forces from linking their bridgeheads on the west bank of the Oder. That corridor was closed three days ago, and the river citadel is now surrounded. Two days ago, on the twenty-seventh, German reinforcements tried to break into Küstrin from the south. Four divisions and supporting tanks made it as far as the outskirts, until Chuikov’s dug-in artillery slaughtered them in the open mucky ground along the riverbank. The German offensive was a fiasco and they withdrew, leaving a thousand bodies in the mud.

  Sitting next to Misha’s nervous mouth last night, Ilya learned that the fortress dates to the sixteenth century. The citadel itself is a complex of works; a reinforced fortress sits in the middle of a web of outlying redoubts, pillboxes, and bunkers. The only links to the island are four dikes fanning out from the center, each of which is so narrow a single tank would fill the approach. The Germans have stacked defenses along these paths, piling on tiers of pillboxes, trenches, barbed wire, and minefields. Red units have gotten so close to these fortifications that exchanges of Panzerfausts and hand grenades go on day and night.

  Misha told him that back in February, a regiment of the Fifth Shock Army actually penetrated the citadel’s outer defenses. The official news agency Sovinform reported that Küstrin had fallen, and the mistaken victory was greeted with cannon salvos in Moscow. Word has it that General Zhukov was mightily embarrassed. He has instructed Chuikov’s Eighth Guards that the error must be corrected this morning.

  On his hillside, Ilya finishes breakfast. The gusto with which he greeted the dawn and the food have seeped out of him with the eating and the rising sun. The citadel on the glistening waters beckons him. The day’s battle rages inside him already, before the first shot is fired. This is not fear. He feels a grip much colder than fear. It’s knowledge that he shouldn’t possess: that he will not die today, that God is not going to be so easily moved.

  Ilya walks down to rejoin his platoon. Every step in their direction stiffens him as though he walks through ice, until he is ice. Misha greets him with irritation and a glowing scar.

  “Where have you been?”

  Ilya doesn’t want to speak. Language is human. On the cusp of combat and until it is done, he wills himself to be, to accept, something else.

  “Handle the men,” he says. “Follow me, Sergeant.”

  Misha cocks his head at Ilya’s flat tone. Ilya looks over the platoon, fifty craven men and snivelers, he thinks. No loss if they die too.

  Misha steps back and holds out a hand to Ilya, pointing at him like an exhibit.

  “Men,” the little one says, “here is the best fighter in the whole Red Army. I know. I’ve fought beside him. Now you heard what he said. Follow Sergeant Shokhin, right down the Germans’ goddam throats. What do you think?”

  The platoon shouts, “Urrah!”

  Ilya puts the sun to his back and walks to the staging area. The platoon and Misha mingle their long shadows with his, but he is, he thinks, alone.

  Their punishment company has drawn the assignment of leading the charge across the easternmost dike to storm the fortress. Ilya and Misha’s platoon will form the company vanguard. There won’t be enough room for more than three men abreast to run the two hundred meters along the top of the dike. The rest of the division will attack from boats across the river.

  Ilya checks his watch: 0825 hours. The staging area for their company is a big crater in the riverbank road. Thirty meters away stands the concrete foot of their assigned dike. One hundred and fifty soldiers and officers gather in and behind the depression. Cigarettes are passed to and fro, a few vodka bottles that survived the night chart their own course through the men. Ilya stares across the water at the fortress. The enemy garrison in there waits for him.

  Why are the Germans still here? Why haven’t they slipped out in one of the nights and run back to their lines? They stay in Küstrin for a single reason: to hold back the Ivans, the Asiatic barbarians. Brave men, these soldiers of the citadel, sacrificing themselves to stall the Reds and give more time for refugees to throng into Berlin. Just as well, Ilya thinks. Corral them all. Today we take these Germans on their island. Later, in their capital, we’ll see the rest.

  Minutes pass around the crater. Attempts t
o talk with Ilya only anger him. He snarls at the first few who try to touch him, the rest he ignores. He decides he hates everything. Not just man and machines but the river, the trees and hills, the sky, the stones of the fortress, they’re all accomplices, aren’t they? Brave men. Fah! What is brave? To take ground and kill, or stand your ground and be killed. Stupidity. He wants to change his course from what he decided last night and this dawn, he wants to drop his weapons and walk away, to be the first real brave man.