by David Fraser
‘Among the casualties in the heroic Sixth Army it is necessary to report one gallant Major of the General Staff with a sprained ankle!’
He retained his grip on the top of the wall for a moment, spreadeagled against its surface before committing his whole weight to the cornice, turning and leaping. He glanced down. He had already decided that what he was doing was unnecessary and perhaps unwise and wished very much to be at the top of the wall again.
At that exact moment the manhole cover moved again.
This time there could be no mistake about it. The manhole cover was pushed up strongly by a pair of arms wrapped in thick quilting. These arms were immediately followed by a fur cap and then a body swathed in shapeless garments and hung with a machine carbine. With astonishing rapidity the body was followed by others. They appeared to have run a ladder against the inner wall, and were now swarming into the yard.
Toni was spreadeagled, hanging and uneasily balanced. He was above and about fifteen metres from the manhole. It took a fraction of one second for his mind to recall, too late, what he had been told. The Russians holding the Volga front had tunnelled inwards from the steep banks of the river, into the city sewers, brought them into use as underground communications and approaches. Then Toni’s hold on the top of the wall slipped and without further calculation he dropped into the yard. He heard rather than felt a bone give in his knee. Fur caps, yells, quilted bodies! Greatcoat flapping, cap knocked off, boots slithering as he tried to regain his feet, hand moving uselessly to his revolver holster, Major Count Rudberg found himself involuntarily joining a patrol of twelve Red Army soldiers of the Soviet 62nd Army.
‘This one’s got to go back to Headquarters. Over the river.’
It would be best – perhaps essential – Toni had decided, not to let it be discovered that he could speak and understand Russian – not, at least, until a later stage if at all. He was still dazed from the extraordinary moments which had followed his capture several hours ago. There had been a hubbub of voices from the soldiers around him, clearly dumbfounded at this booted apparition that had suddenly dropped into their midst. One seized his revolver and binoculars. Another gave him a savage blow in the crutch which doubled him up. Toni remembered seeing a carbine muzzle lowered towards him, and a shout which might have checked an immediate bullet. He could distinguish no sense in their discordant cries. He felt physically sick.
Later he deduced that there had been argument as to whether the taking of so unexpected – and, perhaps, important – a prisoner justified abandoning the task for which, presumably, the patrol had been ordered out. The latter, probably, was the deployment of a number of snipers. Toni now recalled being told that snipers used the sewer tunnels to great effect. It was unlikely that the patrol’s orders covered the taking of a Major of the General Staff! The decision must have been a difficult one, Toni thought later when he had leisure to ponder. Somebody took it, however, and Toni found himself unceremoniously booted down the manhole, into what was, clearly, one of the main sewers of Stalingrad. Had the decision gone the other way, and the patrol continued with whatever was its original mission, it was likely, he guessed, that he would have ended his days in the little yard.
There had followed a nightmare procession along the sewer for what felt like and doubtless was several miles. For the first part of their journey it was necessary to move doubled up, in a position of almost unbearable discomfort. After what seemed at least an hour but was probably ten minutes they reached, mercifully, a larger, higher sewer tunnel and could move upright. Most of the march was conducted in silence, although occasionally the leading Red Army soldier turned to call some words, indistinguishable by Toni, to the rear of his little column. The only light was provided by a torch held by the leader. There was, at intervals, a paling of the darkness, perhaps coming from manhole covers removed in areas under Soviet control. Rats scurried between their moving feet. The men were trudging along apathetically, Toni in the centre of the file. Periodically the muzzle of a machine carbine was shoved into the small of his back with brutal force. The pain in his knee was excruciating. He found it difficult to keep up but the carbine in his back propelled him, stumbling, onwards. At one point he fell over a heap of sacking. The smell told him it was a body. He soon found that, wherever a little light came through, indicating the nearness of a manhole, there would be bodies. He guessed they were in various stages of decomposition. The stench was indescribable. The Stalingrad sewers were communication routes, tombs – and, of course, sewers. Toni retched, and received a sickening blow at the base of the spine by way of reward.
He supposed he was as likely as not to find death at the end of the tunnel. The Russians were known to have a short way with prisoners, and had announced their view that the German General Staff was a criminal organization. Toni told himself that, if he survived the first stage, the moment when front line soldiers might say, ‘He’s too much trouble. Shoot him!’ he might last longer. Perhaps he already had survived that first stage. At a higher level they would certainly wish to interrogate him – if they ever heard about him. That would mean survival for a little. He limped painfully on.
Toni realized, as yet in a blurred sort of way, that if he were to keep any sort of mental balance he must discipline his thoughts, try to control what images should or should not be allowed to invade the mind. Already, as he groped his way along through the darkness and the fetid air, he felt strong temptation to self-accusation. It had been idiotic – and improper – for him, a visiting Staff officer, to carry out a private reconnaissance and get himself into this sort of mess. It was impossible to justify it as ‘getting to know at first hand the conditions under which the troops had to live and fight’.
On the contrary, he had behaved like an adventurous adolescent. He was a danger to the Wehrmacht through what he might ultimately disclose (he switched his mind from this aspect as well as he could). He would certainly have got the brave, patient detachment of Combat Group Schroder into trouble for not looking after him. He was leaving his own Divisional Headquarters, quite unnecessarily, without one of their principal staff officers when they were already short-handed and likely to be facing the prospect of a new battle on the Don front. Perhaps most reprehensibly of all, he had failed to produce the report which he had been sent to Stalingrad to compile. He had failed to do even his limited best to make others understand the ordeal of the gallant men of Sixth Army. He should be brought before a Court Martial. Perhaps one day he would be. If he survived.
Suicide would be a perfectly honourable, perhaps the only honourable course for a failure of duty so complete. Deprived of a weapon, Toni nevertheless saw little difficulty in losing his life if he so decided. In fact it ought to be particularly easy. An attack on one of his guards, for instance, would surely bring instant death from a Russian bullet or bayonet. But that seemed an inappropriate gesture – the sense of it would be lost, nobody would ever know. Suicide in such circumstances, after all, ought to be an act of semi-public atonement. No, to court death as secret self-punishment for failure as an officer wouldn’t do. Anyway, things might turn out a little better than the worst. There would be other officer prisoners. There might (although he felt dubious on this score) even be the possibility of liberation by the Wehrmacht. There might, one day, be freedom again. When Germany had won the war! He found the latter consummation as difficult to envisage as any, but one never knew, something might turn up. The important thing was to survive, clearly no better than an even chance; and to remain sane, which might be at least as difficult.
‘But you never know,’ said Toni to himself. ‘I was born lucky!’
He hobbled along down the sewer, in a good deal of agony, towards, as he rightly supposed, the banks of the Volga. Somewhere above his head, no doubt, little detachments of men like those from Combat Group Schroder were shivering hungrily among the rubble, bloodshot eyes blinking from grey, unshaven faces, frozen fingers curled round triggers, Sixth Army fighting off unremitting Soviet
assaults among the ruins of the city of Stalingrad.
The little column halted. Ahead the darkness was dissolving. They had, it seemed, reached the end of their journey. When Toni emerged, half blinded at first, into the grey, cold light soldiers closed in on either side. A sack was thrown over his head. It was a nerve-racking moment, perhaps to be one of his last. Then he was pushed, slipping and slithering, down what felt like a muddy chute, although his heel caught the edge of a step, showing him that it was some sort of stair. The atmosphere was even colder than before. He tripped and fell, in darkness. He cursed in German and received a numbing blow in the small of his back. Next moment he was yanked to his feet and the sacking was pulled from his head.
The dug-out in which Toni was standing appeared, to have been cut into a cliff face. Through a large round hole in one wall he could see sky and hear sounds, including the sound of water, which seemed to come from far below. This dug-out, he thought, must be in one of the cliffs overhanging the Volga. It was from these cliffs, from the west bank where they held a shallow bridgehead into the city, that the Russians had tunnelled with such extraordinary effect. The dug-out walls were dripping, the air damp and chilling to the bone. The place was about three metres square. A kerosene lamp stood on a table.
At the table sat two men. One wore the shoulder straps of an officer on his greatcoat. On the other, who was in shadow, Toni could discern no mark of rank. The latter spoke first, in a lilting, broken German. His voice was high-pitched. Both he and his companion wore fur hats and smoked pungent, Russian cigarettes. The reek was strong.
‘Your name?’
‘Major Rudberg.’
‘Your unit?’
Toni described himself as attached to Sixth Army Headquarters. It was strictly true at the time of capture, and it could do no harm.
‘What is your position at Sixth Army Headquarters?’
‘I was attached to the Army Staff for a particular task. Temporarily.’
‘What particular task?’
The conventions dictated that interrogation must be limited to the eliciting of certain specific facts. The conventions, Toni decided, were hardly likely to apply. He would do the least possible damage to his comrades and to Germany, and be judge, while he still had strength, of how and what to answer. And he would, somehow, survive. The immediate problem was how to comport himself so that these particular Ivans would think it desirable to keep him alive: and to send him to the rear. What sort of command post was this, he wondered. Battalion? Regiment? He looked neutrally at his interrogator.
‘I was to report on the state of the German troops in Stalingrad.’
‘Report to whom?’
‘The Staff of Army Group Don.’
‘So you are on the Staff of Army Group Don?’
This was getting more difficult. Toni was anxious to avoid, as long as possible, questions touching his real area of knowledge, the strength, composition and capabilities of the divisions of Army Group Don, the troops outside the pocket, the German Army on the Don front. At that moment, however, the man at the table with the officer’s epaulettes started to mutter in Russian to the interrogator. Toni kept his face blank. He distinguished a word or two. They seemed to be reminding each other of something. Toni heard Epaulettes say, Tester-day’, and, ‘Orders from Division’. The other nodded. He looked at Toni and then spoke in Russian to the soldier standing behind him. With sacking again pulled over his head but with a faint whisper of hope in his heart Toni found himself hauled up the slippery steps of the dug-out to cleaner and drier air above. He had no picture of his surroundings to help compose the mind. He could envisage nothing.
He heard the words, ‘This one’s got to go back to Headquarters. Over the river.’
Toni reckoned he had been walking for nearly two hours. His watch had been dexterously snatched from his wrist when the sacking was first put over his head. After emerging from the dug-out he had been prodded along steep, slimy paths, falling often. At last he had found himself treading on boards, resonant, slippery. The sacking had been taken away. Jammed between Russian soldiers they were crossing the great river on a creaking, paddle-driven ferry. Then he had been pushed and harried up the east bank and along a track of beaten snow. He seemed to be escorted by only one soldier. After walking a short way they appeared to be alone, trudging through the snow beneath a leaden sky. Toni reckoned that it must be about three o’clock in the afternoon.
The pain in Toni’s knee was sharp and showed no signs of diminishing. Every step was torment. Nausea had been replaced by hunger. He felt incapable of a long march: a long march, however, looked to be his fate. He limped on as well as he could. His escort shuffled along behind him. Toni glanced at him periodically. In his mind he christened him Vassili. If they were going to spend some time together he had better have a name, if only in imagination.
Vassili’s face was barely visible. His fur cap had ear-pieces, and a mouth and nostril cover – Toni could see eyes which looked at him incuriously. He wore felt boots, huge, shapeless articles which were undoubtedly warmer and more serviceable than anything in German use – and greatly preferable to Toni’s field boots, in which his legs were so frozen at the start of the march as to raise doubts in his mind as to whether they were still attached to his body. Vassili had a rifle with fixed bayonet slung over the shoulder. Marching along behind Toni he periodically uttered a strange cry which somehow penetrated the mouth cover and was interpreted by Toni as an instruction to move faster. There was nothing to be done about this.
Toni, twisted with pain, felt the temptation strong, now and then, to sink into the snow, to let the man shoot or bayonet him – or simply leave him to die, here on the icy Volga steppe. Every pace brought a fresh twinge to his knee. His face, unprotected from the wind, was frozen. He supposed he would get, probably already had, frostbite. His nose would drop off. His gloves, although fleece lined and, miraculously, still in his possession were of little use. He kept his hands in his pockets. He supposed he still had ears because he could hear the crunch of snow beneath his feet. He trudged on, looking at the ground five paces ahead. The biting wind sighed and sang. The will to live is strong but it was ebbing in Rudberg.
Toni heard, once again, a meaningless call from his escort. He plodded forward and then felt, dully, the new pain of a blow between the shoulder blades. It was the butt of Vassili’s rifle. Toni turned. Vassili was stationary and shouting something. He appeared to be commanding a halt. Toni turned again, apathetically. Then he saw the reason.
Trudging towards them through the snow in the opposite direction was another Russian soldier. He and Vassili called greetings to each other. Soon they all formed a bizarre threesome beside the track. The two Russians evidently knew each other. They took no notice of Toni. Toni could now distinguish their words. The chance of a social occasion was too great to miss, and each soldier lowered his mouth cover and fumbled in his pocket producing tobacco and paper. Soon they were rolling, lighting and puffing cigarettes. They chatted, oblivious of Toni. Eventually the soldier who had met them said,
‘What have you got here?’
Toni listened with interest. He could follow them pretty clearly although he took care to show nothing.
‘A Fritz. An officer, I’ve got to take him to Headquarters.
The other looked at Vassili pityingly.
‘You know it’s another hour’s march?’
‘Yes, I know,’ Vassili drew on his cigarette.
‘Well, why don’t you shoot him?’
‘No, Comrade,’ said Vassili seriously. ‘That won’t do. I’ve been ordered to take him.’
‘You could say he collapsed on the way. The snow will soon cover him. They’ll never know. Here, I’ll shoot him if you like, my rifle’s dirty already. Otherwise you’ve got three hours in front of you by the time you get home again.’
‘I know,’ said Vassili regretfully, ‘but Headquarters know he’s coming. I’ll end in the snow myself if he doesn’t arrive.’<
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The other digested this. He seemed to find the conclusion depressing. He turned to Toni and looked at him, considering. Then he spoke to Vassili again.
‘Well, if you won’t shoot him and you won’t let me shoot him, you might at least look after him better.’
‘How – better?’
‘Well, the poor fellow’s absolutely done in, anybody can see that. Here, Comrade,’ he said to Toni, without any reasonable expectation of being understood. ‘Here, you’d better have a cigarette.’
He rolled one, shoved it with a grin between Toni’s frozen lips, and produced a light. Watching with satisfaction as Toni puffed, he felt in his pocket and produced a bottle. He took a swig, roared with laughter and held it out to Vassili, who drank greedily. Then its owner recovered the bottle and pushed it at Toni.
‘Go on, Comrade, it will do you good. You never know when a drink will be your last. It’s a terrible world, Comrade – a terrible, terrible world!’
Part V
1944
Chapter 18
John and Hilda Marvell led a separate existence from the American officers who had largely taken over Bargate in the autumn of 1943. Relations were cordial, contacts few. The Americans belonged to the communications unit of a large Headquarters in Flintdown. They were invariably courteous. Colonel Schultz, the Commanding Officer, a large, sallow-faced man from Illinois with rimless glasses, was particularly friendly. Hilda loathed having them in the house, and despised herself for loathing it.
‘They’re a long way from home,’ she told herself. ‘And they certainly didn’t ask to come. And what am I doing to win the war?’
Nevertheless, she could not help herself – the military presence sprawling over Bargate was a defilement. Grey vehicles with huge white stars painted on them crowded every yard, driveway and paddock. Noise was incessant.