Last Citadel wwi-3

by David L. Robbins

  Colonel Plokhoi came out of the blinding day. Behind him walked the starosta Filip.

  Both men were sweaty and soiled. Both wore their wool coats and dark hats. Katya admired the will of these old men, to work in this heat wearing such clothes. She knew it was Plokhoi’s command, because they might have to bolt from the fields at a moment’s notice.

  The two partisans stood in front of the prisoner. They removed their hats and mopped bare foreheads with open palms. The German did not lift his gaze from their boots. Plokhoi dropped a bead of sweat near the prisoner’s tethered legs, his black beard and raven eyes hovered like a storm above the prisoner’s head. Plokhoi spoke, his voice so restrained she could hear the madness in it.

  ‘What is your name and rank?’

  Filip translated in a monotone. For Katya, the German tongue was guttural next to the fluid mouthings of Russian.

  The prisoner lifted his chin and gazed up to Plokhoi. He seemed timid, Katya decided, afraid to give offense. Or no, something else. Calculating. He wanted something.

  ‘Standartenführer Abram Breit.’

  ‘What is your unit?’

  ‘Erste SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.’

  Plokhoi mulled these words. He hated everything German, this prisoner, the language of the enemy. Hitler’s name here in the cool barn under the glare of Colonel Plokhoi was like a match to straw, Katya sensed Plokhoi smoldering.

  ‘Filip.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell him everything I say. Word for word.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Listen to me, Nazi.’

  Filip translated this.

  The prisoner did as he was told, raising his face full to the partisan leader. Filip spoke a quiet stream beside Plokhoi’s words.

  ‘It’s hard for me to keep from killing you right now. I have you here and no one would miss you. Your army thinks you’re dead already in that plane crash. You understand?’

  Katya watched the translation strike home. The prisoner’s eyes tumbled for a moment, then returned to Plokhoi’s, and she saw the man did understand. He was going to be left alive. He was relieved, the lines in his face smoothed, and more. He seemed sorry for Plokhoi’s hatred, as though he knew and accepted the reasons for it.

  Plokhoi and Filip continued.

  ‘If you do not do exactly what you are told, I will have you shot and nailed to a tree.’

  The prisoner nodded, agreeable. This bothered Katya, that an SS officer would behave this way, without defiance, with such cooperation. His name was Breit. He didn’t seem frightened. He didn’t know Plokhoi, or he would have been.

  The prisoner said, ‘Ja.’

  ‘I’ve been given orders to have you taken back across the lines to be interrogated. My superiors think you know something. Do you know something, Standartenführer?’

  ‘J a.’

  ‘Good. Pray you live long enough to tell it.’

  The German did not watch Filip speaking. Instead, he searched Plokhoi’s face for clues, gathering what he could out of Plokhoi’s tone.

  ‘Nazi?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘I have seen and lost far too much. So have my men. I am going to trust you to the mercies of the Witch here. She and this old man will deliver you across the lines tomorrow morning.’

  Katya did not wait for Filip to make the full translation. She stepped to Plokhoi’s side. The partisan leader did not look at her, his eyes were screwed on the German.

  ‘Colonel,’ she said. ‘Colonel.’

  Plokhoi glared down at her, the black furls of his beard wavered over his working jaw. She sensed the malice in him.

  ‘Colonel, a word.’

  Plokhoi drew a deep breath. He’d heard her and ascended from whatever pit he’d been in. He turned to her. He bore her a smile, a strange counterpoint to his anger. Plokhoi was mercurial this way, it made him charismatic and dangerous.

  ‘Yes, Witch.’

  ‘I believe I know where Leonid Lumanov is.’

  ‘Your pilot.’

  ‘Yes. I intend to rescue him.’

  ‘You intend.’

  Katya did not hesitate. ‘Yes. Tomorrow.’

  Plokhoi said, ‘I don’t have orders for that.’

  ‘Yes you do. You had them a week ago. You never said they were rescinded.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Plokhoi appeared amused at her cleverness.

  He said, ‘And what if you and Filip are captured? The two of you know a great deal about us by now, Witch. I think it’s safer asking you to stay out of sight and get across the lines with this Nazi than to take on a German garrison.’

  ‘My brothers,’ Filip piped up, ‘they will come, too. Seven of us. We’ll go with the Witch to get the pilot.’

  ‘No,’ Plokhoi decreed. ‘They’re not trained for that sort of thing.’

  Daniel stood from his straw pile. ‘I’ll go along, Colonel. I owe her one.’

  Big Ivan rose, too, coming alongside Daniel and nodding his great head.

  ‘We were supposed to bring him in, Colonel,’ he said. ‘I think we still ought to try if we can.’

  Katya promised Plokhoi she would deliver the prisoner after retrieving Leonid.

  ‘Where is your pilot?’ Plokhoi asked her.

  Katya did not look at Daniel and Ivan. She did not know who the traitor was in their cell. It could even be Plokhoi himself. But if they were going to help her retrieve Leonid, she would have to risk trusting them.

  ‘He’s close by,’ she answered. ‘Just fifteen kilometers away, in Kazatskoe. We’ll set out at sunrise as soon as curfew ends. After we have him, we can make our way northwest across the lines. I’ll hand your German over. But, Colonel, you have to let me do this first.’

  Plokhoi scratched in his beard with dirty nails. ‘Josef will come with you. You’ll need him if there’s going to be more of your heroics, Witch.’

  She heaved a sigh of gratitude. ‘Thank you, Colonel.’

  Plokhoi put on his hat, expressionless. Daniel and Ivan went back to lying on their straw beds. Katya reached out to squeeze Filip’s arm.

  The partisan leader opened the barn door. The day’s light blazed behind him. He called out, ‘Witch?’

  ‘Yes, Colonel?’

  ‘After you save this pilot of yours and deliver the prisoner, will you be going back to your air unit?’

  ‘I don’t know’

  Colonel Bad tipped his cap to her.

  ‘Please consider it.’

  July 9

  2130 hours

  A farmer’s wife brought in a pot of stew. Outside the open barn door the first blushes of the long dusk filtered through the fields. Katya watched the villagers and partisans shuffle in together from the furrows, to move inside the huts and houses before the German-imposed curfew took hold here in the occupied land. The old woman shuffled past the enemy prisoner bound against the post, surprised to see him; this made sense, she did not know he was here. She stopped to look him over. The stew pot steamed in her hands, she gripped the kettle through her lifted apron. She nodded looking down at Breit, perhaps imagining some justice she wanted to befall this SS man. She set out four bowls on the straw-strewn floor.

  ‘Five, Mother,’ Filip said. He jabbed his long nose at the German. ‘He has to go a long way tomorrow.’

  The woman tossed another bowl to the ground. She did not pour the stew into them but set the pot down and smoothed her apron. She stared down at Breit. The German looked only at her dusty shoes. Katya knew this woman did not see one German tied up for her but all of them. Her old head sagged and she began to whimper. Filip rose and stood beside her, he put his arm gently around her shoulders and turned her away

  ‘If he’s too much trouble,’ the woman said, walking for the door, her voice trembling, ‘you can leave him here.’

  Filip closed the barn door behind her. Ivan poured the stew into the bowls. Daniel handed them out. It was left to Filip to give food to the German.

  ‘Danke,’ Breit
said.

  Filip spoke with the German. They kept their voices low in the fading light of the barn. Katya listened from where she sat. The language the two men spoke was harsh, it sounded like a sweeping broom. She thought about how little she knew of Germans and Germany. There had never been a need to be familiar with them, they were targets, invaders of Russia. Nothing ever written or spoken about them by the Soviets had given the impression that these were men at all. Just cruel creatures to be stamped out by any means possible, no sacrifice was too great to kill a German. She watched this one sip stew out of the bowl with his tied hands, the way any man would. Filip squatted on his haunches at the prisoner’s feet. The two chatted. Filip nodded many times to things the German had to say.

  Katya finished her bowl and set it down. Lana licked at it through the stall gate. Katya walked over to Filip and Breit.

  ‘The two of you be quiet,’ she said. ‘Filip, feed him and leave him alone.’

  ‘Witch,’ said Filip, looking up at her with a crinkled face, a serious mien. ‘Wait. This is an educated man.’

  ‘Educated in what?’ Katya wanted to kick the German’s ribs again. ‘Murder? Rape?’

  Filip shushed her. He motioned Katya to come lower and to ease her voice.

  Whatever he had to say on behalf of this German was not for Daniel and Ivan to hear.

  Katya sighed with impatience. She took a knee beside Filip. The old starosta leaned close.

  ‘This is Colonel Abram Breit. He’s an intelligence officer. He says he’s not a combat soldier.’

  ‘Look at him, Filip. He’s covered in dirt. Look at his face, he was wearing damn goggles. He’s a tanker, an artillery man. He’s been fighting on the front lines. He’s even got a medal for it.’

  While Katya growled, pointing at Breit’s uniform, medallion, and gritty face, Filip turned her words into quiet German so Breit could follow and reply. The German waited until Katya paused. He spoke to Filip, still avoiding Katya’s eyes.

  The elder translated while the German talked.

  ‘I’m not dirty from fighting. I rode a motorcycle from Belgorod to the airfield. I wore goggles then, the road was crowded with trucks. Look, I carried no gun on me, not even a holster or a knife. The medal is for administrative work. I was an art historian. I am not a fighter. I have never shot anyone.’

  Filip whispered all this to Katya. She listened, watching Breit’s lips while the elder spoke for him.

  ‘I don’t believe you. You were shot down in a bomber.’

  ‘I was heading back to Berlin. A bomber was the plane arranged for me. I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Why were you going to Berlin?’

  ‘I’m an intelligence officer. I was going to make a report.’

  An art historian. An intelligence officer. If that’s what you say, good. Now you’re a prisoner. That’s all you are anymore.’

  ‘No. I’m something else.’

  The German looked squarely at Katya. He studied her face. He pivoted his eyes to Filip and whispered a question.

  Filip turned to Katya.

  ‘He wants to know if he can trust you.’

  Katya almost laughed when Filip gave these words to the German. She laid a finger to her own breast.

  ‘Me? Trust me? I’m not the one he has to worry about. If he tries anything, Ivan over there will break his neck. Or Josef will cut it.’

  The German shook his head even before Filip had translated any of this.

  Filip said to Katya, ‘No, Witch. I don’t think that’s what he means.’

  The starosta sat on crossed legs in front of the prisoner. The elder liked the mystery of this tied-up German, he was intrigued with the secrets that came in the barn with him. Filip was a Russian peasant, the ancient kind who had always loved his betters, a slave for the Tsars and now the Soviets. It was plain this prisoner had been schooled, he had bearing even tied to a post, he might even be a gentleman in Berlin. He worked some thrall over simple Filip.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Katya asked Breit. She wanted the German to say it, to admit in front of Filip that he beheld himself the master race, a destiny in his bloodline, to rule. She would kick him again for it and go back to her horse.

  ‘I was hit on the head.’

  ‘No…’ He tested Katya’s patience. ‘No, why is Germany here? In Russia. Making war.’

  Breit composed his answer. He said only ‘Conquest.’

  ‘There,’ she said, slapping Filip’s arm when he translated the word. The starosta nodded that she was right.

  The prisoner continued. Filip perked up and listened, then sweetened more harsh German into Russian.

  ‘Conquest is merely a shorthand to greatness. It’s a sickness that every nation endures at some point when its pride has grown too fast. The urge to take overwhelms the will to create. It’s a malady of power. It’s something your country will go through, young lady. If you win this war, you watch. Keep an eye on what Russia does, then judge Germany.’

  These words spilled from Filip, making the old man more eloquent than he likely had ever been. Filip had a German speaking for him now. A shiver crept through Katya. Filip talking this way seemed very wrong, a little invasion and occupation here in the barn.

  She meant to put a stop to the conversation. She didn’t want to know any more about this SS officer. She was going to deliver him across the lines or see him killed in the process. She would send him back into his prisoner’s silence and give Filip back his volnitsa from this German’s tongue.

  ‘We will win,’ she said. ‘We are winning.’

  ‘Are you? What do you know?’

  Breit cocked his head at her. Katya took in the gesture, then glanced over at Filip. The starosta was dumb, waiting for the German’s next utterance.

  ‘Do you know,’ Breit said through the elder, ‘that in the south the SS has penetrated to your last defense belt? That the fighting has moved within sight of the towers of Oboyan? Your Soviet army is losing three men for every German soldier. Three tanks for every German tank. Planes. Artillery. Everything. Do you know how long you can stand this kind of carnage until the weight of the battle shifts away from you? Do you? I don’t. And I know a great deal more than you can imagine.’

  Katya reeled at this. She had no idea, just as the prisoner implied. What foot soldier or running partisan could ever know beyond what they saw? She had been shot down behind the lines just as the battle started. This was the first news, not even Plokhoi told their cell how things were going. The battle for Kursk was surely huge, ranging over so much steppe, far beyond the struggles of one, beyond the rivers and bends in the earth, even past what she had glimpsed from her cockpit. But was this German telling the truth? Probably not. Why would he? He’s spouting propaganda. Perhaps he believes what he says because it’s what he’s been told. Even so, she recalled the hundred-plus night bombing missions she’d been on. The Germans always had more supplies to be blown up. Always another train puffing in. Germany was an industrial giant next to Russia. They’d declared war on England and America, too. What kind of people can do that? Could they still win in Russia?

  Breit leaned forward against his ropes. ‘You do not know how important it is that Russia win this battle. The world will turn on what happens here. You have no idea.’

  Katya made no reply. Why would an SS officer say that? The look on her face must have told the prisoner to keep talking.

  ‘I have in my head every fact. Every detail and number about the German assault on Kursk. I must get this information to the Soviets.’

  Katya was befuddled. Of course that’s what he was going to do. Tomorrow, after she’d gotten Leonid back. This Abram Breit was going to be handed over. He will tell whatever he has in that head to whoever puts a gun to it and asks. What was he talking about?

  Breit said something to Filip. The old man gasped and rattled his gray head in wonderment.

  Katya prodded. ‘What?’

  ‘He says,’ Filip whispered, ‘he is a s
py. For Russia.’

  Katya rubbed a hand across her forehead. She could not restrain a little chuckle. ‘So this is why he wants to know if he can trust me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Filip answered without speaking for the German, knowing what Breit would say. ‘He wants you to let him go.’

  Katya nodded into the German’s eyes. She grinned mockingly.

  ‘Please,’ Breit said through Filip, ‘tell no one else. If either of you tells your commander, he will radio that he has captured a spy and ask for orders. There are many German spies in Moscow, in your army and your government. One of them will find out who I am. I’ll be intercepted and killed, either in Moscow or back in Berlin. You have to let me slip away. I am helping Russia. You must believe me.’

  Katya puzzled at the tale. It was fantastic, that anyone would say these things after being captured. This German was inventive, and plausible in his performance, quietly frantic. This was a plot out of an adventure book, a fiction about a swashbuckling spy. She gazed at the thin, dirty German wrapped in ropes on this plank floor. This was no hero.

  ‘I will turn you over to a commissar tomorrow evening, Colonel. That’s when I will let you go. You can tell him all your numbers then. You’ll be a great help. Russia will thank you appropriately, I’m sure.’

  Filip translated this without the sarcasm from her tone. Breit grew urgent.

  ‘You can’t! I must get back to Berlin!’

  Katya stood, feeling the whiplash of anger. This was enough of Breit; he was something she’d been curious about – an enemy brought close for a little while, for an afternoon and night in a remote village barn – but like a cave she’d wandered into, now she was far enough from the light at the opening to turn around and go back. She lacked the desire to delve farther. Tomorrow she would try to rescue Leonid, she may die in the attempt along with this German and the old starosta. She worried every day for Papa and Valentin, she grieved for Vera and too many others already. Where was the room in her for Breit’s pleading? If by any chance he was a spy, then he was a traitor to his own country, and the Cossack in her found that sour and wormy. If not, then he was just a liar and a coward. In either case, his story was not worth reporting to Colonel Bad. She would keep the prisoner’s secret, not because he asked her but because she would look foolish repeating it.