It was a catastrophe of almost cosmic dimensions. The giant blaze had spread almost to the border of the Kazakh steppes.
There were moments when the earth itself could be seen, with small black mosquitoes above it, but dense smoke instantly covered everything over.
The Volga and the surrounding steppe looked grey and wintry, blanketed by a sombre fog.
The pilot felt suddenly anxious; through his earphones he could hear Richthofen almost gasping for breath. Then he heard him say, “Mars . . . this must be visible from Mars. It’s the work of Be-el-ze-bub.”
In his numbed, slave’s heart the Nazi general could sense the power of the man who had elevated him to these terrible heights, who had entrusted to him the torch with which German planes, on this last border between Europe and Asia, had kindled a blaze that would enable German tanks and infantry to advance towards the Volga and the giant Stalingrad factories.
These minutes and hours seemed the greatest triumph of totalitarianism’s most merciless idea—that of pitting TNT and aircraft engines against women and children. To the fascist pilots defying the Soviet flak and soaring over this cauldron of smoke and flame, these hours appeared to signal the fulfilment of Hitler’s promise: German violence would triumph over the world. Those down below—listening to the planes’ sinister hum, suffocating in smoke as they sheltered in cellars or among the incandescent ruins of their homes—appeared to have been defeated forever.55
But this was not so. A great city was perishing, but this did not mean that Russia was being enslaved—still less that she was dying. Amid the smoke and ashes the Soviet people’s strength, love and belief in freedom was still obstinately alive, even growing stronger—and this indestructible force was already beginning to triumph over the futile violence of those trying to enslave it.
41
BY 23 AUGUST, two German panzer divisions, one division of motor infantry and several infantry regiments had crossed the Don near Vertyachy Hamlet.
These troops, now concentrated on the bridgehead, were ordered to attack Stalingrad immediately after the air raid.
The German tanks broke through the Soviet defences and advanced swiftly towards the Volga along a corridor between eight and ten kilometres wide. This breakthrough was swift and entirely successful. Bypassing defensive fortifications, the Germans advanced due east, towards a city now choking in fire and smoke, torn apart by thousands of high-explosive bombs.
The German tanks continued their advance, ignoring both Soviet supply columns and the many civilians on foot who, at the sight of the Germans, fled into the steppe or towards the cliffs above the Volga. In the afternoon, the tanks appeared on the city’s northern outskirts, around Rynok and Yerzovka. Soon, they reached the Volga itself.
Thus, at 4 p.m. on 23 August 1942, the Stalingrad Front was bisected by a narrow corridor. German infantry divisions entered this corridor immediately after the tanks. The Germans were now on the west bank of the Volga, only one and a half kilometres from the Tractor Factory, at a time when most of the Soviet 62nd Army was still struggling to stand its ground on the east bank of the Don. These troops were in danger of encirclement.
Already shaken by the sight of the blazing city, people on the main road to Kamyshin suddenly glimpsed German heavy tanks. Close behind them were columns of motor infantry, half-hidden by dust.
German staff officers were following the progress of these columns intently. All relevant radiograms were decoded at once and transmitted to Colonel General Paulus.
There was tension at every link in the chain, but everything portended success. By evening it was known in Berlin that Stalingrad was a sea of fire, that German tanks had reached the Volga without meeting resistance, and that fighting had begun at the Tractor Factory. One last push—it appeared—and the Stalingrad question would be resolved.
42
ON AN AREA of wasteland and kitchen gardens a little to the northwest of the Tractor Factory, groups of Red Army mortarmen—members of an anti-tank brigade recently withdrawn from the front—were engaged in training exercises.
They could hear a low hum from the factory, reminiscent of the murmur of an autumn forest. Now and then small flames shone through the murk of the soot-covered windows. And there was a trembling pale blue light from the welding workshops.
Senior Lieutenant Sarkisyan, the commander of the heavy mortar unit, was strolling slowly about. Clearly the man in charge, he was watching his men’s movements and listening to what they said, pausing for a while, then going on further. There was a look of contentment on his swarthy, slightly bluish face. He was wearing a new gabardine tunic with a smart celluloid undercollar and—instead of the simpler cap he had worn at the front—a new artilleryman’s cap with a black band. Locks of wiry black hair poked out from beneath it. Sarkisyan was stocky and extremely short. Like all short men, he did his best to look taller. He didn’t smooth down his curly hair; and if conditions allowed and he was not at the front, he wore a fur hat in winter and a tall peaked cap in summer.
After hearing a slouching mortarman’s casual reply to a question from his platoon commander, Sarkisyan muttered, “A likely story!” and walked on further. There was an angry look in his dark-brown eyes.
The exercises were not going well. The men were giving careless answers to questions and calling out the wrong ranging data. They seemed especially reluctant to get down to the work of digging trenches. The moment Sarkisyan was out of sight, they started yawning, wondering whether or not they’d get a chance to sit down and have a smoke.
After many days of feverish tension, both commanders and soldiers had slipped into the languid state characteristic of men recently withdrawn from combat. No one wanted to remember the past or think about the future; no one felt like doing anything at all. But the young senior lieutenant had a fiery, southern temperament, and he had no patience with any of this. When he finally walked away from a mortar crew, he would leave them glaring at his thick neck and protruding ears. This, after all, was a Sunday and everyone else was resting. Anti-tank artillery crews, anti-tank rifles, anti-aircraft gunners, ammunition-supplies workers, HQ staff—all were free to do as they pleased. Everyone knew that the brigade commander and commissar had declared a day of rest. Sarkisyan, however, had taken his unit to the vegetable gardens, ordered them to dig trenches and to drag heavy mortars and part of their ammunition supplies to this new location, beside a deep gully. Senior Sergeant Generalov, in a good mood after a full night’s sleep and a quick visit to the bathhouse followed by a Zhiguli beer, understood—simply from reading their lips—what one group of men were muttering to one another. “All right,” he shouted good-naturedly, “that’s enough of your effing and blinding!”
Lieutenant Morozov, who had a bandaged arm, came up to Sarkisyan; he had been on duty at Brigade HQ but had just been relieved. He was walking arm in arm with the commander of the anti-aircraft battery responsible for the defence of the Tractor Factory. The two men had been fellow students at military school and had met again, unexpectedly, at the factory.
“Well, comrade Senior Lieutenant, I can tell you we really have said goodbye to the front now. There’s just been a bulletin from Military District HQ. Seems we won’t be staying here much longer—we’re being sent to regroup somewhere north of Saratov. They gave the exact location, but it’s slipped my mind.”
He laughed. Sarkisyan laughed too, and had a good stretch.
“You may even get some leave,” said Svistun, the anti-aircraft gunner. “Especially you, comrade Lieutenant—you’ve got a wound that’s not healing.”
“I probably will,” Morozov replied. “I’ve already asked. My superiors have no objections.”
“No such luck for me,” said Svistun. “The Tractor Factory is considered an object of national importance.” And he broke into curses.
Sarkisyan looked at Svistun’s red cheeks, winked at Morozov and replied, “What do you want with leave? You’re as good as in a holiday resort already. There’s the V
olga nearby. You can go to the beach every day. There’s plenty of watermelons.”
“I’ve had all the watermelons I can eat,” said Svistun. “I’m fed up with them.”
“And as for his girls!” said Morozov. “He’s got quite a collection. Rangefinder operators, instrument technicians, you name it . . . All clean and scrubbed up. All with ten years of schooling. Neat curls and pretty little white collars. When I first went in, I had to rub my eyes. No, Svistun, you don’t need leave—you’ve got all a man can ask for right here. And you were famous for your conquests even back at military school.”
Svistun gave a little laugh and said, “All right, enough of you and your stories!” It seemed he preferred not to brag of his successes.
Morozov turned to Sarkisyan and said quietly, “Rest should mean rest. Now I’m off duty, why don’t we all go into Stalingrad together? What’s got into you, comrade Senior Lieutenant? Why all these exercises when you’re safely back in the rear? Everyone’s taking the day off. The lieutenant colonel and his adjutant have gone fishing. The commissar’s writing letters.”
“All right,” said Sarkisyan. “But the factory will be getting a beer delivery today—I heard from the canteen director.”
“The stout one?” asked Morozov.
“Maria Fominichna’s a good woman. She always says when there’s going to be beer,” said Svistun, who clearly knew the factory canteen well. “And you should bear in mind that the cask beer’s better than the bottled—and cheaper too!”
“Maria,” said Sarkisyan, his eyes gleaming. “At eighteen hundred hours she finishes work and we’ll be going out together. But till then, it’s exercises—that’s my decision, and I’m sticking to it.”
“Comrade Senior Lieutenant, Maria is aging goods. She must be at least forty by now,” said Morozov reproachfully. “You and your fatties—why don’t you try something different?”
“I’d say she’s a good bit over forty,” added Svistun.
It was around three o’clock in the afternoon. It was a quiet, hot Sunday and these men could hardly have imagined that in only an hour they would be first to confront the German tanks, that shots from Sarkisyan’s heavy mortars and Svistun’s rapid-firing, long-barrelled anti-aircraft guns would mark the beginning of a great battle.
They talked a little longer, then went their separate ways, having agreed to meet two hours later in the factory canteen. They’d have a beer and then drive into the city to watch a film. Sarkisyan could provide a car and Svistun the fuel.
“In this instance the fuel problem is not difficult to resolve,” said Morozov, who liked to sound learned.
But Sarkisyan, Morozov and Svistun never did meet again. By early evening Lieutenant Morozov was lying on the ground, half-covered in earth, his skull smashed and his chest torn open. As for Svistun, he was in battle for thirty hours on end. Some of his guns engaged with the German tanks; the others struggled, amid flames, smoke and dust, to keep off the German bombers. He lost all contact with HQ, and Lieutenant Colonel Herman, his regimental commander, thought that his guns and gun crews, lost in the black smoke, had been completely destroyed. Only slowly did he realize, from the sound of shooting, that the battery must be still active. The battle saw the death of many of the pretty young girls—the instrument technicians and rangefinder operators—whom the three lieutenants had joked about only a few hours before. Svistun himself was eventually dragged out on a tarpaulin groundsheet, with severe stomach wounds and burns to his face.
But at this hour of the afternoon—as Sarkisyan returned to quietly inspecting his mortar crews and Morozov and Svistun set off, arms around each other’s shoulders, towards the factory, laughing and reminiscing about their time in military school—everything remained quiet, on the ground and in the sky.
It was the ammunition-bearers who first saw the German bombers.
“Look! Up there!” shouted one man. “Like ants. All over the sky. Coming from the Volga, coming from everywhere!”
“And heading straight for us. That’s it—we’re fucked.”
“Sure they’re not ours?”
“No way. Only the bloody bombs—they’ll be ours soon enough!”
The factory sirens started up, but their piercing howl was drowned by the dense drone of engines now filling the sky.
The soldiers looked up, watching the black cloud. Chaotic though its movement seemed, their practised eyes quickly determined that the Germans’ main blow was being directed at the city itself.
“They’re turning, the bastards. Descending . . . Diving . . . They’re diving! They’ve dropped their bombs.”
Then came a bleak, icy whistle—followed by deep, low explosions merging into a single powerful sound that made the earth tremble.
A young, shrill voice yelled, “Watch out—this time they’re coming for us!”
The soldiers scattered into trenches, pits and ravines, and lay still, pressing their caps to their heads as if this might protect them from high-explosive bombs. The anti-aircraft guns opened fire.
The first bombs fell.
Wrenched back from his thoughts about beer and an evening in town, Sarkisyan looked around him. He was terrified of German bombers, and air raids always made him feel lost and confused. He would look up at the sky in anguish: Where were the planes heading now? Who would be their next victim? “Not what I call war,” he would say. “Just flying bandits.”
Ground combat was another matter. During ground combat, he felt strong, cunning and ruthless. Fighting an enemy on the ground, he no longer had that vile sense of the top of his head being naked and exposed.
“Fire positions!” he yelled, trying to silence his anxiety through fury.
The first wave of planes had dropped their bombs and departed, and the second wave had yet to appear; for now, there was only smoke, blowing swiftly towards the Volga. To the south, Sarkisyan could hear the rumble—now louder, now quieter—of anti-aircraft fire, and the sky over the city was dotted with the little white puffs left by shell bursts. In the thin smoke from the buildings on fire below, a dark cloud of twin-engine insects was circling high over Stalingrad. Soviet fighters were attacking this furious, venomous swarm.
The mortarmen clambered out of their pits and trenches and went over to their mortars, not bothering to shake off the earth, knowing they might have to take cover again any moment. All heads were turned south towards the city, all eyes looking up at the sky. But Sarkisyan, his lips puckered and his eyes rounder than ever, kept turning to look behind him. As well as the snarling rumble in the air, he thought he could hear a harsh, iron purr he knew only too well.
“Can you hear something?” he asked Sergeant Generalov, who was frowning, though still as rosy-cheeked as ever.
Generalov shook his head and, cursing loudly, pointed up at the sky. “They’re heading this way again, straight for the factories.”
But Sarkisyan was no longer looking up at the sky, no longer listening to the concerted fire of the anti-aircraft guns defending the factory. Standing on tiptoe, he was looking as far as he could to the north, away from the city. Just beyond a broad gully leading down to the Volga, amid dusty grey bushes and stunted trees, he thought he could make out the sullen, low brow of a heavy tank.
“Take cover—they’re heading this way!” Generalov shouted, pointing up at the sky.
Sarkisyan gestured impatiently. “Run to the gully,” he said. “I think there’s something coming—on the far side. I want to know what it is.” He gave Generalov a gentle shove in the back. “Fly! Like an eagle!”
Ordering his platoon commanders to train their mortars on the far side of the gully, he climbed up onto the moss-covered roof of an old, abandoned house. From there he could see sheds, kitchen gardens, an empty road, paths leading to the gully, the gully itself and everything beyond it. A column of tanks—he thought there must be at least thirty—was advancing along a broad yellow track towards the Tractor Factory.
They were a long way away, and Sarkisya
n was unable to distinguish their colour or markings. Their armour, no doubt, was covered by thick layers of dust—and there was also the curtain of dust now being raised by their tracks and blowing about in the wind.
He could see Generalov approaching the gully, alternating between a run and a fast walk. No, there could be no real doubt . . . These were Soviet tanks—reinforcements coming down from Kamyshin. Only that morning the brigade commander, just arrived from Front HQ, had told Sarkisyan that the Germans had stopped at the Don and were unlikely to attempt a crossing any time soon. The Don was simply too broad . . .
Nevertheless, Sarkisyan did not trust these tanks.
Like everyone who has spent a long time at the front, Sarkisyan lived in a state of constant wariness. During the night he would prick up his ears at the slightest sounds—quiet footsteps or a barely perceptible hum of engines. He was used to watching intently as a truck drove through a village in a cloud of dust, to scrutinizing the contours of a solitary plane flying low over a railway, to stopping what he was doing and holding his breath as he watched a small group of men walk through a field. All this was now a part of him, a way of life that had entered his blood.
He could see dust over Lotoshinsky Gardens, where he had gone the day before to eat grapes. And from the garden near the Mokraya Mechetka rivulet—where an anti-tank battalion and several units of people’s militia from the factories were positioned—he could hear frequent, if indistinct, rifle shots and a few short bursts from machine guns. The militia seemed to have opened fire. Who were they firing at?
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