Last Flight to Stalingrad by Graham Hurley (novels to read .txt) 📕

tiny black dots swam into sight. At first, he mistook them for livestock of some kind, then he realised he was looking at thousands of uniforms, dark brown, huddled together. Soviet prisoners, he thought. The fruits of Paulus’s labour, now disarmed and penned in behind strands of barbed wire to await the long march westwards. Beyond the caged prisoners lay the debris of the battlefield, dozens of burned-out tanks scattered at random like a child’s discarded toys. The bareness of the steppe was pocked by thousands of craters, each one with its signature ring of charred grass.

Messner began to lose height. Kalach itself, like so many Ukrainian towns, was nothing to look at: a scattering of small workshops, rusting tractors, a railway station that seemed to be falling apart, and dozens of shacks, each with its scrap of tended garden. The airfield was rudimentary, a flattish space that seemed to double as a meadow for a handful of bony cattle. On landing, Messner did his best to avoid the deeper potholes, finally coming to rest beside a battered army command vehicle. The driver who helped him out of the Storch was to drive him to a command facility where a briefing had been hastily organised. The driver was an older man, a Rhinelander, companionable, friendly. Unlike most strangers, he paid no attention to the state of this newcomer’s face and when Messner asked him how he was coping with the campaign, he said his wife would never believe it.

‘Just over seventy kilograms.’ He patted the flatness of his stomach under the grey serge tunic. ‘She’ll think she’s married a stranger.’

They drove through the town. Wherever he looked, Messner saw more debris, more abandoned tanks, more evidence of the recent battle. Half a dozen prisoners, stripped to the waist, were hauling heavy wooden boxes towards a line of waiting trucks. When Messner enquired about the supply situation, and evacuation flights for the wounded, the driver admitted it was tricky. Most of the army were regrouping for the final push across the Don. Closing the Kalach pocket hadn’t been easy. Whatever the odds, the Ivans fought like lions.

‘Our guys are tough, though,’ he added. ‘If you can get through last winter, you can get through anything. Stalingrad should give us everything we need. When it gets below minus thirty, it pays to be in a city.’

Messner said he understood. Luftwaffe boys, he was the first to admit, had a sweet time of it. A proper bed for the night. Decent food. And the prospect of playing God from two thousand metres.

‘Sounds wonderful.’ The driver was smiling again. ‘Me? I like to keep my feet on the ground.’

*

They’d arrived at a sizeable tent, pitched beside the dirt road. This was where the briefing was to take place. Messner pushed aside the tent flap and stepped into the gloom. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, harsh, acrid, and the fuggy heat under the canvas was close to unbearable. Half a dozen faces looked up from a makeshift table. Messner, who could smell paraffin from the single lamp, didn’t recognise any of them. No one got up. Not a hint of a welcome.

‘And you are…?’

‘Oberstleutnant Messner. From 4th Air Fleet HQ. And you gentlemen?’

No one said a word. At first Messner put this seeming truculence down to poor morale and worse leadership but then it occurred to him that these men were probably exhausted. Springing a trap that had netted tens of thousands of Soviet troops didn’t happen by accident and it was obvious that any euphoria that accompanied a victory such as this had quickly vanished. At ground level, the stone-hard steppe would be endless. Another day of bouncing into nowhere. Another week of heat and dust. Yet more Ivans offering themselves for slaughter.

Messner tried to put some of this into words in a bid to break the ice but the Oberst in charge dismissed his clumsy sympathy with a wave of his hand.

‘Our boys love it round here.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘Some of them dream of coming back as farmers once the war is over. Can you believe that?’

There was a ripple of laughter around the table. The Oberst wanted to know whether Sixth Army could rely on the Stukas again.

‘When? Exactly?’ Messner queried.

‘Next week. We’ll be crossing the Don and the Ivans will jump us the moment we move. The Katyushas are the worst and those T-34s deserve a bit of respect. Stukas, Herr Oberst.The Ivans hate them.’

Messner said he understood. The Russians fired Katyusha rockets from the back of flatbed trucks. Like the T-34s, their equipment was rugged and rarely broke down. If intelligence reports were accurate, they also seemed to have more and more of them, inexhaustible supplies that appeared from nowhere and could make life on the steppe extremely difficult.

‘We have well over a thousand aircraft, gentlemen, and you’ll be pleased to know they’ll all be available on your behalf.’

There was an exchange of nods around the table. One officer even permitted himself a brief smile. Messner sat back, wondering just how much more he should reveal. The total of serviceable aircraft had come from Richthofen last night. He’d also said that most of them would be overflying Sixth Army to bomb Stalingrad. Of the Don River crossings, he’d made no mention.

‘And resupply?’ The Oberst again.‘You have good news on that front as well?’

‘I do.’ Messner paused, looking round, taking his time. ‘Three thousand tons a day. How does that sound?’

The officer nodded. He made a rapid calculation on the pad at his elbow, crossed out a line of figures, arrived at a new total, showed it to his neighbour, then looked across at Messner.

‘This assumes a fighting advance? Until we get to Stalingrad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then three thousand tons might suffice. Assuming, of course, that we can rely on a figure like that. You’re offering us a guarantee?’

Messner shook his head. He could recognise a trap when he saw one.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘We can’t predict the weather.