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

‘I think the city has a very big problem. It has Stalin’s name on it. Never underestimate the simple things. Hitler wants it for his little collection. He thinks it would keep the Germans happy and he’s probably right. Me? I’m here to pat their little square heads, and engage their interest, and tell them not to worry. The Führer will deliver because he always does. Is it a fantasy? I’ve no idea but you, Willi, will be the first to know. And that’s a promise.’

He began to saw at the schnitzel, but Schultz wouldn’t let him off the hook.

‘And the Russians? Do they get a say in any of this?’

‘Of course, they do. You were here last year. You’ve just told me how hard they can make life. It’s gone midnight, Willi. A truce, ja?Time for just a mouthful or two?’

Schultz was staring at him, and for the first time Nehmann realised that these reservations of his were genuine. He had first-hand experience of what the Russians could do, of how tough they were and how resourceful. Sheer numbers, he seemed to be saying, may in the end count more than propaganda.

Schultz peered down at his own plate for a moment or two, then looked up.

‘You’re flying to Tatsinskaya tomorrow morning. Am I right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then you’re attached to Fliegerkorps VIII?Richthofen’s mob?’

‘Yes.’

‘That may not be enough.’

‘Enough for what?’

Schultz shook his head. He wouldn’t answer the question. Then he glanced round the near-empty restaurant before returning to Nehmann.

‘I can get to the front line any time I want,’ he said softly. ‘Make contact when you need me.’

17

TATSINSKAYA, RUSSIA, 24 AUGUST 1942

Exhausted, hungover, but otherwise undamaged, Werner Nehmann was at Kyiv airfield by six in the morning. Schultz hadn’t accompanied him out of the city but had been on hand at Nehmann’s quarters before dawn to shake him briefly by the hand and say goodbye. Nehmann wanted to enquire further about what he might expect over the days to come but Schultz wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

‘You know how to get me,’ he said. ‘Ring if you have to.’

Have to?

Nehmann was sitting at the back of the big Ju-52 transport. Every seat on the aircraft was occupied, mainly Wehrmacht officers with a couple of younger men in Luftwaffe uniform. The narrow cabin was airless and seemed shrouded in gloom. Conversation, at this time in the morning, was subdued. Beside the window, Nehmann had the sun on his face and as the lattice of Ukrainian fields below grew smaller with altitude, he fought the urge to doze. Whether he liked it or not, the regime had gathered him up and was shipping him east.

Have to?

Schultz, he knew, had contacts at every level of the Nazi machine. As an Alter Kämpfer,one of the old brawlers who’d brought mayhem to the streets of Munich when power was still a gleam in Hitler’s eye, he had the ear of countless Party members who’d done well out of the regime. They trusted Schultz. For better or for worse, they believed he represented something the Party would be poorer for losing. Whether Schultz still carried the authentic whiff of revolution wasn’t for Nehmann to judge but what was incontestable were the talents of the man himself. Like Nehmann, he had an acute awareness of when things might get out of hand. And, like Nehmann, he was a survivor.

The flight was much longer than Nehmann had anticipated, the living proof that Schultz might have a point about the sheer size of the challenge that Hitler had set himself. Halfway through the journey, in the middle of nowhere, they landed to refuel. Nehmann, along with most of the other passengers, clambered down the metal ladder to stretch his legs. In every direction he could see nothing but the yawning folds of the steppe. Apart from a cluster of huts and two refuelling bowsers, there was nothing, just a faint sweetness on the wind and the bored near-adolescent on duty advising one of the passengers not to get too close to the refuelling hose with his cigarette. As a metaphor, thought Nehmann, this scene is telling. We’re nomads in this wilderness. Our tenure here is strictly provisional. A blink of the eye, a turn of the page, and we’ll be gone.

They filed back onto the aircraft. Nehmann felt better now, ready for a proper sleep. He counted his fellow passengers. There were sixteen. The pilot fired up the three engines, pointed the aircraft at the wind, and took off.

Two and a half hours later, a series of bumps awoke Nehmann. They were descending through a layer of thin cloud. From the window, as the cloud parted, he saw another airfield, away to the right, very different from the last. There were aircraft parked everywhere in clusters of four and five. Midget-sized vehicles busied between them, trailing wispy clouds of dust, while a series of small brown dots marked the edges of the airfield. The dots were everywhere. They looked like insect larvae and it was a full minute before they were low enough for Nehmann to recognise them as tents. This is where I sleep, he thought. This is where I must hatch my best ideas.

Messner was waiting at the low wooden structure that appeared to serve as a terminal. He offered a stiff salute and then nodded at Nehmann’s bag. It was red, soft leather with a yellow flower pattern around the handles. It belonged to Maria and it was all he’d been able to find in the scramble to leave Guram’s apartment.

‘That’s all you’ve got?’

‘It is. I’m not staying long.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

Nehmann didn’t answer. He followed Messner to a waiting Jeep. Evidently it was American, a gift to the Russians and now part of the spoils of war. Nehmann couldn’t see anything like it elsewhere on the airfield.

‘It’s for our use only.’ Messner told him to get in.

‘Our use?’

‘Myself and the Generaloberst.’

Mention of Richthofen prompted a question