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

drive. In this weather he won’t be seeing much in any case, but that’s not the point.’

‘It’s theatre.’

‘Of course. You know us too well, Nehmann.’

‘A pantomime.’

‘Hardly. Not where we’re going. He’ll be handcuffed to you, by the way. Don’t let him lead you astray.’

Schultz had yet to start the engine. Nehmann wondered what other surprises the evening might have in store.

‘He believes we’ll set him free?’ Schultz asked. ‘The boy?’

‘He does.’

‘And?’

‘It terrifies him. You’re right. The Ivans trust nobody. Our smell on his pelt and the boy is as good as dead.’

‘Excellent.’ Schultz fumbled for a cigarette. Then came a deafening explosion, the loudest yet, and the surrounding ruins were briefly silhouetted against the blinding flash of light on the horizon.

‘The grain silo,’ Schultz grunted. ‘Paulus is losing patience and not before time. You wouldn’t want to be an Ivan, not in that building.’

There was the scrape of a match and Nehmann caught a glimpse of Schultz’s face as he ducked into the flame. Some men are born for nights like these, he thought, and I’m sharing a lorry cab with one of them.

‘So, what do we ask him? The boy? What’s the price for not letting him go?’

The question seemed to amuse Schultz. He sucked in a lungful of smoke and then expelled it slowly, tapping ash onto the floor. He’d been talking to an analyst he trusted in Abwehr headquarters back in Berlin. He believed that Stalin was determined to hold the line on the Volga for exactly the same reason that Hitler demanded the city for himself. Symbols, for dictators, mattered a great deal and none – it seemed – was more important than this ever-growing pile of rubble beside the river.

‘You and me, Nehmann? And every other fucker out here? We’re realists. Maybe fatalists. You wake up in the morning. You count the buildings that have gone overnight. And you maybe wonder what all the noise is about. But sit behind a desk in Berlin or Moscow and you’re in a different world. You listen to people who only want to put a smile on your face. Everyone takes a look at the map and agrees that feeding an army nearly three thousand kilometres away is a piece of piss. We happen to know that’s not true, but who’s interested in us? This is a different game, Nehmann, and just now it’s our job to put ourselves in the head of the enemy.’

Stalin, he said, was also a realist. He knew just how tough it was to bite the head off the German snake, even this far from home. To make any kind of stand, and maybe try to push the enemy west again, he’d need lots more troops, more artillery, tanks by the thousands, bridge-building equipment, the whole circus that went with the application of serious violence. Out on the steppe, especially in winter, it was impossible to hide deployments of this size, and by analysing Russian radio traffic, teams in the Abwehr had begun to detect a twitch or two in what Goebbels had recently described as the Soviet corpse.

‘Our Georgian friend may well have picked up similar rumours.’ Schultz reached for the ignition key. ‘So that’s where you might start.’

*

Kirile had been readied for collection. No coat. Nothing on his feet. The Leutnant from the Feldgendarmerie was waiting in the draughty shelter of what must once have been a church. Schultz and Nehmann hurried in from the rain, stepping over a drift of shattered glass and the splintered remains of the door. Nehmann had the blindfold and tied it tightly around the Georgian’s head, two turns, no chance of the slightest clue to what might happen next. Kirile said nothing. His face, as pale as ever, was a mask. From centimetres away, Nehmann sensed resignation as well as fear.

An exchange of glances between Schultz and the Leutnant produced a sub-machine gun and what looked like grenades. With the machine gun came two spare magazines. Schultz cocked the gun, checked the chamber, then released the mechanism again. This time, Kirile flinched.

‘Alles gut?’ Schultz patted the Leutnant on the arm, a gesture of thanks, and made for the door. Nehmann followed him into the rain, leading Kirile by one arm, helping him clumsily up into the driving cab. The wooden bench seat ran the width of the lorry. There was room for the three of them. Just.

‘Here—’ Schultz had produced a pair of handcuffs.

Kirile, drenched from the rain, had started to shiver. Nehmann shackled the boy’s skinny wrist to his own. Schultz restarted the engine, peering through the windscreen, then began to move again. The trick, Nehmann realised quickly, was simple. Five times round the grid of roads that surrounded the church, stop, start, stop, start, right, left, a grinding of gears, a lurch or two, then right again, a jigsaw of turns impossible to follow. At length, they were back where they’d started, the face of the watching Leutnant still visible in the vestibule of the church.

Kirile, they both knew, spoke German.

‘I know the Oberst here,’ Schultz grunted to Nehmann. ‘He’s promised covering fire. You see the remains of the tree there? Just left of the abandoned tank?’

‘Got it.’

‘Ivans. Explain it all to our friend. Tell him which way to run. They’ll have the vodka ready. Seventy metres? Probably less. Good luck, my friend.’ He gave the boy’s wet thigh a pat. ‘Christmas in Tbilisi, ja?’

Schultz exchanged glances with Nehmann, then got out of the truck. With the door still open it was even colder.

‘Take it off.’ It was Kirile. ‘Please take the blindfold off.’

Nehmann ignored him. He wanted to know about troop movements the other side of the river, about the reinforcements that Chuikov so desperately needed, about the measures Stalin might be planning to stop the hated Germans in their tracks and drive them out of the city.

‘You think I know stuff like that? You’re crazy.’

‘Try, tovarisch. Just try. Any hint. Any rumour. Any clue. You were in and out of the