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

Leutnant pause for thought. He was back on the desk now, the Promi card put carefully to one side.

‘Standartenführer Kalb,’ he said. ‘You were taking him to Gumrak. What happened?’

‘He died. In the car.’

‘And then?’

‘We stopped, obviously. We tried to revive him. When that didn’t work, we left him in the snow. It seemed the kindest thing to do.’

‘Kind?’

‘We had to get back. You know the bus depot. You’ve been there. It’s quite a way. We had very little fuel. The least weight on board, the better. That’s what we thought. That’s why we left him.’ Nehmann forced a smile, knowing how lame the explanation must sound.

The Leutnant had produced a pad. He scribbled himself a note and got to his feet.

‘Wait,’ he said, and then left the room.

Wait? Bizarre.

Nehmann knew about the Feldgendarmerie.They had a reputation for taking matters into their own hands. They rarely bothered themselves overmuch about evidence. Normally, the word of their senior officer was enough to earn a man a bullet. In this place, Nehmann suspected that the senior officer had probably been Kalb but now he was dead. Not just dead but hacked into pieces and left for the dogs. Something like that would never go unpunished, not even here, where sudden death had turned the world on its head. The Leutnant would have them both shot, himself and Schultz, of that Nehmann was certain. The only question of any interest was when.

The Leutnant was back within minutes, his arms full. When Nehmann saw the spade, and the canvas bucket, and the bag of spices and herbs from Magda Goebbels, his heart lurched. This man is behaving like a proper detective, he told himself. Thousands are still dying by the day and yet here he is, back in the world of evidence and probably motive, trying to establish a sequence of events. Absurd.

He was showing Nehmann the spade. His gloved finger was pointing at clots of something brown on the wooden haft.

‘Blood, ja? You agree?’

‘Ja.’

‘We found it in your Kübelwagen. On the back seat.’

‘Ja?’

‘Ja.And this?’ He picked up the bucket. ‘You want to look inside?’ Nehmann shook his head. ‘You don’t? You don’t want to take a look? Have a sniff, maybe? That bucket belonged here, in this place, and now we find it in that shitty bus depot of yours. And these?’ His hand settled briefly on the bag of spices. ‘What are these for?’

‘Cooking, I imagine.’

‘Of course. Cooking. Making food taste sweeter, nicer. So what happened, HerrNehmann, Herrwhoever you are? What happened to Standartenführer Kalb? Don’t take me for a fool. Just tell me the truth.’

‘You think that matters?’

‘What, HerrNehmann?’

‘The truth. Here. In Stalingrad. You think the truth matters in a place like this?’

‘Of course. The truth always matters, wherever you are.’ He was frowning now. ‘What could possibly matter more?’

The question brought a smile to Nehmann’s face. This man was full of disgust, he could tell, but he was unsettled as well because he seemed to have worked out exactly what had happened, and his conclusions disturbed him deeply.

Nehmann looked at his free hand, flexed his fingers, then glanced up.

‘You’re right, Herr Leutnant. I killed him. I killed Kalb and then I chopped him into pieces and put him in the pot. Not all of him, just enough to make a difference to those men in the hospital. You might say I put the bastard to some use. You want to know why?’

‘Tell me,’ the Leutnant said stiffly. ‘If you think it makes any difference.’

Nehmann took a deep breath. After a confession like that, he knew he was a dead man, but he welcomed this one chance of putting a question of his own.

‘You were at Tatsinskaya, Herr Leutnant.You saw the bodies in the back of that SS truck? You know what Kalb had planned for them?’

‘Ja, of course. This is war. Certain measures might be necessary.’

‘Might be?’

‘Are.’

‘You saw the state of those bodies? What Kalb had done to them? Had done to them? Maybe that was your work? Your colleagues? Was that what happened?’

‘Not at all.’

‘So, who did it? Who mutilated those people?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘But it is, Herr Leutnant,because I’m curious, because I’m a journalist, and because I’m proud to ask questions on behalf of the Volk.’

‘The Volk? The people?’ The Leutnant didn’t bother to hide his contempt. ‘They were terrorists, those scum at the airfield. They were a threat to the Reich. We have the complete support of the people in everything we do.’

‘They were ordinary. They were local. They were mothers, fathers, daughters, little girls. One of them was a headmaster. He belonged in a room like this. Yet you shot him. And then smashed his face to pieces.’

‘Not me. I didn’t do that.’

‘Who, then? Who did it?’

The Leutnant wouldn’t say. The thunder of yet another artillery barrage rolled across the whiteness outside, giant footsteps coming ever closer, making the earth itself tremble. Clouds of tiny birds exploded from the remains of a nearby tree and Nehmann realised that it had been many hours since he’d last caught the growl of a landing aircraft.

‘The Russians are all over us,’ he said softly. ‘You think another couple of deaths will stop them?’

‘What you did to the Standartenführer was wrong. It was worse than wrong.’

‘Killing the bastard?’

‘Cooking him. Eating him.’

‘And I die for that?’

‘Of course. Death is what a cannibal deserves. Even in this city.’

Death is what a cannibal deserves. Nehmann studied him for a long moment.

‘Are you a religious man, Herr Leutnant? Do you go to church? Do you pray to your God?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you take communion?’

‘Yes.’

‘The body and blood of Christ?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because it sustains you?’

‘Because it makes me a better person.’

‘Then think of poor Kalb. And think of the men in that tomb of a hospital. He’s kept them alive. And that was my doing.’

‘You’re telling me it was an act of redemption? Killing Kalb?’ The Leutnant was staring at Nehmann.

‘Not at all. I’m telling you I put him to some use. I’m beyond redemption, and so