War of The Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad - [World War II 01] (36 page)

“We are very proud of you,” the general said, “all of us. You have done Russia a great service.”

Zaitsev muttered, “Thank you, general.”

Khrushchev floated forward. The size of his shoulders and belly, the white of his skin and hair, made him seem as cold and large in the bunker as an iceberg.

The deputy spoke. “You are a member of the Komsomol, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. By tying up the arms and legs of the Germans here in Stalingrad, do you realize what we Communists have done?”

Zaitsev shook his head.

“The Party has taken upon its shoulders the weight of the world, not just that of the Soviet Union. The world is relying on our toughness and battle skill to keep the enemy here, to destroy them here. You see only the horrible details of the fighting. But believe me, the effects of what is transpiring in these streets and houses are worldwide. The Americans, the British, even the lowly French spill their coffee every morning when they read in their newspapers that we are still here.”

Khrushchev’s girth jiggled at his own humor. Behind him, Vidikov laughed at the back of the deputy’s bald head, at the icy white crystals of his rim of hair.

“The world press is calling it ‘Fortress Stalingrad.’ And that is what it is. That is what we have made it. I can tell you, Comrade Stalin knows your name. Because of men like you, he avoids shifting troops south. He does not have to weaken the defenses of Leningrad and Moscow to reinforce Stalingrad.”

Chuikov, motionless while Khrushchev spoke, sensed his turn in the ceremony. He picked a small medal from his desk, a round bronze medallion that hung from a red ribbon. On the emblem’s face was the familiar goateed visage of V. I. Lenin, in profile, staring slightly upward against the backdrop of a five-pointed star.

The medal lay in Chuikov’s palm.

“Comrade Zaitsev, there is so vast a land beyond the Volga. Can you tell me how we will look into the eyes of our people there if we do not stop the Germans here? You know the motto of the Sixty-second Army?”

“Yes, sir. ‘Not a step back.’ “

“Do you believe it?”

Zaitsev looked at his general, taken aback by the question. How can he ask me that? he thought. These fucking Communists, always asking you if you’re brave, if you can cut it, if you’ll die for the Party defending the
rodina.

Why are they asking me this, to test my resolve? The Nazis don’t test it enough for them every day? Do I have to come in here to this safe bunker dug into the side of a cliff behind a shield of Red soldiers and have it tested again? I’m a fighter, a hunter for the Red Army, for their fucking Party. I’ve proven myself. What have they proven? Just give them what they want and get out of this bunker.

Zaitsev turned to Khrushchev. In a full voice, he said, “For us, there is no land beyond the Volga.”

Khrushchev nodded. His gaze, though fixed on Zaitsev, was inward. He spoke to himself.

“There is no land beyond the Volga,” he repeated quietly, rolling the phrase on his tongue. “Yes. Yes.” The stout little deputy addressed Chuikov. “Give him the medal, General. The Sixty-second Army has a new motto. Vidikov, print that. Tell the men the noble hero Zaitsev said it. That we are all bound by it. For us, there is no land beyond the Volga.”

Khrushchev clapped Zaitsev on the back, turning to leave. “That’s the way, young Komsomol member,” he said with a laugh. “That was very good.” Then Khrushchev nodded at Chuikov, said, “General,” and quickly was gone, with Vidikov following in his wake.

Chuikov handed Zaitsev the medal. “Vasily Gregorievich Zaitsev, I award you the Order of Lenin for your efforts in founding the sniper movement in the Sixty-second Army, and for your courage in battle.”

The general patted Zaitsev on the arm. He smiled and looked around the room. “Looks like it’s just the two of us. Oh, well. We’ll get ourselves a parade in Moscow sometime, eh?”

Zaitsev looked at the medal. The bronze was thick, with some weight to it. It’s odd holding this, he thought. I have one of my country’s highest honors in my hand, but I’d rather he hand me more ammunition for my hares. The copper in this medal might’ve made three bullet jackets.

Chuikov stepped back. Zaitsev looked up and met his gaze.

“I wouldn’t pin that on, Vasha,” the general said. “Not for a while. Keep it in your bag. It’ll stay clean that way.”

Zaitsev slid the medal into his coat pocket. He smiled at Chuikov. At least he lives on this side of the Volga like a soldier, Zaitsev thought. Not like that fat white rat Khrushchev. I’ve never seen that one over here, never even heard of him before. He’s probably trapped by the freezing river on this side with the rest of us; he’s handing out medals to pass the time.

“May I go, sir?” Zaitsev fingered the medal in his pocket. He’d show it to Viktor that night, and maybe Tania. But no one else. Of course, Danilov will insist on seeing it and writing about it. Damn, he thought. I’m a hero. Hero. Why did the word sound so repulsive in the mouth of Khrushchev? He made me feel like a show pony. Vasily Zaitsev, the hero trotter.

Chuikov pulled out both chairs to his table and motioned Zaitsev to sit. Zaitsev moved his hand toward the door, beseeching quietly, again, to be allowed to leave.

“Not just yet, Vasha. Someone else wants a word with you.”

Zaitsev sat. Chuikov reached under his desk for three stubby glasses and a bottle of cognac.

Through the doorway stepped Colonel Nikolai Filipovich Batyuk, commander of the 284th Division. Zaitsev jumped to his feet. This, he thought, is my leader. Batyuk, the tall, skinny Ukrainian with the famous circulatory problem, the colonel who sometimes can’t walk for the pain in his legs and has to ride on the back of one of his aides. Old Fireproof Batyuk. I’ve heard of him stepping out of a smoking bunker beating out sparks on his tunic, shouting orders like a mad fishwife.

Zaitsev saluted. “Colonel. Sir.”

Batyuk returned the salute.

The two stepped forward and shook hands.

“Congratulations, Sergeant. General Chuikov approved your Order of Lenin with me. You deserve it.”

Zaitsev had no answer. If they say so, he said to himself. It’s in my pocket, anyway.

Chuikov poured three glasses of cognac.

“Na zdrovya.”
Chuikov hoisted his glass. He faced both men one at a time and threw back the liquor. Batyuk and Zaitsev wished Chuikov his health in return and drank. It had been months since Zaitsev had tasted any alcohol other than vodka.

This has been quite a day, Zaitsev thought, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. The medal in my pocket, the sticky cognac on my tongue, Tania in the warm pile of clothes, seven kills in three sectors, a toast from Chuikov and Old Firepoof. Quite a day.

“Comrade Zaitsev, I will not take long,” the colonel said. He clinked his glass down on Chuikov’s desk. “I know your medal was a surprise. It must be your lucky day, because I have another surprise for you. We have information that the Germans have brought in a specialist from Berlin. His name is SS Colonel Heinz Thorvald. He’s the head of an elite German sniper school.”

Zaitsev licked his lips, tasting the sweetness of the cognac lingering there. A sniper can become a colonel in the German army. That’s excellent, he thought. That’s respect.

Batyuk continued. “He’s been sent here to kill you, Vasha.”

Zaitsev looked down and shook his head, smiling to himself. He didn’t want his officers to see him lack reaction; he took a moment to create one for them. By the looks on their faces, this was important. What’s the big deal, he thought? They’ve all been sent here to kill me.

He rolled the empty cognac glass in his hand. He felt his own warmth in it. Well, now I’ve collected a specialist from Berlin. Yes, quite a day.

He looked up and widened his eyes once for their purposes. “What do we know about this Thorvald?” he asked.

“Not a thing.” Batyuk shook his head. “He’s an SS colonel. Draw your own conclusions from that. I can assume they think he’s their best man for the job. It’s rather ironic, really. Our best against their best.”

Batyuk held out his glass for Chuikov to refill it. Zaitsev considered the word
ironic.
It fit. Irony was another thing his day had lacked. Now he had that, too.

“Oh, and there was something else, something about him being a coward,” Batyuk added, “Don’t believe it.”

Chuikov approached him with the bottle. “Hold out your glass.”

The general poured, and again the three men raised their glasses. Batyuk offered the toast. “Too bad they didn’t send Hitler himself. That would’ve been a nice hunt for you, eh?”

Zaitsev lowered his glass from the toast to drink. With the fragrance of the cognac under his nose, he stopped and blinked; his vision fired out past the colonel and the general while their heads tilted back under their glasses. He flew back through the day, to the morning, to the battlefield, to sector two with Tania and Danilov in the trench, to Pyotr’s quivering, perforated head. The sharp clang of bullets banged into the pit of the helmet again. It echoed behind his eyes, trickled down his spine, three seconds apart.

Not two men.

One.

The specialist from Berlin.

Zaitsev cleared his face. He wondered what he’d shown the two officers looking at him. He drank.

He swallowed the prickly liquor hard and fast, the Russian way. The cognac scraped nicely down the back of his throat. He exhaled, cooling the liquor that clung in his mouth.

He looked at Batyuk and smiled.

“I think the Berlin sniper and I have already met.”

Chuikov cocked his head. “Really? Where?”

“On the eastern slope of Mamayev Kurgan this morning.”

“How do you know it was him?”

Zaitsev rubbed his neck.

“He has a . . .” He paused to look for the right word. “Style.”

“Good,” Chuikov said. “You are off all assignments as of now, Vasha.” He collected the glasses and laid them on his desk, then turned to Zaitsev. “Your one job is to find this German supersniper and kill him.”

Zaitsev thought, Find him?

He lowered his face, to hide his eyes from the general and Batyuk. He collected all of Stalingrad he had seen in the past months, the decimation, the tangled wrecks of the factories, trenches ripping through the streets, blasted rubble and smoke, men running, men hiding, tens and tens of thousands of men living and dying and killing. A city full of this. The accumulation of Stalingrad was too much to consider in this way, to add it up and think on it as one thing in which to find one man, one supersniper who, in return, has been assigned to kill you.

Without thinking, for he would not have spoken, Zaitsev mumbled, “Find him.”

“Yes.” Chuikov held open the door for Zaitsev to leave.

Zaitsev moved through the doorway.

Batyuk patted him on the back and said, “Before he finds you, of course.”

* * * *

SEVENTEEN

NIKKI LED THORVALD DOWN FROM THE SPOTTER’S HILL.
The colonel wanted to roam for a few days, to “spread his scent around.” Thorvald insisted on avoiding any zones where he might be trapped by fighting. “Always leave us a back door,” he said.

Nikki thought it best to keep the master sniper clear of the factories. Though the Germans controlled the Barricades and all but small corners of the Red October and the Tractor Factory, those labyrinths were better left off the tour. Nikki thought of the men in those metal jungles as tortured, terrible creatures now. For six weeks they’d spent their days and nights itching with blood lust, clawing at themselves with hunger and thirst, scratching the welts left by lice. The war was forgotten in there; all that was left was the killing. Thorvald needed distance to conduct his wizardly marksmanship, and Nikki knew that distance wasn’t something you could ask for in the factories. Most of the fighting there was still hand-to-hand. Grenades and shovels shredded as much flesh as bullets.