Last Flight to Stalingrad by Graham Hurley (simple ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Was there glory in any of this? Would the Führer strike a medal for the Heroes of Resupply? Probably not.

‘So how long have you been living here?’ Messner gestured round.

‘Two days. This is the third. Compared to previous billets this is luxurious, believe me.’

‘And the occupants? You met them?’

‘No. They’d gone by the time we were cleared to move in.’

‘You think they fled? Went east?’

Renke didn’t answer. Instead he swirled the last of the vodka in his glass and then swallowed it in a single gulp. The bottle was nearby. He uncapped it slowly and then glanced at Messner.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. I don’t drink much any more. It doesn’t do anything for me.’

‘Did it ever?’

‘Yes. Once.’

Renke nodded, expecting an explanation that never came. The two men sat in silence for a while, listening to a growl of thunder in the west. Then Renke recharged his own glass and drew Messner’s attention to the sideboard that dominated the room.

‘Top drawer,’ he murmured. ‘You might take a look.’

Messner got to his feet. The wood of the drawer seemed to have swollen and it took him a moment or two to wrestle it open.

‘These were here already?’ He was looking at a collection of child’s toys.

‘No. We found them in the daughter’s bedroom. They were everywhere, all over the floor, on the bed. You’re married, Messner? You have children of your own?’

‘One. A daughter. Lottie.’

‘Then you’ll know that children and tidiness don’t go together, which is exactly the way it should be. When we first walked into that bedroom it was like the family were still there.’

‘Maybe they had to get out in a hurry,’ Messner suggested.

‘Maybe they did but I doubt it. What three-year-old leaves her dollies behind?’

Messner took a closer look at the contents of the drawer. Renke was right. Three dolls, one missing an arm, one with a new skirt. These could belong to Lottie, Messner thought.

‘Now try the next drawer down.’ Renke gestured with his glass.

Messner did his bidding. This time he was looking at a nest of birds, each one hand carved. He lifted out the biggest and ran his finger down the length of its body. A light coat of varnish had given a dull gleam to the spread of its wings and, when he looked closely, he could see the tiny marks that had transformed the bare wood into feathers. A goose of some kind, he thought. Or perhaps a swan.

‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘Exquisite.’

‘How much work, do you think? For each bird?’

‘Weeks, months, I’ve no idea.’ Messner looked up. ‘These were in the child’s bedroom as well?’

‘No. Some of them were next door, in the bigger bedroom, and the rest were in here. We put them away in case they got damaged. War can be unforgiving. Don’t you find that?’

Messner’s gaze returned to the bird. He picked up another, smaller this time, weighing it in his hand, half expecting it to react, to move under his touch, to squawk in alarm and fly away. Renke was right. No matter how urgent the need to leave, you’d take masterpieces like these with you.

‘So what happened?’

Renke swallowed another mouthful of vodka. In the last of the evening sun through the nearby window, his eyes were beginning to swim.

‘You know about our SS friends in the Einsatzgruppen?’

‘A little. Perhaps enough. We spend most of our lives in the air, thank God.’

‘That makes you lucky. They follow us everywhere. Somebody once told me they’re there to keep us honest but that’s Scheisse. They’re vermin. They’re worse than vermin. Fighting the enemy is one thing. Battle is never pretty. You spill a lot of blood, often your own, but after a fashion there are rules, things you do do, things you don’t. The Einsatzgruppen have no time for rules. Rules are for Untermenschen. These SS people are fanatics. They want to wipe Poland clean of Jews. Ukraine, too. And now Russia. See them in action and you might wonder what really drives this war of ours. They want to engineer a new world, regardless of the cost.’

‘You’re telling me they were here? In this house?’

‘Almost certainly, yes. As I say, they follow us everywhere. They have their own transport, their own priorities. They move in behind us and do what has to be done. They call it tidying up.’

‘This man was a Jew?’ Messner was looking at the little bird in the palm of his hand.

‘I doubt it. Two other cardinal sins, Messner. Number one, it doesn’t pay to be Russian. Number two, this house obviously belongs to an educated man. On both counts that could be a death sentence.’

‘And his wife? His child?’

‘Them, too. In SS eyes, they’re tainted. Vernichtung, Messner. Not a pretty word.’

Vernichtung.Extermination. Not just Jews but anyone with a brain and a schoolful of children to educate and the patience to fashion a living thing from a block of wood.

Messner was trying to visualise the scene in this little house once Sixth Army had swept through. The smoke of battle beginning to clear. Tank after tank grinding eastwards. The family emerging from wherever they’d managed to hide, only to find a different set of uniforms at the door.

‘So, what would have happened to them?’

‘They’re taken away.’

‘And?’

‘Nobody knows. Last year they killed tens of thousands of Jews in Kyiv. A ravine called Babi Yar. Shot in cold blood. We’d gone by then, thank God.’

‘They?’

‘The Einsatzgruppen.With the help of the Ukrainians.’

Messner nodded. A bullet through the back of the head, he thought. And then the long topple onto the mass of bodies below. Rumours from Kyiv had reached FK VIII headquarters on occasions over the last ten months, but no one ever seemed to have either the time or inclination to enquire further. Here was different. He was still holding the little bird.

‘There was an SS officer at the first of the meetings this morning,’ he said. ‘Was he part of the Einsatzgruppen?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t catch his name.’

‘Standartenführer Kalb.’

‘And he’s been with you a while?’

‘Behind us, yes. Oil and water, Messner.