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

But what if this life of constant camouflage, of artful self-concealment, was all there was? What if nothing lay behind it but an emptiness he could never properly fill?

Nehmann reached for his towel and mopped the sweat from his face. Goebbels hadn’t moved. His eyes were still closed, and he seemed to be barely breathing. In some ways, thought Nehmann, this was his deathbed pose. He’d loved and, ultimately, he’d lost but he regretted nothing. A life of suffering, of constant harassment from his many enemies, was chaff in the wind compared to those two precious years with Lida Baarova.

Then, quite suddenly, his lips began to move.

‘A question, Nehmann.’ His eyes opened. ‘Where’s my fucking letter?’

‘The real one? The one in your own hand?’

‘The one I gave you. You still have it?’

‘Of course, I have.’

‘Then when do I get it back?’

‘You don’t. Not yet. It’s safe. Very safe. No one else will ever lay hands on it. You have my absolute word on that. But for the time being it’s mine. Why? Because it makes me feel safe.’

‘From?’

‘You.’

Goebbels threw his head back and began to laugh. Finally, he composed himself. Nehmann thought he caught just a hint of admiration in his voice.

‘You know something, Nehmann? People are never honest with me. Never. Sometimes I think it’s fear. Other days I put it down to malice. But whatever the motive, people always say what they think I want to hear. Everyone, that is, except you. I like that, Nehmann. For a deeply dishonest man, you never let me down. That’s very rare. And very distinctive.’

The pebble Nehmann had fetched up from the bottom of the lake lay between them. It had long since dried in the sun. Goebbels picked it up and gave it to Nehmann.

‘This may bring you luck, my little Georgian friend. Where you’re going, you’ll need it.’

Nehmann studied it a moment. The flatness of the pebble was veined with something darker. Then he stood up, steadying himself as the boat rocked. As a kid he’d been good at this. In fact, he’d been the best. Once the boat had settled, he drew his arm back and then – with that little remembered flick of the wrist at the end – he sent the pebble dancing across the water, ever onward, splash, splash, splash.

Then he turned back. Goebbels, from his seat in the stern, had been watching his every move.

‘I made that nine, Nehmann. Let’s hope it’s enough.’

13

KALACH, 22 AUGUST 1942

Messner was back at Kalach. A brisk crosswind had given him problems on landing, but he’d retained a mental map of the deeper potholes and settled the Storch without breaking another strut.

Klaus, the orderly, met him with a battered old Kübelwagen. In the ten days since Messner had been here last, the town appeared to have emptied. Messner knew that Sixth Army had crossed the Don River only yesterday, but it was Klaus who had the latest news.

‘We secured the bridgeheads OK and the pontoon bridges were in place by dawn this morning. Sixteenth Panzer should begin crossing any time now. Have you seen those boys in action? God help the Ivans.’

Messner had only watched them from the air, an endless column of tanks, half-tracks, self-propelled assault guns, eight-wheeled reconnaissance vehicles and hundreds of trucks that served as a crowbar to lever Soviet defensive positions aside and open the way to Stalingrad. Face an onslaught like that at ground level and you’d know that your days were numbered.

Klaus was grinning. Fellow NCOs were taking bets on the day the first units got to the Volga. The huge river entered Stalingrad from the north and then flowed hundreds of miles south-east until it emptied into the Caspian Sea. Among Russians, Messner knew that the waterway had an almost religious significance. On the one bank, Europe. On the other, Asia.

‘Well?’ Messner wanted to know about the betting.

‘September—,’ Klaus swerved to avoid a goat. ‘My money’s on the first week, or maybe the start of the second. Either way, the Ivans will be on their knees. No one’s seen an army like this. Ever.’

They were heading west. On the outskirts of the town, among the battlefield debris that had yet to be cleared, the going got tougher.

Messner wanted to know where they were going. The message from Standartenführer Kalb had arrived at Richthofen’s Mariupol headquarters only last night. It was marked Immediate, Eyes Only.

‘The SS operate from a little church out here on the steppe,’ Klaus said. ‘They keep themselves to themselves, which suits us nicely.’

Away from the town, the steppe seemed to stretch forever, not a tree or the barest hint of rising ground to disturb the distant line of the horizon. From time to time, an oncoming vehicle would raise a gaggle of little birds, tiny brown dots that would dart away and disappear into nowhere, but otherwise there was no sign of life.

Then, minutes later, Messner saw the outline of a building a little to the left. At first it looked like a child’s addition to the greens and greys of this nothing landscape, a poorly formed collection of angles surmounted by an onion-shaped dome that might once have glowed silver in the brightness of the sunshine. Then he realised that Klaus had been right. He was looking at a church.

‘I’m told it was a shrine, Herr Oberst. Some miracle occurred here. Don’t ask me what.’

Messner nodded. He was wondering why the SS had chosen a place like this as a base. A path led from the dirt road to the gaggle of vehicles parked outside. Klaus got out and opened the passenger door. Messner was watching two men in uniform who’d just rounded the corner of the building. They were both wearing masks and one of them paused to tip his face to the sun.

Messner got out of the car. When he asked Klaus whether he was coming with him, the orderly shook his head.

‘I’ll stay here,’ he said. ‘These people will thieve anything.’

Messner approached the nearest of