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

sharing the story of the last couple of weeks. Trust, even within a relationship like this, was something you’d never want to hazard.

‘He wants what he always wants,’ Nehmann said. ‘He wants me to make the turd smell sweet.’

‘You mean this fucking war?’

‘Of course. So far, no problem. It’s skittles, isn’t it? Holland? Belgium? France? You knock them over and wait for the applause. Russia? I’m not so sure.’ He paused. ‘You?’

‘Me? A confidence, Nehmann. I’ve been here since late September, last year. We’d chased the Ivans out of the city and made ourselves comfortable. The bomber boys had done a respectable job on one or two areas of the city but free labour made it easy to tidy up. Then bombs started going off. No reason. No sign of aircraft. No clue why. We were losing people we couldn’t afford to. I think the magic fucking word here is targeting. Hotels we’d commandeered for senior command staff. Office accommodation we’d be using. Someone obviously knew what they were doing. And that someone was either Russian or one of the locals. Either way we had to find out.’

‘So, they called you in?’

‘They did, Nehmann. I was very happy in Paris. They’d promised me a posting that might have lasted years. There are worse places to fight the war, believe me.’

‘And here? What did you find?’

‘It was hard going. These people are tough. They had nothing left to lose and that makes a difference, believe me. They’re good haters, too, the Ukrainians. They hate us and they loathe the Russians but we’d pushed them to the brink during the siege and when the Ivans came up with a plan to leave us with a souvenir or two, little bonbons to keep us on our toes, they saw the point. It’s a quaint notion, especially these days, but they seemed to think that the city was theirs by right and they wanted it to stay that way. The Russians were in a position to make life tough for us. And so the locals said yes.’

‘The Ivans planted explosives?’

‘Lots. All over the city. Thousands of kilos of the stuff. More than you or me could possibly imagine. All wired up to make life just a little difficult.’

‘How?’

Schultz shook his head. Enough, he seemed to be saying. All you need to know is this: that the Russians are clever, and tough, and never give in. Stalin, he growled, has made himself the face of Russia. He calls himself the Vodzh, the great fucking Leader. He has absolute power. He’s not a performer. He hasn’t Hitler’s gifts. He can’t find the sweet spot and make all those women get silly about him. But that doesn’t matter but because Stalin treats his people like dogs and when he says bark they do just that. Ship all your arms factories a thousand kilometres to the east? It happens. Make the women work twelve-hour days turning out shells? It happens. Put people like me behind the front line to shoot deserters on sight? No problem. Result? No matter how many we kill, they just keep coming. The French, according to Schultz, had gone flabby. The Motherland was something you argued about all day in bars and cafés and when it came to a fight they’d forgotten how to.

‘You understand?’ He was leaning across the table now. ‘You see what I’m trying to say? The Russians aren’t like that. For Russians, the Motherland, the idea,is all they’ve got. It’s like religion. It’s their last hope. It’s the difference between life and death. Stalin knows that. And what he also knows is that nothing we – or even the fucking weather – can do will ever change that. They have to draw a line. They have to defend that line. They have to get through. At whatever cost. Do they understand that back home? Are there people in Berlin who might have the first inkling about this animal we’re prodding with our sticks? You, my friend, would know. Why? Because you’re Georgian. You’ve lived under the Russians. You speak the language. So why don’t you tell me what they’re really like?’

Nehmann felt like applauding. None of this would make the turd smell any sweeter, quite the contrary, but it had the raw stink of truth, a commodity he’d almost forgotten how to recognise.

‘Berlin?’ he said mildly. ‘You think they have the faintest idea about any of this?’

‘That’s my question. I’m in the chair here, Nehmann, so what’s the answer? Let’s start with Goebbels. The man’s got a brain in his head, unlike some of the others. You play him like the artist you are. Tell me. Truthfully. Tell me what he thinks.’

‘Truthfully?’ Nehmann smiled at the very idea. ‘Goebbels is a realist. He thinks this war will go on and on. He also thinks it’s going to get harder and harder to win, which is where people like me come in. The problem with propaganda is this: you put shit in one end and it’s not hard to guess what comes out the other. People don’t trust stuff like that. They can smell shit at a thousand metres. They don’t believe a word of it and that doesn’t matter as long as you’ve got them by the throat but then a time arrives when you’re depending on these same people for the basics of life – like your shells and your bombs and your bullets – which are going to keep the rest of the world at arm’s length. It’s August, Willi. Goebbels lives in the world of promises. What he can very definitely promise is another winter. More cold. Less food. And an eternity on the production line. What kind of offer is that? Unless we can keep delivering all those sweeties from abroad?’

Schultz nodded and sat back to make space for the food. The Wiener schnitzel looked delicious. Nehmann reached for a fork and stirred the cabbage into a puddle of sauce.

‘And Stalingrad?’ Schultz hadn’t finished.

‘Another bottle?’

‘Of course.’