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

acutely uncomfortable. This man broke all the normal rules of conversation, a talent Nehmann recognised only too well.

‘Messner has been unlucky.’ Nehmann touched his face. ‘An accident like that has consequences.’

‘Indeed. A moment of inattention? A poor decision? Alas, it doesn’t stop with traffic accidents. You should talk to Messner when you get the chance. He deserves what you called a proper conversation and officers at his level aren’t good at that.’ He glanced up. ‘I have a name for you, Nehmann. Olga Helm?’

‘She’s an actress.’

‘You know her?’

‘We’ve met, yes.’

‘And?’

‘She’s an attractive woman. Talented, too.’

‘Indeed. A combination not without consequences.’

He held Nehmann’s gaze for a long moment and then shook the contents of the envelope onto the table and began to sift through them, one by one. As far as Nehmann could judge, these images told the story of the last year or so. A convoy of trucks, poorly camouflaged, bucketing along a birch log road that had been destroyed by the passage of heavy armour. The burned-out remains of a Soviet tank abandoned in some far-flung village square. An aerial shot, not unlike the ones Nehmann had shot that afternoon, a town centre reduced to a moonscape. A gaggle of Soviet prisoners, sitting cross-legged in the mud. Moments caught on the way to Stalingrad, he thought. A simple record of events, framed and shot by someone with an unblinking eye.

‘These are yours, Herr Generaloberst?’

‘They are, Nehmann, yes. Me and my Leica. Man and wife. Inseparable. We Germans have been making history for a year. One day it will be important not to forget. Here—’

He’d finally found the photo he was after. Nehmann found himself looking at a thin-faced man in his late twenties. His eyes were deep-set and the greatcoat, open at the neck, looked perhaps a size too big.

‘I took that near Smolensk last year. What do you make of him?’

‘He’s a prisoner,’ Nehmann said. ‘Which means he’s probably Russian.’

‘You’re right. How did you know?’

‘The eyes. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next and he doesn’t trust you to make the right decision. If you want to know the truth, I’ve been that way for most of my life. You don’t need to be a soldier to feel the edge of things.’

The edge of things.Another phrase that won Richthofen’s approval.

‘You know who he is?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘His name’s Yakov. He’s Stalin’s eldest son. We found out by accident from someone else in the compound.’

‘And he’s still alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘In captivity?’

‘Yes. His real name’s Dzhugashvili, like his father. Our friends in the Abwehr talked to him at length. No love lost, Nehmann, between father and son. Yakov fell in love with a Jew He wanted to marry her. Stalin threw him out. Later he married another Jew – a dancer from Odessa. She gave Stalin two grandchildren. He didn’t bother with either of them.’ He reached for the photo and studied it for a moment or two. ‘So how lonely is Stalin? Have you ever thought of that, Nehmann?’

Messner was back with a chair. Nehmann watched him settle and reach for his brandy. Olga Helm? He couldn’t believe it.

Richthofen appeared to have lost interest in Stalin. He wanted to talk about Goebbels again.

‘Feuertaufe?You’ve seen it?’

Baptism of Fire was a film Goebbels had masterminded. It followed the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe into Poland and had been shown in countless cinemas across Europe. If you happened to be living, unbombed, in London or Paris, it was a deeply uncomfortable warning of what might happen if you ever said ‘no’ to Hitler.

‘A masterpiece,’ Nehmann murmured.

‘And a lie. You were in France, I believe. You have eyes in your head. How many horses did you see on that campaign?’

‘You mean ours? Wehrmacht horses?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hundreds. Thousands. Maybe more than that.’

‘Exactly. And how many of those horses appeared in Goebbels’ little movie? None. Am I complaining? Absolutely not. Watch that film, come out of the cinema, and you know that we Germans have invented a new way of making war. It’s all Sturm und Drang. Tanks, artillery, Stukas, Heinkels. Lots of noise. Lots of movement. Not a horse in sight. Does Goebbels ever ask himself how we keep feeding this machine? How we carry supplies to the front line? Never. And why? Because there’s no point. No one goes to the movies to watch horses and carts. If they’re German, they want to know we’re winning. That we’re irresistible. And foreign audiences? They’re shitting their pants. Clever, Nehmann. But a lie.’

‘Poland?’ Nehmann said softly. ‘Belgium? Holland? France? Don’t they belong to us now? Or have I missed something?’

‘You’ve missed nothing, Nehmann. Of course, we’ve won. But that was the easy part. What I’d like to know now is how Goebbels and his people, people like you, Nehmann, are going to cope when things go wrong, when the enemy doesn’t fall over within weeks, when the war is still there, day after day, and there seems to be no end to it. Maybe that’s when your boss starts thinking hard about the horses.’ A thin smile. ‘Largely because, by that time, we’ll probably be eating them.’

The music had come to an end. Messner was on his feet, tidying the photos. In the distance, Nehmann could hear the cackle of a lone aero engine.

Richthofen drained the last of his brandy and stood up. He looked, Nehmann thought, suddenly old.

‘Enough.’ The Generaloberst checked his watch. ‘Bed.’

19

TATSINSKAYA AIRFIELD, 24 AUGUST 1942

Nehmann was in no hurry to go back to his tent. An hour with Fliegerkorps VIII’s forbidding chief had confirmed what he’d long believed to be the truth about the realities of being in charge. Capable or otherwise, High Command set you apart. Some, like Richthofen, could cope. Life had sandpapered their souls. They relished the bruising business of leadership, the endless confrontations, the ambushes that lay in wait, the guarantee that your peers – fellow chieftains – were always out to screw you. Others, maybe Stalin, certainly Goebbels, were more vulnerable, more thin-skinned. Richthofen, he knew, had a baroness for a