Last Flight to Stalingrad Graham Hurley (sight word books .TXT) 📖

The clothing was Russian. It smelled of shag tobacco and the powder used for de-lousing. Nehmann knew Wehrmacht veterans who swore by this kit. They said the Russians didn’t skimp on woollen serge. These people understood the cold, respected it, unlike the sharks and budget-mongers in Berlin.

Messner said he’d be back in half an hour. When Nehmann asked how long he might be in Stalingrad, Messner offered what might have been a grin. He was wearing gloves Nehmann hadn’t seen before, pilot’s gloves, the thinnest grey leather, and he seemed – for once – almost cheerful.

‘Depends,’ he said.

‘On what?’

‘On whether anyone kills you or not. I’m not sure whether it makes any difference…’ he was looking at the mountain of blankets on Nehmann’s camp bed ‘…but you’ve still got time for a prayer.’

*

They took off nearly an hour later. The ground crews and the pilots called the big three-engined Ju-52s Tante-Ju.Auntie Junkers. All the seats had been removed and the yawning space behind the pilot’s bulkhead had been packed with a jigsaw of wooden boxes, jerrycans full of fuel, and bulging sacks of mail addressed to the men in Sixth Army. Three more of the big transports were scheduled for take-off and two of them were already bumping across the airfield towards the end of the runway. Snowfall during the night had left a thin, crisp blanket of white that stretched in every direction and once Messner had completed his start-up checks, and fired up all three engines, he set off in pursuit.

Nehmann was riding in the cockpit alongside Messner. There was no one else on board. Earlier, walking out to the aircraft, Messner had warned that Soviet fighter pilots were becoming keener by the day. They were flying decent aircraft now, thanks partly to the blessings of the Lend-Lease agreement with their allies, and when the weather offered the opportunity they didn’t hesitate to get stuck in. The big old transports were sitting ducks to a Hurricane or a Thunderbolt in the right hands but Fliegerkorps VIII could still muster a respectable number of Bf-109s and he anticipated no problems en route to Stalingrad.

Nehmann had met some of these fighter pilots. Many of them had tasted combat at the hands of the French, and above all the British, but the war in the east, they all agreed, was a war apart. They said that the Ivans flew the way they drank, with a wild abandon. In the early days after the invasion, appearing in neat little formations, they’d been easy meat, but they had radios now and they’d lifted a trick or two from the Luftwaffe rulebook when it came to the intimate violence of a dog fight. Take the enemy by surprise. Stay close. Then get closer still.

Nehmann was shivering again. At ground level he’d been grateful for the warmth from the cockpit heater, but as they climbed away from the airfield the temperature was rapidly sinking and even Messner’s extra layers of clothing seemed to make no difference. Already, when he shaded his eyes against the blinding sun, he thought he could see the towering columns of smoke that had to be Stalingrad.

‘One of our fighter guys mentioned a friend of yours,’ Nehmann shouted.

‘What?’

‘A friend of yours. Dieter Merz?’

The roar of the engines was deafening but they both had headsets and the name sparked a nod from Messner.

‘We called him der Kleine,’ he said. ‘Lovely man until his luck ran out.’

‘He’s dead?’

‘All but. He lives with that wife of mine. Maybe I should be grateful. Maybe she should, too.’

Nehmann blinked. This was a new Messner, someone he hadn’t glimpsed before. The sheer act of flying seemed to have transformed him. He was carefree. He’d shed whatever had tethered him before. His gloved hands were steady on the control column. His fur-lined flying jacket was zipped to the neck. Folds of silk scarf were just visible beneath his chin. He’s loving this, Nehmann thought. It’s set him free.

The Bf-109s slipped into formation around them, half a dozen of the sleek little fighters, the pilots saluting the big old Tante-Jus with a cavalier wave. Nehmann watched them a moment, silver-grey fish against the blueness of the sky, throttled back, riding little cobblestones of turbulence with a grace that seemed itself a thing of beauty. The sight was deeply comforting and Nehmann smiled to himself, the icy cold forgotten. Then, without warning, they were gone.

Nehmann looked across at Messner. His eyes were on the move now behind the aviator glasses, his head swivelling left and right. The 109s had peeled away, climbing for height. Then came a blur of movement, right to left, something stubby and fat that seemed to pass an inch in front of the Junker’s nose, and Messner swore softly, pushing the Ju’s nose down, as another Soviet fighter suddenly filled the windscreen. Nehmann caught the twinkle of cannon fire and felt the airframe shudder as the shells found their target. One of the engines was already trailing black smoke and Nehmann watched as Messner’s right hand danced along a bank of switches, triggering the fire extinguishers, trying to minimise the damage. The beat of the engine slowed, and the propeller began to mill in the airstream.

Nehmann could taste fear in his mouth. So sudden, he thought. And so final. This was the violence that the fighter pilots he’d talked to found so hard to describe. One moment you have a seat in the gods, omnipotent, invulnerable. The next, you’re the plaything of gravity, probably on fire, a hostage to bad luck or your own lousy judgement. Half a second, that’s all it takes. Half a second, and then an eternity of regret.

The dog fight, as far as Nehmann could judge, was in full swing. Looking up through the glass canopy, he could see a Bf-109 chasing one of the Soviet fighters, quarry and hunter, the Bf matching the Ivan’s every move, wingovers, stall-turns, and a sudden gut-wrenching dive