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

last night under a flag of truce. The odds they’re facing are horrible. Tanks, tanks and more tanks. And then a whole fucking infantry division. We spelled this out. They knew we weren’t bluffing. All they needed to do was surrender. And you know what those fuckers did? They tried to shoot the interpreter. You get the feeling we’ve upset these people. Whatever Berlin says, they’re definitely in no mood to give up.’

Whatever Berlin says.The message from the General Staff had Goebbels’ fingerprints all over it and yet Nehmann doubted that even the Minister for Propaganda had the authority to draft official communiques like this. More likely, he thought, the seeds that had germinated in the Promi had now taken root in every corner of the Reich’s capital. Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes, as if by magic, the truth.

The thought drew a nod of agreement from Schultz. They were slowing for a turn into a biggish building surrounded by an apron of concrete.

‘The Ministry of Wishful Thinking,’ he growled. ‘That little man of yours has a lot to answer for.’

*

Schultz had pitched camp in the basement of what had once been a bus depot. Concrete stairs disappeared into the gloom below. Old route schedules were peeling from the dampness of the walls. Candles in glass jam jars threw a thin yellow light, flickering wildly every time a fresh gust of wind came in from the street outside. A heavy curtain hung over the door at the foot of the stairs. The constant drumbeat of artillery fire was audible through the thick concrete walls and from time to time a near miss made the entire building shudder.

Schultz pushed the curtain aside and stepped in through the door. Now, Nehmann could hear the low chatter of a generator. The basement must once have been used for storage, but Schultz had found a couple of tables from somewhere and these served as desks. Faces looked up at Schultz. Both men wore headphones and were bent over radios. When one of them began to struggle to his feet Schultz motioned him back to his seat. In the far corner, a pot of coffee bubbled on an army field stove.

‘You live here?’ Nehmann was gazing round.

‘We do. Our visitors call this place the Adlon. It’s a compliment, Nehmann. If you think this is primitive, you should see what else is on offer. Light and just a little heat? We’re blessed…’

Nehmann smiled. The Adlon was probably the best hotel in Berlin, certainly the most celebrated. When he asked about fuel, Schultz said they had enough for another week if they were careful.

‘And after that?’

‘After that? We’re assuming our brilliant German forces drive the Ivans back over the river. If that happens, the city is ours. If it doesn’t, we definitely have a problem. But either way we’re relying on your man for everything. So far he’s delivering. Just.’

‘My man?’

‘Richthofen.’

‘But why my man?’

‘Because he’s taken a fancy to you, Nehmann. As no doubt he should. Kaffee?’

Without waiting for an answer, Schultz poured two mugs of coffee from the pot in the corner. Beside the trestle table was a sofa that might once have graced a respectable salon. Now, sadly, horsehair stuffing bulged through tears in the upholstery.

‘We’ve got a couple of cats, Nehmann. The shelling upsets them and they take it out on whatever they can claw. I’d get rid of them, but you never know when they might come in handy.’

‘You’ve got rats?’

‘Ja.Them, too. Anything on four legs, eh?’

For a moment, Nehmann was nonplussed. Then he remembered the old woman bent over the horse in the field.

‘That bad?’ he murmured.

Schultz held his gaze for a moment, then shrugged. In any situation, he said, it always pays to plan for the worst. A wise man always carries water. And maybe a handful of spices. Spices, he said, could soften anything. Even rat.

He invited Nehmann to sit down. He had a proposition.

‘Is that why I’m here?’

‘In a way, yes. In another, no. Let’s start with the proposition. Your Russian is much better than mine. I can understand the lad we picked up last night. I can pick the bones from what he wants to tell us. But intelligence, proper intelligence, worthwhile intelligence, as we both know, is all nuance. And nuance, I’m afraid, is beyond an old donkey like me.’

‘You want an interpreter?’

‘I want someone who speaks Russian. I also want someone who can think like a Russian, who can play the child and make that little jump into someone else’s head. You’ve been doing that all your life, Nehmann, whether you admit it or not, and now the time has come to share a little of that talent, that gift, with the Abwehr.’

‘Do I have a choice? Be honest.’

‘Of course, you do. I can let you go now, this minute. I can take you upstairs, out into the snow, and I can point you in the direction of a thousand stories, right there on the front line. Maybe the grain silo. Maybe the Mamaev Kurgan. Maybe, if you’re really lucky, the riverbank itself. Just think, Nehmann, one of the first scribblers to dip his toe in the Volga. Your master would love you. Your other friends at the Promi would write you into history. Werner Nehmann. Proof that Stalingrad has been taken by the brilliant German forces. Wunderbar, ja? Except that the city isn’t our property at all. And in any case, you’d be dead by sunrise. Maybe enemy action. Maybe not.’

Nehmann was eyeing the two figures at the table. One of them had quietly removed his earphones to listen to Schultz at full throttle and Nehmann wondered how many other arms had been bent on this falling-apart sofa. The Abwehr man had always had a gift for persuasion, a talent Nehmann much admired.

‘So, if the Ivans don’t kill me,’ he said carefully, ‘who else might?’

Schultz declined to answer the question head-on. Instead, he asked Nehmann if he remembered a cameraman from the Propaganda