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

of the handful of departing flights would be easy, he said, for someone in Kalb’s position. He’d use the uniform, and perhaps a word or two from Berlin, to pull rank and save his life. That’s what any sane man would do, Schultz insisted, but Nehmann had disagreed. Kalb, he muttered, wasn’t sane. That was the whole point. And that was why he was probably still here.

‘You have to believe it, don’t you?’ Schultz had said.

‘Yes.’

‘Then find the fucker.’

Nehmann had done his best but in a city where no one ever exposed more than a centimetre or two of bare flesh, the search was almost impossible. Grimberger had been reassigned to his infantry unit. Alone, for day after day, Nehmann set out to find Kalb among the endless torrent of broken warriors falling back from the front line, many of them wounded, all of them nameless, anonymous, indistinguishable. Pointless, Schultz kept telling him. Spare yourself the frustration, the misery, the pain. The man’s gone. Either that or he’s dead. You’re living with a ghost.

Schultz, of course, was right but it made no difference. Nehmann had to find out, he had to be sure, and so this morning he found himself back at Pitomnik, scanning the mob of lightly wounded soldiers desperate to force their way onto one of the departing aircraft, only too aware that bad had abruptly become worse.

The Russians, according to Schultz, were now only kilometres away, pushing hard from the south-west. It was only a matter of days, perhaps even hours, before the airfield would have to be evacuated. Trucks had arrived from the front line full of wounded men. There was nowhere for them to go because the trucks had run out of fuel, and the flights out were already full, and so many of these men, their faces blue-black, had already frozen to death. More bodies were stacked like cords of timber, no names, no obvious injuries, no indication of what might be done about them next.

Then, as Nehmann watched, a Ju-52 appeared against the western sky, drawing thick black clots of anti-aircraft fire, and somehow managed to land. The pilot taxied as fast as he dared, weaving left and right to avoid the bigger shell craters, finally coming to a halt. Nehmann, his body hunched against the fierce cold, had a clear view of what followed.

Someone inside the aircraft kicked open the door and began to heave wooden crates onto the frozen turf. One of them splintered on impact and was attacked at once. Hands tore at the contents, desperate for food, and the moment someone emerged with a case of something tinned he disappeared under a mass of bodies, kicking and clawing at each other. A burly looking Unteroffizier in a Wehrmacht greatcoat emerged from the melee, a single tin held aloft, and Nehmann watched as he plunged a bayonet through the lid. The tin was full of frankfurter sausages and he tipped it to his lips, sucking greedily at the liquor before prising the metal open, plunging his fingers in and swallowing the sausages whole.

The plane was empty within minutes. The Chain Dogs from the Feldgendarmerie had arrived with drawn pistols. When no one paid them the slightest attention they began to fire blindly into the tangle of bodies and at last some kind of order was restored.

Men were on their feet again, brushing themselves down, ignoring the scatter of bodies. With the Feldgendarmerie was another figure. He wore a grey Russian army greatcoat, full-length, wide lapels, with the yellow shoulder boards of a tank captain, but his head was covered with a standard issue Wehrmacht helmet. He moved from body to body, stooping to inspect one who still appeared to be alive. Moments later, he drew an automatic and shot the man twice through the head. The circle of watchers around him stared at the fountain of blood and then began to back away.

Nehmann was still very close and his eyes never left the face above the Russian army greatcoat. It was largely obscured by a black balaclava and the moment the lips parted in the oval hole around the mouth he knew his search hadn’t been in vain.

A single silver tooth. Kalb.

The empty plane was beginning to take on passengers. Kalb seemed to have put himself in charge. He stood beside the ladder propped against the metal body of the fuselage, subjecting each exemption card to detailed scrutiny. One in three of the walking wounded he turned away. When desperation drove them to argue their case, or even try and force their way aboard, he simply signalled to the nearest Chain Dog. The gesture, barely a lift of an arm, had Kalb’s trademark indifference. Under arrest, the unlucky ones were handcuffed and marched away to God knows where. Within minutes, the plane was full.

Nehmann was within touching distance of the SS Standartenführer. Might now be the time to find a way of killing this man? Of settling the debts he owed to the bodies in the back of the truck? To Kirile? And to the thousands of Jews Schultz had told him about in Kyiv? Watching his every movement, every cloud of expelled breath that condensed in front of the balaclava, every brief order he issued to this man or that, Nehmann knew that the answer was no. It wasn’t simply a question of killing him. He had to make Kalb bleed.

The plane began to move. Kalb was checking his watch. He beckoned the nearest Chain Dog closer. Nehmann recognised the Leutnant that had been responsible for keeping Kirile under guard. The manwas nodding. The conversation over, he drew himself up, offered a smart Hitler salute and hurried away. Kalb was watching a distant Heinkel running the gauntlet of Soviet flak as it lined up for its approach run. The Russian gunners appeared to have the range at last. A pair of explosions bracketed the aircraft, left and right. For a second or two it seemed to hang in the