The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] (52 page)

In the third paragraph, Stalin sets the hook. Echoing the sentiment of Eisenhower’s message, believing he is simply volleying lie for lie, Stalin writes:
The Soviet High Command plans to allot secondary forces in the direction of Berlin.

Berlin has lost its former strategic importance.

~ * ~

April 5, 1945, 1:15
a.m.

Six kilometers west of Küstrin

Seelow Plain, Germany

“tell him i’ll kill him.”

Misha brings his lips close. He whispers in German.

Ilya holds his face only inches from the enemy. The words he speaks to Misha are pronounced around the shaft of a knife bitten between his teeth. His chest is pressed flat against the enemy’s uniform, nailing the man backward into the dirt wall of the trench. Ilya holds the soldier’s arms spread wide, a violent dance partner. He squeezes his right fist around the man’s wrist until he feels something in the mechanics of the soldier’s arm give way. The enemy fingers go limp, the Luger drops to the ground. Ilya smells cabbage on the man’s breath, thinks he sees fright in the wide-open pupils. Everything is sallow under the light of flares and search beacons.

“Tell him if he makes any sound I’ll kill him.”

Misha brings his lips closer to the trembling ear. The little sergeant’s teeth are nicotine yellow around his hiss.

In Ilya’s arms the soldier’s body loses tension, Ilya almost has to support him. Crumpled at their feet is a dead German, this man’s companion. Farther up the trench is another. Their throats are slit, done by the knife in Ilya’s mouth. The blood from the killings is on his lips. Ilya watches the man’s eyes flutter down to his comrade. The corpse’s fingers are curled, as though in the last moment they reached for something and missed. The living soldier locks his eyes again on Ilya. He draws a laden breath and nods.

Ilya lowers his hands and backs off a step. He puts the knife in his fist, wipes his mouth on his sleeve. The German soldier leaves his arms plastered against the dirt, staying spread-eagled. Misha produces a length of cord. Ilya mimics what he wants the man to do, bring his hands together to be tied. Obeying, the character of the soldier’s breathing swells, becomes a pant.

Misha steps in front of Ilya to bind the prisoner.

Misha recoils, bumping into Ilya.

“Ah, fuck. He’s pissed himself. Look.”

The front of the German’s pants is spotted, and there is sodden soil at his boots. Ilya smells the urine.

Now the soldier thrusts out his hands, blinking, afraid to speak and apologize but eager to be tied by his captors and led away, alive. Misha retreats, keeping his voice low.

“No, no, Ilya. I don’t want to cross no-man’s-land with this.”

“We came out here to take a prisoner. We’ve got one. Tie him up, Misha.”

“No. He’ll stink. Kill him. We’ll get another.”

Ilya looks at the frightened, shamed soldier whose fists are balled tight and held out as though already tethered in Misha’s rope. He nods, Yes, yes, take me, I won’t do anything more wrong.

“Tell him to take off his pants.”

“What?”

“Do it, Sergeant.”

By saying this, Ilya makes it an order. After the siege of the Küstrin citadel he was given a field promotion to lieutenant. Misha was not.

“Tell him. And you take the trousers off the dead one.”

Ilya sheathes his knife, the blade slides away with a menacing sibilance. Misha does not move to obey. Ilya flexes his hands open and closed once in warning. Misha spits.

“Fuck, Ilya. Fuck.”

Misha mutters to the German. The soldier is thin and young, no more than twenty or so. He reacts to Misha’s words with stifled, frenzied happiness. He suppresses a laugh.

Ilya watches the effort of stripping and dressing. Misha is careless with the corpse, whipping the boots and pants off it and leaving the body in disarray. The head lies still while the body is twisted about, Ilya’s gash at the throat was deep.

When the soldier is in clean trousers, Misha wraps his wrists with the cord. After this is done, the soldier catches Ilya’s eye. He smiles in gratitude and nods.

Ilya flashes out a hand, gripping the German’s throat—his hand is so large, the white neck is almost encircled—-and pins the soldier backward against the trench wall.

Ilya says nothing. He glares into the popping eyes. Ilya doesn’t hate this man. He hates everything.

He finds he is squeezing. The soldier’s tongue is out. He hears Misha whisper, “Go ahead.”

Ilya releases the soldier. The young man reaches his tethered hands up to his neck. He coughs, then looks up, begging to be forgiven for the cough. The soldier straightens and struggles to swallow. He does not look up again, but locks his eyes on his boots.

Ilya stares at Misha. He licks his teeth.

“Let’s go.”

Misha hazards only one glance at Ilya, a puzzled flicker. The look says, You’ve left us, Ilyushka.

The three make their way to the far end of the forward observation trench. There lies the first German body, the dead soldier still holding a canteen. Misha clambers out onto level ground. He will lead them, retracing their path across no-man’s-land, avoiding mines. Misha has an uncanny ability to read a map once and recall its every contour. Plus, his German has improved steadily. These are the reasons Ilya brought him on this mission. Ilya needs no other help.

In single file they hurry from cover to cover, tree trunk to boulder to ditch. When flares burst overhead, they drop and freeze, facedown. The German captive moves cooperatively, he steps stride for stride in Misha’s track. He too knows there are mines all around.

They have five kilometers to return to the Soviet bridgehead that stretches across the river Oder. At their backs, ten kilometers to the west, is the Seelow Heights. The German town of Seelow resides on a seventy-meter-high ridge forming one boundary of a flat alluvial plain. The valley between the Heights and the river—the Germans call this the “Oderbruch”—is fissured with creekbeds and spring-fed water holes. For centuries the land has been tilled by the Poles and Prussians, depending on which regime in history ruled this cold quarter. There are few trees and scant roads. The ground oozes from runoff and flooded streams, the
Rasputitsa,
spring thaw. It is over this arduous tract that Marshal Zhukov’s First Byelorussian Front—with Chuikov’s Eighth Guards Army in the van—will attack with a million men and ten thousand tanks. They will strike due west, aimed only at Berlin.

From their heavily armed, high plateau in Seelow, the German defenders keep vigil over this flat and highly visible patch of earth. During daylight the two sides watch each other with ease. The trees in the plain have not yet broken out in leaf. Digging in has become an impossibility in the soaking soil; every shoveled hole fills with water in minutes. At night, German spotter planes drop flares to light up the Oderbruch, and soldiers in the forward trenches record what they see of Red activity. In addition to the aircraft, giant searchlights in Seelow beam down on Soviet positions in the Küstrin bridgehead, observing the shifting of troops, artillery, and tanks into assault positions. Zhukov has ordered Soviet artillery not to fire on these beacons, hoping to avoid betraying the guns’ location and density. The result is the Germans know every move the Reds make. The Soviets are aware that every approach to the Heights has been presighted by hundreds of enemy guns. To counter this, Zhukov has ordered the taking of German prisoners for interrogation.

With Misha in the lead and the German sandwiched in the middle, the three move quickly beyond the German network of trenches. In twenty minutes they reach the dead zone, where there will be no one else out tonight except other Red patrols returning from forays. A fresh flare sparkles above the valley. They’ve come far enough now that there’s no need to drop and hide. Ilya presses them onward.

Twenty more minutes of silent plodding follow. Their boots cake with mud. The sucking clod-step of heels is the only noise, save for the fizzling of flares above. The young German hangs his head, his slender shoulders are rounded. Ilya walks the entire time poised to kill the man if he bolts left or right.

Under the flare Misha pivots to tread backward and face the German. The scar across his cheek glows pustulant in the nervous ocher light.

Without lowering his voice, Misha asks the prisoner,
“Wie heisst du?”

The soldier makes no reply. He glances over his shoulder at Ilya, who warned him earlier that to make any sound would be to die. The eyes seek: What do I do? I’ve been asked a question. Ilya doesn’t care now, they’re out of danger. He can see the silhouettes of cannons and tanks lined up a few hundred meters farther off in the burgeoning bridgehead.

Ilya shrugs.

The German turns his eyes back to Misha, who injects a little frolic in his backward skip over the Seelow plain. Misha repeats,
“Wie heisst du?”

“Ho . . .”The soldier’s voice fails him. He hasn’t been able to clear or rub his throat where Ilya choked him. He’s been petrified with fear for forty-five minutes. He tries again.

“Horst.”

Misha grins, still prancing backward.

“Well, Horst.” The little sergeant looks over to Ilya to see if he’ll get away with whatever it is he wants to do next. Ilya just walks.

Misha grabs himself in the crotch. He brings his hand up to his nose and apes disgust at the smell.
“Ach, Horst, du bist ein Baby. Phew!”

Misha laughs and skips higher. Horst’s helmeted head drops to his chest. His feet drag.

Misha makes a squeal like a piglet. He brings up his hands to his chest, folding his fingers in weak little fists. He knocks his thumbs together, implying some stupid animal motion.

“Horst! Horst! Du bist ein Ferkel.”

The soldier marches head down, hands bound.

“Hey, Ilya. Ilya! I told him he was a little pig. A little scared pig who pisses on himself. Fucking German. Huh? They’re going to kill him anyway after they interrogate him.”

Misha speaks to the soldier again. By the inflection in Misha’s voice Ilya guesses the little backward sergeant has told this to the soldier as well. You’re going to die anyway, Horst.

Ilya stops walking.

“Horst.”

The German halts his bowed gait. Misha comes to a stop but continues to weave from foot to foot, reluctant to quit his fun.

Ilya draws his knife. The blade whispers.

“Horst.”

The prisoner turns, putting his back to Misha. Now his head is up.

Ilya sees the soldier well. Several days’ growth of sparse black beard mar his cheeks and chin. His eyes are blue, sockets smooth. His fettered wrists bulge with bone, dirty nails are black crescents at his fingertips. Ilya steps forward.

Misha bounces. “Gut the piggy, Ilyushka.”

Ilya takes the young soldier’s trussed hands and yanks him close, as close as they were in the trench. The soldier’s bottom lip trembles, but nothing else flinches.

“Genug,”
the soldier says into Ilya’s face.

Ilya leans nearer. He speaks past the man.

“Misha? What is
genug?”

“It means ‘enough.’”

Ilya tells the soldier, “Yes, Horst.
Genug!’