Last Citadel

by David L. Robbins

  Sasha lay on his back on the other side of the tank. Dimitri skidded to him. The boy was unconscious, his goggles were cracked. A gash drooled blood down his brow. Dimitri lifted the boy’s head into his lap. The sky sizzled, another shell coming in. Dimitri clutched Sasha to his bare chest. He would die after all with a son in his arms.

  He looked up. No explosion hit the General. The round he’d heard wasn’t coming in. It was going out.

  Beyond the rim, the sounds of artillery mounted. Shells whooshed over his head, ripping down from Hill 260.8. Thunder in the earth shook under his seat in the crater. Sasha’s head wound dribbled into his thigh. His face to the sky, Dimitri tried to catch silver glimpses of the sibilant shells flashing past. The rounds tore in twos and threes, a Russian barrage concentrated to save the brave crew of the General Platov.

  Three Sturmoviks broke their engagements in the mansion of sky and streaked down, trailing vapor, wings sparking cannon fire and smoke. They dove in low over the crater - zoom! one, two, three -Dimitri listened to them attack and bank out. The Soviet fighters circled to come around again. More artillery poured down from the hill. Sasha stirred. Dimitri pinched shut the gash in Sasha’s forehead, the bleeding eased between his grubby fingers. He sat like this, marveling at the furor around him; the clash between armies right now was fought not for control of the Oboyan road, not for anything historic at all, but roared and erupted just for him and these boys he’d brought out here. This was majestic. Sasha needed to wake to see it. Dimitri squeezed the boy’s earlobe.

  Sasha sputtered and sat up. Dimitri took away his hand from the boy’s head, blood seeped from the cut. Sasha drew a sharp breath and set loose wild eyes, he’d awakened expecting to be dead. Dimitri patted the boy’s leg.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  Sasha blinked. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You keep trying to get yourself killed. You’re not very good at it.’

  The boy touched the blood trail warming his temple. He looked at his fingertips. Dimitri pressed back a black chuckle in his breast, he did not say to the boy that they would probably both get it right before the morning was out.

  The commander’s hatch lifted open. Valentin stood in the turret. He saw the two of them sitting beside the treads.

  Valentin said nothing.

  Behind and above Valya, more artillery shells rent invisible stripes through the air. Dimitri heard the rounds whispering over his son’s shoulder, a moment later blasting into the German advance. The three Red fighter planes tilted behind him, hung on the blue like ornaments. Valentin was a hero this minute, the hero of the Oboyan road. The exploding tableau around him would be painted as the backdrop to his portrait one day.

  Dimitri stood from Sasha, trailing a hand over the boy’s shoulder before he stepped away. Sasha sat still. Dimitri swung up onto the T-34’s deck. He rose to his full height beside the turret looking over the crater’s lip. A wall of eruptions barred the Germans from coming any closer. Round after round detonated in their ranks; the rest of the enemy advance on all sides was being ignored by every gunner on Hill 260.8 and in the remaining defense bunkers along the road and by the three Soviet fighter planes who’d taken up the mission to save the gallant little T-34 that had knocked out six German tanks single-handedly, including a Tiger. The German wedge closest to the crater recoiled under the concerted Russian salvos, their tanks and infantry temporarily stymied.

  Everything on the battlefield Dimitri had in his heart. Confusion, reprieve, bedlam. There would be more, Dimitri decided, standing beside his son on the brink. There would be more.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 17

  July 9

  1005 hours

  the village of Kriulkovo

  Outside the barn, the day promised to be hot. Thin tiers of light grinned in the space between the weathered wood slats. Inside the barn, the air stayed cool, there was room for the heat in the bare rafters. Daniel and Ivan lay on piles of straw, chewing pieces of it. To Katya they looked like lazy farmhands hiding from work.

  The three of them were hiding. Plokhoi’s cell had dispersed for the day into this farming village ten kilometers north of Borisovka. The older men of the cell worked in the fields this morning helping villagers with their hoeing. Plokhoi himself dug potatoes and beans. The younger ones, the ones who could be spotted by roving German patrols as not belonging in civilian clothes, stayed out of sight. Plokhoi let Katya rest after her scare beside the railroad tracks. She’d been given a minute in the river, a change of clothes, and another horse.

  She leaned over the rail of the stall where her new mount stood. She caressed the ear of the horse. The ear twitched under her fingers. Katya rose on tiptoe and blew into it. She whispered into the pink folds.

  ‘Your name now is Svetlana. That was my mother’s name. I will call you Lana.’

  The horse shook its head away from her hand. Katya kept her lips close to the horse’s ear, whispering.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Lana.’

  ‘Leave the poor animal alone, Witch,’ Daniel called from his mound. ‘It’s understandable if she doesn’t like you.’

  From his straw pile, Ivan laughed. The sight of Katya covered in Anna’s gore had lost its grimness and become something to joke with her about. She had risked the mission, but then saved it. She had earned some ribbing from the partisans, and some respect.

  ‘Ignore them, Lanyushka,’ she told the horse. ‘Did you know your predecessor was a very brave horse?’ Katya recalled drawing her knife under Anna’s throat, how terrified Anna had been after the C-3 gutted her, how she’d tried to stand and run. Katya resolved to remember Anna always as brave. That was all she could do, all anyone could do for a comrade’s death.

  Lana tossed her head out of Katya’s hands. Katya reached to pat the receding mane and the horse dodged her.

  Ivan laughed. ‘You’re losing your touch, Cossack.’

  ‘Too many airplanes,’ added Daniel.

  ‘Did you see what she did to her plane?’ Ivan rolled over on his straw. ‘Planes probably don’t like her anymore, either.’

  The two soldiers guffawed. Katya glared at them without mirth. Left in that airplane was Vera, also brave and sacrificed by Katya. The two men did not catch the look on her face as they chuckled to themselves. Katya stepped toward Ivan, the bigger one, to kick him in the ribs.

  The barn door creaked open.

  A German soldier stepped inside.

  Ivan and Daniel rolled off their backs, scrambling for their rifles and to get to their feet. Katya stood in the middle of the barn floor with nowhere to run, no weapon at hand. She went rigid, afraid and certain that guns were about to blaze.

  A partisan stepped out of the sun behind the German. The enemy soldier stared down the long barrels pointed at him by Daniel and Ivan. The partisan gave the man a shove in the back. The German stumbled into the barn. Katya saw his hands were tied.

  ‘We got this one out of a downed bomber last night,’ the partisan announced. ‘Plokhoi said to keep him out of sight in here.’

  Katya did not know this partisan, bearded and deep-eyed, another product of privation and anger. He was new to Colonel Bad’s collection of aging peasant fighters.

  Ivan set down his rifle and dug into his pack. Daniel was slower to lower his gun. Ivan took out a coil of rope. The old partisan nodded when he saw big Ivan moving to take control of the prisoner. The old man pocketed the pistol he’d kept in the German’s back and slipped out the barn door. He dissolved into the summer light and closed the door behind him.

  Ivan approached the prisoner, towering over him. The German was short and lean, with close-cropped hair. He was a high officer, that was clear by his filthy uniform. That was why he was brought in as a prisoner instead of shot on sight. Plokhoi will want this officer interrogated. The German looked up at Ivan. The expression on his face was not fear or disdain. He seemed to want to cooperate. Ivan pointed to the barn floor at the foot of a support column. The prisone
r sat. Ivan lapped the rope around the man’s chest and waist and knotted him in.

  Katy a came close. The prisoner watched Ivan tying him down, then gazed up at Katya. He blinked and gave a weary smile. His face was grimy across the brow and cheeks, he’d been wearing goggles. His uniform was dirty, too, and tailored. On his left breast hung a medal, a swastika emblem inside a German cross, resting on two crossed swords. On his right collar tab were twin lightning bolts. The man was SS.

  Ivan finished and went back to his pile of straw. Daniel was already on his back again, chewing another strand. Katya glared at the prisoner. SS, she thought. The worst. The most dangerous. He’s small, he doesn’t look like much. Neither do snakes.

  The prisoner did not pull his eyes from hers. He was captured, he was hated. She thought he should hang his head.

  ‘Bitte,’ he said. His voice was low enough for only her to hear.

  Katya was dumbfounded, she could not believe he would speak. She felt affronted by his voice. Who, where does he think he is? He’s a prisoner. He’s going to Siberia or a firing squad when the interrogators are done with him. She wanted to exact a vengeance on this SS officer right now, to kick him and beat him for Vera, Leonid, all her dead pilots and friends, dead Russians, her family at war, burned villages, the entire damned war, beat him for it until she fell.

  ‘Bitte,’ he whispered again. He looked down at his ropes, then back up to her and said, ‘Du tnusst mich geben lassen.’ Katya guessed it was about the fact that he was tied up. She gawped at his face, amazed. The man was certain, quietly, even pleasantly so, that she should take the ropes off him.

  She drove forward and sent her boot into his rib cage. The German’s filthy face puckered at the blow. She stepped back and watched the pain work in him. She’d kick him again if he opened his mouth.

  He nodded at her. Alright, he said with the gesture. He hung his head as she wanted.

  * * * *

  July 9

  1340 hours

  The German officer said nothing for the hours he sat tied to the beam.

  Katy a had never been this close to a German before. She’d always flown over their heads in the night, catching glimpses only in firelight and bomb flash. The only others had been the two guards next to the rail tracks, but Katya’s eyes were shut, playing dead. This German tied to the post was no foot soldier. He was a ranking SS officer, with a silver medal and high boots. She watched him from beside Lana’s stall, she was letting her new horse get used to her smell. The prisoner had an unusual quality, how motionless he could sit. He seemed focused on being still; after Katya kicked him he’d taken the message to heart. He didn’t shift a finger of his bound hands, never raised his head. She studied him and imagined the worst of what this man likely had done. Executions, atrocities, the number of Russians he’d killed in battle.

  Across the barn Daniel yawned, Ivan snored. Katya took a swallow from her canteen. She wanted to see if the German would react, ask for water. To tempt him, she offered water to her horse. Lana dropped her reluctance and Katya poured water over Lana’s loud lapping tongue, wasting much of it. She spoke gently to the horse, to show the German she was human and tender, to remind him that he had killed Russian women and men just like her, good people who loved animals, who did not want this war but he had brought it here. She wanted to make the prisoner ashamed.

  Katya strode in front of the German. She tilted the canteen’s mouth and dribbled water in the dirt beside him. Look up at me, she thought.

  He lifted his eyes. His jaw was set, ready for another kick.

  Katya moved the falling dribble over his chest, to make him lean forward and lick it out of the air, like her horse, like an animal. He drank with greed and without meeting her eyes.

  The barn door creaked open. She stepped away from the German. His tunic was wet. Under her gaze he retreated to his stillness.

  Colonel Plokhoi came out of the blinding day. Behind him walked the starosta Filip.

  Both men were sweaty and soiled. Both wore their wool coats and dark hats. Katya admired the will of these old men, to work in this heat wearing such clothes. She knew it was Plokhoi’s command, because they might have to bolt from the fields at a moment’s notice.

  The two partisans stood in front of the prisoner. They removed their hats and mopped bare foreheads with open palms. The German did not lift his gaze from their boots. Plokhoi dropped a bead of sweat near the prisoner’s tethered legs, his black beard and raven eyes hovered like a storm above the prisoner’s head. Plokhoi spoke, his voice so restrained she could hear the madness in it.

  ‘What is your name and rank?’

  Filip translated in a monotone. For Katya, the German tongue was guttural next to the fluid mouthings of Russian.

  The prisoner lifted his chin and gazed up to Plokhoi. He seemed timid, Katya decided, afraid to give offense. Or no, something else. Calculating. He wanted something.

  ‘Standartenführer Abram Breit.’

  ‘What is your unit?’

  ‘Erste SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.’

  Plokhoi mulled these words. He hated everything German, this prisoner, the language of the enemy. Hitler’s name here in the cool barn under the glare of Colonel Plokhoi was like a match to straw, Katya sensed Plokhoi smoldering.

  ‘Filip.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell him everything I say. Word for word.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Listen to me, Nazi.’

  Filip translated this.

  The prisoner did as he was told, raising his face full to the partisan leader. Filip spoke a quiet stream beside Plokhoi’s words.

  ‘It’s hard for me to keep from killing you right now. I have you here and no one would miss you. Your army thinks you’re dead already in that plane crash. You understand?’

  Katya watched the translation strike home. The prisoner’s eyes tumbled for a moment, then returned to Plokhoi’s, and she saw the man did understand. He was going to be left alive. He was relieved, the lines in his face smoothed, and more. He seemed sorry for Plokhoi’s hatred, as though he knew and accepted the reasons for it.

  Plokhoi and Filip continued.

  ‘If you do not do exactly what you are told, I will have you shot and nailed to a tree.’

  The prisoner nodded, agreeable. This bothered Katya, that an SS officer would behave this way, without defiance, with such cooperation. His name was Breit. He didn’t seem frightened. He didn’t know Plokhoi, or he would have been.

  The prisoner said, ‘Ja.’

  ‘I’ve been given orders to have you taken back across the lines to be interrogated. My superiors think you know something. Do you know something, Standartenführer?’

  ‘J a.’

  ‘Good. Pray you live long enough to tell it.’

  The German did not watch Filip speaking. Instead, he searched Plokhoi’s face for clues, gathering what he could out of Plokhoi’s tone.

  ‘Nazi?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘I have seen and lost far too much. So have my men. I am going to trust you to the mercies of the Witch here. She and this old man will deliver you across the lines tomorrow morning.’

  Katya did not wait for Filip to make the full translation. She stepped to Plokhoi’s side. The partisan leader did not look at her, his eyes were screwed on the German.

  ‘Colonel,’ she said. ‘Colonel.’

  Plokhoi glared down at her, the black furls of his beard wavered over his working jaw. She sensed the malice in him.

  ‘Colonel, a word.’

  Plokhoi drew a deep breath. He’d heard her and ascended from whatever pit he’d been in. He turned to her. He bore her a smile, a strange counterpoint to his anger. Plokhoi was mercurial this way, it made him charismatic and dangerous.

  ‘Yes, Witch.’

  ‘I believe I know where Leonid Lumanov is.’

  ‘Your pilot.’

  ‘Yes. I intend to rescue him.’

  ‘You intend.’


  Katya did not hesitate. ‘Yes. Tomorrow.’

  Plokhoi said, ‘I don’t have orders for that.’

  ‘Yes you do. You had them a week ago. You never said they were rescinded.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Plokhoi appeared amused at her cleverness.

  He said, ‘And what if you and Filip are captured? The two of you know a great deal about us by now, Witch. I think it’s safer asking you to stay out of sight and get across the lines with this Nazi than to take on a German garrison.’

  ‘My brothers,’ Filip piped up, ‘they will come, too. Seven of us. We’ll go with the Witch to get the pilot.’

  ‘No,’ Plokhoi decreed. ‘They’re not trained for that sort of thing.’