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

by David L. Robbins

“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 fetter
ed 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!’

  With the knife, Ilya slashes.

  The soldier’s hands are free. The cut rope falls like a dead snake to his ankles.

  Ilya makes a very small jig with his head, in the direction of Misha.

  The soldier wheels and leaps at Misha. The little sergeant’s rifle is strapped over his shoulder and he cannot grab it. The soldier smashes his fist into Misha’s scar, smacking Misha back several paces. The rifle falls to the soupy ground. Horst advances and delivers one more full blow into Misha’s mouth, punching the smaller man down. Misha scrambles on his backside, coating himself in mud.

  The soldier grabs for the fallen rifle. He rises with it in his hands, pointed at Misha.

  Before he can pull the trigger, Ilya shoots him dead.

  Misha stops backpedaling in the muck.

  “Ilya!” he sputters. “What ... fuck!”

  Ilya hoists his submachine gun and straps it over his shoulder. There are echoes; the report from the blast takes longer to die out here in the Seelow plain than did the soldier Horst.

  Ilya lifts Misha’s rifle out of the untied hands. He holds it for Misha to stand and reclaim.

  Ilya looks down on the young German. There are five leaking holes ripped in his narrow back.

  He died with a gun in his hands. He died fighting. So he counts.

  But Horst was wrong.

  There has not yet been enough.

  ~ * ~

  * * *

  April 5, 1945, 8:05 p.m.

  Prime Minister’s residence at Chequers

  Buckinghamshire, England

  churchill sips a dram of champagne. he sets the tall flute carefully in its spot, forward and to the right. The glass sweats, he wipes dewy fingertips against his vest. The bubbles cast up white hats like happy sailors.

  Closer on his right a brass ashtray supports a smoldering fat cigar. Gray fog wreathes his head, manufacturing his favorite kind of air, redolent of back rooms, politics, men. By his left elbow there’s a warm platter of lamb and chutney, garnished with pickles and rice. Behind that, crackers and black Russian caviar. At the head of this meal, holding the top of the circle, stands a photograph of his wife, Clementine, and daughter Sarah.

  Directly in front of him lies a short pile of cables and messages. The sheets are white and starchy, inedible, undrinkable, unenjoyable. He’s surrounded the papers with a ring of his favorite things, allies of succor for these private, trying moments.

  Outside the circle waits a pen and a ream of crisp PM’s stationery. Farther outside the ring lies the open, ticking Turnip.

  The telegrams are arranged in order of arrival, by time and date. The greatest adventure of the twentieth century began with trust and cooperation, with hope for a better world, but it has all been poisoned, and the sheets in front of him are the white pills that did the deed. Jealousy, ideology, suspicion, glory; these have overwhelmed hope like jackals sicced on a pup. Churchill lifts the first flimsy page. Through pince-nez glasses, he reads it again.

  General Eisenhower’s telegram to Stalin. SCAF 252.

  After first seeing this cable a week ago on March 29, Churchill immediately called the General on the scrambler telephone, near midnight. He didn’t mention SCAF 252, just asked for clarification of the Supreme Commander’s intentions. Churchill stressed to Eisenhower the continuing importance of Berlin as a target, arguing for Montgomery to be allowed to continue his northern assault with the Ninth U.S. Army in his quiver. Churchill restated his strong view that it was vital for the Western Allies to capture Berlin before the Reds. Eisenhower listened and replied, “Berlin is no longer a military objective.”

  Churchill puts this cable aside. History, he thinks, will not set it down so lightly.

  The next page carries the date 30 Mar. 45. General Eisenhower to Prime Minister. In this letter Eisenhower put the content of his telephone conversation into print for Churchill. The Elbe River will be his goal, south of Berlin, to cut off enemy forces heading that direction and divide the German army in half. The main thrust lies in Bradley’s zone, and he will have the Third, First, and Ninth Armies to carry it out.

  Eisenhower’s letter relegates the entire English force to protecting Bradley’s left flank. Monty loses the Ninth, enfeebling his Twenty-first Army Group. Later in the offensive, Eisenhower explains, once the success of main thrust is assured, Montgomery will get to mop up the northern seaports.

  Jolly, Churchill thinks. Mopping-up duty. The English maid.

  Churchill scoops some caviar onto a cracker. He washes it down with champagne. Those old Russians who first married caviar with bubbly certainly knew what was what.

  Eisenhower is still on a wild-goose chase. He continues to be obsessed with the specter of German resistance burrowing into some mountain fortress in the south. Weeks ago British intelligence judged this to be a rumor. Why, Churchill puzzles not for the first time, can’t the Americans take their teeth out of it? How can they allow something so unsubstantiated to dictate such major strategy decisions?

  The champagne tangs his tongue. He reaches for the cigar and sucks deeply, meshing the several flavors, making them squabble in his mouth, that’s the way to relish.

  Churchill is not getting upset surveying these cables. He told himself even before he instructed Jock Colville to assemble them on his desk, and again before he embarked through them with his dinner, that he would not. This is merely a review parade. A farewell.

  By contrast, he’s heard in the wind that Eisenhower, short-tempered in the best of times, is furious at being challenged by the English. A flurry of telegrams to Marshall, Montgomery, the Joint Chiefs, Bradley, everyone involved, displays his anger at being questioned. Churchill likes Eisenhower the man, but is committed that the General’s decision in this historic instance—handing over Berlin to the Reds—is quite dead wrong.

  But what can one do? Churchill sighs and makes the only move available to him, like a chess king in check. He sets the cigar in the ashtray, licks his lips, and flips to the next page.

  On March 30, the British Chiefs of Staff sent a lengthy complaint to their opposite numbers in Washington, D.C. This was done without first having it pass muster with Churchill. The English generals were miffed primarily that Eisenhower circumvented proper channels when he made direct contact with Stalin. This seems to Churchill a sideshow to the real topic, Eisenhower’s unilateral dismissal of Berlin as an objective.

  Next page. The Americans’ riposte of the same date. They firmly state that Eisenhower’s communication with Stalin was appropriate and an operational necessity. They give their support to aiming the main offensive thrust to the southeast, saying it’s in line with approved strategy and exploits military opportunities.

  the battle of germany is now at the point where the commander in the field is the best judge of the measures which offer the earliest prospects of destroying the german armies or their power to resist. . . . the single objective should be quick and complete victory.

  Blah blah, thinks Churchill. Single objective. There is no single objective in war. That’s what soldiers never can see. It’s not over when a man lays down his gun. The question remains as to which fellow will pick up the weapon next. That’s politics.

  Churchill catches a wisp of testiness in his thinking. No, no, he calms himself. You are looking for an end, not another chapter. Drink. Smoke. Chew. Better, that’s better.

  He rubs his nose where the glasses
ride. He settles deeper into the leather desk chair. Next page.

  Eisenhower’s cable of March 31 to Montgomery. Antagonism coats every word like scum. Eisenhower gives vent to his distaste both for the debate over his decrees as Allied Supreme Commander and for the British Field Marshal:

  i must adhere to my decision about ninth army passing to bradley’s command. . . . you will note that in none of this do i mention berlin. that place has become, as far as i am concerned, nothing but a geographical location, and i have never been interested in these.

  Montgomery could make no response to his military commander’s very direct orders. He was slapped down good and hard. If there are operations beyond the Elbe for Monty’s Twenty-first, they will be simply to clear the northern seaports, nothing else. Definitely not Berlin. But Churchill could talk back, and did. On the same day, he cabled Eisenhower again, refuting every point.