by Ken Follett
So Erik had at first rejoiced when the frost had set in at the beginning of November. The freeze seemed a blessing, making the roads hard again and allowing the ambulance to move at normal speed. But Erik shivered in his summer coat and cotton underwear – winter uniforms had not yet arrived from Germany. Nor had the low-temperature lubricants needed to keep the engine of his ambulance operating – and the engines of all the army’s trucks, tanks and artillery. While on the road, Erik got up every two hours in the night to start his engine and run it for five minutes, the only way to keep the oil from congealing and the coolant from freezing solid. Even then he cautiously lit a fire under the vehicle every morning an hour before moving off.
Hundreds of vehicles broke down and were abandoned. The planes of the Luftwaffe, left outside all night on makeshift airfields, froze solid and refused to start, and air cover for the troops simply disappeared.
Despite all that, the Russians were retreating. They fought hard, but they were always pushed back. Erik’s unit stopped continually to clear away Russian bodies, and the frozen dead stacked by the roadside made a grisly embankment. Relentlessly, remorselessly, the German army was closing in on Moscow.
Soon, Erik felt sure, he would see Panzers majestically rolling across Red Square, while swastika banners fluttered jubilantly from the towers of the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, the temperature was minus ten degrees Centigrade, and falling.
Erik’s field hospital unit was in a small town beside a frozen canal, surrounded by spruce forest. Erik did not know the name of the place. The Russians often destroyed everything as they retreated, but this town had survived more or less intact. It had a modern hospital, which the Germans had taken over. Dr Weiss had briskly instructed the local doctors to send their patients home, regardless of condition.
Now Erik studied a frostbite patient, a boy of about eighteen. The skin of his face was a waxy yellow, and frozen hard to the touch. When Erik and Hermann cut away the flimsy summer uniform, they saw that his arms and legs were covered with purple blisters. His torn and broken boots had been stuffed with newspaper in a pathetic attempt to keep out the cold. When Erik took them off he smelled the characteristic rotting stink of gangrene.
Nevertheless, he thought they might yet save the boy from amputation.
They knew what to do. They were treating more men for frostbite than for combat wounds.
He filled a bathtub, then he and Hermann Braun lowered the patient into the warm water.
Erik studied the body as it thawed. He saw the black colour of gangrene on one foot and the toes of the other.
When the water began to cool they took him out, patted him dry, put him in a bed and covered him with blankets. Then they surrounded him with hot stones wrapped in towels.
The patient was conscious and alert. He said: ‘Am I going to lose my foot?’
‘That’s up to the doctor,’ Erik said automatically. ‘We’re just orderlies.’
‘But you see a lot of patients,’ he persisted. ‘What’s your best guess?’
‘I think you might be all right,’ Erik said. If not, he knew what would happen. On the foot less badly affected, Weiss would amputate the toes, cutting them off with a big pair of clippers like bolt cutters. The other leg would be amputated below the knee.
Weiss came a few minutes later and examined the boy’s feet. ‘Prepare the patient for amputation,’ he said brusquely.
Erik was desolate. Another strong young man was going to spend the rest of his life a cripple. What a shame.
But the patient saw it differently. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘I won’t have to fight any more.’
As they got the boy ready for surgery, Erik reflected that the patient was one of many who persisted in a defeatist attitude – his own family among them. He thought a lot about his late father, and felt deep rage mingled with his grief and loss. The old man would not have joined in with the majority and celebrated the triumph of the Third Reich, he thought bitterly. He would have complained about something, questioned the Führer’s judgement, undermined the morale of the armed forces. Why had he had to be such a rebel? Why had he been so attached to the outdated ideology of democracy? Freedom had done nothing for Germany, whereas Fascism had saved the country!
He was angry with his father, yet hot tears came to his eyes when he thought about how he had died. Erik had at first denied that the Gestapo had killed him, but he soon realized it was probably true. They were not Sunday School teachers: they beat people who told wicked lies about the government. Father had persisted in asking whether the government was killing handicapped children. He had been foolish to listen to his English wife and his over-emotional daughter. Erik loved them, which made it all the more painful to him that they were so misguided and obstinate.
While on leave in Berlin, Erik had gone to see Hermann’s father, the man who had first revealed the exciting Nazi philosophy to him when he and Hermann were boys. Herr Braun was in the SS now. Erik said he had met a man in a bar who claimed the government killed disabled people in special hospitals. ‘It is true that the handicapped are a costly drag on the forward march to the new Germany,’ Herr Braun had said to Erik. ‘The race must be purified, by repressing Jews and other degenerate types, and preventing mixed marriages that produce mongrel people. But euthanasia has never been Nazi policy. We are determined, tough, even brutal sometimes, but we do not murder people. That is a Communist lie.’
Father’s accusations had been wrong. Still Erik wept sometimes.
Fortunately, he was frantically busy. There was always a morning rush of patients, mostly men injured the day before. Then there was a short lull before the first new casualties of the day. When Weiss had operated on the frostbitten boy, he and Erik and Hermann took a mid-morning break in the cramped staff room.
Hermann looked up from a newspaper. ‘In Berlin they’re saying we’ve already won!’ he exclaimed. ‘They ought to come here and see for themselves.’
Dr Weiss spoke with his usual cynicism. ‘The Führer made a most interesting speech at the Sportpalast,’ he said. ‘He spoke of the bestial inferiority of the Russians. I find that reassuring. I had the impression that the Russians were the toughest fighters we have yet come across. They have fought longer and harder than the Poles, the Belgians, the Dutch, the French, or the British. They may be underequipped and badly led and half starved, but they come running at our machine guns, waving their obsolete rifles, as if they don’t care whether they live or die. I’m glad to hear that this is no more than a sign of their bestiality. I was beginning to fear that they might be courageous and patriotic.’
As always, Weiss pretended to agree with the Führer, while meaning the opposite. Hermann just looked confused, but Erik understood and was infuriated. ‘Whatever the Russians may be, they’re losing,’ he said. ‘We’re forty miles from Moscow. The Führer has been proved right.’
‘And he is much smarter than Napoléon,’ said Dr Weiss.
‘In Napoléon’s time nothing could move faster than a horse,’ said Erik. ‘Today we have motor vehicles and wireless telegraphy. Modern communications have enabled us to succeed where Napoléon failed.’
‘Or they will have, when we take Moscow.’
‘Which we will do in a few days, if not hours. You can hardly doubt that!’
‘Can I not? I believe some of our own generals have suggested we halt where we are and build a defence line. We could secure our positions, resupply over the winter, and go back on the offensive when the spring comes.’
‘That sounds to me like treacherous cowardice!’ Erik said hotly.
‘You are right – you must be, because that is exactly what Berlin told the generals, I understand. Headquarters people obviously have a better perspective than the men on the front line.’
‘We have almost wiped out the Red Army!’
‘But Stalin seems to produce more armies from nowhere, like a magician. At the beginning of this campaign we thought he had two hundred divisions.
Now we think he has more than three hundred. Where did he find another hundred divisions?’
‘The Führer’s judgement will be proved right – again.’
‘Of course it will, Erik.’
‘He has never yet been wrong!’
‘A man thought he could fly, so he jumped off the top of a ten-storey building, and as he fell past the fifth floor, flapping his arms uselessly in the air, he was heard to say: So far, so good.’
A soldier rushed into the staff room. ‘There’s been an accident,’ he said. ‘At the quarry north of the town. A collision, three vehicles. Some SS officers are injured.’
The SS, or Schutzstaffel, had originally been Hitler’s personal guard, and now formed a powerful elite. Erik admired their superb discipline, their ultra-smart uniforms, and their specially close relationship with Hitler.
‘We’ll send an ambulance,’ said Weiss.
The soldier said: ‘It’s the Einsatzgruppe, the Special Group.’
Erik had heard of the Special Groups, vaguely. They followed the army into conquered territory and rounded up troublemakers and potential saboteurs such as Communists. They were probably setting up a prison camp outside the town.
‘How many hurt?’ asked Weiss.
‘Six or seven. They’re still getting people out of the cars.’
‘Okay. Braun and von Ulrich, you go.’
Erik was pleased. He would be glad to rub shoulders with the Führer’s most fervent supporters, even happier if he could be of service to them.
The soldier handed him a message slip with directions.
Erik and Hermann gulped their tea, stubbed their cigarettes, and left the room. Erik put on a fur coat he had taken from a dead Russian officer, but left it open to show his uniform. They hurried down to the garage, and Hermann drove the ambulance out into the street. Erik read out the directions, peering through a light snowfall.
The road led out of town and snaked through the forest. They passed several buses and trucks coming the other way. The snow on the road was packed hard, and Hermann could not go fast on the glossy surface. Erik could easily imagine how there had been a collision.
It was the afternoon of the short day. At this time of year, daylight began at ten and ended at five. A grey light came through the snow clouds. The tall pine trees crowding in on either side darkened the road further. Erik felt as if he were in one of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, following the path into the deep wood where evil lurked.
They looked out for a turning to the left, and found it guarded by a soldier who pointed the way. They bumped along a treacherous path between the trees until they were waved down by a second guard, who said: ‘Don’t go faster than walking pace. That’s how the crash happened.’
A minute later they came upon the accident. Three damaged vehicles stood as if welded together: a bus, a jeep and a Mercedes limousine with snow chains on the tyres. Erik and Hermann jumped out of their ambulance.
The bus was empty. There were three men on the ground, perhaps the occupants of the jeep. Several soldiers gathered around the car sandwiched between the other two vehicles, apparently trying to get the people out of it.
Erik heard a volley of rifle fire, and wondered for a moment who was shooting, but he put the thought aside and concentrated on the job.
He and Hermann went from one man to the next, assessing the gravity of the injuries. Of the three people on the ground one was dead, another had a broken arm, and the third appeared to be no worse than bruised. In the car, one man had bled to death, another was unconscious, and a third was screaming.
Erik gave the screamer a shot of morphine. When the drug took effect, he and Hermann were able to get the patient out of the car and into the ambulance. With him out of the way, the soldiers could begin to free the unconscious man, who was trapped by the deformed bodywork of the Mercedes. The man had a head injury that was going to kill him anyway, Erik thought, but he did not tell them that. He turned his attention to the men from the jeep. Hermann put a splint on the broken arm, and Erik walked the bruised man to the ambulance and sat him inside.
He returned to the Mercedes. ‘We’ll have him out in five to ten minutes,’ said a captain. ‘Just hold on.’
‘Okay,’ said Erik.
He heard shooting again, and walked a little farther into the forest, curious about what the Special Group might be doing here. The snow on the ground between the trees was heavily trodden and littered with cigarette ends, apple cores, discarded newspapers and other litter, as if a factory outing had passed this way.
He entered a clearing where lorries and buses were parked. A lot of people had been brought here. Some buses were leaving, skirting the accident; another arrived as Erik passed through. Beyond the car park, he came upon a hundred or so Russians of all ages, apparently prisoners, though many had suitcases, boxes and sacks that they clutched as if guarding precious possessions. One man held a violin. A little girl with a doll caught Erik’s eye, and he felt in his guts a sensation of sick foreboding.
The prisoners were being guarded by local policemen armed with truncheons. Clearly the Special Group had collaborators for whatever they were doing. The policemen looked at him, noted the German army uniform visible beneath the unbuttoned coat, and said nothing.
As he walked by, a well-dressed Russian prisoner spoke to him in German. ‘Sir, I am the director of the tyre factory in this town. I have never believed in Communism, but only paid lip service, as all managers had to. I can help you – I know where everything is. Please take me away from here.’
Erik ignored him and walked in the direction of the shooting.
He came upon the quarry. It was a large, irregular hole in the ground, its edge fringed by tall spruce trees like guardsmen in dark-green uniforms laden with snow. At one end a long slope led into the pit. As he watched, a dozen prisoners began to walk down, two by two, marshalled by soldiers, into the shadowed valley.
Erik noticed three women and a boy of about eleven among them. Was their prison camp somewhere in that quarry? But they were no longer carrying luggage. Snow fell on their bare heads like a benison.
Erik spoke to an SS sergeant standing nearby. ‘Who are these prisoners, Sarge?’
‘Communists,’ said the man. ‘From the town. Political commissars, and so on.’
‘What, even that little boy?’
‘Jews, too,’ said the sergeant.
‘Well, what are they, Communists or Jews?’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘It’s not the same thing.’
‘Balls. Most Communists are Jews. Most Jews are Communists. Don’t you know anything?’
The tyre factory director who had spoken to Erik seemed to be neither, he thought.
The prisoners reached the rocky floor of the quarry. Until this moment they had shuffled along like sheep in a herd, not speaking or looking around, but now they became animated, pointing at something on the ground. Peering through the snowflakes, Erik saw what looked like bodies scattered among the rocks, snow dusting their garments.
For the first time Erik noticed twelve riflemen standing on the lip of the ravine, among the trees. Twelve prisoners, twelve riflemen: he realized what was happening here, and incredulity mixed with horror rose like bile inside him.
They raised their guns and aimed at the prisoners.
‘No,’ Erik said. ‘No, you can’t.’ Nobody heard him.
A woman prisoner screamed. Erik saw her grab the eleven-year-old boy and clasp him to herself, as if her arms around him could stop bullets. She seemed to be his mother.
An officer said: ‘Fire.’
The rifles cracked. The prisoners staggered and fell. The noise dislodged a little snow from the pines, and it fell on the riflemen, a sprinkling of pure white.
Erik saw the boy and his mother drop, still locked together in an embrace. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Oh, no!’
The sergeant looked at him. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said irritably. ‘Who
are you, anyway?’
‘Medical orderly,’ said Erik, without taking his eyes off the dread scene in the pit.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I brought an ambulance for the officers hurt in the collision.’ Erik saw that another twelve prisoners were already being marched down the slope into the quarry. ‘Oh, God, my father was right,’ he moaned. ‘We’re murdering people.’
‘Stop whining and fuck off back to your ambulance.’
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ said Erik.
(iii)
At the end of November Volodya asked for a transfer to a fighting unit. His intelligence work no longer seemed important: the Red Army did not need spies in Berlin to discover the intentions of a German army that was already on the outskirts of Moscow. And he wanted to fight for his city.
His misgivings about the government came to seem trivial. Stalin’s stupidity, the brutishness of the secret police, the way nothing in the Soviet Union worked the way it was supposed to work – all that faded away. He felt nothing but a blazing need to repel the invader who threatened to bring violence, rape, starvation and death to his mother, his sister, the twins Dimka and Tania, and Zoya.
He was sharply aware that if everyone thought that way he would have no spies. His German informants were people who had decided that patriotism and loyalty were outweighed by the terrible wickedness of the Nazis. He was grateful to them for their courage and the stern morality that drove them. But he felt differently.
So did many of the younger men in Red Army Intelligence, and a small company of them joined a rifle battalion at the beginning of December. Volodya kissed his parents, wrote a note to Zoya saying he hoped to survive to see her again, and moved into barracks.
At long last, Stalin brought reinforcements from the east to Moscow. Thirteen Siberian divisions were deployed against the ever-nearer Germans. On their way to the front line some of them stopped briefly in Moscow, and Muscovites on the streets stared at them in their white padded coats and warm sheepskin boots, with their skis and goggles and hardy steppe ponies. They arrived in time for the Russian counter-attack.
