Last Citadel Page 16

  ‘Those were the first gunshots, then. Them shooting at you?’

  Nothing was said about the dropped Luger. Luis caught himself drawing up his posture, gaunt shoulders back, he took longer strides, the peacock walk of the matador. He had lain in hospital beds for months, tottered with canes for more months, suffered in sanitary surroundings through seasons of battle news from the front, and now this night marked his return to the war. Luis preened and strolled and talked.

  ‘In addition to escorting the Tiger tanks, I’m also bringing a company of reinforcements to Leibstandarte. Once I was sure where the partisans were located, I sent each of the four platoons ahead. Two platoons were ordered to take positions between the tracks and the trees. Two more were to penetrate the woods and come out behind the Russians in the fields. The train drove between them. The Tigers were protected by twin machine-gun redoubts on rail cars.’

  ‘The tarpaulins.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah, I wondered what was under those sheets.’

  ‘Guns, Major.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Well, this is a war. What does one expect?’

  ‘Once the train was safe, the first two platoons entered the trees to flush the partisans away from the tracks and back toward the fields. When the Reds ran out from cover to disperse, the second platoons were waiting.’

  ‘It sounds like a quail hunt,’ the major said with approval.

  ‘Actually, a pincer action.’

  ‘Yes, well, it doesn’t matter. The tanks are safe. And so are we, I assume?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Good.’ The major clapped Luis on the back, celebrating his own closeness to danger and his survival in the graces of this little SS captain. There was something condescending in the slap on the back, Luis thought; it carried the flavor of a German officer thanking a Spaniard for a job well done in the service of Germany. There was also a hint of surprise, as though Luis were too much a runt to be this brave and effective.

  They approached the place on the tracks where the partisans had set their bomb. The log was still smeared with the gray explosive on one side, the blasting caps and wire were helpless deposits beside the rail. Major Grimm studied the set-up and clucked his tongue.

  The locomotive sighed in the dark around the bend. As per Luis’s instructions, the tram halted a half mile away. Dawn would overtake them in another hour. Luis would roll with his Tigers safe and on schedule into the ruins of the Oktabrskaya station. The rails there would be repaired before the day was out. The tanks were too valuable to leave them at a rail station thirty miles from the front.

  The two hundred SS grenadiers he’d unleashed into the woods began to return to the tracks. They came crashing through the underbrush carrying the bodies of dead partisans, as they’d been instructed. One by one, the carcasses were tossed like sacks onto the slope of the rail mound. Luis walked along the line of bodies, the Germans laid them out spaced neatly. The partisans would be found like this. Their ruse to blow the tracks was discovered and averted. They might suspect they have a spy in their cell and tear themselves apart looking for him. Perhaps not. No matter. Even if they found the informant, he’d be easily replaced. The Gestapo were masters of persuasion.

  He walked the line of corpses. He expected to see many forms of one man, the simple Russian peasant roused to fight the European invader, knobby-handed laborers, shaggy beards and moustaches under close-cropped hair, tattered clothes and savage expressions even in death. These freshly killed ones were civilized, and Luis found that odd. These partisans were not starved, their clothes were not ragged. The weapons collected by the grenadiers were first-rate, front-line rifles, oiled and loaded. A handful of the partisans had been young men, perhaps soldiers slipped into the conquered lands to provide the partisan cells with professional training and leadership. Most were older, with determined looks frozen on them in repose. Luis kicked the boots of one; these were new boots, good leather all around.

  Major Grimm came to his side.

  ‘They’re getting stronger,’ the major observed.

  Luis nodded. He’d been briefed that the Russian partisan movement was disorganized, tattered. These corpses gave the lie to that intelligence. These men lying shoulder to shoulder on the gravel had been supplied, supported, led, emboldened. Their kind of fury was fed by the harshness of Germany’s occupation, the stench from the death camps, and the lunacy of taking these people lightly, something Luis had sworn long ago he would not do again.

  Thirty-six bodies were lined up. Luis saw the determination and efficiency of the SS troopers daubed somewhere on each one, each corpse a quick tale; a short run to somewhere ended in being shot down. A wound in the neck, several in the chest or abdomen, many coats had no rents, their bullets were in the back. At the end of the row of partisans lay one SS soldier. Over him stood the Czech private.

  ‘Your friend?’ Luis asked.

  The young soldier nodded. The dead grenadier, too, had the Czech flag on his sleeve. One stained rip dotted the dead boy’s jacket, the hole darker than any night.

  ‘Go get the train,’ Luis ordered the soldier. ‘Tell the engineer to come back.’

  The soldier said, ‘Yes, sir.’ With what seemed like no effort he reached down for his comrade and slung the corpse across his shoulder. He walked off down the rail ties with his cooling burden.

  A sergeant from one of the platoons presented himself to Luis and the major beside him.

  ‘Report, Sergeant,’ Luis instructed.

  ‘A few got away, sir, no more than four or five. But we’ve got these here who surrendered.’

  Behind the sergeant stood three partisans. These men hung their heads, making Luis think of a bull when he and the picadors were done with it. But these men were captive and afraid and for Luis that was their difference from the bulls, animals that were never afraid. He moved close to the three. They smelled. He curled his nose at fear and dirt, cheap wool and vodka. He never hated the bulls when he fought them, he and every man inside the ring respected and loved the beasts for their courage and how hard they died. He tried to keep his anger from quaking his hand when he held it out for the sergeant’s pistol. The soldier laid the gun in Luis’s palm.

  ‘Turn them around,’ he directed the sergeant. The soldier obeyed.

  Luis barely looked at them. He’d had more curiosity for the dead ones lined along the rail mound, the ones who died fighting. These three surrendered.

  Luis dispatched the first one. The single shot to the back of the head pitched the partisan forward. The report flew off into the fathomless night. The partisan crumpled across the tracks. One of the grenadiers hauled the body back by the feet, aligning it tidily with the rest of the corpses.

  The second partisan whimpered. Luis stepped back and shot him from an outstretched arm, to put as much distance between himself and this weeper as he could. This one did not even tumble forward but collapsed at the knees, so weak was he. Another soldier straightened the body.

  Luis walked behind the third. He raised his pistol. The man turned around to face him, not lifting his eyes to the Luger aimed at his forehead but glaring deep into Luis’s sockets. Luis saw a sneer; the partisan was enjoying what had been done to this SS man he now eyed, the flesh stripped off him by the war made on Russia. The partisan licked his lips, dry, under clean-shaven cheeks. He was old, this one, he’d seen enough life, time to balance it out with death. He challenged Luis by turning around. He mocked him by speaking.

  ‘Rodina,’ the partisan said.

  Luis felt alone with the partisan, enfolded by night out here on a stretch of Russian rail. The man had said ‘Motherland.’ His eyes were final, not just for himself but for Luis and the whole war. Luis held the gun steady between the partisan’s eyes.

  Slowly, with even more sureness than the partisan had mustered, he shook his own head. No, he told the man with the gesture; the finalness is yours alone.

  He lowered the gun, handing it back to the sergeant. No o
ne else moved, not the major nor any of the watching grenadiers.

  In a flash, Luis grabbed the hilt of his SS knife. The blade leaped from its sheath. With a backhand stab, knuckles up, Luis drove the dagger into the side of the partisan’s neck. The knife embedded where it was intended, missing the carotid artery and striking between the vertebrae to slice the spinal cord. Luis yanked the blade out and the partisan fell like a puppet with its strings cut. The glare on the man’s face was wiped away.

  Luis looked to the sky. The sun was beginning to rise. He knelt to swipe his knife on the partisan’s pant leg, then slid the blade back into its scabbard.

  He issued no orders for the soldiers to follow, but walked away past the line of bodies, toward the waiting train. The men tramped after him, wordless, rifles clanking in their arms and across their backs. He didn’t look down at the partisans, there was no more curiosity, death made every man the same.

  Major Grimm caught up to him at the head of the company. Luis still felt the life of the defiant partisan throb in his hand, a powerful sensation, like a heartbeat. The major wanted to talk, it seemed, but Luis did not oblige. He reached into a pocket for a packet of crackers to appease his hunger.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 9

  July 2

  0210 hours

  west of Tomarovka

  Even half conscious, Katya could still ride.

  The three dark partisans who’d cut her from her downed U-2 had horses tied at the nearby farm of a peasant. Four mounts waited, the spare was to have been for Leonid.

  She needed help climbing into the saddle. Her ribs and hips all felt clobbered, every muscle seared. The old peasant looked her over while handing a bag of food up to one of the partisans. He asked, ‘Is this the pilot you came to rescue? A woman?’ The partisan took the parcel and replied, ‘No.’

  One of the men grabbed the reins to guide her horse. Katya drew the leather back into her own hands and told him, ‘Ride.’

  The three partisans wheeled their mounts. The peasant continued his distasteful glare at Katya, as though he’d risked his life stashing these horses for the partisans to salvage nothing more than some fragile female. She managed one good kick in her horse’s ribs and lit out behind them into the darkness.

  They rode for an hour, stopping at every sound in the night. The horses were well trained, accustomed to stealth, they did not nicker or stomp. The three men did not talk to Katya, they seemed angry with her. She did not ask questions. She was in a new slipstream, swept off in the current of unexpected events and people. She clung to the horse by instinct, for her hands and knees could barely clutch. Her mind staggered between blows: in one moment pain, in the next dead Vera left behind, in another Leonid lost or captured, then fear, then again pain.

  One of the partisans was the leader of their little group. He rode in front and set the tone and pace. They stayed out of the open fields and away from every building, creeping along the gaps between tree lines. The Germans in this area kept themselves murky, only a few distant campfires were spangles on the darkness, one set of headlights on a far-off dirt road glimmered and vanished. The four riders came to a stream. The leader raised a hand for them to stop. He dismounted and waved the others from their horses. Leading his horse, he moved into the calf-deep water. Katya swung her leg across the saddle. She heard herself moan, the ground became the sky, galaxy-filled. She fainted.

  * * * *

  July 2

  Noon

  in a field south of Borisovka

  Rain dribbled on her forehead. Soft light played over her eyelids. The grass beneath her back felt soft and damp. Papa knelt beside her - was it Papa? - smelling of horse and steel, and close too was the youth of Valentin, an energy she could feel without seeing. A horse pawed, a leafy branch strayed between her shut eyes and the sky. She was home.

  Katya opened her eyes. Gray light dodged through wet branches low over her face. She blinked, and that movement tripped off the pain in her joints. She groaned and turned her head.

  ‘So, this is a Night Witch.’

  The voice tumbled from a squatting man, his elbows across his knees and his boot heels off the grass. His voice was deep, but no deeper than the eyes which were set in his sockets as if at the back of caves. They were black eyes under black brows, over hollow grim cheeks fletched with silver stubble. But he smiled and reached down a hand. Each finger was filthy with half-moons of dirt under the nails. He wore a charcoal wool suit coat and brown slacks. His shirt was forest green.

  Katya took a deep breath; her ribs protested, making her wince. The squatting man shook the hand he held out. Katya took it. He pulled gently and she sat up.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘All better, yes?’

  ‘No.’

  She looked about. In addition to this stranger, thirty others sat oiling guns, eyeing the surrounding fields through the dripping leaves, or napping. An equal number of horses clustered around the trees where they were tethered.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Three miles south of Borisovka. In a stand of trees. On your ass, where you’ve been for the last nine hours.’

  Katya remembered stopping at the stream. Swinging her leg out of the saddle. The burst of stars.

  ‘I…’

  ‘You passed out. They brought you in across your saddle.’ The man pointed at three men standing behind him. ‘You’re a sound sleeper, Night Witch. What’s your name?’

  The three came to loom over the kneeling partisan. She recognized them through the haze of her recollection; last night’s leader was an old one very like the man beside her, hardened, something vicious under the skin. The other two were younger, probably soldiers found behind enemy lines. One was thin, the other heavy. The skinny one was cold-eyed, not much more than twenty yet he looked wicked, a killer. The heavy one might have been her age, twenty-eight, with a blushed, full face like a red rising sun. This one’s manner was mercurial, with fleet eyes and a nervous, jiggling neck. Katya knew either of them, any of them gathered under these trees, would stick a dirk in her heart if they believed she was a threat to their unit.

  ‘Is there any water?’ she asked, holding her voice steady.

  The heavy one handed down his canteen. He smiled with the gesture, then like a fish the smile darted from his lips.

  She drank, then answered the kneeling man’s question. ‘Katerina Dimitriyevna Berkovna. Lieutenant, 208th Night Bomber Division.’

  Katya tried to stand. The kneeling man stood and helped her. The fat one lent a hand, too. The other two held their ground and watched her struggle upright.

  Once she was erect, before speaking, she made her peace with the wracking in her body. No bones were broken, but she knew beneath her flight suit she was a storm cloud of bruises.

  She addressed the three partisans who’d saved her from the plane and the German patrol. ‘Thank you.’ They nodded, and the unspoken clung on their faces, a show of their dismay that it was Katya they had rescued and not the fighter pilot they’d been seeking at Tomarovka.

  The deep-eyed man spoke for them. ‘I’m Colonel Plokhoi.’ This partisan called himself Colonel Bad. ‘You’re with a druzhiny of the Hurricane Brigade. Last night our cell had a radio alert that a Yak-9 was down in our region. My men went to bring the pilot back. They were about to meet him at the assigned location when you showed up to save him instead.’

  ‘Leonid Lumanov.’ Katya said the name so Leonid would not be known as ‘him.’ These partisans were like untamed bits of the earth itself, gloomy and weathered. She hurt a great deal standing here but not so much that she would drop her defiance and become the disappointing woman these four believed they’d lugged back. She was a pilot, like Leonid.

  ‘Lumanov,’ the colonel allowed her, nodding. ‘Well, when Lumanov struck his flare for you to land, the Germans saw him. As a result, you got shot down. Your pilot friend disappeared. And your navigator got killed.’

  Katya winced. She wanted to say Vera’s name, too, to
lay a grave marker on the cool words of this partisan. But Plokhoi was right. If she had stayed away, Leonid would be safe. Vera would be alive.

  Katya fought the urge to hang her head in grief. Instead she kept her chin and her gaze firm; neither Vera nor Leonid would want her to show regret to these men. Vera had encouraged the rescue, her last words were ‘Go get him, Katya.’ And Leonid had lit the flare, preferring to be rescued by Katya and her little U-2 instead of the partisans. Yes, she was sorry for what happened, the loss and death, but for nothing more, not her own effort, not the bravery of Vera, not the faith of Leonid.

  The three partisans who’d brought her back turned away now that she was awake and standing. The heavy-set one allowed a sympathetic smile before walking off. His thinner mate went to sit with some comrades, men who made no noise other than the sound of several whetstones under swirling blades, a hiss that blended with the patter of the rain.