‘It’s good that you’ve come, Breuer. It makes things so much easier now… Here, have a look through my coat pockets, will you, the right one? I’ve got papers, letters and my pay-book. Be a good chap and take all that stuff with you? For my parents, my fiancée.’
Breuer’s hand searches tentatively through the coat until it finds the inside pocket and feels inside. He recoils in horror. His fingers have encountered a warm, sticky mass. He looks aghast at the motionless eyes that hold him with their wide and knowing gaze… Slowly he withdraws a filthy packet of papers. He’s tongue-tied and can barely get his words out.
‘My God, Wiese, I don’t even know if I’m going to—’
‘You’re right: there’s no way back now. I’m sure you’ll make it home, though – someday. A different person in a different world… I just know it. Now go, will you? This is no place for you, Breuer. Please go now. Please!’
Breuer leaves the bunker…
He wanders out on to the main road with its hard-packed surface of snow, where a cordite-smelling haze of shellfire still hangs in the air. Strewn across the roadway are mutilated bodies, scraps of flesh and severed limbs. The pools of blood are still fresh and red and gently steaming. Lorries roar past like hunted animals. Breuer takes none of this in. In his mind, he’s still talking to his dying friend. Guilt! The word burns in his soul. ‘Yes, we’re all guilty!’
A figure approaches him and makes to pass by without a word of greeting. Breuer does a double-take.
‘Padre Peters!’
A dead-eyed face turns to look at him.
‘Padre, please, come over here, quick! Wiese’s lying in a bunker out there. Lieutenant Wiese: you know who I mean! He’s at death’s door!’
The padre passes a weary hand over his sunken face.
‘Wiese – the little lieutenant… Yes, there’s lots of men dying here. But I must get to the station now… What’s the matter with you, by the way? An eye injury? Why don’t you walk with me, maybe the doctor might be able… There’s not much for him to do round here any more. Anyone who can still walk has moved on already.’
Breuer staggers after the padre in a daze. His thoughts are far away. He trips over dead bodies and wounded men, and eventually finds himself facing a doctor.
‘What’s the problem? Eye injury? You know this man, Padre? Oh, shi… look, with an eye injury you can get flown out, as a priority case even! I’ll write you a note here. You don’t need the army’s authorization any longer. At least you can still walk fine. Get yourself over to Stalingradski and see if you can still get a plane out.’
Saying this, the doctor presses an exemption note into his hand. He seems pleased that he can still make a difference here on something that matters.
Breuer stands outside the station. He looks blankly at the card he’s holding, with its red border and little attached ribbon. Funny, it looks like a parcel dispatch note. So, it’s as simple as that… And a sudden realization hits him. My God, he’s free! This is his passport back to life! Everything else fades into irrelevance… Fröhlich’s risky escape plan, his comrades, the grisly Dance of Death going on around him, his dying friend… it all begins to fade away like a bad dream. But taking its place in his pain-filled head there comes a resurgence of the distant, long-vanished past, stretching out a thousand arms to him and taking on gigantic proportions. Irmgard, the children, the daffodils in the garden, the lilac hedge, the bookcase full of books, the little library he’d built up and so loved – he’d see all that again, in just a few days’ time! Just for the loss of one eye, he thinks, a small price to pay for everything to be back the way it used to be! But somewhere in a recess in his brain there also lurks a dark thought: the twenty-fourth… God cannot be mocked! But it’s of no consequence any more; it’s lost all the power it once had.
And so, with death all around him but now gripped by an ardent desire to live, he who was already marked to meet his maker hurries on towards the airfield at Stalingradski.
5
No Way Back
Following the loss of Pitomnik and the abandonment of Gumrak, Stalingradski is the last operational airfield still open to the Sixth Army. If it, too, were to fall to the Russians, the last thread of a connection to the outside world would be cut. Admittedly, there is talk of a runway being built in the city of Stalingrad itself, and army commanders have sent in construction units to do the preparatory earth-moving operations. But that’s only to boost the troops’ morale, in the full knowledge that such a plan is in fact wholly unfeasible.
Stalingradski’s ‘Flight Control’ is situated in a bunker in a gorge just off the main road. Breuer pushes his way through the half-open door into the room, which is full to bursting. His euphoric mood of earlier has not subsided. The first things that meet his ear are the clatter of a typewriter and the raised voice of a medical officer.
‘No, I’m telling you, you’re wasting your time! If you don’t have a valid sick pass there’s nothing to be done. Get out! Jesus Christ Almighty, we’re not running a bloody shop here!’
Breuer pushes forward and hands over his card. The doctor gives it a cursory look.
‘There’s no authorization from the army here,’ he says.
Breuer has to lean on the table to stop himself from fainting. It’s like someone has slammed a door in his face. ‘But I thought… I was told—’
‘Then you were told wrong!’ snaps the MO. And without more ado, he addresses all the waiting men. ‘Right, hand me your cards! I’ve got to go over and see the army surgeon anyhow. Maybe he’ll sign them off.’
Surrender his sick pass? Breuer wavers between fear and hope. The doctor loses his temper.
‘For God’s sake, do you want to give me that or not?! It’s all the same to me!’
Breuer reluctantly parts with the valuable, or possibly worthless, card. He and the others make their way outside. With some effort, he climbs back up the slope out of the gorge and crosses the busy road, which is lined with hedges. His thoughts have become a blur by now.
A few hundred metres beyond the road is the edge of the airfield, an expanse of white that stretches into the distance. The green-grey fuselages of three or four transport planes are clearly visible, along with several grey trucks and various knots of people milling around and being shepherded by a handful of black-clothed figures. A plane is slowly lifting off the runway. At least they’re still flying out of here, then. And the prospects for those due to depart are looking good. In these overcast conditions, there’s no danger of encountering enemy fighters, so in a couple of hours’ time the passengers in the plane that’s just taken off will be touching down safe and sound at the airfield at Shakhty or Stalino.[1]
With a mad haste, quite uncalled for given the circumstances, Breuer races ahead towards the aerodrome. Keeping pace alongside him, with long, loping strides, is a fellow officer.
‘This stupid countersignature rigmarole,’ he grumbles. ‘Total bloody shambles! Wonder if we’ll even see that MO again? Of course, a bastard like him who has to stay here come what may doesn’t have the slightest interest in… Anyhow, I reckon we should keep our beady eyes on him… Look out for one another, what?’
He is a major, tall and slim, and with a rather rakish air.