‘You know what?’ he said at length, interrupting the torrent of words issuing from Seliger, who by now was noticeably a bit tipsy, ‘You can tell that to the Marines! You reckon you can pull a fast one on me after just a little tot of vodka, eh? I could believe it of old Lissnup, maybe… but you, of all people? You shit your pants at the slightest bang!’
Seliger swallowed a couple of times. His bragging bonhomie instantly switched to angry resentment. The drink was clearly disagreeing with him; his eyes were already looking glazed.
‘You just watch it!’ he slurred indignantly. ‘You won’ b’lieve me, but iss okay comin’ from the bloody high-and-mighty sar’nt-major, yeah? Course, no one believes the li-little private, right! But ol’ Lissnup – he can tell you anything he likes, that puffed-up sack of shit! I tell you, over there, he was sucking up to me like there was no tomorrow – yeah, Seliger here, his dear old comrade Seliger! And now he won’t even look me in the eye, the pig.’ He gave a loud belch. ‘But I’m telling you, sunshine, if I ever spill the beans, he’s finished… finished, d’you hear!’
Lakosch pricked up his ears. The whole business was starting to smell a bit fishy. ‘Hey, hey,’ he said, trying to mollify the orderly, ‘what have you got against him, then? I thought you and him were thick as thieves after your escapades? You’re a big noise now!’
‘Big noise – what shit!’
Seliger slammed his fist down on the table.
‘The only big noise round here is Lissnup – made him a lieutenant with the Iron Cross First Class! And what do I get? This scrap of ribbon here!’ He slapped his chest. ‘So I can just sit here in this bunker and die!’
‘You’re off your head!’ said Lakosch. ‘If things go wrong here, we’re all done for, every man jack of us. Do you think they’ll make some exception in your case?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what I thought! D’ya think I’d have bothered coming back otherwise? I didn’t… I didn’t need to… But he wouldn’t let up, the bastard! Kept going on about being flown out to the Führer’s HQ, and about the home leave we’d get and so on. What an idiot I’ve been! Karl, I’m an i-idiot!’
Unsteadily, he got to his feet, propped himself against the table and put his arm round Lakosch’s shoulders. His face puckered into a tearful grimace.
‘Karl, tell me that I’m an idiot!’
‘Yeah, yeah, you’re an idiot,’ Lakosch replied impatiently. ‘But what makes you realize that now all of a sudden?’
Seliger downed another slug of vodka. He was sobbing uncontrollably now, overcome by emotion and world-weariness.
‘Karl, you – you’ve always been my mate, you’ve al… always understood me. I’ll tell you why I’m an idiot. I wan’ – I wanna – hic! – confess something to you… the last request of a – hic! – dying man. When I’m six feet under, I want you to avenge me… take revenge for me against that bastard, that piece of crap… promise me that.’
‘Yeah, yeah, right you are! Just get on with it!’
Seliger stared vacantly, his eyes wandering. The emotional picture he’d conjured up of his tragic end had sidetracked him. He started to sing: ‘When I’m go–o–ne put roses on my gra–a-a–ve…’
Spittle ran down his chin; this particular hero didn’t exactly cut an inspiring figure. His hand groped for the bottle. Lakosch grabbed the drunk Seliger by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Come on, mate, your last request! Tell me!’
Seliger’s head lolled to and fro, and his eyes were closed.
‘My laaa – My lasht requesch,’ he mumbled, ‘you, you’ve always been… roses on my…’
His head slumped forward, his hair flopped over his forehead and his slurred babble turned into a wheezing snore. He’d checked out. In vain, Lakosch tried to rouse him once more, but eventually gave up. Disgruntled, he set off home again, but not before pocketing a couple of cigars he spotted lying on a bench next to the camp bed. When the captain returned, his esteemed batman would have quite some explaining to do about the vodka. A couple of cigars here or there wouldn’t make much odds.
The command bunker at the Eighth Corps was thick with smoke. A group of some ten to fifteen officers, belonging to the General Staff for the most part, had assembled here. No one knew the reason for this meeting, which the Army High Command had scheduled for the morning of the thirtieth of December. It must be something extraordinary. Colonel von Hermann, the only divisional commander among COs from various corps headquarters, had already speculated on what it might be about during the drive here with Unold. He reckoned it could only concern the new plan for a breakout, rumours of which had even reached his isolated position at Dubininsky. This conjecture of his, shared by several others, was all but confirmed by what the commander of the Fifty-First Corps had to report about the eastern front of the Cauldron. Everything had been made ready there, he told them, with sectors clearly demarcated and daily objectives set. The balloon was due to go up on the third!
‘It’s very simple,’ the Fifty-First’s commander reassured them in response to the storm of questions that ensued. ‘In the north and east, we’ll disengage ourselves from the enemy gradually, while on the other parts of the front we’ll punch our way forward. In this way, the whole Cauldron will slowly start slipping – like a jellyfish, don’t you know! A kind of mobile Cauldron. And we’ll steadily move with it, heading for home.’
‘Mobile Cauldron, Mobile Cauldron,’ cantankerously muttered the only general present – an old corps commander with a head like a tiger – as he cast a disparaging eye around the walls of the new command bunker, which a pioneer company had only just completed after weeks of work. ‘Has the High Command approved this bloody nonsense, then?’
‘That’s what we’re about to find out, General!’
From outside came the sound of a car drawing up and the engine being switched off, and in the doorway there suddenly appeared – very tall and thin, with a slight stoop and clearly somewhat hesitant in his movements – General Paulus, Supreme Commander of the Sixth Army. The room fell silent, as the officers stood to attention. For a moment, their eyes rested on the general’s refined, ethereal features, which seemed somehow out of keeping with his uniform, appearing more at home above a lectern or in an academic’s study. This was the man who held all of their fates in his hand. Yet as each of them in turn stepped forward to shake this hand, which was proffered listlessly and limply, he was confronted anew with a realization that had been weighing down on the Sixth Army for some time now, like a nightmare – namely that he was not a rock that one could cling to in these desperate times. Embarrassed and not without a certain shameful feeling of pity, the officers averted their gaze from his face, once so handsome but now scarred by deep furrows and disfigured by a constant nervous twitching and blinking; and, as if drawn by some secret magic, lighted instead upon a large pair of steel-blue eyes spraying out their cold fire from behind the sloping shoulders of the supreme commander. These piercing, domineering eyes, the striking centrepiece of an energetic face beneath hair that had already greyed, belonged to the man who had entered the bunker at the same time as the general – General Arthur Schmidt, Chief of the Sixth Army’s General Staff.
‘Please, gentlemen, let’s take a seat,’ Paulus invited the officers in his muted, mellifluous voice. They took their places at a long table piled with dossiers and maps.
‘It’s a serious, a very serious matter that has prompted us to summon you here. The High Command has… It’s a matter of… Schmidt, perhaps you’d better explain the situation.’