‘Yes, it was marvellous. Not much sign of the war there at all. The theatres and cafés and bars were all heaving, just like before the war. What was the mood like? Well, news has certainly trickled through that things aren’t going so well in Stalingrad. But they’re confident nothing too serious is going to happen here. Anyhow, you should have seen the Winter Gardens…’
Colonel von Hermann pays no attention to his officers’ conversation. Silent and lost in thought, he looks out at the snow-covered road. He is making a conscious effort to focus all his thoughts on this new assignment. Since yesterday, some very worrying developments have been afoot down in Zybenko.
Yet again the car gets stuck in a snowdrift. Everyone out and push! It’s bitterly cold this January morning. Their breath rises like smoke into the biting air. A squad of Romanian soldiers who are busy clearing the road here help get their car moving again. They are half-frozen, starved-looking creatures, grateful for the handful of cigarettes that the colonel gives them.
It is already dark by the time they reach their destination: a row of small earth bunkers in a balka, with a faint glow of light coming from their entrances. They are the staff headquarters for an infantry division.
The general’s bunker is lit by two electric lamps. A young general staff officer, a first lieutenant, is sitting at a table strewn with maps. With a charcoal pencil in his right hand, he’s busily adding arrows and symbols, while holding a telephone receiver to his ear with his left. The general is pacing up and down the small room. He is wearing a tattered battledress top, open at the neck; underneath, the wide roll-neck of a brownish woollen pullover makes it look like he’s got a scarf on. With his thinning, almost completely white hair and dense grey stubble, he resembles the skipper of a fishing boat. Colonel von Hermann salutes him. A glimmer of happiness lights up the general’s eyes. He shakes the colonel warmly by both hands and claps him on the shoulder.
‘Thank goodness you’re here, thank God! What have you brought for me?’
The colonel looks at him in astonishment. He hesitates before replying.
‘Brought for you? Ah, well… my two officers here, General.’
‘What’s that? But… that’s just not possible! Where are your tanks?’
‘We don’t have any tanks left, General.’
The general slowly raises his hand to his throat like there’s something constricting it.
‘What am I to do, then?’
And now tears are running down his tormented, furrowed face. His hand drops helplessly. Once more, barely audibly, his trembling lips murmur: ‘What am I to do, then?’
Gripped by a sudden, desperate urge to do something, he lunges towards the map table.
‘Look at this, the Russians broke through at both these places, here and here, first thing this morning. We’ve managed to plug this breach here, after a fashion… but we had to use all the reserves in the regiment that we could scrape together. Now I’ve committed some supply-train troops and men from the signals section to this second gap. And just now the regiment defending the sector on the far left reported that the Russians have broken through there as well. They’re now marching north, roughly battalion strength. Marching! There’s nothing to stop them there now. And I can’t spare a single man, do you understand? Not a single man!’
Virtually unnoticed by the others, Gedig and Breuer have sat down on a bench along the wall. The captain gives Breuer a wide-eyed look, but says nothing. Only now does it appear to dawn on him exactly what he has returned to.
The telephone keeps ringing almost non-stop. An endless stream of bad news. No sooner has the lively general staff officer despondently hung up than another call comes in. Then he’s over to the map once more with his charcoal pencil, drawing in new lines to try to get on top of the rapidly changing position. His chirpy voice is oddly at variance with the gravity of the situation.
‘What’s that, Colonel, sir? You say you can’t…? But it has to be that way! It must be possible to take two more platoons out of the battalion. Station a man every thirty metres! You’ll have to rake the ridge with machine-gun fire from a flanking position, then… No! I can’t send you any more men. It has to be done that way! What’s that? Yes, those are the general’s orders, and that’s that! ‘
Eventually, the general turns to Hermann in exasperation. ‘Look, Colonel, you’re an experienced tank commander. You’re familiar with these kinds of situations! Help me, please. Tell me honestly if there’s any way out of this sort of predicament? Is there anything we can do now?’
Colonel von Hermann shrugs his shoulders and says nothing. Suddenly, his mission here strikes him as totally pointless. On the orders of the High Command, he is expected to assume command here of the regiment on the right flank as well as the one on the far left of the neighbouring division. Does the top brass seriously think they can restore this desperate situation by simply shoe-horning a new, unfamiliar and untrained command post into the well-established system operating here? What utter madness! It’s men who are missing here: men! And more especially, a well-rested and battle-ready force.
The general breaks the oppressive silence. ‘The Corps promised me two hundred extra men. We could have used them to… But where have you been all this time, anyhow? We’ve been waiting for you since midday.’
Again, several minutes pass in silence. The general paces up and down restlessly. A feeling of impotence weighs heavily upon everyone. Suddenly, the low door to the bunker creaks and the tarpaulin curtain twitches. Two officers edge their way into the bunker. One is dressed in a white camouflage suit with a machine-pistol slung over his shoulder. He walks doubled over and evidently finds it hard putting one foot in front of the other. With an effort, he raises a hand in salute and announces in a weary voice: ‘Captain Lemke reporting for duty with two hundred men, sir!’
‘At last! We’ve been waiting for you. But just look at the state of you, man! What’s up with you? Are you ill?’
‘General, I’m only just back on my feet. I’ve been in hospital for the last six weeks with rheumatoid arthritis.’
‘God in heaven, man, what are you doing here then? I need soldiers, not cripples!’
The captain’s expression remains impassive.
‘General, sir,’ he says quietly and evenly, ‘my men are in much the same state as well. They’re all either wounded or sick. Most have come straight from hospital like me.’
The general stares aghast at the officers, one after the other, before launching into a gratuitous and unfocused diatribe, which he directs at the captain.
‘What the devil were you thinking of, eh? The situation here is deadly serious! I can’t help you, man! Like as not we’re all going to die like dogs here. So look, see this ridge here? That’s your sector. You’ve got to hold it at all costs, to the last man, understood? Tell your men that the fate of the entire Sixth Army depends on them, and them alone!’
The captain doesn’t budge from the spot and simply stares wide-eyed at the general. Slowly, and with visible discomfort, he starts to speak: ‘General… we haven’t eaten… since early this morning. Might we perhaps…?’
‘But of course, that goes without saying! You, Paymaster: issue your two hundred men with marching rations immediately! At the double, though, there’s no time to lose!’