‘I didn’t want to say anything, actually; but it can’t harm, the die is cast now… or pretty much, anyhow. Don’t think for a moment that the Führer’s abandoned us. He’s promised he’ll get us out of here. But even so, he might come too late. And in any event, all we need is to start throwing in the towel now!’
‘Perhaps you’d be so kind as not to beat about the bush!’ the first lieutenant interrupted him.
‘I… I’ve made preparations for a breakout.’
‘Whaaat!?’
Breuer’s face looked quite dumbstruck for a moment. Then he shrugged and turned away.
‘You’ve lost your mind!’ he laughed. His anger had blown over by now. Fröhlich wasn’t fazed in the slightest.
‘Allow me to explain, Lieutenant,’ he continued. ‘The moment may come when the whole shooting match here collapses, agreed? – where no one’s issuing orders any more – and everyone has to fend for himself. Well, I’ve made preparations for just such a case. We’re going to break out to the west under our own steam!’
Breuer had opened the door and called for his batman to bring him his second pair of trousers, which were generally hung up outside throughout the day to try to delouse them in the winter cold; he cast a careful eye over them when they were handed to him. He knew that many people had started to think like the Sonderführer recently. He regarded their ideas as childish notions, the product of fevered imaginations.
‘My dear sir, how do you imagine we’re going to do that, then?’ he said pityingly. ‘The Russians aren’t stupid, you know! Do you think they haven’t anticipated such desperate moves? And even if you did manage to get through their lines, you’re facing a journey of three hundred kilometres through deep snow, at temperatures of minus thirty, on foot, and in the condition we’re in. And where do you suppose we’ll find food for a week’s route march? No, my dear fellow, drop this nonsense and stop putting stupid ideas in our men’s heads!’
Fröhlich was not to be dissuaded, however. He rubbed his hands cheerfully.
‘I’ve thought of all that. I’ve factored in everything like that. All we need is a spot of luck and it simply can’t fail to succeed!’
And so he duly set about outlining his plan. As he proceeded, Breuer put down the trousers he was holding and began to listen attentively. So, the idea was to find a hideaway and let the Russians roll right past. And then, with the help of the Russian officer and the two Russian Hiwis, to pretend first that they were a party of German POWs under escort. Breuer had to hand it to Fröhlich; that wasn’t so stupid after all! He jumped up and started pacing the room. Then, they’d commandeer a lorry somewhere in the depopulated hinterland and drive towards their own lines masquerading as Russian reinforcements. Yes, that could work! It really could! Breuer called to mind the confidential reports on German special forces who had achieved some notable successes behind enemy lines while wearing Russian uniforms. If nothing unforeseen happened, the operation could be wrapped up within twenty-four hours. That meant that there’d be no problems with food supplies or any overtaxing physical hardships. Fröhlich continued laying out his scheme, methodically and carefully. Breuer was amazed at how astutely the Sonderführer had thought through even the minutest details of his plan. He found himself gripped by a feverish excitement.
‘What about fuel?’ he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion.
‘There’ll be bound to be enough for a three-hundred-kilometre drive. Every Russian lorry carries a reserve tank.’ Breuer’s hand was shaking as he traced their route on the map.
‘Not directly west, though,’ he exclaimed breathlessly. ‘That’s not a wise move; they’ll be watching that sector. We should go southwest – here, look – towards Rostov. No one would expect us to head there. Besides, I know my way around that area!’
Suddenly all the colour drained from his face.
‘Oh no,’ he gasped, crestfallen, ‘I’ve just realized – it won’t work. We’ve been dreaming… We’d need identity cards, Fröhlich. Papers!’
‘I’ve already discussed that with the lieutenant colonel,’ replied Fröhlich, unperturbed. ‘He’ll prepare them for us. He knows what they have to look like. One set for the POW escort to the Russian Staff GHQ on the Don front, and another for the reinforcement order. We’ll fake the official stamps with indelible pencil.’
Breuer looked mistrustfully at Nasarov, who was sitting on his bench as unconcerned as ever and staring at his hands.
‘What does he reckon to all this? Is he willing to go along with it?’
‘Of course he is! After all, he’s got nothing to lose and everything to gain… And he thinks it’ll work.’
The first lieutenant was growing more exhilarated by the minute. The room started spinning around him, and he could scarcely get his words out. The thought of the world beyond, which he’d already renounced for ever, assailed him again like a turbulent current that swept away all misgivings, all inhibitions, and all obligations of duty and comradeship. He seized the Sonderführer by the shoulders.
‘Fröhlich,’ he stammered, ‘Oh, Fröhlich… Freedom, getting out of this hellhole… Living again… Yes, we’re going to live again!’
Only one thing still troubled him – that they wouldn’t get the preparations done in time. So he immediately set to work with an indelible pencil, mocking up a Russian stamp. As a template he used the reverse of a Russian coin. Then he transferred the design to a piece of moistened blotting paper. The test printings from this ‘negative’ looked extremely genuine.
Geibel and Herbert returned and were informed of the plan. They listened to it with uncomprehending credulity. When Geibel heard that it would mean ambushing and killing people and robbing them of their weapons and clothes, his childish eyes grew large and round and his whole body started shaking. Major Siebel, who was also going to be part of the group and whom Fröhlich had already apprised of the plan, put in an appearance too.
‘Gentlemen,’ he announced, ‘if we pull this off, I’ll give this fellow’ – here he pointed at Nasarov – ‘a job for life on my estate. Tell him that, will you, Fröhlich!’
Siebel went over and clapped the Russian heartily on the shoulder with his real hand. Nasarov gave the major a look of devoted loyalty, like a Newfoundland dog, and smiled mutely.
3
Guilty in the Eyes of His People
The days passed at breakneck speed. The men’s faces became ashen grey and their eyes large and sunken, like people facing the executioner’s axe.
Lieutenant Colonel Unold, whose secondment to Army High Command was now at an end, was occasionally seized by a fit of nervous energy that saw him rush from bunker to bunker, treating all and sundry to a vitriolic and wholly undeserved tongue-lashing. For the most part, though, he lay dozing on his camp bed, with his pistol next to him, along with the inevitable bottle of brandy and a photograph of his wife, which he gazed at adoringly and moist-eyed. For a while he experienced a resurgence of hope. A miracle had occurred. A front had once more been established in the west, running along the Gontchara Gorge and the railway embankment down to Pestshanka. The Cauldron had shrunk by two-thirds of its original total area, but for a brief spell it was at least a cauldron once more, with secure borders. The Russians, who pursued the remnants of the western units as they retreated through Dubininsky and Pitomnik (they conducted this operation at a leisurely pace and were rather surprised at the fierce resistance they encountered in parts from certain scattered detachments), were astonished when, on the seventeenth of January, they came across this new front. In the main, the defenders were elements of divisions from the Volga that had been stood down, and who now felt the enemy breathing down their necks for the first time. There were no fixed positions – Unold’s belated mission had come to nought – but the terrain was favourable and the well-equipped and still reasonably well-fed units fought with a courage born of desperation. For two days, they drove back the enemy infantry. Then the Russians lost patience. They brought up armour and artillery in great numbers, sent in squadron upon squadron of ground-attack aircraft, and pounded a gap in the front. Now they were already outside of Yeshovka. Even this brief dream of supremacy had faded for the Germans. Unold knew that, and others on the divisional staff also suspected as much. Only in the Intelligence Section’s bunker did a feverish optimism still hold sway, of the kind that is wont to affect consumptives in the final days of their terminal illness.