‘A would-be conqueror came to grief here too. There’s no defeating the Russians on home soil…’
They walked back to the jeep and started on the return journey in silence. And it was then that Major Unold was witness to a conversation that for him was like suddenly looking from broad daylight into a black, bottomless pit.
‘The operative objective for this year’, to paraphrase what the two generals discussed on the ride back, ‘has not been achieved. After mobilization of the Second and Third Wave, four hundred Russian divisions will be facing one hundred and seventy-five German. It’s not feasible to overcome this enemy with the resources at our disposal. We’ve got to fall back to the defensive line running from Lake Peipus through Beresina and along the Dnieper, possibly even further, right back to the Neman and the Vistula, and then we could build an eastern defensive wall there that the Russians can knock themselves out trying to breach. Our main task now is to preserve the army as an effective fighting force.’
Unold inhaled deeply and audibly and drummed his fingers against the windows. That conversation had dogged him even in his dreams, straining at his nerves from his subconscious. He was too good a general staff officer to be able to ignore the logic of such deliberations. And yet he was too great an admirer of Hitler not to invoke his faith in the Führer to help allay his perfectly rational fears.
So had anything happened to justify the experts’ gloomy pessimism? As Unold pondered this question, his eyes grew bright and clear once more. Nothing, absolutely nothing! Brauchitsch and Rundstedt were history, cast off into oblivion as unbelieving doubters, and other, more faithful followers had been promoted in their place. Hitler himself had assumed supreme command of the army. A year had passed, and here they were outside Stalingrad. A genius, unfathomable in his autonomy, had swept away all theory and book learning. A genius, whom the faith of millions – the faith that can move mountains – had made strong and capable of working miracles. Who would ever have thought that a single division could hold a sector fifty kilometres wide? Any officer cadet who’d dared to suggest such an idea at training school would have been sent home for hopeless incompetence. And yet today such a thing was common practice here on the Eastern Front. The unshakeable faith of all had made this possible, and it guaranteed victory. Doubting was tantamount to desertion.
‘We must all believe!’ Unold announced involuntarily to the room. Only Engelhard’s startled look made him realize the ambiguity of what he’d just said. He gave a brief, hollow laugh, went back to the table and picked up the dispatch again.
‘OK, as you were,’ he said with relief. ‘Look, they even say themselves right here: “Deliberate disinformation can’t be ruled out!” It’s clearly another case of the Russian signals intelligence trying to pull a fast one.’
After all, hadn’t the Corps also dismissed the possibility of a major Russian offensive as absurd? And even if the Russians displayed the same kind of sheer obstinacy they’d shown last winter and did attempt an assault, the Corps’ battle deployment plans showed three hundred tanks ready and waiting to repel them, including the brand-new armour that the First Romanian Tank Division had just taken delivery of. And this time they had the reserves that they’d been lacking in 1941. So what did they have to fear?
Unold picked up an eraser and wiped out the ominous symbol he’d just drawn; all that remained of it was a faint mark against the green background of the forest. With its disappearance, all his nagging fears and doubts were dispelled too.
‘It’s a bluff,’ he declared, turning on Engelhard a look of such clear resolve as to make his captain’s heart jump for joy. ‘A cheap bluff! The Russians aren’t coming. They’re finished.’
In the days that followed, the weather changed. It turned dank and foggy, and a fine drizzle covered the cobblestones of the village street with a thin layer of ice that made every step taken out of doors treacherous. Even in Lakosch’s sure hands, the Volkswagen that First Lieutenant Breuer used to visit neighbouring units slithered about on the slippery surface. They found it difficult making any progress.
The mood was clearly sombre at the Second Division of the Fifth Romanian Corps, which was billeted in the little wooden shacks of the village of Kalmykov. A captain sporting an elegant khaki uniform, and who was as swarthy and spirited as a bullfighter, presented his German colleague with some pristine maps of enemy positions, drawn up in the last few days.
‘Look here, comrade, sir,’ he explained in his drawling Balkan German. ‘These three infantry divisions are new. We only found out about the last one a few days ago. Anyway, we’re not bothered about them. But behind them there’s the Third Russian Cavalry Corps! I ask you, what do you need a cavalry regiment for unless you’re planning an attack? And we’ve no idea what might be hiding in this large forest behind the town of Kletskaya. We don’t have any planes of our own, and no German reconnaissance aircraft were available. And with the weather like it is now, we’ve got no chance of finding anything out. But Russian prisoners have told us about a tank force that’s supposedly positioned there. That may or may not be true. But if it is, that’s very bad news for us, comrade, sir! We’ve got no heavy weapons, as you know, and our soldiers are exhausted…’
His dark eyes flitted across the wall, where portraits of the young Romanian King Michael and the country’s dictator, Marshal Antonescu, gazed down self-consciously from heavy frames.
‘That’s what we’re here for, Captain,’ answered Breuer, taking one of the Turkish cigarettes the Romanian proffered him from a silver case. ‘We’ve brought plenty of heavy weapons and tanks with us.’
‘I’m aware of that, comrade, sir. But when will your men be available?’
‘Well, within a few days, come what may!’ The captain poured the contents of a bottle into a couple of thin-stemmed liqueur glasses.
‘Your health, comrade, sir. Here’s something to warm the cockles! It’s Tuica,[5] the real McCoy.’
He held his glass up to the light and emptied it in small sips.
‘It’d be good,’ he announced, ‘if your units could get a move on. We were already expecting the Russians to attack on the ninth of November. But it never happened.’
‘You just wait and see, Captain,’ replied Breuer. ‘It won’t ever happen!’
‘Let’s hope you’re right, comrade, sir!’
On the way back, Breuer made a detour across the high ground south of Kletskaya. At a crossroads where a road led down to the Don, a Romanian sentry was pacing up and down in the freezing rain, his rifle held at the ready, and casting an occasional glance to the north. His steel helmet was perched on top of a tall, dirty-white sheepskin cap like a protective roof, and the rain was running off it in small rivulets that trickled onto his shoulders and back. The colourful piece of tarpaulin that he’d draped over his greatcoat gave him the appearance of a particularly lovingly dressed scarecrow. When he caught sight of their car, he started gesticulating wildly that there was no access down this road. Breuer got out of the car and walked a short way up the hill until he could get a clear view over the area to the north. A few hundred metres ahead, the Romanian trenches cut across the bare land. Everything was quiet, drowned in rain. The hill sloped down gently to a hollow, where a few tiny houses could be made out: Kletskaya. Behind it, barely visible in the grey gloom of the rainy day, was the pale ribbon of a river: the Don.Turning round in silence, he stretched out both arms; he still felt stiff and sluggish. The dark shadow way off in the distance, though – that was the dreaded forest. The range of hills here seemed to be ideal defensive terrain. It dominated the whole of the Don Basin; in clear weather it would afford a good view far behind enemy lines. God only knew how the Russians managed to supply their forces on the southern bank of the Don and even to build bridges under such conditions!