Amateur Megalomania

The rats celebrate the carnage.

I rest for a moment, with my back pressed against the rough plaster wall, watching the rats as they chew on the blasted remains of the man who died here last night.  He was Russian, so I leave the rats to their feast.  Before long, it will be my turn, so I watch them with interest as they take small bites, licking their tiny lips and cleaning their little claws.

The dead man’s face gazes upon me, eyeless and empty.  What do you leave behind, I wonder?  Is there a family to mourn you?  Will anyone remember what you did here?  If we survive this city, we will write the history, and you will be forgotten.

My breath escapes in ragged plumes.  The cold air cuts through my thin uniform.  The light cloth was never intended to shelter us from the depths of a Russian winter, but like most of my fellow soldiers of the Reich, I endure.  I shiver to keep my muscles warm; marshaling what little strength I have remaining.

I can hear the Russians in the next room, waiting across the hallway.  I count three men by their voices.  In the vastness of the Russian countryside, the front line has degenerated to the hallway separating these two rooms.  We’ve been here for a few hours, waiting on relief, waiting on a mistake.

Waiting to die.

The expected grenade through the doorframe never comes.  The Russians have their own problems with proper supplies.  While the Luftwaffe commands the skies, the suicidal Russian supply convoys continue to cross the Volga, losing far more than they put ashore.  What meager supplies that make it through are insufficient to equip the defenders of the city, but somehow they continue.

On the other side of the hall, the Russians stir.  I can hear a new man there now.  He has the voice of authority.  I thumb the safety on my gun and shift behind an overturned metal file cabinet.

A burst of fire punctures the thin plaster walls, spraying the room with small powdery flakes.  I duck behind the cabinet, waiting on the hail of gunfire to stop as I aim my weapon at the open doorway.

The first man charges through the door, empty-handed.  His task is to force me to expend ammunition, depleting my meager supplies.  Such is the determination of our enemy.  In his face, I read the all too familiar resignation I have seen in so many.  He glances around, taking in the room in which he will die.  His eyes close as my gun cuts him down.

The second man leaps over the body of the first, knowing where I am from the sound of my gun.  He stumbles on a loose brick and snarls at me with contempt.  He, too, goes down before my gun.

The third man hurdles the bodies of the first two, screaming in terror as he fires his rifle.  The bullets bite into the file cabinet and small metal slivers strike my face.  I fire my final burst, and my gun is empty.  He staggers forward despite the wounds.  I club him down with the butt of the gun, smashing his face twice before looking up.

The fourth man is on me with a knife.  I block his thrust with my gun, and the shoulder strap tangles on the blade, tearing it from my hands.  I back away, grabbing my own entrenching shovel.  We circle each other, stumbling on the blasted rubble covering the small floor.  The room is filled with our heavy breathing as we dance around each other, feinting and attacking.  I look into his eyes and see nothing but the blank, feral stare of determination.

He lunges again and I throw the shovel, hitting him in the face.  He stumbles back, falling down and losing the knife.  I land on top of him, pinning his arms while my hand closes on a brick.  As I bring it down on his face, he goes limp.  I strike again and again, feeling the bones splinter and break, seeing the blood well up from the wounds.  I watch from a distance as I strike over and over again, long after the Russian is dead.

It is some time before I realize I have survived.  I sit back and wipe my bloody hands on the vest of one of the Russians.  It is only then that I feel the disappointment.

Stalingrad is not finished with me yet.

********

The war was a glorious thing to me once.  I embraced the excitement and glory, drunk with the speed of our conquest.  We made such rapid progress in those first few months, it seemed nothing could stop us from taking Moscow and the rich oil fields of the Ukraine.  The greatest effort in those early days was the simple act of walking.  We struggled to keep up with the Panzers as they blasted great lanes through the crumbling Red Army.  Even the villagers greeted us as saviors at first, happy to be free of the lash of Communism.

That was before the Totenkopf SS began to sterilize the countryside.

Now, they strap grenades to their children and send them to our camps.

We are within sight of the Volga, here in Stalingrad.  For months, we have fought house-to-house, room-to-room.  The Russians, so deserving of our contempt in the early days, now fight like some great cast iron beast, unfeeling of pain, unmindful of death.  All around us, the city is a flaming ruin, rubble piled upon rubble, streets covered with bodies.

The battle never pauses.  The ordeal never ends.  There are only more buildings, more rooms, and more death.  Many good men have died here.  Men with whom I had crossed the steppes, driving the Russians before us.  Men I have called brothers.  We died for each other, holding to the hope that some of us would see our families again one day.

Our deaths bought the lives of our friends and brothers, and for them we embraced our fate.

Now, there are only new men around.  Men I will attach myself to out of necessity, never taking the time to know their names.  It doesn’t matter.

The young recruits are the hardest.  They are new to this war, transported in on rail from the Reich, not understanding what this war has become.  These new men insist on talking.  They want the comfort of companionship and the safety of friends.

These new men die hard, screaming for their mothers or wives, shouting out at the rude betrayal of fate.

The veterans know this safety is an illusion, but we don’t speak of it.

Those that have come to know the truth of Stalingrad die with relief.

I no longer think about living.  My mind is occupied with dying.  The months grind on, obliterating our memories of home, and erasing our hopes for life.

One night, after the last of my friends died, I burned all of my personal items.  I lingered over the photo of Helena and Daniella; my wife and daughter back in Munich, but then it went into the fire, along with my hope of survival.  I could not bear to be reminded every day of the things that I will loose when I die here.  That night, I declared myself dead and accepted my fate.

I no longer remember why I fight, but I continue on.  I fight out of joyless habit.  I will die from mindless repetition.  I know nothing else.

**************

Today, I am an ammunition bearer.  I shoulder my weapon and help the man next to me carry the large steel box.  Ahead, three other men wrestle with the heavy mortar.  We move down the shattered hallway, heading for the staircase that leads up to the roof of the massive Dzerzhinsky Tractor Factory.  We step over the decomposing bodies of both Russian and German, locked together in eternal battle.

Down below, thousands of bodies covered the factory work floor, punctuated by the burning hulks of Panzers.  We secure the factory by day, only to have the Russians sneak back in at night.  They travel through cellars, or they knock holes in the walls and pass through from room to room.  An empty room suddenly becomes an enemy gun emplacement, and more men die clearing it out.  They are like the tide, and we can’t keep them from finding the cracks in our walls.  We kill ten of them for every one of us, and the Russians count that as a good trade.  They will drown us in their blood.

We reach the end of the hallway and the mortar team pauses.  The lead man opens the stairwell door.  An explosion hurls me back and something heavy strikes my head, knocking my helmet away.  I collapse on the floor, dazed.  In my mouth, I can taste the bitter iron of blood; the taste of this city.

I roll over and look.  The three men of the mortar team have been shredded.  Parts of bodies are strewn around the narrow hallway and the walls are painted in a fresh coat of blood.  These men shielded me from the blast.  I run my hands over myself, surprised to find no injury.  I recover my helmet, and the bloody smear on its side tells me I was hit by a piece of a man.

I retrieve my gun, checking to be sure that it still functions.  The other ammo bearer moans.  He has taken shrapnel in the gut.  I pull his clothes aside and see the wound is fatal.  He will bleed to death before anything can be done for him.  I look into his eyes and see the acceptance written there.

He manages to reach inside his bloody shirt and pull out his ID tag.  He doesn’t have the strength to break the chain, so I do it for him.  I tuck the small bit of metal into my pocket without looking at the name.  I rise to go when he utters the plea I was dreading.  “Bitte.”

I look down at him.  I consider carrying him, but the reality of my situation gives me no choice.  We both know the only option available. He nods as I draw my knife.  Bullets are precious, and I have a limited supply.  I turn him on his side and place one hand on his forehead to steady him.  With a quick thrust to the back of the neck, I relieve him of his pain.  I wipe the blade on his shirt and prepare to move on.

I open the steel ammo box and remove two rounds for the shattered mortar.  A few more may fit in my pack, but they are bulky and dangerous.  I set out with them in my hands, heading back toward the bunker built into one of the massive cold furnaces.  There, I will get a new assignment.

I round the corner and come face to face with a group of Russians creeping down the hallway.  We stare at each other for a moment before I react.  I hurl one of the mortar shells at them and jump back around the corner.  The shell was not armed, but it served its purpose as I hear them shout and scatter.  I pull the arming pin on the other shell and slam it against the wall.  I count to three and throw it around the corner.  The blast throws me down on the floor and I hear the splintering of timbers and the rumbling of collapsed flooring.  The dust is thick in the air as the silence descends.

I look around the corner and see that the hallway is gone.  The entire floor has collapsed, and I see the pile of bodies down below.  A few still move, crawling over the dead, cradling broken limbs or gaping wounds.  I stand on the edge of the hole and chamber a round in my pistol.  I select the men who might survive, and begin shooting them in the head.  The work is mechanical, and I finish within a minute.

As I turn back to find another passage back to the bunker, I block out the cries of the mortally wounded.  They will be quiet soon enough.

********************

The days blur together.  The long battles are interrupted by brief interludes of numb sleep.  I wonder if I will notice my own death when it comes.  God has forsaken all of us in this shattered city.  Our ghosts wander the streets at night, turned away from both heaven and hell by His wrath.

Today, I am patrolling streets behind our own lines.  When the shots ring out, the adrenaline takes over.  I throw myself down against the rubble.  Next to me, the flammenwerfer bearer adjusts the tank on his back.  The steady flame from his barrel nearly burns me as he rolls over.  I cuff him on the shoulder, shoving him away.  He mumbles an apology.

I rise up just enough to peer through a gap in the rubble.  A dozen meters away, a small wooden shed blocks our way.  I can’t see the sniper, but I know he is there.  Three dying squad mates lie twitching in the street behind us.  I survey the scene and make a decision.

We move around to the back of the shed.  I can’t see any cracks or openings on this side.  The sniper can’t see us.  We must move quickly before help comes.  My squad mate stands up and douses the dry, wooden shed with a long blast from the flammenwerfer.  The wood begins to pop and crackle beneath the onslaught of flames.

As the shed begins to burn, I move further around the pile of rubble, gaining a vantage from which to see the door of the shed.  The sniper will exit right in front of me, and I am ready to cut him down.

The shed burns for a long time.  I motion to my partner to move around on the opposite side of the shed, ready to burn the Russian when he comes out.  The shed door opens and a flaming man staggers out into the snow.  Even as he burns, he fires his gun at my partner.  I shoot him in the back, but he continues to fire as he drops to his knees.

The flammenwerfer explodes, engulfing my partner in flames.  He runs toward me; a flaming torch of a man.  His shrieking tears through me as I roll out of his way.  I ignore him, firing again and again into the sniper.

Finally, the Russian collapses onto the snow and I turn my attention to my partner.  He is running in small circles, screaming as the flames consume his clothing.  I can see he is doomed, so I do the only thing I can.

I step up and hold the muzzle close to his head, making sure to finish him.  The heat from the flames singes my hands and face.  The thick, black smoke carries the taint of burning flesh, and I fear I will never escape the smell.

Once again, I find myself alone with the dead.

*******************

Today we begin another assault.  Our leaders try to inspire us with words about victory, but their voices waver and their eyes reveal the truth.  We have been cut off here in Stalingrad, and the Russians surround the city.  We are to fight on, and with our deaths, buy time for our forces to fall back and fortify the lines for the coming counter attack.

I am alone.  I have been separated from my brothers by the fury of Russian artillery.  I sprint from crater to crater as the shells rain down from the heavens.  The ground beneath me shakes from the explosions, and I hear the jagged metal as it screams over my head.  The barrage behind me makes going back impossible.  My only hope is to find shelter.

We were pressing onward to the Barrikady factory; yet another immense building, demanding its toll in blood.  The assault faltered as the guns on the far side of the Volga opened up upon us.  The Luftwaffe cannot find the batteries in the thick fog, so the Russians are free to expend all they have so carefully hoarded through the months of battle here in the city.

I fear they will let us have the factory and then smash it down around us.

I dive into a gully running beside the road and slide down to the bottom on a wave of bloody mud.  At the bottom, a cushion of bodies breaks my descent.  I lie there for a moment, gazing at the men who died here.  Their slack faces reveal little of the agony they endured.

I crawl along the gully, heading back toward the German lines.  The artillery hammers the elevated roadway, and seems to be shifting north, away from me.  I reach a small stream running beneath the road through a large metal pipe, big enough for two men to walk abreast without stooping.  Here is where I can rest a moment.

The dead are piled deep.  Here other men have sought shelter, only to find their deaths.  I crouch down next to one of them and lean back against the pipe.  For the first time in days, I remove my helmet and scratch my head.  My hair is matted and filthy, and I realize that it will never be clean again.

In a fit of disgust, I hurl the helmet away.  I am sick of this war, and I wish an end to it.  The artillery shifts back toward me and before long the pounding shells begin to bracket both ends of the drainpipe.  On either side, I see the eruptions of mud and blood and flesh as the shells dig down into the bloody strata of the city.  The ground shakes beneath me, and the great pressure-wave of the explosions tear through my ears.  I feel myself screaming, but the echoing rage of Russian ordinance drowns me out.

The pounding continues for several seconds, then shifts away to the south.  I stand and prepare to move out to the north, before the fire returns, when a small bundle of rags in front of me moves.  In the flashes of exploding shells, I make out the small form of a girl cowering next to a body.  She holds a small sack close to her body and stares at me with cold eyes.

For an instant, I see Daniella.

The child starts to back away, and I lean forward.  “Ich verletze Sie nicht, mein kleines Mädchen.”  She seems to understand me, and hesitates.  The explosions recede as the artillery moves farther away, taking this war with it.  For a moment, I am just a man trying to comfort a little lost girl.  I open my canteen.  “Wasser?”  I take a sip of the water and hold it out toward her.

She moves forward into the light and I can see her gaunt features.  Beneath the tattered rags, she is so tiny.  Her mouth is smeared with blood.  She looks about ten years old.  I open a pocket on my vest and pull out a piece of linen to clean her face.  She moves closer to me, and I kneel down, teetering as I try to find my balance.

Before I can move, she springs forward, barreling into me and knocking me on my back.  As I try to catch myself, I feel a sharp stinging on my cheek.  She leaps on my chest and slashes at my face with a Russian bayonet, nearly as big as she is.  I try to shove her away, but she is like a rabid dog, shrieking as she slashes again and again.  I take a deep cut on my forearm.  In the flashing light, I see the blood and grime smeared all over her face.

Without thought, my training takes control.  I draw my knife and thrust upward through her chest.  The blade catches on her ribs, and I shove harder to make sure I reach the heart.  I watch her face spasm above me, and her bayonet falls from her hands.  I catch her as she slumps and roll over with her body cradled in my arms.  What have I done?

I look down at her with tears in my eyes.  The hilt of my knife quivers in time with her heartbeat, slowing even as I watch.  Her eyelids flutter as her life leaks away.  As she dies, I hear her last word barely escape her lips.  “Otets”.

“Father”.

The tears flow down my cheeks as I think of Daniella.  The artillery returns, pummeling the ground in great heaving rage, thundering its anger at what I have done.  The small pouch tied at her waist has fallen open, and within I see a gnawed human hand.

We have turned little girls into cannibals.  I scream my rage and anger over the explosions, matching their fury with my own.

I scream for my daughter in Munich who will never again see her father.

I scream for the little dead girl before me.

I scream for all of Russia and the things we have done to her.

And I scream for one weary soldier in a drainage ditch, who can never be human again.

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