Author’s notes:
Fritz – the Russians never used the words ‘Jerry’ or ‘Kraut’ as a derogatory name for the German soldiers, only ‘Fritz’.
NKVD – People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. The secret police.
The hunt for Major Koenig in the rubble that was no-man’s land below Mamaev Kurgan apparently took three days – for the purposes of the story I have used a little literary license and shortened it to two days.
Chapter 2
23rd October, 1942
Major Nikolai Koulikov awoke to the sound of heavy guns. Dawn had brought a German barrage, the heavy artillery pounding Russian enclaves in the industrial sector. The Germans were trying to soften up the Russian defences, but, he knew, they would try in vain. If Stalingrad fell, so would Russia. And good old ‘Comrade’ Stalin had no intention of allowing that to happen, no matter how many Russian lives it cost.
He stretched and yawned, feeling the ‘crack’ of muscles as he steeled himself to get out of bed. Out of bed. Now that was something that didn’t happen to Nikolai Koulikov very often. It was a long time since he had slept in a proper bed, even though it was just a lumpy mattress on a hard cellar floor, covered in a couple of old blankets and a smelly great-coat.
But he was warm and his belly was still digesting the meal from the night before, and he couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t woken up hungry. He smiled to himself. For all of Rivka Velonina’s cool antagonism, she had treated him with great kindness; she had taken him in and fed him, and given him a warm bed to sleep in. She could well have kept the extra rations to herself, but she had not done so, and for that he would be eternally grateful. For once he felt almost human.
Within minutes he was dressed and ready, the mattress stowed and the pillows neatly perched on top of the folded blankets. Humming quietly to himself but not wanting to wake Rivka, he searched around for something to eat and found cheese and ham left from the previous evening, and a loaf of unleavened bread. Digging around some more, he found the last apple. As he thought about something to drink he remembered that Rivka had run out of water. Finding the water bucket, he headed off out of the door in the early dawn and ignoring the heavy gunfire in the distance ambled to the ruined shop two doors down, where he found the pump. He sloshed some of the icy water over his face and hair, then filled the bucket.
When he got back to the cellar Rivka was up and about, tying a scarf over her hair to keep it back out of her face.
“Well, good morning, Missus Velonina. And how are you this fine day?”
She turned from her stove at the rumbling, teasing baritone.
“Good morning Major. How did you sleep?” Rivka made the enquiry sound as though the answer might be the most boring thing she had heard in weeks. Koulikov was unfazed.
“Very well, I’ll have you know! Long time since I’ve been so warm and cozy, so it is.”
He lifted the bucket onto the table beside her, and was amused to see her nose wrinkle.
“I told you I was a bit ripe, Missus – when you’ve been sleeping in your clothes for two months you do tend to stink a bit. You’re lucky it’s coming on to winter – you should have smelled me in July!” He grinned at her unrepentantly.
“Well, Major … I’m sorry to say I agree with you. You most certainly
are ripe …”
Rivka pulled a face that brought a rich chuckle of laughter from the big sniper. Between them they made tea, and then they sat together at the old table, Koulikov munching happily and Rivka watching him eat as though she had never seen a man take breakfast before. They didn’t speak. Finishing, he lifted his empty plate and cup and left it beside the wash bowl.
He looked at her for a moment, trying to fathom what was going on behind that lean face and failing miserably. Giving up, he rummaged in his kit bag that Danilov had sent on ahead for him two nights before and hauled out a heavy quilted jacket and his helmet. A ball of rags came next, and he lifted his rifle and wrapped the rags around the barrel, stock and scope for camouflage, leaving only the bolt lever and enlarged trigger guard free.
“You’re going after Koenig, then?” Rivka’s voice was subdued.
Koulikov cocked an eyebrow at her comment, his face suddenly sombre.
“The boy needs someone to watch his back, and that’s my job, because I know that beggar Koenig better than most. I trained with him at Gnossen before the war, and I know how he thinks. And I’ll tell you now, he’s a wily bastard.”
“Will you kill him?” Her voice was no more than a whisper.
Koulikov gave another of his soft snorts of laughter.
“As dead as a doornail, My lady Rivka.” He saw a slight start in her face as he used her first name, but he didn’t give her time to think about it as he rose to his feet and shrugged into the heavy jacket and hung his helmet from his belt. Instead of his forage cap he now wore a heavy sheepskin winter hat, the flaps tied up out of the way. Rivka suddenly realised this was a different Koulikov from the humorous, amiable man that had slept soundly and uneventfully beside her brazier through the night. This Nikolai Koulikov was a hard-bitten, seasoned soldier with a rare talent. He could kill a human being with a ruthless and detached accuracy … and with unerring and deadly regularity. She shivered.
Koulikov turned and studied her once more, a strange look of longing on his rugged face for one fleeting moment, and then he grinned at her, a lop-sided grin that lent a twinkle to his blue-on-blue eyes.
“Ah well, Missus, I’d best be going. Young Zaitsev must have dragged himself away from that sweet young wench of his by now and be waiting for me. Can’t keep Major Koenig waiting, can we?”
Rivka was confused by his humour but she smiled back at him nevertheless, the first true smile Koulikov had seen on the lean face.
“No Major Koulikov, I don’t suppose you can.”
Koulikov’s grin widened imperceptibly. Yes, the woman understood. If you let the fear get to you it would get you killed.
He lifted the latch on the door, his rifle slung once more on his shoulder.
“Righto. I … er … I’ll see you tonight then?”
Rivka nodded solemnly, understanding his need for normalcy in the face of such a desperate mission.
“I’ll have supper ready when you come back. Soup. We eat a lot of soup here …”
Koulikov nodded in return, his face calm and unruffled.
“That will be just fine, Missus. Tonight then.”
Rivka watched as he made his way out of the door, but before she could stop herself, she spoke.
“Major Koulikov?” She saw him turn at her voice. “Be safe, Major. Both of you.”
He gazed at her for a second … and then he was gone, leaving Rivka sitting at the old table, suddenly and inexplicably wondering why her home felt empty and lonely without him.
********************
The sun was reaching its zenith high above Mamaev Kurgan, the battered hill that overlooked the great city of Stalingrad, now reduced to nothing but rubble by the onslaught of the Luftwaffe’s Stukas and the relentless pounding of the Panzer divisions and entrenched mortars. The Volga River ran red with the blood of Russian soldiers blown to pieces before they even reached the city boundaries.
Into this nightmare came Vassili Zaitsev and Major Nikolai Kulikov, hunting through the ruins like terriers after a rat. Only this particular rat could fight back. Koenig was deadly, Koulikov knew, but he was also very impressed with the young Russian sniper crawling beside him through the ruined houses. Earlier in the day he had watched Vassili take a 155-metre shot to sever a communications line the Germans had run between their trenches.
Their ‘spotter’, a sharp-featured lad from Minsk called Volodya, had gaped as the line curled away in two pieces, and Koulikov had grinned with delight.
By God, young Vassili-Zaitsev-shepherd-boy-from-the-Urals, you could shoot the balls off a louse blindfold, I’m pretty damn’ sure!
Koulikov rasped his thumb against the corner of his moustache as he pondered the thought, knowing he had just seen one of the finest shots this side of Moscow.
As always after a shot the three soldiers relocated, moving into an abandoned and shelled-out department store, young Volodya trotting behind as Koulikov and Vassili searched for a spot that would put the sun at their backs and dazzle any German snipers thinking of aiming their way.
Volodya settled down beside a stair-well to put their small billy-can of soup on their portable gas-ring to warm through as Vassili led Koulikov upwards to a second-floor corridor, and then into a store-room overlooking what had once been a sunny, flower-filled square in better, more peaceful times.
A small hole had been blasted in the exterior wall, and it was here Nikolai Koulikov began his vigil. The broken communications line was still visible, and Vassili knew that sooner or later the Germans would sent out a line-man to lay new line. Volodya joined them, and the young soldier was soon listening nervously as Koulikov settled back to wait, whiling away the hours telling both of his young compatriots about the torture he underwent at the hands of the NKVD on his return to Russia at the outbreak of war. He relished every detail and took great delight in seeing the shocked response on Volodya’s thin face.
Vassili listened in silence, his face thoughtful. It was hard to understand why his own people would torture and maim one of their own, but he couldn’t blame Koulikov for his cynicism …
“There’s your line-man!” Volodya’s voice broke his reverie. The spotter noticed the uneven bobbing of a helmet behind the long line of rubble two hundred metres away, a role of unwinding wire strapped to the back of the young German soldier crawling on his hands and knees over the uneven surface, frantically trying to keep his head down.
“I’ll do it.” Koulikov gathered up his long body from its sprawl on an old, broken chair and set to work. It was then that Vassili Zaitsev realised that there was a macabre beauty in watching Nikolai Koulikov kill a man.
Settling the stock comfortably into the hollow of his right shoulder, Koulikov used his stronger left eye to settle the crosshairs on the slow-moving helmet, and Vassili realised with a jolt that Koulikov was left-handed. Like all bolt-action rifles the cartridges ejected on the right side, and if Koulikov shot from the left side the cartridges would have obscured his view as they ejected – so he had obviously painstakingly learned to shoot with his right. Vassili watched, mesmerised, as Koulikov gauged distance and windage, long, capable fingers caressing the battered rifle almost like a lover stroking his beloved’s soft skin. Then the big sniper took a breath and exhaled slowly, sweetly, breath pluming in the cold air, slowing his heartbeat, not allowing the merest pulse of his blood to destroy his aim. Slowly and oh, so gently, he squeezed the trigger.
The shot cracked in the crystalline air at the same time as the bullet punched into the young soldier’s helmet in a spray of blood, and Koulikov watched the body collapse bonelessly sideways into the snow. It was done.
Koulikov paused for long moments, his weather-beaten and gaunt face distant and thoughtful. Blue eyes looked at the body in the snow, blood now pooling beneath it. Poor young bugger, he thought. Then something else struck him, and he frowned.
“About soup time, isn’t it?”
The moment broken, Volodya was sent scuttling down the stairs with Koulikov’s teasing anti-Marxist insults ringing in his ears. Vassili began to haul himself upright, still thinking about the deadly skill of this big, easy-going man who only moments before had been happily regaling them both with stories of his somewhat varied history. War did strange things to a man.
They gathered up their weapons and equipment and set off to relocate, moving further along the building to catch the angle of the afternoon sun. They reached the bottom of the stairs and headed towards the little space where Volodya was waiting with their meal, but when they arrived soup was splattered all over the floor and the heater smashed. Koulikov ran his fingers through a smear of blood on the wall. Volodya was nowhere to be seen.
“Shit!” Steel teeth glittered as Koulikov grimaced in anger. “Bloody Fritz! Why the hell take Volodya? The lad’s about as much use as a whore with the pox!”
“Koenig?” Vassili’s youthful face was set and grim.
“Told you he was a clever bastard …” Koulikov swore gently. “Well, we’ll just have to be more careful. C’mon, boy, let’s be off – not much more we can do now, and it will take us an hour at least to get back through our lines. We’ll catch up with Major-bloody-Koenig tomorrow. I just hope they don’t take too long killing Volodya. Wouldn’t like to think the lad’s suffering …”
Vassili looked up at the big man in anger at the remark, but stopped his own biting retort when he saw the pain in the azure eyes. Koulikov was hurting inside, thinking of another Russian soldier caught up in the horror of this bloody battle for Stalingrad.
Clapping Vassili on the shoulder in what was becoming a familiar and fatherly gesture, Koulikov led the way from the ruined building and the two snipers finally began to head home in the early dusk of an cold autumn day.
*****************
It was dark by the time Koulikov rapped gently on the heavy oak door into Rivka Velonina’s well-hidden home beneath the bombed-out shop.
This time he didn’t wait for an answer but opened the door, and instantly entered into an atmosphere of warmth and subdued light. He could smell something appetising wafting through the air and his mouth watered, realising he was extremely hungry having missed out on his soup earlier on in the day. There were also three large containers sitting full of water by the stove, and to his surprise an old, Victorian tub sat beside the brazier.
Rivka Velonina turned from her stove where she had just hauled a huge pan of water onto the hotplate to heat through.
“Good evening, Major.”
Brown eyes looked Koulikov over, making him feel a little uncomfortable under her searching scrutiny.
“Missus Velonina.” Koulikov returned her greeting. He wondered uneasily if he had interrupted her plans for a bath.
“You have a hole in your pants, Major.”
Koulikov raised an eyebrow in confusion, then remembered. A bullet had punched a hole through his left pants leg earlier in the day as the snipers broke cover and ran across an exposed gap between ruins. He grinned.
“Yes, well … a bit of a close shave. No harm done, but I only stole the damn things yesterday. It would’ve been nice if I hadn’t managed to get a hole in ‘em so quickly.”
Rivka’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re not hurt?”
Koulikov’s grin softened at her concern.
“No, Missus – not a scratch. Still, they’re a bit draughty.”
Rivka finished hauling another pan of water onto the stove and wiped her hands on her apron made from an old flour sack.
“Well, Major Koulikov – after you’ve eaten, you can take them off and I’ll patch up that hole.”
For once in his life Major Nikolai Koulikov was at a loss for words. Yesterday she was going to stick him with a knife, and now she wanted him to take his pants off, even thought the reason was innocent enough. But she hadn’t finished.
“While I sew your pants, Major, you can just get in that bath and wash the stink off. I won’t have a man in my house that smells like you do.”
Rivka watched the war of emotions on the big soldier’s face as he went from astonishment, to thoughtfulness then amusement. He grinned ruefully, blue eyes twinkling.
“A bath, hey? Can’t remember the last time I had a bath.”
“Judging by the smell, Major, I would say it’s been quite a while.” Rivka’s mouth twitched as a smile threatened to break out on her face, but her steely control got the better of her. She didn’t understand what it was about the man that managed to get through her defences so easily, but he seemed to have an uncanny knack for making her smile …
She motioned him to sit at the table and he took time to ease himself wearily out of his jacket and hat, his fingerless gloves were then rolled up and slipped into a pocket. He sat down in his shirtsleeves and suspenders, big body moving with unconscious grace as he relaxed back in his chair.
For the next half-hour Rivka and Koulikov sat at their meal, each with another full plate of her thick, rich soup – flavoured with the remains of the ham – and a loaf of black bread from her rations. This time, however, she had not sat in silence. Hesitantly, she asked him if they had found Koenig. No, they hadn’t, he replied. How had he managed to get shot in the pants-leg, she asked. German snipers, he replied, now somewhat bemused. She fell silent, unable to think of anything else to say, so Koulikov told her about Volodya’s disappearance. That saddened her, he could tell. She knew the lad, and Koulikov found himself apologising to her for losing the young soldier, for some reason feeling responsible for his loss.
Rivka merely watched as he finished off his bowl of soup. He looked longingly at the empty bowl, so she silently returned to the stove, retrieved the pot and ladled him another helping despite his protestations that he would manage with one bowl. Food was too scarce to waste.
She silenced him with a touch to his arm.
“Major … eat your soup. You need it. There’ll be enough.”
They finished their meal in silence.
Thirty minutes later the last of the containers of hot water had been poured into the old tub and Koulikov was positively itching to soak his body in the all-enveloping heat of the steaming liquid.
“Well, Major, I’ll be off behind the curtains and give you some privacy. When you’ve taken off your pants just push them through to me and I’ll repair those holes. Do you need anything else?” Rivka looked up at Koulikov as his eyes were drawn longingly to the bath.
He shook his head.
“No, Missus – everything is just fine …”
She handed him a rather old bar of carbolic soap and a couple of frayed towels, gathered up her sewing box and left him to his bath. She sat on her bed and closed the curtains, and within seconds a pair of Soviet Army-issue pants with bullet holes in the left leg were shoved through the gap in the curtains. She took them and began threading her needle, listening to Koulikov shed the rest of his smelly apparel.
There was a small gap where the curtains didn’t quite meet, and she steadfastly kept her eyes on her needle, pushing strong thread through the eye, chewing her lip in concentration. But the draw of the gap preyed on her mind. No. She couldn’t look. It wouldn’t be decent. But maybe if she just glanced out of the corner of her eye … that would more or less be accidental, she convinced herself. But her curiosity got the better of her.
She looked.
Her eyes widened as she saw just a glimpse of strong, broad shoulders and powerful chest, long-boned thighs and the fall and shadow of ribs. A dark line of hair ran down the flat belly to … she looked away. No, she didn’t want to know. Not about that. She shuddered as she thought of the one man she had known in her life … her husband.
Dismissing all thoughts of both men, she settled down to concentrate on her sewing.
Major Nikolai Koulikov stepped into water almost hotter than he could bear, and lowered his aching body into the all-enveloping warmth and gentle lapping pleasure of his first bath in over two months. His groan of ecstasy made Rivka jump and prick her finger with the needle, and she sucked the welling blood, cursing softly to herself. She listened as more soft sounds of pleasure came from the big man as he luxuriated in the soothing warmth.
Koulikov found an old hogs-hair back scrubber and a razor sitting on
a chair beside the tub and he began to clean himself up with a vengeance,
scrubbing every inch of his skin until it tingled. Then he washed his hair,
the short curls shedding the filth of war with reluctance as he found he
had to repeat the lathering just to remove the residue of dirt. Finally
he shaved, scraping off the week-old growth of stubble and leaving only
his moustache and a small tag of beard under his lip.
When he was finished he decided he had time to wallow, so he slid deeper into the water and rested his head on the back of the tub, then hooked his elbows over the edge and let his fingers trail in the now cloudy water. Steam still rose gently and he sighed, allowing the healing warmth to gently smooth the pain from winter-chilled joints and over-tired muscles.
His mind began to wander drowsily, and he thought back to his time in Gnossen before the war, when the German people welcomed him as a friend and the sun always shone. Life was all about the intensity of learning how to shoot with breathtaking accuracy, and then going with friends to a small beer cellar in the evening, and then perhaps staying the night with Marija.
God, Marija.
He hadn’t thought of her for a long time. She had been all honey-coloured hair and soft, buxom curves, his beautiful Polish widow who had taken him into her home and her bed. He remembered with a jolt her chuckling sighs as he loved her and her little mewling cries as he drove both of them to completion, his big body shuddering as he spent himself within her warmth.
But all that had been a lifetime ago, and Marija was long dead. He sighed again and settled a little further in the tub, eyes closing as he let his tired body be lulled by the comfort of the water. Within moments he was asleep.
Rivka finished stitching the holes in Koulikov’s pants and checked her handiwork – yes, it would do. The big soldier would, at least, have warm and sturdy pants to wear in the oncoming winter. It was then she realised he had made no sound now for some time, so she peeped through the curtains and was dismayed to find him sound asleep in the still-hot water. She wandered out from behind the curtains and draped his pants on the chair beside him, knowing he would need them when he awoke.
But then her attention was stolen by the look of sheer peacefulness on his sleeping face. Relaxed and clean-shaven, his damp curls soft and clean, she noticed his moustache was neat and trimmed to accentuate the curve of his mobile mouth, and he looked years younger. How he would look if he wasn’t at war, Rivka thought.
Unable to help herself, her eyes followed the line of his broad frame as he lay resting in the water, the drops glistening on powerful chest muscles and tricking down to the lean hollows of his belly. And below that … she looked, mesmerised, at the vague outline of his hips in the soap-stained water, and the rise of his manhood at his groin. Long legs curled around in the cramped tub, and he moaned quietly in his sleep, shifting slightly.
Rivka blinked. What was she doing?? She was suddenly aware of the pooling of heat somewhere in her loins, and she became instantly appalled at her behaviour. What would the Major think, if he saw her studying his body with such fascination??
Flustered, she looked around for something to do and her eyes fell on the empty water bucket. Yes, that would do – they … no, she, needed water. Hefting the bucket, she let herself out of the door and closed it behind her, setting forth into the night unheedful of the fact that she herself knew it was courting disaster for a woman to be out alone in the dark in this shattered city of Stalingrad.
*******************
Nikolai Koulikov was dreaming.
His mind was full of Marija’s curvaceous, enticing glory, her hands on him, teasing, stroking, urging him until he could wait no longer and pulled her on top of him.
He could feel the waist-length honey tresses falling on his chest as she lowered herself on him, and her breasts bobbed gently as she moved slowly, rhythmically, driving him deep within her. He moaned with the pleasure of it, and she smiled at him with green-gold eyes, her hands raising his to cover and stroke her breasts.
“Marija … please … soon … I need to come soon …”
But then he whimpered as she suddenly raised away from him, but he soon groaned anew as she went to her knees and braced herself for his thrusts. He was behind her in a moment, mounting her and thrusting desperately, his soft groans becoming deep rumbles of need as he plunged into her depths. He held her steady with strong hands at her hips, hearing her cries of ecstasy as he thrust, feeling her move with him in his pleasure, and he saw the long honeyed hair drift like golden ripples down her straining back.
He was lost then in delight … soft skin, the movement of her buttocks against his damp flanks, the feel of her around him. He called out her name as he moved in her, and remembering the mirror beside the bed he saw himself arcing over her strong body, one hand reaching forward to grasp her shoulder and keeping her still until he had finished. She turned her face to look in the mirror and watch the man who was taking such pleasure from her body, and Koulikov was astounded to see not green-gold in the gaze, but huge, dark eyes the colour of sloes, half-closed with delight at his lovemaking. The long, gold-burnished tresses turned to the black of a raven’s wing, tumbling in heavy waves against the glow of her skin.
“Rivka? Oh God, Rivka …”
Koulikov heard her cry out in her orgasm and he saw her dark head throw itself back and her spine arch as she convulsed around him, and then he could hold back no longer and thrust hard. Poised above her he came, deeply, endlessly, his milky essence spurting into her in streams, his body taut and shaking with the sheer ecstasy of being inside her.
And all he could think of was the deep, liquid pools of those sloe-velvet eyes watching him in the helplessness of his loving …
“RIVKA!!”
Nikolai awoke with a start, his body still reacting to his dream, the aftermath of the orgasm still sending bursts of pleasure through him as he flailed about in the water trying to stop himself from sliding under the surface.
Breathing heavily, he managed to calm down and instantly became aware of the sated feel in his body. God, that hadn’t happened to him since he was a teenager! His breathing steadied, and his heartbeat began to return to normal. It was then he realised Rivka was nowhere to be seen.
Oh God, what if she had seen him as he dreamt? What if she had heard
him call out her name as he reached completion? He groaned in despair.
Where the hell was she, for that matter? He noticed the bucket was gone,
and guessed. She had gone for water, and he had frightened her with his
display of unbridled lust, dammit!
Cursing, he hauled his body out of the tub and towelled his dripping skin dry, muttering epithets about a big idiot of a sniper who couldn’t keep himself under control whenever he was in the presence of a woman who had been nothing but kind and generous to him.
Then genuine, deep fear suddenly clutched at his heart, She had gone for water, and it was dark. She herself had said it wasn’t safe for her outside at night.
“Oh, shit!”
He threw on his clothes, wriggled into his boots and jacket, and jamming his winter hat on still-damp curls set off into the night to look for this woman he cared about far more than he would ever admit.
******************