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FRANCES KING   Outside Stalingrad one day

 


OUTSIDE STALINGRAD ONE DAY

I had slipped out of the ruin once called the city of Stalingrad shortly before dawn flitting over the snow on my cross country skis with little Ivana trotting along behind me. With horses, cats and rats and even humans going into the pot of a population facing starvation, a plump brindled West Highland terrier bitch was not safe alone in the town. There was a little clump of trees surrounding a pond I had seen through my binoculars which attracted a skein or two of ducks each evening, which was my goal. I had stuffed a few essentials into my pouches, hefted both my sniper's rifle ( a customised version of the French Chassepot) and my own Purdey shotgun, told my Sergeant where I was going and we were off. To tell you the truth, getting out of the City with its stench of burning, shit and rotting bodies was as much the motive as bagging some food for the platoon. Well, both objectives were quickly and smoothly achieved. The snow was firm and crisp as it was well below minus twenty and had been for a month. With my hood pulled down to my eyes and my white scarf over my mouth and nose. It was only our shadows which might give us away and as the sun was yet not over the horizon, as yet I needn't worry. On reaching the copse, I unclipped my skis and tiptoed noiselessly into it, in my own non regulation sealskin boots. My Purdey, a lovely English fowling piece given to me by my Grandfather made short work of a couple of widgeon, Ivana, oblivious of the cold plunged in and retrieved them and soon we were off again, skirting German positions dug in alongside their airstrip. They were easy enough to avoid as I could smell their fires a kilometer away in this crisp clear autumn weather, and their grey uniforms stood out against the snow. German kit was smart, well designed and cut but no one had told their designers about snow, frost or indeed about battle field conditions. The Red Army on the other hand has learned from bitter experience, mainly against the Finns, and we snipers as elite troops are allowed considerable latitude in our choice and adaptation of kit. For example, I have sewn extra horsehair padding into my jacket.  Not just for extra warmth, but to absorb recoil from my stripped down rifle and to disguise the fact that I am a woman. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the attentions of men, but there is a time and place. On the dance floor, or in the barracks later are good places, to celebrate gender differences, on the front line fighting for the Motherland is not.

There was much activity on the airstrip, planes were taking off in an almost constant stream. At the end of the runway about one hundred meters outside the boundary I came across a large hump in the snow which I knew contained a wrecked German tiger tank. The sun was now up and beginning to warm me. I swept the snow off the track guards on the side away from the airstrip, let the sun dry the metal and then I sat on it, enjoying the warmth through my seat  from the tank and the sunshine on my shoulders from above. After a bit  of sniffing around, Ivana joined me and we watched the heavily loaded German transport planes taking off low over our heads. I gave Ivana a twist of smoked horsemeat which she chewed on noisily while I took a swig of vodka and chewed rather more quietly on some stale bread and a lump of sausage I was hoarding for just this sort of occasion.

I was feeling warm right through. A very rare feeling for the defenders of Stalingrad after a peculiarly bitter Russian winter, believe me, and I was pondering whether it was safe to pull off my hood and let my hair loose. an intoxicating thought, but at that moment one of the German air transports, its three motors howling incessantly, desperately trying to get clear of the ground, flew over so low that I instinctively ducked. I could see that the back door was open and I sensed rather than saw something dark plummeting to earth from it. By  the time it hit the two meter deep snowdrift alongside us, I was cowering under the tank, assuming what had been dropped was a bomb. We stayed under the tank for at least two minutes,  but nothing exploded and when Ivana's natural curiosity finally got the better of her, she slipped my protective grasp and trotted out to investigate. She licked it, so it certainly wasn't a bomb, maybe it was food? I cautiously joined her. It was a man! from his uniform a German. He was small and elderly but seemed to be still alive from the fall. I bent down and picked him up. I had been told that the Germans had suffered even worse than we had  in  the siege, but this bag of bones was a barely living proof. He was an adult but weighed no more than my seven year old brother. I laid him on the track guard of the tank and watched him slowly recover in the wamth of the sun. However I was cautious enough to remove the Luger pistol from his highly polished belt and holster. He was an officer and judging by the rest of his uniform, a high ranking one.

His eyes fluttered and I splashed a little vodka into his open mouth. "That'll warm him up  a bit," I said to Ivana who was licking him furiously.

He sat up slowly and cautiously, bruised but miraculously nothing serious broken. "Guten tag Mein Fraulein", He said. Definitely German, then! He licked his lips and reached into his greatcoat. I raised my rifle. He smiled, made a gesture of submission then slowly and deliberately produced  a bottle of brandy, which he offered to me.

Hmm, very nice too," I offered him a hunk of bread and sausage, which he accepted with alacrity and wolfed it. He spoke again in German which I obviously didn't understand. He tried in French, which I did (a bit). It turned out his name was Otto, he was grateful for me rescuing him. I replied that my name was Catherine and he was welcome. Ivana was my dog, and indeed was Scottish- West Highland Terrier. I looked at a photo of his wife and children and another of his daughter and grandchildren. I showed him a photo of my parents and brother Igor. He offered me a cigarette.

"Americanski". I inhaled deeply, Hmm, even better, "all the nicotine and none of the tar. I wondered where he had got it, Paris apparently, on the black market. I gave him a  Georgian black cheroot. A poor substitute but he accepted it gratefully.

I wondered what Paris must be like. One day after the war he said, he would be happy  to  be my guide. We ran out of vocabulary. What should we do now? he said that as he was going back to Germany in the Ju 52, probably to be executed, when he was pushed out of the plane, I had saved him from freezing in the snow, his life was now mine. I said that I now gave it back to him, along with his pistol. I suggested he walk over to the nearest German sentry post and get home to his family, while I skiied back to Stalingrad with my dog and two widgeon for the pot and go back to my family in Siberia, then on 12th of September 1947, in five year's time we would meet again when this was all over, in front of  the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and thank God for our safe deliverance.

So that is what we did.

 

Frances King worked for the British Council for many years around the world but now lives with family in South Oxford UK.

 

 



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