Davidoff No.

7
Nicholas Farrell The snow was spotted with red. Blood dried hard on countless white jackets and fatigues, staining bibles and badges and pictures of naked German girls. It was dawn and the killing field was peaceful. The sun peaked over the horizon, adding its light to the fires burning all around the city. Crows came to peck at the frozen corpses. A dead man stirred in Stalingrad. He dug himself out from beneath his bullet ridden comrades. In order to have survived, he would have needed to start moving before the light gave him away. Unfortunately it was the rising sun that awakened him. He crawled out slowly, trying to take cover behind the bodies. He heard a rifle crack. A bullet ripped into the man next to him, splattering congealed blood into his eyes, blinding him. He was dead before his ears registered the second shot. The sniper pulled back the bolt on his Mosin-Nagant, ejecting the spent cartridge. He swiftly slid a new bullet into the chamber. A miss. After fortytwo pierced torsos, fifteen arms, thirty-two necks, and one hundred and eleven heads, he had missed a wounded man lying on the ground. Now he only had six left of the two hundred cartridges he set out with two weeks earlier. He could not afford to miss again.

The Russian lit a cigar, inhaled and blew the smoke behind him. Best to not let it waft out the window and reveal him. He watched the smoke as it rose up through the rafters. A Davidoff No.7 , his favorite cigar. His father had given him a box for his twenty-eighth birthday. That was in peacetime, before this cruel war had torn apart his country and taken his father from him. Now he only had one cigar left. Soon he would be forced to leave the safety of his hide, he thought as he exhaled again. The battle had ended weeks ago, but the remains of the German army still roamed parts of the surrounding city and he was far from the shattered but vital Russian forces. This block had been quiet for the past few hours. He carefully wiped down the scope of his rifle and smudged on a thin layer of cigar ash to hide the glint from the morning sun. Still chomping on the cigar he went downstairs to relieve himself in the snow. As he did six pairs of boots crunched in the snow less than three miles away. Among them counted three hundred and sixty two cartridges, one Nazi issue officers pistol, two MP-40 submachine guns, two Ghewer 24 rifles, and one scoped Karabiner sniper rifle. The Russian climbed back into his hide in the roof of the bombed out school house and looked over his city. He scanned the streets, his scope landed on the broken glass window of an inn on the opposite side of the road. -novsky Tavern read what was left of the finely painted glass on the

front of the bar. He recalled the many times he had reveled there. He drank and sang with his countrymen, many of whom were dead now. He scanned past the exploded buildings and recalled the owners of all of them. The small, frail, bespectacled shoemaker on the corner was killed by a Luftwaffe bomb that landed beside his convoy. The fat old doctor in the building beside him, a German, was blown to pieces when a panzer brigade cut off his escape from the city. The owner of the deli was a round woman with rosy cheeks. He felt a pang of sadness as he remembered waiting in line for meat. The womans sweet, young, blue-eyed daughter stood behind the counter. She had offered him bologna when he had no money to pay. She and her mother stayed in the city right up until the invasion, she was packing her bags when sirens sounded. He prayed silently that they made it to the shelter As he stared at the counter a shaggy black terrier hopped out from behind it with a link of sausages in its mouth. The Russian followed the dog with his sight trained just above its head. The dog ran south down the boulevard, hopping over debris from the damaged buildings. It crawled under a fallen telephone pole, sidestepped a crater, and leapt over a burnt out car. It walked past the street corner and climbed up the side of a defeated German tank.

It took a vantage point on top and proudly gazed down the street. It raised one ear, then another. Then it thrust its nose into the air, sniffing. The hound let out a loud bark that echoed down the street. The sniper smiled. A fierce Russian dog, he thought. Machine gun fire pattered in response from down the avenue. The bullets flew past the dogs ear. It yelped, dropped the sausages and jumped down from the tank to run down the street, leaving the links of meat draped over the barrel of the tank. The sniper jerked his sight up the street where the shots came from. He couldnt see past the building on the corner to see who had fired, but he could hear laughter and hooting at the dogs retreat. He listened closely, trying to pick out the individual voices in the stew of echoes off the lifeless buildings. Two voices of young man. Then, two older men, and a fifth and a sixth. All were speaking German. Six men, he thought. Six cartridges left. He scanned the buildings trying to spot them through broken windows. He trained his sight at the edge of the corner and waited for his first victim to come into view. One man emerged. The Russian watched and waited, he could kill him now and lose his position or wait for the others to appear. He held steady, the second and third men walked out. Damn, he thought, a sniper. Now he would have to be doubly cautious.

Then the rest appeared, no officers were among them. They were deserters, aimlessly wandering the city. The derelict brigade stood in a circle. The Russian watched as they stood in a circle and pulled out packs of cigarettes. He examined them closely. They were still well armed with equipment, probably scavenged from their dead comrades. He held his breath and steadied his scope on the enemy sniper. Just as he started to lay his finger on the trigger, the man pointed behind him and shouted. Another walked back behind the building. When he emerged he was dragging something behind him. The Russian looked closer. It was not something but someone, a young girl with hands bound. The soldier jerked the child forward and set it on the ground. Now he could see the face No, it couldnt be, it was impossible. Behind long black hair and a dirty face were two sparkling blue eyes, the deli womans daughter! Alive and a prisoner of war to these pigs! Who knows what atrocities she had been submitted to? The Russian was boiling with rage. Whatever they had done to this girl, they would pay for in blood. Her suffering would be avenged. The Russian trained his scope on the man with the sniper. The German took a drag of his cigarette. Before he could blow out, a bullet rend into his head. The sound of thunder echoed down the street. The struck man fell

quickly, and the others scattered like roaches. Two men dragged the frightened girl back behind the building; two others took cover behind the tank and the fifth dove through a shattered storefront. They still did not know where the bullet came from, thought the sniper. The man in the store peeked his head out cautiously aiming his rifle, searching for the shooter. The Russian deftly aimed and squeezed the trigger. The man fell limp through the store window. Four to go, now he must wait. Nobody moved for almost twenty minutes. The sniper fixed his gaze in the street between the tank and the building where the two with the girl were hiding. By now they had figured out which direction the bullets were coming from. One of the men behind the tanks made a break for the cover of the buildings. The Russian squeezed off another round; the bullet struck his heart and he fell very near the safety of the brick wall. The girl screamed at the sight of blood. The three men still alive sat in silence for another ten minutes, not daring to tempt the gods hand. Nothing moved until the man behind the wall bent his machine gun around the corner, spraying bullets blindly. The Russian heard rounds hit the walls of the buildings around him, but did not flinch.

The German volleyed once again, this time the remaining man behind the tank tried to use the cover fire to run across the street. He did not go far before his neck was punctured, spraying red all over the snow around him. Now there were only two trapped rats. The sniper waited for almost an hour, a light snow began to fall, slowly burying the freshly dead. He watched the white pile up, wondering if they two remaining enemies had somehow escaped. Impossible, he thought, there was no way forward that could avoid his scope, he was omniscient. The thought that he might have let them get away with the girl angered him, and he scanned closer up and down the street. As he did, the Russian heard a rifle crack from the building across from him. A shell flew past his head and hit the wall behind him. He heard another crack and another. Bullets continued to hit the brick. He remained calm and scanned the building for the source of the shots. He saw a muzzle flash in a third floor window. This rat has learned to climb. The Russian waited for the flash again. He saw the burst of light and then returned fire. The man fell limp against the windowsill, his rifle fell to the snow below. Only one rodent left. As soon as it was dealt with he would be able to go down and rescue the girl. Then they would head for the safety of the inner city. He looked forward to a warm fire and a drink of vodka.

Another hour passed. What was this German waiting for? He was alone in enemy territory; surely a smart person would surrender and beg for mercy. The Russian decided to find out if he was still there. He picked up his Moisin Nagant and crawled to the stairwell, maybe he could get a better vantage from the roof; he had to save the girl. Once on the rooftop he sidled to the very end and pointed his rifle over the ledge. Peering through his scope, he saw the man sitting, leaning against the wall. The girl was beside him sobbing. It appeared as though the German felt safe, he had removed his helmet. The Russian looked closer at his face. He watched the young German with soot on his face and sweat dripping from his blonde hair. The soldier was not older than fourteen, the same age as the girl. He sat sobbing also. He was a boy, lost and alone in a burning city. What depraved hand of fate had spun such a twisted yarn as to bring him to Stalingrad to kill and to die? The Russian thought. Was it the same that brought the deli girl to him, alive? What forces governed this world where two innocent and altogether similar children should be enemies and suffer and die? What but a hateful God would allow it? Now is not the time for prayers, he thought, nor is it the time for blood. No, now is the time for peace.

The Russian gathered up his rifle and made for the inside of the schoolhouse. He set the gun down near the window and stepped down the stairs. He went down two flights and emerged in the schoolyard. He stopped for a moment and looked out at the playground. The swing set was in a crater, one-half of a see-saw beside it. A smiling wooden horse with a missing leg lay smoldering in the rubble. The Russian walked on to the street. He continued down the boulevard toward where the boy was. Slowly he crept back to the opposite side of the boulevard where he could see the boy and girl sitting. He emerged with his hands raised above his head. Hallo Freund! he shouted. The girl recognized him, and her eyes grew wide as she looked at him. The boy stood up wielding a submachine gun. He pointed and stared. Tears marked his cheeks. The Russian froze. Hallo Freund! he shouted again. The German boy still said nothing. The Russian stepped forward, the boy shouted. Aufhren! it sounded like a weak cough. The Russian paused again.

How could he calm the boy? He did not want to hurt him. He remembered the cigar he had tucked away in his back pocket. He would toss the German his last Davidoff as a peace offering, surly the boy knew the value of such a fine cigar. He reached a hand down toward his pocket. The boy shouted again and fired his MP-40. The girl let out a scream. He missed at first but kept firing, emptying out the entire clip. The Russian lay on his back with eyes looking towards heaven. He was imaging himself sitting by a warm fire with a drink of vodka. A deep crimson slowly seeped out into the snow around him. The girl kept screaming.