Read Online War of The Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad - [World War II 01] by David Robbins - Free Book Online

stave off the charging enemy. The Tractor Factory in the northern quarter of the city has come under heavy assault. Soldiers fighting in the factory and throughout Stalingrad are not taking a single step back. But their lives, and the life of Mother Russia, depend on fresh troops entering the battle.”
     
    The general thrust his fist over his head. He shouted, “Urrah!” Tania and her group raised their fists and bellowed, “Urrah! Urrah!” The eyes around her darted from the cheering general to the blazing city. Fear, she thought; it shows first in the eyes.
     
    The rickety barge at the dock had been loaded with supplies and awaited its human cargo. The general finished his speech. Guards herded the soldiers into line to board the boat.
     
    Tania shouldered her backpack filled with cheeses, bread, and a bottle of vodka, all given to her by townspeople along the road. A short man with a thick, hard belly strode to the head of the line. He ran up the gangplank with surprising nimbleness, jumping over the gunwales onto the deck. Tania recognized him as a commissar, a Captain Danilov, who’d addressed the soldiers on the beach before the bald general’s lecture. He called the soldiers to join him, to “step into history.”
     
    The first men boarded and sat on the deck. Two soldiers in the line in front of Tania, boys no more than eighteen, took a few steps, then froze in place. The other men ignored them, sliding past them in the line as if the two did not exist.
     
    Tania came up behind them quickly. “Keep moving,” she said. “Don’t do this. They’re watching.”
     
    Tania walked in front of the boys to face them. She saw their eyes fixed across the river at the inferno.
     
    She shook one of them. “Move to the boat. Move!”
     
    The young soldiers turned to Tania, then looked to each other. One licked his lips. An older soldier grabbed Tania’s arm to pull her away.
     
    “They have their fates, comrade. We have ours. Come.”
     
    Tanja let herself be tugged several steps, still looking back at the youths. She turned her head and marched in line.
     
    After a few steps she heard Danilov scream from the deck of the barge.
     
    “Stop! Stop immediately!”
     
    All the soldiers halted and turned back toward the crowded landing. The boys had bolted out of line to run for the trees beyond the beach, dropping their rifles and ammo belts and shedding their packs to leap over barrels and cartons. Their quick footfalls, hard and hollow on the planks of the landing, mingled with the muffled roar from across the Volga. The dock grew silent while the two young cowards ran out their lives.
     
    Tania heard their cries to each other, frantic and afraid. “Run! Oh, God! Keep running!”
     
    Guards fired over the boys’ heads and yelled for them to halt and come back. The two ran.
     
    Three more guards in greatcoats appeared from the trees at the edge of the sand. They hustled toward the boys, shooting.
     
    One boy went down, wounded. The other stopped running. He turned, looked, and died where he stood. A guard walked to the wounded one, put his pistol to the boy’s forehead, and fired.
     
    Tania and the soldiers resumed their march to the barge. The older soldier walked beside her.
     
    “A waste,” she said to him.
     
    He looked down at her. “Boys,” he said. “Boys the age of my children.”
     
    Tania heaved her pack higher onto her shoulders. She moved away from him.
     
    “Forget your children,” she said.
     
    * * * *
     
    TANIA CHOSE A SPACE NEAR THE PORT RAIL. SHE SAT with her knees pulled up to her chest. Several men asked her to move to the safety of the middle of the deck. Tania tossed her shoulder-length hair and held her place.
     
    The barge moved onto the river.
     
    Three Stukas found the boat quickly. The crooked-wing fighters banked, buzzed high in triangle formation, and screamed down. Plumes of water erupted in the white light of phosphorus flares. Tania blinked at the