literature

Pillar

Deviation Actions

hbkcross2's avatar
By
Published:
727 Views

Literature Text

The sun rises slowly at 07:33 on November 10, 1942.

Ludwig Beilschmidt, clothed in his dull but heavy winter fatigues and thick leather boots, is up to greet the first weak rays of light that reluctantly creep through the trees just outside of Stalingrad. Ludwig silently watches as the town by the river is gradually lit up by the sunlight, narrows his eyes against the glare it gives off the snow; he sips his coffee, savoring the warmth it gives his chilled lips.

There's always so much fucking snow.

Ludwig kicks at a small pile of it irritably with the toe of his boot, scowls as it scatters—he hates the snow. It's an inconvenience, it's a hindrance, it's cold and wet and makes his soldiers freeze and makes his weapons jam and it's everywhere

Ludwig pauses and lets out a sigh, then runs a gloved hand through his slicked hair to regain his composure.  In all honesty, he really has no right to complain; his soldiers have already seized ninety percent of Stalingrad, and if things keep up then they'll all be able to go home in just a few weeks, and be safe back in Germany by the time Russia's true winter comes.

Ludwig worries about the winter. He worries about spending the winter months in Russia, worries about temperatures plummeting to eighty below zero for weeks on end and worries about piles of snow taller than he is collecting in one night and he worries about the lack of food and supplies in the city. He worries—

But, he tells himself, he can stop worrying, because the city is ninety percent German now and no one could be able to come back from such impossible odds. Besides, Ludwig has the Romanians and Italians and Hungarians on his side, fighting for him, while Russia remains alone, like he always has been.

So yes, Ludwig muses, he has no reason to worry.

He returns to his barracks and plans what he'll do on his first day back in Germany.

~~~~

And across miles of snow and burned rubble, Ivan Braginski is staring out a dirty window in one of Stalingrad's many deserted buildings. He can just see the German camp, a dark and ugly blemish on his beautiful white landscape, a blight and parasite that he wants to get rid of. Violet eyes, cold as the wind that howls through his ruined city, study the camp, searching…

Ivan wonders what Ludwig is doing.

Is he celebrating? Strategizing? Is he telling his dear Führer that he has won?

Ivan feels some sort of cold anger fill him, and glares through the glass, out at the blotch of the camp; how dare Ludwig do this, how dare he break their pact and invade his country and bomb his cities. If Ivan could see him now, oh—he'd tear out every last strand of blonde hair on his stupid head, gouge out those smug blue eyes, cut a hole in his throat and pull out his lying tongue—

"Mr. Russia, sir?"

Ivan stops his thoughts, slowly turns; his General is facing him, and farther back stands a potion of his army, all his weary men that carry a defeated air slung around their neck with their rifles.

They think their Motherland has lost.

"да?" Ivan asks, cutting his gaze back—even here, in the eyes of the authority and leadership, he sees flickering shadows of doubt. It pains him and infuriates him, all at the same time.

The General—the tag stitched into his grey uniform reads Volkov—sighs and glances at the soldiers, at their tired faces and defeated attitudes, then looks back to Ivan. "Sir…sir, I'm going to ask you an honest question, and I want—we all want—an honest answer."

"…ask." Ivan pauses, but his tone stays agreeable, carefully neutral. "What is it?"
General Volkov hesitates, choosing his words, then speaks quietly.

"Are we going to lose Stalingrad?"

For a moment, Ivan cannot reply, struck speechless by the worry in Volkov's voice—his General, his leader, his second-in-command, is just as doubtful as the soldiers are about the Russian army's ability. Ivan turns away from Volkov, instead gazes out at the troops who stand huddled together before him. "Do you all have this same fear?" he asks, eyes sweeping over the group, making contact with every man. "Do you all fear that the Germans will overtake Stalingrad?"

They hesitate, look amongst each other, but then a sea of nodding heads answers him.

"…fuck." Ivan rarely curses; his men know it, Volkov knows it, and the word makes all of them jolt. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." He starts to pace, hands clasped behind his back, gaze locked on the floor; then he jerks his head up, looks at each soldier, eyes alive and raging. "My sons!" he exclaims, stopping to face his men with shoulders square and jaw set, muscles tense. "Do not fear. Do not despair, do not surrender—we have not lost! Stalingrad is not theirs, and we will never let it be so! The Germans are tiring, lacking in food and supplies. They do not know of what General Winter brings, nor can they endure him when he arrives. We, with the ice in our veins and the fire in our hearts, will come back and reclaim what is ours! The Germans will not claim another inch of our soil!"

His gaze sweeps around the room, and something in him flares at the hopeful, nodding faces that look back.

They believe him.

"We will fight!" His voice rises in volume, strength, and the gleam of his soldiers' eyes tells him they're responding. "We will defeat the Germans, the собаки, and we will take back our lands! We will win!"

He throws a fist into the air, blood roaring through his veins with his intensity, and murmurs work their way through the crowd. "We will fight!" he cries, feeling the flare grow into a full-blown blaze in his chest. "Not a step back! For the Motherland!"

A roar goes up from the soldiers' throats, answering him heartily.

"For the Motherland! For the Motherland!"

Ivan lowers him fist, watching as the soldiers continue to bellow, yell, revel in their comradery. He glances back at Volkov, who salutes him with a fierce look.

"For the Motherland."

Ivan dips his head, turns back to the window; his eyes seek out the German camp again, and his lips twist in a sinister smile.

"Germany," he says softly, "I would not be celebrating just yet. This battle is not over."

And it was true, because Ivan would allow it no other way. The fight had just begun.

"For the Motherland! For the Motherland!"

~~~~~

The next few weeks see a succession of changes occur.

It starts with Ludwig returning from scouting to find his camp carrying an air of gloom; soldiers huddle around the measly fires, all activity is stilled, silence lies over the camp as thick as the snow.

Ludwig frowns at his soldiers, at their lack of life—they should be happy, the city is almost taken! But instead, they're acting like the tides are turned, like the Russians are claiming them

Ludwig seeks out his second-in-command, and finds him huddled up in the captain's tent, crouched over the battle plans. He walks up behind him and sighs. "What happened to the men?"

The captain—Raulstein, a good man with a wife and two little daughters back at home—sighs to match, and turns to look at Ludwig wearily. "We're losing ground. The soldiers are discouraged…"

Ludwig scowls, rubs at his temples. "We're down to…seventy percent, roughly?"

"…sixty-five."

"What?" Ludwig looks at him in alarm. "How? I checked the status yesterday!"

"We're losing our grip," Raulstein says grimly. "The men are tired, we're low on supplies—"

"So they've given up?" Ludwig's eyes darken, as his lip begins to curl. "They get hungry and decide to lay down their guns?"

"No, sir," Raulstein replies tiredly. "But the cold is affecting the weapons, just as badly as the troops—and it's only the beginning of December. Not only are we running out of food, but we're lacking weapons and fuel, too."

Ludwig sighs again, heavily, and crouches down onto his haunches. He peers at the battle plans in front of Raulstein, at the maps and the coordinates and everything that makes his head hurt, blue eyes scanning over every inch, trying to find a solution.

"What if," he says slowly, "We placed the Hungarians and Italians here?" A black-gloved finger taps a corner of the map. "And the Romanians here…"

"Then we could sack the city," Raulstein murmurs, watching as the same gloved finger sweeps down, into the heart of Stalingrad. "Sweep in through the center and reclaim it…kill whatever stragglers remain, take it from the inside out."

"Exactly." Ludwig stands, nods briefly at Raulstein. "Rally the troops," he instructs, walking back out into the coming night. "Tell them they'll be home by the New Year."

~~~

And the next week, his plan goes into action.

The troops load up and follow him out, shivering as they slink through the snow toward the city; Ludwig himself is silent as he leads them, rifle in ready position, eyes narrowed against the glare that the white powder throws off.

And after what seems like hours of the stressful creeping and procession, they're in.
Ludwig leads his men through the deserted streets, past each looming building, muscles tense and ready for action. Nearly halfway into the city, he feels a foreign set of eyes bore into his back, and he whips around, trigger finger ready—but as he scans the shop in front of him, with its blown-out windows and hanging door, he sees nothing but darkness.

It doesn't last long, because in the next second, he's blinded by white light.

Ludwig can barely register the ear-splitting bang of the flash grenade before he staggers back, bringing an arm up to shield his eyes; he can dimly hear the chatter of rapid-fire guns, his men's yells, the sound of bodies thudding to the ground.

"Run!" he tells them, eyes streaming as he stumbles toward a blob of black amidst the sea of white in his vision—a building, a shelter. He hopes. "Get in the buildings! Shelter! Go!"

He thinks his men obey him, because he hears running footsteps, and is jostled by other bodies as he finally reaches the building. He dives inside just as another shot ricochets off the brick an inch below his foot, and he rolls through the snow, blinking quickly to try to restore his vision.

It's chaos.

Bodies litter the street in front of him, crimson stains the snow; his men are bellowing around him, amid the gunshots and the chink of bullets hitting brick, and he looks around frantically, searching for the enemy.

Until he realizes that they've just walked right into Russia's trap.

"Shit!" Ludwig scrambles to his feet, running, urging his men on as he hears the Russian soldiers flood into the building; he manages to take down a few in front of him, hisses as hot lead bites at his calf, but keeps going, seeking daylight, needing the freedom it brings—

And he doesn't register Russia standing in front of him until it's too late.

He raises his gun to fire, but Russia is faster; the steel pipe slams into his skull with all the fury of a betrayed nation, and Ludwig leaves the ground, meeting it again in a crumpled heap some feet away—out of the building, in the street. He's blinking away stars as Russia comes over, and he reaches for his gun, scrabbling across the snow—

Clang, and the gun is gone, sliding through the snow behind Russia by means of a well-placed flick of his pipe. Ludwig looks up, into eyes bitter as the North Wind, and he can hear the fight still going on in the shops and houses, his soldiers dying; he starts to stand, and then cold metal is pressing down on his throat, and Russia's boot is on his chest, and he's being forced to sink deeper and deeper into the endless snow.

"You won't weasel your way out this time, comrade," Russia hisses, glaring down at him, as he struggles and pushes against the pipe—but weeks of huddling in the cold with little food have sapped his muscles of their normal strength, and Russia is still as strong as ever, and he stays half-buried in the snow. "Tell your dear leader that he can learn from the others who have tried and failed to invade my home—General Winter will always defend us."

With that the cold pipe is pushed down harder, shutting off what little air Ludwig had left, and he scrabbles for a bit longer—flailing in the drowning snow, vainly shoving against the pipe, bucking against the heavy weight over his lungs—before the cold is more intense, and black blossoms at the edges of his vision, like a drop of ink in water. He passes out to the sight of Russia above him, with the glow of flaming buildings at his back, and the feeling of snowflakes falling on his face.

And miles away, back in Berlin, the first pillar of the Third Reich cracks, quivers, and collapses, leaving nothing but dust behind.
Done for :iconaph-fanfiction-club:'s newest contest. This is prompt number two, about the battle of Stalingrad.
© 2012 - 2024 hbkcross2
Comments17
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Vulpesvulpes6000's avatar
From one to invading Russia in winter how bad is your idea...