Outskirts of Cholm, Eastern Front.

9th December 1941, 9:18 a.m.

German territory.

Winter.

“Eventide falls again

Over forest and field

Peace is rustling down

And the world's at rest”

- Extract from a German folk song

The tarpaulin covering the motorbike peered above its shield of snow, its sharp edges standing out against the natural backdrop. Already, however, the scattering of flakes they brushed over the tarpaulin and piled against its sides began to hide its silhouette, and as Karl walked away he noted how well it blended into the background to the unobservant eye.

"That will keep our back clear," he said to Oryl.

"Or show them exactly where we are," Oryl said. "We could have dumped it further out away from town where nobody would have any chance of finding it."

Karl didn't dispute the point, but even if Oryl was correct he didn't want to walk the whole distance to his safehouse from the wilderness outside Cholm. He had done enough walking between Rshev and Peno.

They had decided to hide the bike before hitting a checkpoint on the outskirts of Cholm. A motorcycle ridden by a German officer and a dirty Russian soldier would arouse too much suspicion. That and it was starting to run dry on fuel, the extra that had been donated by the policemen run dry bringing them here.

Now that they were into the fields, the checkpoint that they had decided to avoid was a hundred odd metres off beyond the frozen fields to the south. They were cutting past the side of the checkpoint at an angle, making best use of the curves in the road to hide their approach until they were on top of town.

The next step was to head around to the other side of Peno where his storehouse was located. Checking the map, it was within a twenty minute walk through the fields from their current location, but that distance would be more than doubled by circumnavigating the town. The terrain here was also more open fields, as opposed to the forests from the lumber and hunting settlements in Rshev and Peno. Avoiding detection would be more difficult, meaning a wider loop away from people.

They followed a half-frozen ditch through to the edge of the field, staying low among the packed precipitate and out of sight of the checkpoint. It would be a straight sprint from the edge of the ditch to the next point of cover, a short fence, and they would be in full view of the checkpoint the whole way. When they reached the end Oryl set himself up peering over the edge of the bank, scanning the checkpoint with Karl’s binoculars. He didn’t give an all clear but didn’t give a warning either, so it was unlikely that the guards had seen them hide the motorcycle.

Oryl finally gave a wave and the two dashed from their cover. Their snowshoes sank further into the snow than usual, the surface pushed down by their heavy steps.

Reaching the fence, the two caught their breath while Oryl scanned the checkpoint again. “All clear,” he said, and Karl sighed in relief. They hadn’t been spotted for now.

Now that they were behind the fence they could follow it beyond the view of the checkpoint. This would be the chance they needed to get around Cholm, assuming they didn’t run into any patrols.

The end of the fence was against a small barn or simple house. It had been burned down some time previously, pieces of burnt wood scattered on the snow around. Shapes inside indicated it hadn’t been empty when it burned. Karl hoped the bodies inside were animals, but looking at Oryl’s face it didn’t look like he could bring himself to believe they were.

“Is this what you Germans have made of our homeland?” Oryl asked. He sounded more sad than angry.

“I would like to deny,” Karl said. He faced Oryl straight on, making sure his words hit as hard as they could. “But I can’t say that much. I can say that not all Germans are Nazis. If you knew German I would say it more eloquently, but that much I can convey.”

Oryl shook his head, looking at the corpses. “No, I understand what you mean. But who is to say who is good and who is bad when they all fight for the same thing?”

Karl took a last glance at the corpses. “We should discuss this later. I say we move along and if you have things to say I will hear them when we are safe.”

Oryl looked like he wanted to dispute the point, but nodded agreement instead. The pair stepped out of the shelter of the barn and continued across the snow. They weren’t as concerned as before now that they were out of sight of the checkpoint, but they kept their eyes out for patrols just in case.

While they were passing through a field, Karl spotted a pair of soldiers walking down a path ahead. He motioned to Oryl and both of them lay flat into the snow, hiding their silhouette.

The Germans walked across the path, no more than fifty metres away. The sound of their chatter reached Karl, something about surplus rations from their lieutenant. They passed the edge of the field and disappeared from sight.

Karl shook himself free of the snow, standing up. Oryl did not.

“What’s up?” Karl asked quietly, walking over to him.

Oryl motioned to the snow beneath himself. “I’m lying on something metal,” he said. Hysteria began to creep into his voice. “I think it’s a mine.”

Karl stepped carefully towards Oryl, making sure not to step on anything hidden beheath the snow himself. He scooped handfuls of snow away from Oryl’s side before his fingers struck something solid.

“Relax,” he said. “You’re safe. It’s just a lost helmet.” The round topped German helm was pressing against Oryl’s stomach. He had sucked his stomach back in an attempt not to trigger what he thought was a mine. As Karl informed him, his stomach sagged and he rolled off the helmet into the snow before bringing himself upright.

“Thank you,” he said. “I didn’t want to go out that way. It’s a cruel death.”

Karl kicked out against the snow. “They would not set up mines so far behind occupied territory. The only enemies here are partisans, and they lurk out away from the towns and prey on transports. They would not attack here.”

“For the sake of the people in this town, I hope you are right,” Oryl said. “Such fighting is good for nobody but Stalin.”

The pair moved on, Oryl’s breath coming easier as he recovered from his fright. The fields grew into overgrown hills and lumber mills as they approached the area north of town and passed across the Lovat river. The frozen waters made for easy crossing, with nobody in either direction to observe them.

Past the Lovat, they were heading northward along the road when Oryl heard engines. He pulled Karl down to the ground, the pair crouching among the trees and looking in either direction for the vehicle.

Karl pointed up and Oryl looked over to see a group of aircraft stream overhead, not quite close enough to spread the wind of their passing. Four fighters, likely Messerschmitts, on their way to a front.

“There must be an airfield near here,” Karl said to Oryl, the two leaning on each other as they got up. “When we took Demyansk we received some air support from nearby. This must have been where they came from.”

The pilots in their fighters disappeared into the distance. Karl kept his head down and moved on but Oryl kept his eyes on the skyline, fearful of another flyover.

At this point, Karl pulled out his handwritten map of the Bzura and read through the scrawled notes. “We must be close. Where the Lovat turns away, go to the West. That is here. And we are looking for something built by Germans.”

The pair squinted as a sparkle of sunlight shone into their eyes. Sun shone off the snow at the floor of the clearing back into their eyes from below. At the other end of the clearing, a collapsed German bunker stood, chunks of concrete broken off and lying around its smashed walls.

“This is it?” Oryl asked. “This?”

Karl ignored him, stepping over the chunks, some of which reached to his hip. “Destroyed by its makers. Yes, from the blast this was destroyed by German sappers. And the key is in the other entrance.”

Stepping towards the door into the inner chamber that had come off its hinges, Karl kicked it the rest of the way free. It clattered to the ground. He felt around the edge of the outside of the door, looking for anything which might work as a key, but came up blank. He looked around for a moment before realising to check the doorframe.

One of the hinges of the door was actually more than a hinge. The metal rod in between the hinge plates was topped with a key bit - the piece they were looking for.

“And now the door itself,” Karl called to Oryl. “It should be around the floor somewhere. Check around this wreckage for it. I’ll look inside the bunker itself in case it’s deeper in. It may be hidden in some way.”

They moved around, eyes on the floor for anything out of place. Karl finally found it in what might have once been sleeping quarters, now with a hole in the roof and snow piled up beneath. A metal hatch stood clear of the snow, leading down into something beneath. The entrance was padlocked, the padlock shielded by the hatch cover so it couldn’t be broken or cut free. It would be possible to get in without the key, but far too difficult for anyone without heavy machinery to attempt.

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The key fit into the lock of the hatch as if it had been made for it. Which it seemed it had. Karl called Oryl over and the two grunted and strained to get the rusted hatch clear of the entrance it was covering.

Beneath was a ladder leading down into the darkness. Oryl looked down in trepidation, while Karl stepped forward in anticipation. A few flakes of snow fell down the hole from where Karl’s boots knocked them around the top edges of the shaft, making no noise as they hit the bottom.

“I’m not good with tight spaces,” Oryl said. He walked around the edge of the hole, seeing if he could spot anything comforting at the bottom.

“Deal with it,” Karl said, beginning to climb down. The ladder shook and creaked under his weight but held against the wall.

Alone in the dark at the bottom, Karl realised that the oil in his lighter was frozen and wouldn’t give him any light. “Do you still have that box of matches from the cabin?” he asked Oryl. The russian dropped them down in reply.

Fumbling around in the gloom, Karl managed to find the box and get a match lit. The flare shone on metal objects out into the dark, hitting walls in three directions but not the fourth.

Oryl started to follow Karl down now that he knew there was some kind of light at the bottom. Once he was into the space, he realised it wasn’t as cramped as he had expected and hurried to the bottom of the ladder, eager to explore.

Karl took the lead, stepping down the tunnel. His tiny prick of flame guttered and flared as it met the cold, still air of the sealed passageway. The metal objects reflecting light turned out to be struts supporting the passageway as they stepped closer.

“How long has this space been here?” Oryl asked. “Surely you didn’t have time to build all this after invading?”

Karl shook his head, Oryl barely catching the movement in the fading light from the match. “The room was built in the last war. We just had some engineers connect everything together.”

He heaved open the door at the end of the passage, opening up to a wider space that the flickering light couldn’t reach. Karl had to drop the match and strike another one, as it was beginning to burn to the end and singe his gloves. Glancing inside the packet, they only had a handful remaining.

“There’s a generator in here somewhere,” Karl said. “If we can set a fire to heat some oil, we can get some power and heat back in this room.”

Oryl eagerly set to work and soon a fire was burning on the packed dirt floor with a Wehrmacht-Einheitskanister, or jerry can as the British so inaccurately called them, heating nearby. The flickering light covered more of the room, glinting off weapons and cans of supplies. Karl and Oryl got their first good look around the space.

The jerry can of petrol was taken from a stack of others, their contents frozen but more than salvageable. That side of the room was dedicated to supplies, including snow equipment, cold weather gear, food and military issue camping equipment.

A handful of weapons were stacked against one wall, nothing too impressive, just a handful of looted weapons and grenades. Some were looted from Russian dead and others looted from German high command.

The roof was supported by a network of tree roots, holding together the soil from above. They stretched down in an unbroken chain to partway down the side walls, some at the very peak of the ceiling breaking through into open air like tiny wooden stalactites.

The rest of the room, this half made more of natural rock and cave structure than the other side, was taken up by living quarters. Four double bunks stacked the walls, enough for most of a squad to sleep. Across the centre of the space was an ancient table, a relic of the original inhabitants from back in the Great Wall. It was stained by age and water drip but still stood, marks on its surface showing where maps and plans of battle had once stood.

Karl ran his fingers over the edge of the table, flaking off a layer of sand and rock dust and revealing some last remnants of oiled wood beneath. Men like his father had lived around this table, fought around this table, and perhaps even died here. And now it was his turn.

Off on the final side was the generator that Oryl was working on powering and some of the more complicated equipment. Pouring oil into the fuel compartment, he cranked the starting lever until the roar and steady hum of an engine swelled across the room.

Lights flicked on in the ceiling of the room. A heater against the wall clicked on. Next to the generator, the last object in the room that Karl had yet to review, a signal transmission station, flicked on and began to whirl.

“So,” Karl asked, “Are you impressed yet?”

Looking around, Oryl nodded. “I am. I wish I had something like this to fall back on when I left the army.”

“Then let’s keep this secure. Can you return and close off the entrance? It should be doable with one person now that the rust has been broken away.”

Oryl nodded and walked off, leaving Karl alone to his own devices.

Straight away, Karl ran to the signal station and unfolded it. Pulling out the morse code transmitter, he plugged it into the radio station. He also stuck a piece of paper, stolen from Holger’s offices, into the receiver for the off chance someone decided to reply.

He typed out a quick message, making sure not to leave any detailed information inside. Safe - Will await reply - Speak further when able.

Then he sagged back, relieved. Now at least his officers would know he was safe.

Looking around, he considered his next moves. The Briesen Division would be busy fighting the war in Demjansk, so he couldn’t expect a reply straight away. They would have to hold here for some time - at least underground they could warm themselves without worrying about wind and weather. They were safe from discovery as well, this far away from the bunker. The engineers who had repurposed this place must have collapsed the original entrance, as one wall was made of fallen rocks of varying sizes packed down to ground level, so they would not have to worry about that being discovered either.

Oryl returned, rubbing his sore arms. “How did you get people to make this place?”

Karl shrugged. “We had worked with combined pioneer battalions of the different Divisions stationed here building defences around this area when our frontlines were here. The gruppe of pioneers alongside me reported finding this space during their work, and I saw fit not to report it beyond our Division. Some of them stayed behind to reinforce the town while we advanced, and I asked them to develop it further while leaving equipment for the task and supplies and extra rations as incentive for them to do so.”

“And how did you know it would be necessary?”

Karl shook his head. “I didn’t. At that time, I was still protected from the SS. But all things change, especially plans. It was lucky that I prepared for that one to change, because change it did and I was almost not prepared enough. It is easy to lose focus of backup plans when fighting a war.”

Oryl nodded over to the signal transmitter scratching away in the background. “So now that you are safe and your preparations have paid off, who are you contacting now? Your family?”

“No,” Karl said. “My second family - my division. My own family are too far away for signal to reach, and even if I could they would certainly be monitored.”

“And communications with your Division would not?” Oryl asked.

“I cannot say. But it is safer, and harder to trace. Also better for me is that it is a short route with a small distance of cable needed to have the signal to reach Demjansk, while the communications back with Lübeck would have to go who knows where to reach. Plus I do not think that military lines are connected.”

Oryl jumped at that. “This is connected to military lines?”

“Perhaps,” Karl said. “I don’t know how to access them though.”

“Let me try. I have not worked with machines like this, but I think I might have the patience to do so.”

Karl gestured him over and the Russian sat down to play with his new toy.

“So what is the plan now?” he asked as he fiddled with the transmitter and looked over the dials. “Are you returning home? To Lyubeck? To your division? Or something else entirely?”

The question took Karl off guard. “I have not considered it yet. How about you?”

Oryl’s hands stopped. He didn’t say anything for over a minute. Karl was about to ask if he head heard when he finally spoke up. “Smolensk.”

Karl let him speak, sensing that Oryl would explain if given the time. “We were the 98th Rifle Division. We were but infantry. We were ordered to hold, hold at all costs.”

The words came faster as Oryl remembered what he had tried to bury. “We were attacked by your tanks and infantry riding those tracked vehicles. They attacked in a lightning war, I think your people call it. They were on top of us in moments. We had no way of fighting back. Some of us carried grenades, which we used against the tanks. Perhaps some were destroyed, I don’t remember. But more of us died.”

His hands trembled as he spoke the next words. “My friend, and my officer. Alexander. He was shot in the leg, right in front of me. He collapsed in the mud screaming for help, for any of us to save him. All of us were running, the commissar firing blindly into our own ranks until he was shot by the Germans. I don’t know why they killed him, he was doing their work for us.”

He shook his head. “I went back to Alex. I don’t know why. I knew I could do nothing. Before I got there, a tank came. It rolled towards us. I dived away and lay still in the mud. But I watched him. He tried to crawl away, and then the tracks came down on top of him.”

Oryl turned and faced Karl, the start of tears brimming in his eyes. “I don’t know if he was crushed or drowned in the mud. I don’t know. He could have been alive next to me until the Russian troops came back and sent me to the rear lines. I didn’t even try to check. I didn’t try to drag him away. I just lay there, next to him as everything went quiet around me.”

“I will say,” Karl said, intending to continue until Oryl cut him off.

“I’m not done yet. I want to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me save your life.”

Understanding, Karl nodded. “Then there’s no need to thank me. I was the one whose life was saved.”

“Even so, I’ll thank you. Because now… I haven’t found myself again, but I have found that my self is worth seeking. I will go back.”

“Back to where?”

“To Rzhev. To my family. I don’t know if they are alive, but I will find out.”

Karl grinned. He glanced at the empty sheet of paper on the device Oryl was holding, then back at Oryl himself. “That sounds like a goal to me. When do you think we should leave?”

Oryl jerked upright. “We?”

Karl nodded. “I still owe you one, after all. You may think we are even, but I say I need to save you at least once before I can call this deal off.”

“You may need to save me a few more times than that by the end of this, Captain.”

Karl stepped up and bumped Oryl’s shoulder. “Then do the same for me the next time. Or the time after that.”

He walked off to sit on a bunk, leaving Oryl to his devices. It wasn’t going to be easy to get back into Rzhev. And it might be even harder to get out. But he was sure he could come up with an idea or two.