Kholm, Novgorod Oblast.
9th January 1942, 11:08 a.m.
German territory.
Winter.
“He wished to alter everything,
to make the country greater,
but he was hanging on a string:
for he was made of paper.”
- Extract from a Russian poem
As the days had passed in occupied territory, the deathly cold of earlier in the season was replaced by milder weather. Temperatures raised up to ten below freezing, much milder weather typical of the season. Fires still burned in fireplaces and thick jackets were the norm, but for now the soldiers on the front weren’t freezing to death.
Karl and Oryl had outlasted the cold spell holed up in their underground lair, bored to death. They had all the supplies they needed but nothing to do with them. Karl had spent the days planning, scanning his map of Rzhev and making Oryl draw fresh maps based on his last visit. Oryl had made Karl teach him morse code and frequently sat on the receiver, fiddling with frequencies and checking in on German communications. Karl worried that he would somehow be detected, but he too was desperate for the information so didn’t try to stop him.
The news from the front was not good for the Germans. With the air force grounded and supply lines severed by the cold, the better prepared Russians pushed their advantage. Conflicting orders had come through from high command - to advance despite all losses, to pull back to defensive positions and outlast the winter, to hold positions at all costs, digging trenches with howitzer shells if they had to.
Despite the Wehrmacht’s efforts, the Red Army had advanced the line of battle away from Moscow. Protracted battles still continued as German reserves were fed in to plug the gaps once the weather cleared.
The initial push had faded, even if it had claimed the lives of millions of Russian soldiers. Moscow had almost been within reach, and still was by any measure, but it was getting further by the day.
Karl’s old command up in Demyansk had repulsed all attacks so far. He had been in contact with Meier, the senior lieutenant from the 30th, who had informed him of the happenings in Demyansk. Now that the Luftwaffe were back in operation, they could hold against much greater numbers than the Soviets may bring to bear. They would last without Karl there to help them.
Now, with the weather getting warmer, Karl and Oryl could no longer delay their trip to Rzhev. Oryl was still reluctant to leave, but as they used up less wood on the fire day by day, as Christmas and New Years’ passed by without celebration, he finally made the call.
“It’s time to go,” he said to Karl one morning over breakfast. “The warm weather from the past three days has stabilised. If we wait any longer, it may grow cold again. Now is the time to leave, or we never will.”
Karl, halfway through a spoonful of beans, swallowed as fast as he could. “Are you ready?”
“Honestly, no. But I am never going to be if I sit here until we run out of food.”
Karl nodded, admiring his determination. “Then let’s start moving. Do you have everything you need?”
Oryl nodded. “Don’t make me doubt myself now. How many times have we gone over this by now?”
Karl stopped himself from asking Oryl if he was sure of his decision. They other man had made up his mind. All that was left was to follow. “Alright. Then let’s get on the road.”
Oryl nodded in thanks, pulling his already packed belongings together. It was no exaggeration to say this was what they had spent the last three weeks preparing for.
The motorbike was where they had left it, undiscovered by patrols or curious civilians. The tank had been emptied before they left, and the air was now warm enough that their petrol wouldn’t gel and clog the engine.
Karl got in the driver seat, dropping his gear and a spare uniform in the saddlebags. The folded tarpaulin was stowed against his leg. Karl got on behind him, most of his equipment up front with Karl.
“South towards Velikiye Luki,” Oryl said. “Then east along the motorway to Rzhev.”
“I remember the way,” Karl said. “Just remember your part and I’ll get us in and out.”
“And three days,” Oryl said. “No more, no less. Can you keep to that?”
In answer, Karl gunned the engine. He knew Oryl was being worried without cause, but at the same time he didn’t blame him. He would have been the same in the other man’s situation.
At the same time, he thought back to the communique he hadn’t shared with Oryl about Rzhev. He had asked Meier to poke around with a few questions, and the responses hadn’t been favourable. He would have to break the news at some point, but for now he would hold it to himself. The burdens on Oryl were high enough already.
Snow spat from the tires behind them as the pair tore out of Kholm. Oryl’s thoughts were already turning to the task ahead.
At dinner, the two spoke with hushed words around a tiny fire. Karl put up the tarpaulin between two trees to block the wind and cover as much of the light from the road as possible.
“That partisan sign we saw back on the highway. How many partisans do you think there are around here?” Karl asked, starting off the conversation. Oryl remained taciturn, keeping his mind focussed. He needed every last inch of willpower he could muster.
“I’d say there are at least several thousand. Perhaps we could work with them at some point.”
Oryl shook his head. “I am no friend of the state anymore. The partisans, some of them are more radical than the regular army. I wouldn’t fit in there.”
Oryl watched Karl as he glanced over and then back at the fire pit. The other man had something on his mind, that much Oryl could see for sure.
“Is this about the letters from Demyansk?”
Karl stopped his roaming gaze on Oryl. “How do you know about that?”
“Do you think I haven’t picked up any German by now?” Oryl asked. “You’ve been translating German radio chatter next to me for three months. I would have to be a fool not to know any by now. And don’t forget that I’m the one who checks the receiver each morning.”
Karl nodded. “So you knew all along then. Yes, it’s about that.”
“And you thought I would be afraid? I knew as soon as my family was missing where they must have been taken. It was not good news, but it was not unexpected. It seems the only ones who don’t understand what labour camps are are you Germans.”
Karl shook his head. “No, not all labour camps are like that. Some, perhaps even most, of them are places for workers from all areas, including our allies like Hungary and Austria.”
“Yet they are managed by the SS?”
Karl wavered. “I don’t know. Some of them are. Others are under engineering companies.”
“But this one is under the SS.”
Karl nodded. “Yes. Under Das Reich, the division in Rshev.”
“Then my point is just that.”
Oryl stood up and strode around the campfire. “Look. I know this will be dangerous. Deadly, perhaps. But it has to be done. And I’m the only one who can do it.”
Karl nodded. Even if he disliked the idea, he couldn’t deny the words. He stirred the fire as Oryl sat back down, sending a shower of sparks out into the snow.
“And I admire you for that. It isn’t a decision most people can make.”
The conversation died from there as the fire burned down, ember by ember. Finished with their dinner, they pitched the tarpaulin as a tent and settled down in sleeping bags. They took turns on watch, one person keeping the fire alive and the fuel heated for the next day while the other slept through the long night.
The next morning came around with them in eyesight of Rzhev. It was a dark stain on the horizon, columns of smoke rising from its perimeter and the forest around it. Carried on the wind was the distant sound of gunfire and the ash of explosions.
“It looks like the frontline is active again,” Oryl said. “The winter breakdown of hostilities only lasted for so long.”
Karl nodded. “So close to Moscow, there’s no wonder your people are so eager to reclaim there land and the Germans are so reluctant to lose it. Whoever wins here could well win the war.”
Oryl shuddered, imagining a future of Moscow in flames with German troops marching through its streets. He may not like the Soviets, but that many people didn’t deserve to suffer that fate.
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“Let’s keep moving,” he said. “If the attacks continue along the frontline, the army’s attention will be away from us. Now is the best time to get close to town without being found. If we continue along lesser used paths, we can make it doubly so.”
Karl agreed and the pair moved on. The road into Rzhev was still frozen and serene, but every so often the pair would spot a body off in the snow either side of the path. The scavengers would not go hungry this year.
As they crested another hill along their route, Karl choked. Oryl, scanning the horizon, spotted the source of Karl’s revulsion and did the same. A mound of corpses, stacked three or four high and at least the same wide or across, lay by the side of the path. Russians and the odd German rested side by side, as did some bodies which weren’t in uniform - civilians caught in the crossfire. The trees on either side of the road were splintered and broken, remnants of the intense firefight that had taken place here.
At least the cold meant they didn’t smell.
“I think,” Karl said, trying to keep his gaze from the bodies, “it’s best that I leave you here. There are clearly German troops acting in this area. If I go any further than here, we may get caught by them.”
Oryl nodded, checking his hands, which he was surprised to see weren’t trembling. “Alright then. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Karl patted him on the back. “God lets us sink, but not drown. Good luck, my friend.”
Oryl disembarked, leaving his equipment on the bike with Karl. All he took with him was a tin of food and a ragged blanket - the better to keep the image of poverty.
Karl spun the bike around on the ice and started off, disappearing over the crest of the hill. Oryl watched him go, a final wave from the German soldier and he was gone, Oryl only then realising what a comforting presence he had been.
But time would not stop for him, so he squared his shoulders and marched on. He would great his future with resolution, if a little fear. But that was what bravery was made of, after all.
The path led through the forest seemed to go on forever, and before Oryl realised his tension relaxed as he spotted familiar sights. He had walked down these paths before, delivering bread to the houses on the outskirts of town when his family wanted to get away from him. Even if the end of the path had changed, the path was still the same. This place was still his home.
His delusion was cut short by the butt of a rifle to his cheek, knocking him onto the dirt of the path. He cried out at the unexpected pain, sprawling to the ground defenceless. His single can of supplies rolled away from his body and he grabbed at it as if in desperation.
The soldier who had struck him down stood over him, aiming the rifle at his body. “Stop moving,” he said in poor Russian, and Oryl froze. He knew better than to argue with someone holding a literal gun to his head. “Nimm es.”
Another soldier stepped out behind the first, Oryl realising that he was surrounded by five of them. All of them only had one or two stripes except for the one standing over him. A group of low ranking Germans without their officers.
Oryl lay still on the ground, knowing he was at their mercy. He didn’t resist as what he wanted them to imagine was his last can of possessions was taken away, nor when they snatched away the blanket to get a better look at him. His top was still in his tattered uniform, replaced on to complete his transformation into helpless and weaponless deserter.
“Wie, Loring?” one of the four soldiers asked the one standing over him. He glanced at the can that had been taken from Oryl as another soldier dropped it in his pouch. “Sollten wir ihn als Kriegsgefangener nehmen?”
“Or kill him,” Loring, the officer, replied in Russian, shaking his gun in Oryl’s direction. Oryl cowered back, the reaction the German was looking for. “Macht nichts! Wir nehmen ihn.” He grabbed Oryl by the shoulder, heaving him to his feet, and hauled him off down the path. His soldiers followed, minding the path around them as the gunshots and explosions grew.
The noise died out as they approached town, however. Sporadic gunshots were still happening out in the forest, but the blast of heavy weaponry and screams of large scale conflict had died away. On the far side of town, Oryl could see shapes running around, ferrying and treating casualties from the front.
Looking off into the forest, he thought about how close the Russian troops were. Around him, the Germans seemed to have the same thoughts, holding their rifles close and ducking along the path, perhaps expecting a sudden hail of bullets to ambush them, even this far behind friendly lines.
Oryl’s inspection was interrupted by another blow, this time to the ribs, sending him back into the dirt. He scrambled back up and hurried along in the direction the soldiers had turned, hands held up in front of him in deference to the guns following behind.
The party approached town from the south-western side, passing through the medieval and renaissance houses now overtaken by German encampments. With the Red Army pressing from the north, their army had moved their primary operations away from the railroad to the safer South side of town. Field hospitals and quarters where churning German troops, out of one and back in the other. A pair of Stugs in snow camouflage and marked with the triple crossed line Karl had warned him about rolled through town, pitted with impact dents.
Karl was led away from this activity however, moving further into town. Two of his captors split off and headed back to the camp to report, but the remaining three continued on with him.
They led him into the centre of Rzhev, towards the construction zones Oryl had seen the first time he passed through.
Their group arrived as the last of a chain of Russian prisoners disappeared behind its gates. Stepping closer, Oryl realised how tall the walls were The two metre iron and stone fences topped by razor wire stared down on him, the gates topped by the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” - Labour sets you free.
Staring up at these words, Oryl was bundled without ceremony through the gate into the entrance room beyond. A salute from his escorts to the guards inside, a mutter in German about where they found him, and Oryl was shoved in line behind the Russian soldiers he had seen entering.
The Russian soldier at the end of the line turned around and glared at Oryl as he stumbled against his back, the cuts around his eyes weeping blood. He was from one of the Tartar regiments, his skin daubed with grey ash to better blend in with the snow.
Oryl dropped his gaze to the floor and stood upright again, his hands clenched at his sides.
The line inched forward and Oryl remained silent, feeling that speaking would be a bad idea. The atmosphere didn’t seem to permit it either. The soldiers in front of him, some injured, all morose, dampened the mood down to a thunderstorm.
More than fear, their faces contained resignation. The moment they were captured, they anticipated what was ahead. They had all seen or heard of it before, on their own side as well in the Katorga or Gulag systems.
Oryl’s musings were cut short as he realised he was at the front of the line. He was grabbed on each arm by another pair of guards in grey uniforms and moved to the centre of the room. A man with a healthy moustache and a blood speckled lab coat bustled around while ordering the soldiers in German.
The doctor had the soldiers strip Oryl’s clothes, photograph his face, weigh and measure him before he checked the last item on his list. He then had the soldiers thrust Oryl half-naked into the next room where the rest of the processed prisoners had been kept. Oryl managed to get most of his clothing back on as the last stragglers behind him were brought in, until the doors opened for their group to be hustled through into the main body of the labour camp.
Oryl averted his eyes at the sudden brightness, the electrical lamps around himself drowned out by the burst of daylight. The group started moving forward and Oryl integrated himself with the crowd to avoid the wind chill. He stared around at the contents of the camp spread through the centre of town.
The huddle moved away from the structures on the side of the camp, containing the administration rooms and one of the guardhouses. A similar structure was built on the opposite side of the camp. Four guard towers were built around the corners of the complex, armed guards in green or grey acting as constant observers over the inhabitants.
The ground he was walking on was churned up dirt and gravel, shovelled free of ice and snow. That had been piled against the inside of the camp walls to speed up movement through and around the camp.
A pair of trucks were parked in the centre of the camp, armed guards watching for any stowaways or attempted thefts of the vehicles. Prisoners were carrying stripped logs from piles stacked against the wall to load them onto the trucks.
If prisoners were what you could call them. They were stumbling along across the even path, their arms struggling to lift in groups of three logs of a size that Oryl thought he might be able to carry alone.
As one group dropped off their load and headed back for another, a German walked up and hit the slowest one in the back with the but of his rifle. He was knocked off his feet, sent crawling along the ground away from the soldier. He got halfway back up before he was knocked down again with a shout of “Schneller!”
Looking at the tottering figure as he managed to escape behind another group of healthier prisoners, Oryl pictured himself over there looking like that and shuddered. Then he felt a chill as he pictured his father in that man’s place.
The group were led deeper into the camp, passing by rows of fresh wooden buildings. This was the core of the encampment that the Germans had been building these past months since they had occupied Rzhev.
Another truck drove past from deeper in the camp. The weight of its contents, hidden beneath a shroud of black cloth, drove its wheels deep in the snow. The efforts of more Soviet labour, to be shipped back to Germany or to build infrastructure behind the lines.
As the group continued, men were directed left or right along the corridors between buildings to their accommodation. Oryl, stuck in the middle rear of the pack, watched as the pack was thinned out to either side of him. At last it was only him and the last few stragglers left as they were brought along the buildings by the far northern side of the camp. Oryl could almost hear the sounds of industry, of people living on the other side of the walls. Yet the divide between them was so far.
Oryl was pulled towards a building by a firm grip on his shoulder. A green-clothed Orpo directed him to a doorway in the building, along with another soldier beside him. Oryl shook himself free of the hold, a momentary act of defiance, and walked through the opened door of his own accord.
He had a moment to review the contents of the room from the light streaming through the door frame. Some grimy bunks, even grimier walls and floor, an unmentionable toilet. The terrified face of the soldier next to him, even younger than he was, and the calculating, suspicious, perhaps fearful gazes of the room’s other two occupants.
And then the door was slammed and locked shut behind the both of them, casting the room into a haze of shadow and despair.