They were back at Tatsinskaya in time for Nehmann to join the queue for goulash and cabbage in the tent that served as a mess. Of Messner there was no sign but Nehmann recognised one of the cameramen from the Propaganda Company he’d briefly got to know in France. His name was Helmut and he was now attached to Sixth Army for the final push to Stalingrad. Helmut had set up a darkroom at Tatsinskaya, strictly to develop stills rather than movie footage. When Nehmann mentioned the photos he’d just taken from the Heinkel, Helmut said he was welcome to help himself.
‘You know how to develop stills?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll come, too.’
They walked the five hundred metres to the dank space behind a maintenance facility that Helmut had converted into a darkroom. He locked the door, checked the blackout on the single window, then warmed the inky darkness with the glow of a red lamp. While Nehmann extracted the exposed film from the Leica, Helmut prepared the developing fluids. Within half an hour, they were both bent over the bath of fixer, waiting for the first of the images to swim up through the soup of chemicals.
Nehmann had been witness to this process on a number of occasions and it always fascinated him. The first glimpse of what he’d captured through the camera, its sheer ghostliness, that fog of greys that slowly resolved itself into shapes he recognised, the remains of a city that only a couple of days ago had been intact. This, in Nehmann’s view, was a kind of magic.
One by one, he identified the shots he wanted Helmut to print for Richthofen.
‘You’re seeing him? You’ve got an audience with the great man?’
‘Tonight, as far as I know.’
‘And that’s why you’re here?’
‘Yes.’
‘One favour? Do you mind?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Ask him what the SS were doing here yesterday with a truckload of bodies.’
*
The Generaloberst was quartered, at his own insistence, in a smallish tent adjacent to the two-storey wooden structure on the edge of the airfield that served as a control tower. Beside the tent Richthofen had parked the little Fieseler Storch that took him to every corner of 4th Air Fleet’s enormous area of operations.
Messner had collected Nehmann from the darkroom. Now, with the prints still slightly wet, Nehmann awaited an introduction. Messner, capless, emerged briefly from the tent and gestured Nehmann inside. Richthofen was sitting on a folding canvas chair, bent over a map, enjoying what looked like a chicken sandwich. The tent smelled of cigarettes and warm leather and a single oil lamp cast a flickering glow over the Generaloberst’s upper body. At his elbow was a bottle of brandy and three glasses.
Messner poured drinks while classical music played softly in the background. Beethoven. Probably a symphony.
‘And you’re Nehmann?’ Richthofen glanced up. ‘Goebbels’ little Waise?’
Nehmann blinked. Waise meant ‘orphan’. He didn’t know whether this was a compliment or not.
‘Waise?’ Nehmann wanted to be sure.
‘Imp. Elf. Some people I know think you belong in a circus.’
‘I’m flattered.’
‘I’m not sure you should be. That stunt on Mount Elbrus. Your idea or your master’s?’
‘I helped make it happen. At the time it seemed a good idea.’
‘It was an excellent idea. Poorly received by the Führer, alas, but command at his level is seldom easy. Occasionally you go crazy over the silliest things. You’ve seen the photo? It was developed here.’
Messner fetched it from a box file beside Richthofen’s camp bed. Half a dozen men were clustered around a pinnacle of snow. Above them, the War Flag streamed in the wind. Perfect, Nehmann thought.
‘I understand Messner here arranged for a little keepsake to be left up there, as well. A Fokker triplane. My cousin would be flattered. And so am I. War can be a burden sometimes. Moments like these lighten the load.’ He took the photo, gazed at it for a moment, and then handed it to Messner. ‘So, what do you have for me, Nehmann?’
Nehmann returned the Leica. Richthofen put it carefully on one side, then he rolled up the map and asked Nehmann to spread the prints from the developing bath across the table. The prints were already beginning to curl. Richthofen flattened each of them in turn with one thick finger and told Messner to find a magnifying glass.
‘So why are you here, Nehmann?’ Richthofen was studying the cratered wilderness that had once been the picnic area on the Mamaev Kurgan. A smoker’s grunt appeared to signal approval.
‘The Minister is hungry for news.’ Nehmann said. ‘He thinks Berlin needs a bit of cheering up. I was a butcher once. I know how to carve the best bits from the carcase.’
‘And that’s your skill? Finding little morsels of good news? Then scuttling back to your lord and master?’ He was examining a shot of the oil tanks ablaze beside the river.
‘The wick in the Stalingrad candle.’ Nehmann nodded at the burning oil tanks. ‘That’s the kind of image he likes.’
Richthofen glanced up. There was surprise in his face, and just a hint of admiration that he didn’t bother to conceal.
‘Wick?’ he repeated. ‘Candle? I like that.’
‘It’s what I do.’
‘Then you’re a poet.’
‘You’re too kind. An ex-butcher would be closer.’
‘No.’ Richthofen shook his head. ‘You should leave the butchery to us. That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re good at. That’s why we have the medals and the fancy uniforms. You have a different talent. Maybe I should be envious.’
‘I doubt it. This regime has little use for poets.’
‘You’re probably right, Nehmann. Which raises a question or two. I understand that Goebbels gives you free rein. Am I right?’
‘More or less.’ Nehmann nodded.
‘Then tell me why.’
‘I think he’s lonely.’
‘You’re his friend?’
‘I’m someone he can talk to. That’s rare, believe it or not. He’s surrounded day and night by people who make life sweet for him. He must know thousands, tens of thousands. How many does he trust enough to risk a proper conversation?’
‘That’s true for all of us. You flew in a Heinkel today. Those men talk to each other, get drunk with each other, would die for each other and one day they probably will. Get above a certain command level and it’s never the same. This job is solitary. It has to be. You can’t afford it to be otherwise. But solitary can be good while lonely is something else entirely. So…’ He sat back a moment and reached for his brandy. ‘Where does that leave Herr Goebbels?’
‘Lonely. For sure.’
Messner stepped back into the tent with the magnifying glass. Richthofen muttered something Nehmann didn’t catch and Messner disappeared again.
‘You’ll take a little brandy, Nehmann?’ Richthofen nodded at the bottle. ‘A man shouldn’t drink alone. Bad for the liver but worse for the spirit. Prosit. Here’s to more candles and more wicks.’
Nehmann raised his glass to acknowledge the toast, watching the Generaloberst as he took a closer look at the remaining photos. He’d heard a great deal about this man, and the reputation he’d built for himself since the early days in Spain. To chalk up victory after victory, to rewrite the Luftwaffe’s combat manual, to command the respect of flyers who could spot a phony at a thousand metres, to be at ease with the likes of Hitler and General Franco, to be able to stir an old woman like Paulus into taking a risk or two, all this spoke of someone deeply unusual.
Messner stepped back into the tent. He’d brought a thick buff envelope, a little battered around the edges. Richthofen grunted an acknowledgement and said they needed a third chair. Messner once again disappeared.
‘He tells me you two have met already.’ Richthofen was tidying Nehmann’s photos into a neat pile.
‘That’s true.’
‘Then you’ll know that he, too, is lonely.’
Nehmann felt acutely uncomfortable. This man broke all the normal rules of conversation, a talent Nehmann recognised only too well.
‘Messner has been unlucky.’ Nehmann touched his face. ‘An accident like that has consequences.’
‘Indeed. A moment of inattention? A poor decision? Alas, it doesn’t stop with traffic accidents. You should talk to Messner when you get the chance. He deserves what you called a proper conversation and officers at his level aren’t good at that.’ He glanced up. ‘I have a name for you, Nehmann. Olga Helm?’
‘She’s an actress.’
‘You know her?’
‘We’ve met, yes.’
‘And?’
‘She’s an attractive woman. Talented, too.’
‘Indeed. A combination not without consequences.’
He held Nehmann’s gaze for a long moment and then shook the contents of the envelope onto the table and began to sift through them, one by one. As far as Nehmann could judge, these images told the story of the last year or so. A convoy of trucks, poorly camouflaged, bucketing along a birch log road that had been destroyed by the passage of heavy armour. The burned-out remains of a Soviet tank abandoned in some far-flung village square. An aerial shot, not unlike the ones Nehmann had shot that afternoon, a town centre reduced to a moonscape. A gaggle of Soviet prisoners, sitting cross-legged in the mud. Moments caught on the way to Stalingrad, he thought. A simple record of events, framed and shot by someone with an unblinking eye.
‘These are yours, Herr Generaloberst?’
‘They are, Nehmann, yes. Me and my Leica. Man and wife. Inseparable. We Germans have been making history for a year. One day it will be important not to forget. Here—’
He’d finally found the photo he was after. Nehmann found himself looking at a thin-faced man in his late twenties. His eyes were deep-set and the greatcoat, open at the neck, looked perhaps a size too big.
‘I took that near Smolensk last year. What do you make of him?’
‘He’s a prisoner,’ Nehmann said. ‘Which means he’s probably Russian.’
‘You’re right. How did you know?’
‘The eyes. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next and he doesn’t trust you to make the right decision. If you want to know the truth, I’ve been that way for most of my life. You don’t need to be a soldier to feel the edge of things.’
The edge of things. Another phrase that won Richthofen’s approval.
‘You know who he is?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘His name’s Yakov. He’s Stalin’s eldest son. We found out by accident from someone else in the compound.’
‘And he’s still alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘In captivity?’
‘Yes. His real name’s Dzhugashvili, like his father. Our friends in the Abwehr talked to him at length. No love lost, Nehmann, between father and son. Yakov fell in love with a Jew He wanted to marry her. Stalin threw him out. Later he married another Jew – a dancer from Odessa. She gave Stalin two grandchildren. He didn’t bother with either of them.’ He reached for the photo and studied it for a moment or two. ‘So how lonely is Stalin? Have you ever thought of that, Nehmann?’
Messner was back with a chair. Nehmann watched him settle and reach for his brandy. Olga Helm? He couldn’t believe it.
Richthofen appeared to have lost interest in Stalin. He wanted to talk about Goebbels again.
‘Feuertaufe? You’ve seen it?’
Baptism of Fire was a film Goebbels had masterminded. It followed the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe into Poland and had been shown in countless cinemas across Europe. If you happened to be living, unbombed, in London or Paris, it was a deeply uncomfortable warning of what might happen if you ever said ‘no’ to Hitler.
‘A masterpiece,’ Nehmann murmured.
‘And a lie. You were in France, I believe. You have eyes in your head. How many horses did you see on that campaign?’
‘You mean ours? Wehrmacht horses?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hundreds. Thousands. Maybe more than that.’
‘Exactly. And how many of those horses appeared in Goebbels’ little movie? None. Am I complaining? Absolutely not. Watch that film, come out of the cinema, and you know that we Germans have invented a new way of making war. It’s all Sturm und Drang. Tanks, artillery, Stukas, Heinkels. Lots of noise. Lots of movement. Not a horse in sight. Does Goebbels ever ask himself how we keep feeding this machine? How we carry supplies to the front line? Never. And why? Because there’s no point. No one goes to the movies to watch horses and carts. If they’re German, they want to know we’re winning. That we’re irresistible. And foreign audiences? They’re shitting their pants. Clever, Nehmann. But a lie.’
‘Poland?’ Nehmann said softly. ‘Belgium? Holland? France? Don’t they belong to us now? Or have I missed something?’
‘You’ve missed nothing, Nehmann. Of course, we’ve won. But that was the easy part. What I’d like to know now is how Goebbels and his people, people like you, Nehmann, are going to cope when things go wrong, when the enemy doesn’t fall over within weeks, when the war is still there, day after day, and there seems to be no end to it. Maybe that’s when your boss starts thinking hard about the horses.’ A thin smile. ‘Largely because, by that time, we’ll probably be eating them.’
The music had come to an end. Messner was on his feet, tidying the photos. In the distance, Nehmann could hear the cackle of a lone aero engine.
Richthofen drained the last of his brandy and stood up. He looked, Nehmann thought, suddenly old.
‘Enough.’ The Generaloberst checked his watch. ‘Bed.’