This story is based on historical fact, set during WWII. The meeting between the Russian and American armies on the River Elbe really did happen, on April 26th, 1945. The Battle of Stalingrad has the bloodiest legacy in history, with almost 2 million German and Russian casualties during the five month battle.
The characters, of course, belong to Stephanie Meyer.
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EPOV
The water glittered in the waning afternoon light as we pushed forward on the riverbank, jostling for a position to see our allies for the first time against the background of the town, hollowed out by weeks of bombing. As their trucks and tanks rolled down the road, clouds of dust rising in the air, their soldiers began flinging themselves into the water, swimming towards us, their uniforms weighed down by the water.
"Allies! Comrades!"
"Friends!"
The first slippery, frozen hand gripped mine, and I pulled the man out of the water onto the riverbank beside us. It was the first time I had ever seen an American, although not the first time I had ever heard English spoken. He gripped me in a bone crushing hug, patting my cheek with his icy fingers. I shyed away, certain he could feel my ribs, protruding through my uniform, pressing against his own full muscles.
"We've got them beat! Look at this, the Allies meet in Germany!"
He crowed, pushing deeper into the crowd of Russian soldiers that surrounded me. More soldiers clamoured out of the water, pushing against us, hugging, touching, laughing and celebrating. Someone pulled out a flask of vodka, and we drank together. In the rushing water of the river, I saw the bodies of the dead.
Stalingrad, 1942
The wind, constant now, whipped through my jacket, snatching the breath from my lungs as I hunched lower beneath the pile of bricks and sheet metal. The rubble of the city that once stood majestic here, overlooking the swift turquoise current of the Volga. Now the city was a wasteland, destroyed by enemy hands, and we had been cut off from supplies until the Volga froze over. Stalin had been asking for a second front for moths—the Americans' were yet to respond. I stared at the men around me, each one shivering violently as each gust of wind rocked through our tiny party.
"Cigarette, Captain?"
One of the young privates asked, offering. His words were thick laced with accent. He had not been in Stalingrad long. One of the other soldiers spoke before I could answer,
"It's too close to sunset. You'll get us all killed."
The German snipers had been operating in this area for weeks, the cherry ember of a cigarette more than enough to give us away in the fading shadows. We had gotten lucky, making it this far with no casualties. Our reconnaissance mission involved cutting communication wires that had been planted in the German sector just outside of No Man's Land. The silence that had followed us all day was unexpected and eerie.
The young private shoved his cigarettes deep into the pocket of his jacket, pulling the wool tighter around him. As the next gust of wind, whispering promises of snow, bit into my flesh, my stomach twisted with hunger. I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't been hungry.
"Here, sir."
The private pressed a square of bread into my hand. I shook my head, trying to pass it back to him, but he curled my hands around it.
"Please, sir. My father told me you'd look out for us. Keep us safe."
I felt my stomach churn at his words. If we were lucky, half of us would return alive. I silently swore that I would look into having him transferred if we made it back alive. He was too young, too beautiful, to die out here. There was still light, still hope in his eyes. I hoped that the Commisar would allow me to call in a favour for his transfer to the Intelligence Sector. In the meantime, I would do everything in my power to keep him safe. I felt the tug of empathy for his father—a man I had never met—deep inside my chest.
As darkness descended over our party I nodded, giving the signal for us to keep moving. The young private who had given me the bread looked at me with wide, trusting blue eyes as he stepped in line in front of me. Our progress was slow. The wind howled bitterly, the first flakes of the coming storm whipping around us. What little snow had melted during the day was now frozen in slick patches of ice.
"Captain."
The private at the front of the line gestured into the inky night that had fallen. The red cherry of a cigarette was clearly visible, not more than 400 yards in front of us. I paused to consider. Was it a soldier? A sniper? Did he know we were coming?
"Keep going."
I murmured, my breath stolen off my lips by the wind. No sniper would shoot into the darkness, and any soldier with any experience would be wise enough to do the same. The flash of a gun in the night was a suicidal gesture of bravado.
The silence of the night was deafening. To our right, one of the few factories that remained intact loomed, caught in the crossfire of the inky night and the echoing pop of gunfire from other parts of this city. Although it looked empty, it held more haunted souls and living dead soldiers than anywhere else in the city. The factories, room by room, floor by floor, were the worst part of this fighting. The factories were worth dying for. The soldiers who fought for them rarely came out.
Next to the factory, the railroad tracks ran diagonally, lined with the wires we were supposed to cut. I wondered if the cigarette was a sign of a waiting ambush. It didn't really matter. We had no choice but to keep moving. The lines needed to be cut, and if we were caught in the crosshairs of a sniper in the early morning light, we would be picked off like ants by a far away, invisible killer. I blew into my hands, trying desperately to warm them. The piles of bricks closed in around us as we neared the railroad tracks. The private turned, seemingly to ask me something, as the soldier in front of him stumbled on the frozen ground.
The explosion was instant. The landmine, triggered by his weight, detonated instantaneously. The shadows of the factories danced. Brick dust and snow, previously heavy against the ground, drifted slowly downwards to settle in the tingling, disconcerting warmth of the soldier's blood as in rained across our skin. The private screamed. As I looked through the half-second of light cast by the deafening explosion, I saw two German soldiers, one holding his gun, the other holding a lit cigarette.
The private screamed and screamed, and didn't stop, his voice harsh and echoing across the barren, empty space of No Man's Land. His screams were chilling, otherworldly and dying. Enough to wake the dead.
"Jesus, shut him up!"
One of the other soldiers snarled. I felt along the private's jacket, feeling the gush of warm blood against my palm as I discovered multiple pieces of shrapnel from the landmine buried in his flesh.
"P-p-please, s-sir...don't l-leave m-m-me."
The private looked at me, the pupils of his eyes dialated so that the blue was hardly showing. He gripped my hand imploringly, his blood slick against my skin.
"I'm not going anywhere. We're going to get you to the hospital. You're going to be okay."
I lied. He was going to die, I could feel that as surely as the rush of his blood against my jacket as I lifted him into my arms, cradling him against my chest. He barely weighed anything at all, as if his bones had been hollowed out by the fatalities of this war. The rest of my men followed me, without question, as I led them out of No Man's Land, and through the twisting roads of the Russian sector towards the hospital.
The hospital was part tent, part hollowed out factory, on the very edge of the Volga. The dead lay in frozen piles along the wall outside, waiting for spring to come so that they could be buried. There was flickering light coming from inside, and each breath seemed to be lit with moans of pain and suffering. The doctor shook his head as I stepped through the door with the young private, sweat glistening on his face in the dim light, his blood already soaked through my jacket.
"He's not going to make it."
The doctor murmured, ushering me towards the door.
"No. You need to help him. Please."
The doctor shook his head, his eyes tired.
"There is nothing I can do for him. He's too far gone. Place him outside with the rest of the dead."
A nurse stepped towards me, placing one hand gently against my arm,
"What's his name, soldier?"
In that moment, I realized I didn't even know the name of the trusting, blue eyed private who had been killed on my watch.
As the last soldiers clamoured out of the water, we exchanged dollars for rubles, vodka for whiskey and conversation in broken English and Russian. The Americans were excited, offering their hands for us to shake. I simply felt exhausted. I saw the horror of years of battle in my comrades' eyes. In the eyes of the American soldiers, I saw simplicity. Peace.
"You got vodka?"
Halting, broken Russian, tinged by an American accent I had come to associate with the deep South in movies.
"Yes. Here."
I handed my flask over my shoulder without looking, answering in my own broken English. The American didn't leave, however, instead he dropped down next to me, leaning back against the wall where I was sitting to avoid the commotion. He offered his hand to me, and when I turned to offer mine in return, I suddenly found myself staring into the same haunting blue eyes of the private I had allowed to die on my watch.