The Undaunted (Book 2 of The Undesirables)

Chapter 31: The Cellist

The dark cavern of Stalingrad's sewer was transformed. The rank stench of human waste that had made Karen and her companions gag only a few weeks previous had since dissipated to a merely unpleasant smell, like that of an unwashed stable. Karen's feet no longer sloshed through a creek of brown filth. Whatever dampness once flowed through the sewer had finally dried up or frosted over. Instead of wet rivulets, slick sheets of murky brown ice now snaked along the ground, sending Karen skidding and flailing for balance with the occasional misstep.

The sewer wasn't dark, either. She and her companions had flashlights, now, and she could admire the man-made cave through a half-dozen circles of projected light. The brickwork was beautiful in its own way, cunningly stacked and mortared in a complete circle – pushing away the pressure of mother earth with the geometric strength of a double-arch. About waist level down the tunnel was smeared brown, but above that high water mark Karen could see the bricks' red clay and appreciate the jigsaw pattern that held each in its place. The brickwork formed an architectural marvel few humans had ever set eyes upon, and Karen wondered if all cities' sewers were similarly constructed.

She could also see her own breath billow in a frosty cloud. She was cold since Pavlov's unit had not yet been supplied with new winter uniforms. And they wouldn't be supplied, either now that dangerous icebergs were floating on the Volga's sluggish current. The ferries and barges that brought fresh men, weapons and supplies from the east bank no longer sailed. They couldn't risk colliding with submerged ice and sinking into the frigid depths.

That's why they had mounted this expedition; why Karen, Petr and Anton had descended back into the sewer and were leading three more of Pavlov's men under the German lines.

They were raiding for food.

When the supplies stopped coming, so did the rations. Meals had always been meager in Pavlov's house, since Pavlov and his men were sharing their sustenance with a dozen orphans. But now the situation had grown critical.

For the second time in Karen's life, she was hungry. This wasn't the hunger she felt on the last day of the battle in the suburbs, that first time she had escaped into the sewer. That day she had only missed a few meals, that day she was suffering from thirst more than hunger.

Right now, Karen was feeling her body threatening to shut down. This was real hunger, the kind of hunger that began feeding on your muscles, the kind of hunger that, left unchecked, wracked you with pain until you lacked the strength to do anything but lie down and die. This was the kind of hunger that had made Karen barren. This was the kind of hunger Karen had experienced in Leningrad and that she had hoped she would never experience again.

But the ferries had stopped crossing the Volga, and that meant there was no more food. Until the river froze solid so that its ice could be crossed with sledges instead of boats, Karen and her compatriots were on their own.

The orphans did their best to contribute; they scrounged every night. But new German offensives made it too dangerous for them to travel far. And they had never returned with much even in the best of times.

The Germans had food. Karen could smell it. Even all the way across the park she could smell their cookpots, their gruel, their cabbage, and their sausage. The Germans didn't have supply problems. The Germans didn't rely on a freezing river.

That was the difference between Leningrad and Stalingrad. In Leningrad there had simply been no food at all. Here, there was food, but it was held by the enemy. Which meant if you had the cunning, the courage, and the desire, you could take that food for yourself.

Karen and her companions had all three.

She had proposed the plan to Petr, who ran it up the chain of command to Sergeant Pavlov. Pavlov was wise enough to recognize the desperation of their plight, and so he approved the plan, but he wasn't willing to weaken the house's defense. They'd been attacked three times in the last week, the Germans throwing wave after wave of infantry at them through the park. The first had been so fierce that the Germans had reached all the way to the barbed wire before they were finally thrown back. Pavlov didn't know when the next would come, and he couldn't afford to do away with many of the house's defenders.