Chad Thumann - The Undesirables

Krause stopped moving, and his boots sank a few inches deeper into the snow. He didn’t fully understand the significance of the dog. He didn’t know whom it belonged to or why it behaved the way it did. But he did sense, deep down in his heart, that this dog had somehow been responsible for Leutnant Schaefer’s death. Krause didn’t like the Leutnant and was actually happy that Schaefer was dead. If only Oster, too, were killed, perhaps the platoon could be a safer and happier place. Enough of these Nazi true believers! What Krause wanted was a platoon leader who cared about only one thing—survival. He would happily follow that type of leader.

As Krause stared at the hound, he realized that Oster would want the dog dead. If Krause killed the creature, Oster might revise his opinion of him. Perhaps he’d judge Krause a fit soldier and stop giving him all the most dangerous tasks.

Krause unslung his Kar98k rifle, shouldered it, and aimed. He was more accurate lying down, but even standing he was quite sure he could hit the dog at twenty-five paces. He peered at the hound through the rifle’s iron sights. Something was wrong with the animal. Its fur was matted and wet, and it was shivering. The canine stared at the rifle’s barrel with sad eyes.

It seemed to recognize the weapon; it must really be a military dog, then, trained to understand the threat that a gun represented. But it wasn’t doing anything about it. It just lay there, too weak to move, accepting its fate.

Krause hesitated. Even shivering and weak, the dog was a handsome creature. And suddenly he realized how it had injured itself and why it was wet. Krause had last seen the animal on the other side of the Neva river. It hadn’t crossed the river using the bridge because Krause’s squad would have seen it. Instead, it must have tried to cross upriver and fallen through the ice.

That meant the weather must be warming at last. Even though it was late March, the snow was still deep, but now Krause noticed that the icicles in the trees were wet. Perhaps spring was finally coming. The dog must have broken through the ice into the cold water. That was why the animal was weak: it had hypothermia.

Krause reconsidered the scenario. Killing the dog would be no great achievement; it would soon die of hypothermia, anyway. But what if Krause were to capture it? Didn’t the Leutnant want that all along? Here was Krause’s chance. The animal could barely move; Krause could likely approach it easily.

He lowered the gun and cautiously approached. The dog whimpered. Krause held out his hand. The dog sniffed and then licked it. It appeared that the hound recognized Krause as the one who had cut it loose earlier. In fact, the rope Krause had cut still dangled from its neck.

Krause crouched next to the dog and took hold of the lanyard. Retrieving a length of line from his bag, he twined it to the rope with an eight knot and secured the dog to a tree. He then unfolded his Zeltbahn, an ingenious army camouflage blanket that could also be used as a poncho or strung up as a pup tent.

Krause draped his Zeltbahn over the shivering dog. He then proceeded to collect wood and start a fire.

By the time Krause had a good blaze going, he realized he’d lost track of time. The dim gray of twilight was already creeping across the sky. He should have been back to the village by now. Krause didn’t care. Oster wouldn’t send anyone looking for him. He’d just assume Krause was lost or dead. That’s what Oster wanted anyway, wasn’t it? Well, he’d be in for a surprise when Krause returned with the captive canine. Even Oster would be forced to recognize such a great achievement.

The dog was responding well to the heat of the fire. It had stopped shivering and had begun to drool. Krause remembered hearing somewhere this was how dogs sweated—through their tongues. If so, the dog’s core temperature was back to normal. Krause was no doctor or veterinarian and had never even been a medic. But he’d already been around enough wounded men in his short military career to recognize the look of death. This dog didn’t have it, not anymore. It would survive the night.

So Krause gave the dog a tablet of his Erbswurst, a sort of sausage made with dried peas that had been part of Germany’s military rations since the Franco-Prussian War. Krause hated the stuff, but the dog loved it. It was still licking its chops as Krause lay down beside it, pulled over a length of his Zeltbahn, and slept beneath the stars. Between the warmth of the fire’s embers and the dog’s thick fur, he felt cozier than in their drafty cottage back in the village.

The next morning, Krause opened a ration can of Fleischkonserv, an unidentifiable minced, brownish-gray meat. Krause didn’t bother spooning it into his mess tin but just set the open can onto the fire’s ashes, hoping the embers were still warm enough to make the concoction somewhat more appetizing. Several minutes later he spooned it into his mouth, but the meat was still chilled throughout. He slopped it onto his Hartkek, a hard, crackerlike bread, to help camouflage its gooey coldness.

Krause threw the empty can on the ashes and was about to kick snow over it when the dog nosed its way in front of his foot and began licking at the can. Krause fed it another tablet of Erbswurst and bent over to pack up his few belongings. He secured his mess kit, Zeltbahn, gas mask, canteen, and bread bag to the rear of his combat webbing. Then, slinging his rifle, he untied the dog and started marching back toward the village.

Or, rather, he tried to start marching back. The dog sat down on its haunches and dug its front paws into the snow. Krause yanked at the cord and pulled, dragging the big dog a few feet. Then the hound lay down, trying to resist Krause with its full strength and weight.

Even as big as the dog was, Krause was still bigger, and he could drag it. But the cord dug uncomfortably into the palms of his hands, and he began to wonder whether he would be forced to drag the animal all the way back to the village. Krause gave up for a moment and crouched beside the dog. He scratched its head and encouraged it with kind words. He broke a stick off a tree and wove it in front of the dog’s face.

Sure enough, the dog leaped to its feet and started bounding around, trying to bite the stick. “Come on, boy, that’s it, come after the stick,” Krause encouraged the animal, and then he ran forward with the cord still wound around his hand.

The dog fell for the trick and bounded after Krause, thinking he would throw the stick. But when Krause didn’t, the dog stopped. Krause jerked on his end of the line. The animal once again dropped to its stomach.

Krause squatted down, catching his breath. Clearly the dog didn’t want to go back. Something up ahead was luring the animal, had drawn it across the river, and was drawing it still. Krause wondered what that thing was and then realized it would be easy enough for him to find out. All he had to do was slacken the cord, let the dog go where it wished, and follow.

Oster would want him to do that, no doubt. Everyone, even Krause himself, wanted to discover the mystery behind the dog—where it had come from and to whom it belonged. But if it were trying to move forward, toward Tikhvin and the front line and away from the German rear, didn’t that tell Krause what he already suspected—that, despite its German breeding, it was, in fact, Russian? Following the dog would likely lead Krause straight into a Russian unit, alone, armed only with a single rifle. The last place Krause wanted to be.

That left him with a new dilemma. Coaxing the dog all the way back to the village was more troublesome than it was worth. Following the dog to its handlers would prove too dangerous. And simply letting the dog go meant it would again be free to help kill more German officers like Leutnant Schaefer.

But, Krause suddenly thought, was that such a bad thing? He hated Unteroffizier Oster. He wanted Oster dead, too. Maybe this dog truly was some sort of magical devil creature capable of causing officers’ deaths?

Krause smiled and let go of the cord. The dog just stayed where it was, lying on its stomach, watching Krause warily.

“Good-bye,” Krause said. And then he added, “Good luck.”

He turned his back and started marching back toward the village. A few minutes later, when he looked over his shoulder, the dog was gone.

Their relationship had changed. Suddenly they trusted each other.

Petr could have left Karen to hang. He could have taken Duck, found another way across the Neva, and traveled on his own to the Russian lines and Tikhvin. But he hadn’t. He’d come back for her. And Karen, too, could have left Petr to starve. But, instead, she’d given him the macaroni. And, perhaps more important, she’d left him a train ticket, her most valuable possession. She could have traded that ticket for anything. The two packets of pasta ensured that Petr didn’t starve during the week that he hunted her down and planned her rescue. But he had little left, and the Germans had taken Karen’s food. So now they had to share what remained and the old man’s hard loaf of bread, rationing once again.

Petr didn’t mind; he was growing confident that the Russian lines were near. Karen, too, had lost her map, but Petr remembered the important landmarks. The most daunting had been the Neva. Now that they were across that barrier, all they needed to do was follow the road and continue east.