Maneuver Warfare (Bewegungskrieg)
Beneath a low ceiling, cigarette smoke hung in a hazy veil, and the yellow light of kerosene lamps filled a certain tavern in Leningrad.
"Hey, Klava! Another bottle over here!"
"Hold on, let me drop this off and I'll be right back!"
Women whose cheeks had flushed red in the room's heat hurried between the tables, four beer mugs clutched between their fingers and plates of pickled herring balanced in their other hands.
"Your food is ready, gentlemen!"
One of the waitresses cut between us and set the dishes down in a hurry.
"Our house specialty — selyodka po-russki, Russian-style pickled herring, and black rye bread!"
"Thank you."
"...Oh, it was nothing!"
When I offered my thanks, she smiled softly, dipped her head, and left us. Before long, the gazes of Rokossovsky and Zhukov gathered on my face.
"Yasha, looks like Tanya has taken a liking to you."
"...Excuse me?"
When I failed to follow, Zhukov jerked his chin toward the waitress who had just gone.
"Tanya is a beauty who won't so much as glance at most men. And yet she smiled for you."
"I knew we shouldn't have brought a young, good-looking fellow in here."
"...What are you talking about?"
I found myself recalling the waitress's face without effort. Golden hair spilled from beneath her headscarf and clung damply to her skin, freckles clustered densely across the bridge of her nose. She was pretty enough, certainly, but…
Watching the brightly smiling waitress, a completely different face rose unbidden in my mind. My type, it seemed, leaned rather closer to Katya.
"Next time Tanya comes by, take her somewhere quiet and call her milaya. She'll fall for you on the spot. You might even get free 'drinks' out of it."
Rokossovsky whispered it into my ear with a mischievous grin. I could only let out a hollow laugh in disbelief.
"...I'll pass."
"Heh. Playing the innocent. You know exactly what I mean, don't you?"
I lightly ignored Zhukov's brazen jab and brought my fork to the pickled herring. …A tart, earthy, substantial flavor that would pair well with the black bread.
That was when it happened.
— Clack.
"Stormtroopers are not the answer."
Model spoke up without warning.
"...Is that so?"
Instead of the defense-in-depth doctrine I had originally had in mind, I had spoken to him of stormtrooper tactics. It was a deliberate choice — I refused to hand a potentially hostile German state any powerful tactical theory.
On the surface it had seemed plausible enough: rather than develop new weapons, mass-produce elite infantry trained to infiltrate the enemy's weak points. It would also have given them a pretext to refine and advance the Hutier tactics the German army had used to such effect in the last war.
…But the theory, it seemed, would not work on Model. Having turned over what I had said, he had apparently dismantled it as the wrong answer.
If the man across from me had been Friedrich Schulz or Kurtzhach instead of Model, it might have gone through. A pity.
"Operating infantry-centered stormtrooper tactics as you suggest… That has already been discussed within our Reichswehr. But it was quickly discarded. Do you know why?"
"...Because at the end of the day, it remains fundamentally an infantry tactic, I would imagine."
Model nodded. No matter how elite the troops, they would tire quickly and reach the culminating point of the attack. And being men rather than machines, a single bullet was the end of them. Train them a year or train them ten — one round of ammunition was all the same. The cost-effectiveness simply did not hold.
"Exactly. After the armistice, the Reichswehr spent years analyzing our failures in the Great War — studying the past in meticulous detail so that the lessons of history might be put into practice."
"Like historians, then."
Model nodded again.
"The final conclusion was that infantry-centered storm battalions have their limits. So we went further back. And we found our clue in Field Marshal Moltke."
The Moltke he spoke of would be the elder Moltke.
"The particulars are military secrets, so I cannot share them. But in any case, we gave the new form of tactics we established a name."
A single word sprang from Walter Model's lips.
Bewegungskrieg.
Maneuver warfare.
I brought the filled glass to my lips and forced myself to look unconcerned as I swallowed the vodka.
— Gulp.
The colorless, flavorless, odorless burn of the hard liquor ran down my throat. But my mind was sharper than it had been before we even entered the tavern.
He had already said they had reached the form of the spear — maneuver warfare itself. The moment a phrase like "defense in depth" slipped from my mouth, this monocled gentleman would awaken into the meat grinder that would, a decade and more from now, chew through the soldiers of the Union.
"...Remarkable. It's more than I can keep up with."
So I fiddled with my empty glass, playing the awed young student admiring his words. Just as I was about to close the conversation off at a convenient point—
— Clack.
"Don't lie to me."
Model set his glass down.
"You already know, don't you?"
His voice had shed every trace of humor as he pressed me.
"Being startled by something this elementary does rather undercut the title of 'the Union's finest theorist.'"
"That nickname is nothing more than something these two comrades here stuck on me."
I let it slide as casually as I could, half-suspecting a probe. Model, nearly certain now, pressed on.
"Come, tell me a little. It's only a light drinking session, isn't it? Whatever is said here will evaporate by morning, like the liquor under our glasses."
It was the tone of an interrogating detective — soft, yet leaving no room to refuse an answer. In the end, would I have to speak?
…This much should be fine.
I was sketching a few scenarios in my head, weighing which answer would serve, when—
— Soft footsteps.
"Yasha?"
The voice from behind me was clear and pure, utterly out of place amid the cheap tobacco smoke and the sharp smells of tavern food.
"It really is you, Yasha. What are you doing here of all places?"
And it was no illusion. I turned on instinct — and froze solid.
"Katya…?!"
Katerina stood before me. She was not in the businesslike suit I always saw her in. A deep navy coat, a scarf at her throat, both cheeks flushed scarlet from the cold wind as she looked down at me.
"I was passing by and thought I saw a familiar face through the window. I came in on the chance — and it really was you, Yasha."
Wherever her usual icy tone and expression had gone, she approached me with the warm, easy manner of someone greeting a longtime acquaintance. Startled, I rose from my chair to meet her.
"Running into each other in a place like this. Small world, isn't it?"
Katerina smiled brightly. The sight left me more bewildered than glad.
Was she always like this…?
It felt wrong. The Katerina I knew was not this person. She was the woman who kept an ice-cold manner and a face without a flicker of expression — like Stalin himself.
"Why are you looking at me like that? Did I startle you by showing up so suddenly?"
Katerina tilted her head slightly and looked up at me. The unfamiliar gentleness still clung to her voice. It was as if someone else were wearing her face. What on earth was she playing at?
"Yasha, and this is…?"
I stood there blankly, still turning the thought over, when Model looked from Katerina to me and asked.
"Ah — this is…"
"Katerina Sokolova."
As if cutting me off, Katya stepped in first.
"Yasha and I are… involved in various ways, you might say."
She offered a soft, pleasant smile. At that, the interrogating edge in Model's eyes dulled a fraction. With a stranger joining the conversation, it was clearly harder to press the matter so openly.
…Wait a moment. Had she aimed for exactly this?
A chill ran down my spine. When I looked at Katya, she was looking right back at me. Then her lips shaped words without sound.
Play. Along.
I gave a quiet nod.
"...Ah, yes. Well… something like that. I've been in Katya's debt in one way and another."
After I took up the line as evenly as I could, Katerina's gaze moved past Model to Zhukov and Rokossovsky.
"...Hm?"
Zhukov was the first to sense the weight of someone's attention. He rose from his seat at once and came over to us.
"...Comrade Sokolova."
Recognizing Katerina, he offered a slight bow. She, for her part, seemed to know him as well, and answered lightly.
"It's been a while, Comrade Zhukov."
"To meet you in a place like this."
Katerina answered Zhukov's words with a brief reply. Then Rokossovsky approached as well, his eyes wide.
"Well now — is that really Comrade Sokolova? What brings you here… Don't tell me you came looking for us?"
"I only stopped in by chance. I saw a familiar face through the window."
Katerina glanced at me and smiled faintly. Rokossovsky's eyes went as wide as full moons.
"You know Yasha?"
He asked with an uncharacteristically formal courtesy. That was what I wanted to ask myself.
Katerina… knows Zhukov and Rokossovsky too?
And it was not only that. The sight of the taciturn Zhukov coming forward first to pay his respects, and of the sly Rokossovsky stiffening into careful etiquette — both were scenes I had never witnessed before. That the two of them not only knew Katerina but treated her with such wary, extreme caution…?
What in the world was going on? In the confusion of it, the matter with Model had already been pushed clean to the back of my mind.