….Since Mafeking…

A short drabble in the Good Omens continuum.

In the gloom of the late afternoon, she walked, unheeded, in the snow, unimpeded by the uneven rubble and the…other things…. that laid in the snow of January. Once, a coal-scuttle helmet rolled away from her foot and spun on its crown into pathetic stillness. This inspired a burst of machine-gun fire from an otherwise silent battlefield. Apart from noting it as a Red Army 7.92 Maxim HMG, the big clumsy First World War leftover that required two men to tow it on a wheeled or sledged carriage, she ignored it. After a while, the canvas-ripping note of a German MG34 joined in, but only a quick, perfunctory, few rounds: the Germans in the Kessel were under orders to conserve their ammunition.

She moved on, in the fur coat, in the huge ungainly valenki overboots, in the grey-fur ushanki cap that concealed her red hair. Unconcerned, she made no attempt to alter her appearance as she walked down the front line, in between German and Russian soldiers who appeared to be growing more agitated and restless by the moment. She could see more men and more weapons going over to the ready, activated by men to whom concepts like safety catch had long since ceased to have reason. And they were on alert, nerves strung to splitting point in cold and hunger-tormented bodies.

Oh, they didn't know what they were getting agitated and worried with, as the human mind is a finely tuned device that allows some things to be sensed, rather than properly seen. And since Krasnaya didn't want to be properly seen, as her mission was one of spreading her particular form of light through the world in an ego-free and unattributable sort of way, she was making sure that she was only sensed. Or at best, glimpsed, in the hazy January twilight.

Once, her ankle, in the big ungainly overboot, brushed a cable that was lying taut just under the snow. Just a brush, but a brush, a mere extra pull on a line already taut, was all it needed. Krasnaya very quickly went to the other place as the concealed bomb, an over from the air war converted into a booby trap, turned into a hundred kilograms of unstoppable thermal discharge.

She returned, and took a vantage point on the edge of a new crater as the unease turned into outright battle. The Russians, rather better supplied, pouring all they had at the German line; but the better-experienced Germans making every bullet tell.

Krasnaya raised her arms and howled exultantly into the wind of battle. Bullets loved her. She was the Goddess of shaped lead. Bullets wanted to be near her, to worship and adore and receive Her blessing during their brief active lives. She permitted this, allowing them to draw near in their flight, but not to touch her.

And she watched the fight with the eyes of a connoisseur. The Red Army soldiers, better clad, better armed, better fed, better almost-everything than the Germans, pulverising the German line with every weapon up to and including light anti-tank cannon. Not that the Germans had many tanks left by now, of course. And those they had were immobile in the extreme cold that froze oil and petrol, always assuming they had any petrol. But the Russians certainly weren't better experienced or better led than their enemies. Or they wouldn't have attacked the German position frontally.

Krasnaya walked on through the fallen men. Some, on the verge of death, saw her unveiled as their eyes widened and their breathing failed. She blew one man a kiss as he gasped something about the angel of Death being a woman.

"Not me, brat. But you'll see Him soon enough." she said , knowing the Fourth was undeniably here, although at present invisible.

She noticed a fallen Russian officer had been brandishing a sword as he led his men. A sword. Against machine guns. Kneeling down, she prised it from his cold dead fingers, and studied it. Pre-revolutionary. The workmanship too fine for the communist era. An older man, possibly one of the last of the Czarist officers trying to make the necessary concessions to the new regime so as to live in peace. And he dies here in the snow, in the fighting to push the last of the Germans from Mamaya Kurghiev.

The sword, like all bladed weapons, recognised her instantly and purred in her hand like a contented kitten. She lifted and turned it, allowing the blade to stroke her cheek as if it were a kitten's paw. This was as it should be: all swords were mere lesser brethren of the Sword, which hung in Limbo somewhere waiting for the Day. And any sword in her hand became more than it was, acquiring something of the essence of the Sword.

She walked on, up the battle-scarred hill. Before the war, this had been planned as the city's green space, a public park, a relaxation space for the proletariat. Now it was a war-torn wilderness, a breaking yard for machines, guns, rifles, horses, and men. Krasnaya walked among the wreckage with ease and pleasure, battle breaking out all around her, men fighting at their wildest as she passed closest to them, ever ascending to the summit that remained, tenuously, in Russian hands.

At the highest point of the hill, she turned and looked around her, Queen of the Ruins, mistress of all she surveyed, surveying the ruin of Stalingrad laid out before her, all the way down to the river, where the reflected flames left the Volga seemingly running with blood.

Krasnaya laughed, and stretched out her hand with the sword in it.

A wounded Russian soldier, a Party member, a sculptor by civilian profession, paused in the delirium of pain to see the gigantic woman towering over the city, her sword marking the vengeance of mother Russia against the invader. He now knew, without a shadow of a doubt, what form the memorial statue would take when the Fascists were defeated and Stalingrad was Soviet again. But one thing was wrong…

" NOT EAST." A voice said that only she heard. "NOT TO THE EAST. THE WAR WILL NOT NOW PASS TO THE EAST OF HERE. BUT IT WILL RETURN WEST. POINT THE BLADE WEST. TOWARDS BERLIN."

"I obey, lord" she said, and shifted her stance so that her right arm now pointed a victorious Red Army to a destiny in the West. The wounded sculptor watched.

Now it was right. Rodinia, Mother Russia, now pointed her sword west, towards Germany, the lair of the fascist beast. He lapsed into red sleep, the image of mother Russia still on his mind, the last thing he saw…(1)

Krasnaya then saw something that may be best described as an envelope, roughly pinned to a broken gun-trail, which glowed with a repulsive kind of dark, almost black, opalescence, as if a slug had worked out how to do luminous slime. She knew it wasn't natural or human. Therefore it could only be made for her.

Sheathing the sword, she took it. It buzzed unpleasantly.

Hi Red.

Sorry to have missed you – haven't seen you since Mafeking and this promises to be thirty times bigger! Looks like we won't meet now, as the fighting here is likely to be over by the first week in February. After that, your job is done. So it's North Africa again? Or the Far East? For me, I'm dealing with civilian famine here when the fighting's over. Then there are likely to be a quarter of a million German prisoners who are going to be marched into Siberia from here. The Soviet supply system isn't geared up to feeding or housing them, so you can imagine how many more are going to have a brief and no doubt sympathetic chat with Our Lord. If you feel like a chat, I've been advising Field Marshal von Paulus about how best to deploy his food reserves. His HQ is in the old GUM department store downtown, btw.

See you there?

Sable.

She grinned. Sitting on a broken T-34 tank, she wrote a quick few lines to her colleague.

Hi Sable.

As you can see, I've ensured there are three hundred thousand Germans who have been trapped in this city since November and are now in a physical shape you would approve of. Because the Red Army gives priority to men and ammunition crossing the Volga, the Russian soldiers on this side aren't much better off either. There are half a million starving men in this city. And I suspect the young man White has been active, as I sense typhoid and other ailments among the starved Germans. In men run-down for lack of food the diseases will spread, and jump to the Russians ,as lice respect neither nationality nor dogma. Like the Spanish Influenza in 1919, do you remember? Oh, great days,,,,

She rested her pen, caught in a reverie of wars past. Rats chittered and fought for scraps of nameless sustenance near her feet. The little darlings. She lifted her pen again.

Looks like my next port of call is Möhne, in the Ruhr. Apparently something big is going to come down there, probably a very big dam.(2) And there are several hundred thousand people living in that river valley. After that it's Hamburg I'm reading something beautifully nasty about "whirlwind" and "firestorm".(3) And then back here in July for Kursk(4) and an autumn break in Italy. Did you know Crowley was here for a while? He just looked appalled and said "there's not much i can do here that they aren't doing for themselves!" I believe he's in North Africa now, he reckoned his time might be better used stirring up bad feeling between the British and the Americans. He believes he can use Montgomery's ego against Patton's inflated opinion of himself, and strain the alliance.(5) Now they are both warriors - as well as Rommel! - but this Eisenhower fellow is just a civilian administrator in a general's uniform. He might make a mediocre politician later on...(6) Anyway, when the Angel arrived shortly after Crowley, he looked around too, and said that if Crowley had done nothing, and this was really all their own work, he was powerless to intervene apart from "a couple of permissible stock graces". He's gone too. I believe he may also be in North Africa now, although he was considering a trip to the Far East. Aparently, Aziraphile wants that to be a living exercise in how it's still possible to fight a good clean war (9). Poor optimistic angel, but as far as I'm concerned, if it's a war, we can allow him a concession or two. This Eastern Front, that and the Japanese War both, are Hell's dominion. Heaven gets to supervise the Western Front, North Africa and Italy. The Angel may be travelling on to the Pacific right now. He mentioned somewhere called Guadalcanal? I hope to get out there myself - the Japanese have such a lovely war ethic, I remember it from three hundred years ago in the Wars of the Shogunate.

She knew Sable would be as drawn to her handover note as she had been to his. This was only to be expected - the Four had now been around long enough to respond to each other's vibrations. She sealed her letter into something resenmbling an envelope, that glowed a dull unhealthy red, and thought for a moment. Then she pinned it to the tunic of a skeletal German soldier who had obviously died of starvation. Sable would find it. If not here, then somewhere nearby to him. Then she walked on, savouring the sights and sounds and smells of the last days of Stalingrad...

(1) This is in fact the war memorial statue atop the Mamiya hill in today's Volgagrad (Stalingrad). A huge representation of Mother Russia is posed pointing her sword westward, urging the victors of Stalingrad to stream westwards and take the war to Germany. The statue is huge. So tall it is a hazard to low-flying aircraft and needs lights. Rodina's sword is also lightened by large holes being drilled in to it - these prevent the whole thing being brought crashing down in a high wind which would make a solid structure resonate and vibrate to the danger point.

(2) the RAF's "Operation Chastise", the Dambuster raids with the bouncing bombs, took place in March 1943. While several dams were breached, the death toll was relatively low given the area flooded - many people had time to escape to higher ground - and the destruction to German industry was nowhere near as climactic as the British hoped.

(3) Operation Whirlwind, the destruction of the port city of Hamburg by incendiary bombs, took place in May-June 1943. Up to 60,000 Germans were killed. The name of the operation was selected by Air Chief Marshal Harris and Winston Churchill in a mood of revenge for the Luftwaffe blitzes over Coventry and London. The title is from a Bible quote: "Ye have sown the wind. Now ye shall reap the whirlwind". It is possible a RAF Group Captain visiting Air Ministry HQ gave Harris the idea of using a Bible quote to justify targetting German civilians, on the premis that "well, your Luftwaffe started it over Coventry. Now we have the capacity to do it back to you ten times more destructively in sheer bloody-minded revenge, do you think we're going to refrain?" However, the otherwise obscure Group Captain A. J. Crowley, who suggested the Whirlwind quote to Harris, dissappeared shortly afterwards, believed shot down over Germany. (7)

(4) Operation Citadelle, in July 1943 (the Battle of Kursk) , was Hitler's last failed offensive in Russia. After defeat and heavy losses, the German retreat to Berlin began that autumn. A factor in winding down the battle was the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily and Italy, necesssitating troops being withdrawn from the East.

(5) Patton was virulently anglophobic. Montgomery had a low opinion of Americans. This level of mutual respect between the most senior British and American generals threatened to split the alliance several times. And then there was Fredenhall, a positively unique American general who combined George Armstrong Custer, Emperor Norton and Judge Ray Bean....

(6) Dwight D. Eisenhower, the luckless and perhaps overpromoted soul who Supreme Commanded the allied armies, had to use all his natural diplomacy to keep his subordinates onside. Except for a brief spell in North Africa, he did not directly command an army in the field in WW2: his talents were more diplomatic and administrative. Later on, he became U.S. President.

(7) Because in wartime it was by far the fastest and most convenient way for a working demon to cross the front lines and get from Britain to Germany during WW2, that's why(8). Plus, as has been explained, Crowley loved big fast machines. If you are wondering how Germany managed to capture a Stirling bomber intact during 1943, well, Crowley might have an answer... on his return trip, in a spirit of being even-handed, he gifted Royal Air Force Intelligence a JU88 "nachtschragemusik" armed night fighter.

(8) And yes, Crowley did have a hand in persuading Rudolf Hess to change sides and fly to Scotland in 1942. One day this might be revealed in all its detail.

(9) Just as the Angel and the Demon had split the world between them, giving Shropshire to Aziraphile, while Crowley got Manchester and Welsh-Language TV, the onset of World War in 1939 had led to a similar kind of trade in battlefronts. Thus, Hell got the Russian Front with all its attendant terrors, whilst Heaven got the relatively civilized North African front, where the combatants respected certain rules, the Red Cross was respected, prisoners were looked after scrupulously, and no SS troops participated on the German side.(10)

(10) Well, this wasn't strictly true: in late 1942, a small forward SS party arrived to "assess" the "danger" posed by the Jewish ghettos in Tripoli, Benghazi, Tunis and other North African cities, and to advise local police and militia on the appropriate degree of ghettoisation and segregation to be employed. Rommel accepted them wih great reluctance but had other things on his mind at the time. No doubt had the war progressed with greater German victories - say they'd forced the British out of Egypt and turned left into Palestine - SS "Einsatzgruppen" death squads would certainly have followed, and Rommel would have lost his sainted reputation as the Good German.