Wheels of Terror

by Sven Hassel

  Our tank is hit, and in a second becomes a roaring ocean of fire. Tiny looks like a satyr standing bathed in flames as he throws The Old Un out of the side-hatch before he jumps away himself in a shower of sparks. He rolls on the ground in his oil-saturated uniform to extinguish the leaping flames.

  Exhausted we lie, gasping for air, coughing painfully with smoke-filled lungs. Only Porta is indifferent. He lifts up the mangy cat he had adopted and now carries in the breast of his tunic and shouts:

  ‘We got away by the skin of our teeth again, old pussy-lad. Only a few hairs on your backside singed!’

  Panic everywhere. Grenadiers, pioneers, tank-gunners, home-guards, infantrymen, artillerymen, officers, NCOs and privates, all in a disorderly mob. Sharp pings from the snipers sound round us. Porta clutches a magnetic fuse. We get hold of some T-mines. Like snakes we crawl towards the huge T34s.

  I see Porta jump at one. The fuse is placed where it ought to be. An explosion. Sharp flames lick out of the turret.

  Tiny crawls up to another tank. Carefully he places the big T-mine beneath the turret, pulls out the stick and lets himself drop from the bucking tank. A thundering boom, and another T34 is finished. Tiny is going mad.

  ‘I’ve finished one. Blimey, I’ve sent a whole tank to the gods.’

  That such a clumsy oaf as he is not hit is a miracle, but evidently he is bullet-proof.

  I unlock a T-mine, but I can’t get it up on the tank crashing by. It explodes a little behind it, and the air pressure sends me several yards along the gutted street.

  The roaring steel monsters turn and twist like sledges when they brake. Shell after shell thunders from their guns.

  Slowly it dawns on us that these are not just a few stray tanks which have broken through our defences. Fortunately it is only a fraction of their left flank we have contact with. We flatten ourselves against the ground, pretend we are dead. The soil tastes sweet. Our friend affording us shelter! Lovely, dirty churned-up earth! Never have you tasted so delicious, although your porridgy mud and slush penetrate our ears, mouths, noses and eyes.

  You blood-saturated lovely earth, you hold us in your embrace and hide us in your bottomless mire. The water running in at our collars feels like a caress from a gentle woman’s hand.

  The dirt on our equipment and uniforms makes us look like animated clods of mud.

  At eight o’clock in the morning all is over. But near the eastern part of Cherkassy town we can still hear heavy firing and the rattling of tank-tracks.

  Nobody suggests they might be Mark IVs. Never again will we make that mistake when we listen to that rattling, banging sound.

  … Many years after the war. I have woken up, wet with sweat, because in my dream I had heard that rattling death’s herald of the terrible Russian T34.

  Slowly we emerge from the mud. Porta, thank God you’re alive! The Old Un? Where’s The Old Un? We breathe relief. There he is, still alive. Stege, Bauer, the Little Legionnaire, Möller although always sour, full of pessimism and religious killjoy – all embrace because they are alive. Tiny shouts with joy:

  ‘A few rotten T34s don’t blow Tiny’s breath away!’

  He is kicking at the peeled off tracks of the burned-out wreck of a T34, the one he destroyed with his T-mine.

  ‘Come on, you red devils, and I’ll deal with you!’ he bellows in the direction of the clanging tracks.

  Pluto is sitting in the mud with his legs outstretched. He stares down the shattered street where tanks, guns, cars and trucks have been ground into one charred mass of wreckage by the Russian tank attack.

  Colonel Hinka and Captain von Barring are tottering down the street. They sway like two drunkards. Von Barring is bare-headed. Hinka wears a Russian fur-hat. His greatcoat is black with perspiration and charred. He throws a handful of cigarettes at us.

  ‘So, you’re still alive,’ he says in a tired voice.

  Blood drips from a cut in his forehead, and runs down his cheek. He wipes it off with the back of his hand, only to smear his whole face with it. The red blood and the mud give him a grotesque, almost diabolical appearance.

  A quarter of an hour later we march away. The regiment has suffered terrible losses. Seven hundred killed, eight hundred and sixty-three wounded. Every tank lost. Other regiments have fared no better.

  The fallen lie everywhere. Despite the dirt and mud we can make out different units by the shoulder-tabs. There lie a dozen panzer-jägers, ground to a porridge. The barrel of one gun points straight at heaven like an accusing finger. Shells lie widely scattered.

  Across there, by a burnt-out row of houses, stands a whole battery of 8.8-cm. guns, crushed and flattened by the Russian juggernauts. We stare and stare. It is unbelievable that so many can die in such a short time.

  12

  The winter had come in all its horror, with frost and gales that killed many more than the Russian guns.

  It made men hard and brutal. Terror started, and terror breeds terror.

  We became rabid, blood-thirsty animals. We mocked the dead and shouted jests at the crushed men.

  Knives, Bayonets and Spades

  We are surrounded. We have no tanks. We are again fighting on foot. It snows and snows. The gale races howling over the steppes. Whistles through the thin forests. Puffs the snow into a huge cloud of powder. It puts an icy layer on cannons, machine-guns and small arms. Brings its grim greetings from Siberia.

  A man can do sentry-duty for only one quarter of an hour, then he must be relieved or become a corpse. We weep with frost-pain. In our beards hang icicles. Our nostrils freeze up. Every breath is like a stab of a knife. Take a fur glove off, touch a piece of metal without thinking, and the fingers stick making it impossible to withdraw them without tearing off the skin.

  Gangrene becomes uncomfortably commonplace. Stinking, rotting limbs are a daily sight. Amputation after amputation takes place in the dirty huts which serve as dressing stations: a little bit of leg, a hand, a large piece of leg, another arm, sometimes all at once, other times piece-meal.

  Newsprint has become an expensive black-market commodity. One newspaper fetches fifty cigarettes. It will save you, soldier, from gangrene.

  In the corner is stacked a heap of blue-black gangrened amputated limbs. Even when they are deep-frozen and your nostrils are frozen up, you can detect a faint odour.

  The field-surgeons operate as best they can. A few Hindenburg-candles are often the only light available at operations.

  When one of the wounded dies he is quickly thrown outside. The door opens and shuts quickly to prevent the frost getting in to those who still live.

  The regiment lies in reserve at Petrushki. The completely destroyed regiments have been reinforced with new troops. There is a rumour about new forces being parachuted to us; yes, even about troops from special training colleges in Germany. But not one of us old sweats believes it.

  It looked so nice and cosy on paper. In the Goebbelsrun UFA magazines we were a fine, big army, well equipped with modern arms and trained troops. The truth was sadly different. Our reserves were poorly trained and had poor weapons. The recruits we received had been taught parade-marching and a fine salute according to the army regulations. Many hours had been wasted teaching them the ranks of officers and NCOs. That was of great importance. After all, what would a Prussian depot be without recruits stiffly saluting the brilliantined chair-borne officers who swaggered at home right up to the bitter defeat of the Third Reich?

  Some of these heroes popped up in the prison-camps where they went on playing officers and NCOs. As I write several are strutting about in uniform, crying bombastically about the defence of the Fatherland. It is very comical that we never once saw any of that race at the front, I mean in the front-line where we were able to count the buttons on our enemies’ tunics. All our officers belonged to the reserve and were hatched on hurried courses lasting a few weeks.

  We were now lying near the little village of Petrushki waiting for new arms and cannon-fodder
. The period was shortened by playing pontoon, catching lice, and quarrelling with everybody.

  The Old Un was filling his pipe with the ill-smelling machorka. He had a peculiarly soothing way of doing this. It was almost possible to dream yourself back to a fishing-village by the sea on a moonlit night when the light-house flirted with the calm sea.

  We started to chat as only men who have gone through serious events together can. We chose our words with care. Thick volumes might have been written on the thoughts which lay behind The Old Un’s slow words:

  ‘Children, children.’

  Even the fool Porta with his incessant obscene vocabulary shut up.

  After a moment’s silence. The Old Un said:

  ‘You’ll see, Ivan will throw in the whole of the 42nd Corps here at Cherkassy.’ He puffed out a thick cloud of smoke into the room, put his feet in their clumsy boots on the table littered with greasy pots, sketches of the terrain, handgrenades, a couple of machine-pistols and a half-eaten loaf.

  ‘In my opinion Ivan is very keen on getting his reinforcements together here. His generals are already rubbing their hands together and hoping for another Stalingrad. Mark my words, the whole 4th Army will go to hell in this lousy hole!’

  Porta laughed loudly:

  ‘Well, why not? Sooner or later we’ll all go to hell and salute the devil in proper army fashion: “Heil Hitler! Red Front!”.’

  ‘True, and if a T34 gives you a push in the arse you’ll land right in the devil’s arms.’

  He and Tiny slapped their thighs and laughed.

  ‘Well, maybe we’ll have to dig lead and Kolyma before we reach what you call hell,’ interrupted Möller.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bauer thoughtfully. ‘Maybe we’ll welcome the padre’s hell after Stalin’s. Personally I’ve no wish to be introduced to the country round Kap Deshnev.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to ask what you want,’ grinned Porta. ‘Our colleagues on the other side will serve you with the padre’s hell with the help of a shot from a Nagan, then you can start looking round for the other half of your head. Plenty of blood, brains and boneshavings. That’s what’ll be left. Only your ragged black uniform will show you’re a German tank-soldier. Or maybe they’ll do it a little slower. Maybe they’ll send you to a dirty, cold place behind the Urals, for instance Voenna Plenny, and then after a few years they’ll bash your bones to bits with a rifle-butt or a Nagajka. For you it will be all the same. If you’re lucky you’ll get a bloody great big rock on your head down there in the lead mines. Then it will be curtains, quick and painless.’

  The Old Un sucked heavily at his pipe.

  ‘If we get out of this cauldron, a new one will come soon after. And at last, when the whole rotten lot is finished we’ll be sent east. It’s rotten luck to have been born in filthy Germany just when that paperhanger Adolf decided to imitate Napoleon. If only you could be sure of the people at home.’

  Stege laughed in his own inimitable gurgling and infectious way:

  ‘Well, well, one thing is sure enough. Adolf has lost his war. If we could only destroy the red Nazis along with our brown ones it would be the first time a war had ended in a sensible way.’

  An orderly interrupted our chattering. The Old Un was to go at once to Captain von Barring.

  ‘I smell a rat, dear friends,’ shouted Porta. ‘I, Corporal by God’s grace in the freezing Nazi army, humbly report that The Old Un is going to Barring to have whispered in his ear that our short rest has come to an end. We’re at it again. The 27th Murder and Arson Regiment will again be the lever for the chair-borne strategists. To hell with them!’

  Freezing in his thin grey coat. The Old Un stamped through the snow to von Barring’s quarters, at the other end of the mile-long village. The gale had increased. It raced whining across the blood-soaked Russian soil. With forty degrees of frost it was sheer hell when the snow whipped into our faces. The cold was worse than anything else, except perhaps the lack of sleep.

  Porta was right. After an hour The Old Un returned and announced that our company with the 3rd and 8th were to form a fighting-group and to make a wedge for the regiment in an attempt to break out of the cauldron. Our task was to push towards Terascha and there force an opening. The enemy had dug themselves in in strong-built snow positions. As soon as we reached the village the reinforced No. 5 Company were to clear the enemy forces out quickly. We were to have no help from the artillery. Our only chance lay in a surprise attack by night. Lastly, there was a great shortage of small arms ammunition. The element of surprise was to compensate for our weakness against an enemy with far more troops.

  Colonel Hinka came across and took farewell of us. He shook hands with the three young company commanders. They were not ordinary ‘gold-pheasants’ but officers who had risen from the ranks.

  We had no illusions. We knew our job. It was the only thing they had taught us, but they had taught us that well.

  ‘You know what it’s all about,’ Hinka addressed us. ‘I rely on you and on Captain von Barring, your leader. To make the surprise complete attack will be with fixed bayonets without a single shot fired! Good luck!’

  We went off filled with apprehension. We did not know that the action was to last for days. Neither did we know that only a few from the three companies would get away alive.

  At dusk von Barring attacked the southern end of the village Terascha. The night was moonless and icy cold, and the snow glistened whitely. Yet because of its very severity the weather was our ally.

  All day we had had a camouflaged reconnaissance patrol lying just in front of the Russian positions. Its leader had reported only a weak concentration in front of us.

  Our task was to act as a storming party on the right flank of the fighting-group. Just before we crawled out, Stege whispered:

  ‘One consolation is that we’re on our way to liberty.’

  Nobody answered. Where was liberty really to be found? On both sides the barbed wire and the oppression was the same.

  Every man clung to his weapons and stared into the threatening night. Behind and on both flanks we saw the tracer ammunition. It told us clearly the cauldron was getting smaller all the time. Soon Ivan would have us. The attack was only a last desperate attempt to break out of the trap.

  The orders were whispered carefully from man to man.

  ‘Fixed bayonets! Advance!’

  The companies moved slowly. They were almost invisible in their long snow-shirts.

  The enemy discovered us when we were a few yards in front of their positions, but it was too late. We stormed forward and after a short, furious scrap the position was rolled up. The other sections from the regiment coming in at our heels finished off the last Russians.

  We went forward despite a hefty curtain of fire from the woods west of Selische. We ran forward completely hypnotized by our luck. Porta sprayed the next positions at point-blank range with his hissing flame-thrower. This time too our luck held and we had hardly any casualties.

  When, breathless and exhausted, we reached the Sukhiny-Shenderovka road in the middle of the night, we could clearly hear engines in the direction of Sukhiny. Whispered commands ordered us to shelter by the road-side.

  Every man dug feverishly to make a hole in the snow. We lay behind a couple of anti-tank guns and listened as the engine-noises grew even louder.

  We had not long to wait. An enormous column of huge lorries appeared on the snow-packed road. They trundled past in bottom gear with roaring engines.

  We crouched in silence waiting, savage animals poised to kill coldly and pitilessly what travelled on the road. They were men whose mothers and fathers would be crushed by grief when the message reached them: ‘Your son has fallen in the fight against the Nazi bandits, defending our beloved proletarian country …’

  Was it much different on our side? Did we not have fathers and mothers at home dreading what was in effect the same message: ‘Fallen for the Führer and the Fatherland …’ As if a ridiculous phrase could ever co
nsole a mother who still looked on her son as a boy whatever uniform he wore. How many mothers were to receive this message before we had finished fighting at Cherkassy? Yet the blood-bath there was mentioned in the newspapers and army reports only as ‘a local defensive action in the area near Cherkassy.’

  We judged the trucks to be a unit on its way to the point where we had broken through. Evidently the Russians were ignorant of what had happened.

  The surprise was complete when we opened up with all our automatic weapons at ten yards distance. The first few trucks heeled over and burst into flames. Some of the crews managed to get off a few bursts from their machine-pistols before they were wiped out by the concentrated fire from our weapons.

  Three trucks loaded with mortars were destroyed in a few seconds. One single crew managed to let off all their rounds but the shells exploded far behind us without doing any damage. A couple of survivors who tried to run off were mowed down by our machine-guns.

  At three o’clock in the morning our fighting group again attacked, this time at Novo-Buda. We had not yet heard a single shot from the village.

  Captain von Barring decided we should attack in a scissor-like formation from the north and south, again with the hellish fixed bayonets only.

  We advanced like ghosts on the first sentries at the entrance to the village. I saw Porta and the Little Legionnaire cut the throat of one of the sentries. Tiny and Bauer saw to another. The sentries did not even sigh as their throats were cut from ear to ear. One of them kicked a little in the snow and the blood spurted out of him like a fountain.

  We crawled forward like snakes, as soundless and just as dangerous. In one of the first houses we broke into, led by Porta, we found some sleeping Russians lying on the clay-trampled floor, rolled in their long coats. We were at them like lightning. Breathing heavily, we stabbed furiously with our long combat-knives. My knife sank deeply into the chest of one. He gave a short cry. In desperation I stamped on his white upturned face with its panic-stricken eyes. Time and time again I kicked with my hob-nailed boots what had once been a face.