Winter Warriors s-1

by Stuart Slade

  Through the glass panel in the front of the cape, Lang saw the first Fliegerschreck rockets go out. First, the long streak of the booster, then the wild spiral as the Panzerschreck rocket detached for the final spurt. There was something odd about firing things in stages; it didn’t work very well at all. Lang had heard that the Peenemunde group’s efforts to build two-stage versions of the A-4 had been failures for that reason. They were still trying, still working towards a rocket that could cross the Atlantic and strike at American cities, but the problems were proving intractable. Quietly, one of Lang’s General Staff friends had told him it wasn’t likely that the multi-stage rockets would be anywhere near usable this decade. Looking at the wild gyrations of the Fliegerschrecks, Lang could see why.

  The lead Grizzly, Lang’s target, was already firing. Its first two shells had missed, but the third had hit a half-track down the road. Tracers from the 20mm guns were already surrounding it but they seemed to be brushed off by white monster that was coming for him. Lang took a brief breath and settled down, still tracking the target in his sights. It was so tempting to fire, but Lang resisted it. He waited for the optimum moment. Then, he squeezed the trigger and felt the furnace-like heat seep through the protective cape as the rocket soared away.

  He watched it fly, needle straight, for the Grizzly. Then the second stage separated. It didn’t even have a chance to start spiraling before the time fuse ignited. The rocket exploded almost directly under the starboard engine of the Grizzly. Lang watched the whole nacelle erupt into flames; a brown and red streak stained the sky behind the stricken aircraft as it reared up. Lang saw the propeller detach. It spiralled away and broke up, lashing the fuselage with its fragments. Then, the pilot got the aircraft under control and curved away, still surrounded by the firefly tracers from the 20mm guns. The second Grizzly broke off the attack instantly, moving to cover it’s stricken team-mate. That’s what the Ami jabos did; they covered each other. Normally, there would have been two more aircraft to carry on with the attack on the unit but not this time. The two Grizzlies disappeared; the one trailing smoke quickly losing altitude.

  Land peeled off the cape. The residual heat from the rocket blast stung his hands but he ignored it. There were cheers coming up from the vehicle crews, cheers that lifted Lang’s heart. He saw Sergeant Heim running over to help him with the cape and the clumsy launcher.

  “Well done Sir! Superb shot! May I ask, sir, where did you learn to use a Fliegerschreck?”

  Lang grinned, in relief more than anything else. It was the first time his men had referred to him with anything other than carefully-concealed derision. “I was the adjutant to the head of the team who developed this. It was my responsibility to write the operating manual and to do that I had to know how to use it. I must have fired fifty of these things.” Lang good-humoredly wagged his finger at the sergeant. “Never say that doing one’s paperwork doesn’t have its uses, Sergeant.”

  A-38D Grizzly Hammer Blow Over the Kola Peninsula

  Marosy saw the gray streaks coming straight at his aircraft but that didn’t mean much. If the spirals flew in a straight line, they could be evaded. The Germans had been more cunning than that. There was a flash as the main rocket separated from the booster, then the Spiral started cart-wheeling through the air, There was no way of predicting where it would go so it couldn’t be evaded. A turn could just as easily put the aircraft into the wild gyrations of the spiral as avoid one. It was purely a matter of luck whether the damned thing went into the aircraft or off into the sky. That’s what made the spirals so dangerous.

  This time, the first salvo of spirals exploded well clear of the pair of Grizzlies. Marosy was lining up his aircraft on one of the self-propelled guns at the rear of the column when there was another streak of gray. This one had no time to start spiraling. It was still going straight when it exploded underneath his starboard engine. He felt the lurch as the R-3350 started to fly apart from the damage; heard the crash as the propeller ripped off the shaft and its fragments tore into the fuselage. Much more importantly, he saw the sea of warning lights as the aircraft’s systems started to fail from the damage inflicted by the warhead fragments. There was only one way to interpret those lights; Hammer Blow was finished. The best Marosy could hope for was to put her down somewhere reasonably safe. The worst was that the ruptured fuel lines would feed a mid-air explosion.

  “Don’t look good, boss. We got fire out here.” Bressler’s voice was deadpan.

  “Hitting the extinguishers now.” Marosy thumbed the buttons and glanced sideways. The fire subsided a bit, but not much. At this rate, the main wing spar would fail soon. That would mean Hammer Blow would lose a wing and spin in. A part of his mind recorded that he had broken off his attack and was trying to separate from the column he had just been attacking. Only a remarkably stupid pilot bailed out over the troops he had just strafed. There had been all too many cases of such pilots being killed on the end of their parachutes or being thrown into the burning wreckage of their aircraft. Another part of his mind recorded the streaks of 20mm tracer around him. Once they had been a matter of concern; now they were almost inconsequential compared with the danger he faced from his crippled aircraft.

  “Hammer Blow, this is Lightning Bolt. You better get down fast, the under surface of your wing is falling apart. Fire is spreading in there.”

  “Roger that, Lightning Bolt. We’re losing fuel, oil, structure, ideas and hope. We’re going in as soon as I can see somewhere to do it. Well away from the Krauts.”

  “I hear you, Hammer Blow. We’re ready to do a pick up.”

  Marosy looked out in front. There was some flat ground up ahead. The question was whether he could make it. Hammer Blow was giving up fast; the port R-3350 was overheating with the stress of keeping the aircraft flying. It was a question of whether he would run out of altitude before he could make somewhere a crash landing was possible. The A-38 cleared one ridgeline but doing the next was almost impossible. Abort that, Marosy thought grimly, clearing the next ridgeline was impossible. He swung the nose around, feeling the controls stiffen in his hands. Time was running out.

  The pine trees were the next problem. Hammer Blow couldn’t quite clear the trees as she started to belly in. The tree tops lashed at the windscreen, thundered against the structure of the aircraft, and ripped the port propeller apart. Then, the A-38 flopped on her belly into a long, flat patch of snow. It was soft enough to absorb the impact but the crew were still thrown against their straps by the impact. Something caught the port wing, spinning the aircraft around. The tail broke off, sliding away from the main fuselage while the rest of the aircraft skidded to a stop.

  “Out, out, out!” Marosy yelled. In the back, Bressler knew if he said ‘what?’ he would be talking to himself. He flipped up the aft canopy, heaved himself out and started to run. At some point he had grabbed the walkie-talkie kept in the rear compartment; he had no memory of doing so. By the time he and Marosy got to the treeline, Hammer Blow was already burning furiously. The explosion that destroyed the aircraft was almost an anticlimax by comparison.

  “We’re coming in for a pick-up; be ready to get out fast.” Lightning Bolt’s voice was urgent.

  “Negative on that Lightning Bolt. The snow’s feet thick. If you land, you’ll ground loop. We’re going to have to walk out. We’ll try and link with the partisans.”

  “Roger Hammer Blow. We’ll spread the word. Good luck and God’s Speed.”

  Marosy knew that was the minimum he’d need. If they didn’t meet up with a partisan group, their chance of getting home was slight. “Bressler, time to start walking. North I think.”

  “Sounds good to me. Damned Spirals.”

  Curly Battery B, US Navy 5th Artillery Battalion, Kola Peninsula.

  “Is it safe?”

  The AST AC Major commanding the bridge repair detail stared at the jury rigged repairs, his lips silently moving as he computed the risks. The bridge had been hard-hit by the German railway
guns and the earthquake effects of the big shells meant that its structure had been undermined. Had it been fatally undermined? He didn’t know. His men — and women — had been working all night to get repairs done but were they adequate to take the weight of the great railway guns? He didn’t know that either. Yet the answer to both questions was critical.

  “Is it safe, Tovarish Major?” Commander James Perdue repeated the question. Larry was rigged with explosives. C4 demolition charges were wrapped around the vital parts; the breech was stuffed with split propellant bags. The gunners had managed to squeeze fifteen of the bags in, more than 50 percent more powder than the breech was designed to take. Then they’d taken a sledgehammer to drive the tompion solidly into the end of the barrel. The gun crew had made a lot of rude jokes about that. Meanwhile other demolition teams had been at work on the battery fire control center, rigging it with both C4 and the contents of more propellant bags. The battalion fire control center had been detached and added to Curly’s train, giving the gun both battalion and battery command cars. A number of the magazine cars were empty and they’d been detached to save weight. Curly had been reduced from 14 cars to nine; Moe to eight. The surplus cars were parked on the sidings, also rigged for utter destruction.

  “I think so, yes. But it will be a very near thing. You will send the diesels over first?”

  Perdue shook his head. “Curly goes first, then Moe. Once they’re over we’ll hook passenger cars to the diesels and send as many over as the bridge will take. Each train is going to damage that bridge a bit more and we have to get the heaviest stuff over first. If the bridge goes, whatever is left this side will get blown up as well.” That would include the diesels if they got trapped. They were only shunting engines, intended to move cars around, but they would still be useful to an enemy that was short of rail transport. The partisans had seen to that, they had a talent for devising innovative ways to sabotage steam engines.

  “Very well. I wish you luck Tovarish Commander. My men and I will buy you what time we can.”

  “Tovarish Major, I beg you, please, we need you too much to leave you here. None of my men understand how to repair railway track or work on the lines. We have no knowledge of what the capacities of the tracks are or anything like that. The Hitlerites are all over the place, they may have cut lines, bombed them, shot them up, who knows? If there is damage, we do not know how to repair it. We need you and your men Tovarish; if we are to get these guns out, your experts are vital. And beyond that, skilled railway engineers are worth their weight in gold. Once the bridge has been blown, the fascists will be stuck here for hours anyway. There is little you can achieve by staying here, but there is service of incomparable value you can perform if you come with us. We have room set aside for all your men in the trains. After the miracles they performed last night, we cannot afford to leave you.”

  The AST AC Major looked bewildered at the impassioned appeal. Before he had time to commit himself to a refusal, Lieutenant Commander Enright from Moe cut in. “Tovarish Major, my Commander speaks nothing but the truth. There is a major fascist offensive going on. The damage in the rear areas will be heavy and we all know the railway lines are the first targets. We will need you and your men if we are to get these guns out.”

  Major Boldin looked at the two American Navy officers and sighed. Their appeal made sense and he was under no illusions about how little a group of railway engineers armed only with bolt-action rifles could achieve when fighting a panzer-grenadier unit. It was just that he had his own chain of command to worry about.

  “Very well. I will order my men to cross the river and wait for your trains there. After that, we will ride with you. For my files, please will you give me a written explanation of why we must ride with you?”

  Perdue hid his smile carefully; he had anticipated that. There was still enough of the old days left in Russia to make written orders a valuable commodity. He had already written a paper that explained the problems of getting his guns to safety and how essential the help of the ASTAC unit was. “That can be arranged, Tovarish Major. If you will excuse me for a few minutes I will prepare it for you now.”

  As Perdue went to get the letter, he saw the ASTAC Major telling his work teams they would be riding with the guns, not staying here to fight. The air of general relief was quite unmistakable. Then, Curly’s Mikado engine sounding its whistle drove everything else out of his mind. The trains were about to start moving.

  The bridge looked as shaky as he had suspected. It had been repaired all right, but the work had been done fast and had used whatever materials were available. As the first train had moved up, the ASTAC work team had flooded over the bridge, combining an urge to run for the safety of the other side with a last check on the hasty repairs. Perdue swung up into the Mikado’s cab where the engine crew was getting ready to move off.

  “How do we do this? Get over as fast as we can?”

  The engine driver spat over the side of the cab reflectively. “No Sir. No way, We take this slow and steady. We try to run over and we’ll shake this contraption apart. We take it careful-like and Mike here will get us over.”

  The engine started to move. The strain of towing the 16-inch gun and the rest of it’s consist showed in the faces of the cab crew. They were moved steadily forward and watched their speed pick up slowly. The engineer kept the pressure just right to hold at the correct speed. Perdue could tell when the wheels hit the bridge. The sound changed dramatically and he could feel the structure groaning beneath him. He tore his eyes away from the gauges in the cab and looked out at the river below. Then, he wished he hadn’t. He could see the train swaying on the bridge and, out of the corner of his eye, what looked suspiciously like bits of the bridge structure falling away to splash in the river below. Ahead, the far side of the river seemed to be receding rather than getting nearer. That had to be an illusion didn’t it? They couldn’t be going backwards.

  They weren’t. The sound changed again as the Mikado’s wheels left the bridge and were once more on solid ground. Perdue jumped down as the train started to slow and went over to the ASTAC officer who was watching with anguished anxiety.

  “Well done, Tovarish Major. Your crews did a fine job. We have saved our first gun.”

  Major Boldin smiled weakly. The American Navy officer hadn’t seen the bridge sagging under the train or the supports that had been hammered into place, breaking loose and falling into the river. “Tovarish Commander, can you order your gun to go down the line so we have room for the next. We must hurry, we have little time.”

  Perdue nodded and spoke into the walkie-talkie radio. The other side of the river, Moe‘s train started to move. He could see why the Russian was so worried. The bridge seemed to be stretching under the weight, only there was no ‘seemed’ about it. The track was stretching. It had to, the way the railbed on the trestles was arching downwards. He heard the Mikado starting to strain as it pulled Moe up the slope to the side of the river. The underside of the bridge now dropped a steady rain of fragments into the river. Finally, the train made it, the Americans and Russians joined in a prolonged barrage of cheers. The guns were over, anything else that made it was a bonus.

  The next to try was a diesel shunting engine towing two carriages. The demolition teams were on board those and they had one last job to do before they took the perilous ride over the river. That was to start the fuses on Larry and the rest of the gun site working. Once they’d finished, their diesel started to pull them over. By then, the bridge was clearly on its last legs. It swayed from side to side as well as up and down. The fragments that detached from it were larger, obviously from more than just the track bed. The diesel and its carriages made it, just; it was clear nothing else would. The remaining two diesels and the carriages that were left were going to have to go.

  As if to emphasize the point, there was a despairing groan from the bridge. Then the whole structure started to collapse into the river. The tracks and rails detached as it fell. The roar
of the bridge’s descent was drowned out by a massive explosion from the site that the battery had used for so long. Perdue could see the huge cloud boiling over the hill that separated them from Larry’s explosive demise. It roiled upwards, towering over them, dropping yet more debris into the river that was already three quarters blocked by the remains of the bridge. Unidentifiable objects rained down. Perdue had a nasty feeling they were parts of Larry’s barrel. Then the original explosion was joined by more than a dozen more as the rest of the rolling stock was destroyed.

  “Well, that’s it.” Perdue was as sad as he sounded. It was a hard thing to blow that gun up.

  “Not quite.” The demolition engineer had a nasty grin on his face. When Perdue thought about it, he realized that all demolition men had nasty grins, most of the time. “We left a few surprises for the Nazis.”

  Perdue nodded. Anything to buy time. Then he turned to the AST AC major. “We head east, for Murmansk?”

  “I would recommend not Tovarish Commander. The fascists are coming through that way, a right flanking move. They will cut the line soon. We should go west. We can go that way, then pick up a spur line that will take us to the northern trunk line.”

  “There isn’t a spur line on this map.”

  Major Boldin grinned. This day was his. The bridge had held for the two vital trains, he’d got his people out with all the paperwork to justify it and now he knew something the American did not. “Of course not, Tovarish Commander. To put all our railway lines on a map the fascists may capture? I think not. There are some lines that are not shown on these maps and some that are shown do not exist. That is why we always have guides on trains that are heading off the main routes.”

  “Very well. West it is.” Perdue turned around; he just couldn’t resist the chance. He waved his arm like an old-fashioned wagon train guide and gave the time-honored order, “Wagons West!”