The rockets had come from somewhere down here, following the line of the river, but there were many small loops and dents in the riverbank where anything might be concealed in the snow and the dark.
We prowled around one such bay, unable to see anything. I kept an eye on the fuel gauge, making sure that we could had enough in reserve to get back to the bridge. We went on for several kilometres like this, with me hoping fervently that Helmann’s famously sharp eyesight was good enough to pick out features in the landscape, and not send us crashing down the bank into the freezing water. The bank was fringed in places with tall, spindly rushes white with frost, and these formed screens around some of the bays and inlets. There could have been half the Red Army hiding in some of those places, and no German would have seen them until daylight.
Just as I told Helmann that we were reaching the limit of our fuel, he ordered me to steer 45 degrees, go twenty metres and then cut the engine. I did so, and the sudden quiet was broken by the clang of contracting steel in the engine bulkhead, and the moan of the wind over the hull. I could hear Helmann giving quiet, urgent commands to Wilf on the 88mm, and Kurt was hunched over his MG beside me, squinting out to try to see what was ahead. I could see only a screen of those frozen rushes, and some distant fires on the German-held side of the river.
‘There,’ Helmann said. ‘A cigarette glow.’
He had good eyes. There was a glow, very faint, among the reeds, and in the slanting snowflakes, there was a dark outline in the river beyond.
‘Fire a white flare,’ Helmann ordered me.
The flare pistol was in a fire-proof box on the hull wall behind me. I primed it with the utmost care, because the effect of a magnesium flare shooting around in our compartment, spitting out flames, would be far worse than an MP 40 going off accidentally. I opened the hatch, aimed the pistol over the river, and fired.
‘Holy scheisse,’ Kurt said.
We all uttered something similar. The small flare exploded at about 200 metres height, and as it swayed down, its luminous glow showed up a large, raft-like boat in the rushes, fitted with machine guns on the bow and a rack of steel tubes on the hull, pointing directly downriver at the bridge.
The crew saw us as soon as we saw them, and they froze for a moment, in their Russian fur caps, quilted tunics and excellent felt boots. The crew was about a dozen men, engaged in the process of loading more Katyusha rockets onto the firing racks. The idiot who had been smoking on the bank was caught like a rabbit in headlights, his ragged cigarette still in his mouth.
Behind him, the boat crew dropped the rockets and grabbed their guns, but Wilf and Kurt were firing their MGs into the boat, ripping steel plates out of its hull. A moment later, Wilf fired high-explosive, and the round hit the bow, sending the MG position flying and dumping the rocket launcher tubes over on their sides.
Small arms fire smacked into our front plate as I started the engine and advanced a few metres towards the bank, with our 88mm firing two more rounds of shrapnel burst. The Red soldiers were thrown into the water, or flung onto the reeds along the bank, their bodies issuing smoke and flames. In the blast, a Katyusha rocket exploded, and then another – and in seconds the whole boat was gone, replaced by a faint outline on the water surface, full of flames. Its bow broke off and drifted away, trailing fire until it vanished into the falling snow.
‘But how many more are there?’ Helmann muttered.
‘Our fuel is at minimum, sir,’ I said.
He cursed. ‘Then we will take a prisoner if one of these is alive. He will tell us their disposition. Hull gunner, go and see if there is a live one.’
Kurt grunted and took the hull MP40, clambering up into the howling wind. In the bright light of the burning Russian boat, I saw him approach the various smouldering bodies carefully, and prod them with his gun. On one body, he leaned down and pulled the man’s felt boots off, a sought-after trophy if they were new and the right size.
He looked around some more, in the light of the blazing boat now sinking onto the river bed, the water steaming around it. He shook his head.
He came back to the panzer, and as he approached, he looked at me through the vision block, waving his new felt boots triumphantly. No prisoners, but a warm pair of feet for the night. Then his head was shattered, and parts of his skull and brains spurted sideways against the flames. Liquid from his head splattered over my vision block, tinted a violent red by the light, and other spurts came from his throat and chest as bullets pierced his torso. Kurt sprawled down under the front plate of the Tiger and disappeared from my view.
Not Kurt.
Big, ugly Kurt.
Behind him, the Ivan who had given away his comrades’ location stood with his machine pistol steaming, trying to change the magazine, his crumpled cigarette still between his lips.
‘Run him down, driver,’ Helmann ordered.
‘Kurt is in front of the panzer,’ I said.
‘He is dead. Run down that Ivan now.’
‘But Kurt is in front of the panzer.’
Helmann swore, and the Russian swayed on his feet, looking drunk or stunned – probably both. The cupola hatch opened, and there was a one-second burst of MP40. The Russian span around, and crumpled into the reeds.
We put Kurt on the hull top, and returned slowly to the bridge bunkers, although I was not at all sure what we were going to do with his body. In the end, I put the plundered felt boots on Kurt’s feet, and we buried him in a snowdrift on the river bank, smoothing the snow over his shattered face. Helmann said a few words.
‘This man died to defend Europe from the threat of Russia, and to defend the Reich from Bolshevism and destruction. That is the highest duty of a German man. We are all proud of him.’
Then we took the Russian prisoner woman back into our Tiger, and took one of the Tiger crew who had lost their vehicle, to serve as a replacement radio man and hull gunner. After that, we waited for the dawn, when the Reds would come to the crossing point.
*
Around two in the morning, with the wind rising and falling over our armour plate, I fell asleep for a few minutes. I was back in our apartment in Munich, at the kitchen table, and my mother was heating milk on the stove to make Pfannkuchen, the pancakes with little webs of melted sugar. My father was reading the evening paper, and my sister was teasing me because a girl at school had sent me a note under the desk.
Then the memory came of the apartment block flattened by the bombing, a great pyramid of rubble, full of multi-coloured blocks from the wallpaper and the paint inside the many rooms. My family were under there, somewhere.
‘I speak German.’
The voice was very close to me, and it seemed a strange thing for someone to be saying in Munich, even in a dream.
I said, ‘What?’
‘I speak German.’
It was a faint whisper.
I opened my eyes.
The controls of the Tiger loomed up in front of me, lit by the faint turret lamp. The wind was making a horrendous noise over the hull, and for a moment I thought I mistook its sound for someone’s voice. Over the bulkhead, our new radio man appeared to be asleep with his face against the hull wall.
‘I speak German.’
It was the Russian woman speaking to me, in German, from behind my seat position, with her mouth very close to my ear. I could feel her breath.
‘Do you understand me?’ she whispered.
I nodded, reaching for the MP40 beside me.
‘Your commander is out of the vehicle,’ she whispered, so faintly that I could barely hear her over the wind. ‘And the other crew are asleep now.’
‘Who are you?’ I said.
‘I don’t want to burn.’
‘I asked who you are.’
‘I’m not important. I have no knowledge of anything important. But this tank will burn when the Soviets attack. I don’t want to burn in here.’
Our radio/MG man grunted in his sleep, and I heard Wilf and the pilot moving i
n the turret. Were they asleep, perched on their narrow seats, or were they working on the gun? Could they hear anything over the howl of the wind? Was Helmann really out of the panzer?
I turned to look at the woman behind me. She was straining forward, one hand chained again to the turret ring. Yes, if the Tiger caught fire, she would be trapped in the hull, chained to its carcass. Helmann would rather let that happen than risk his valuable asset on the lawless paths of the retreat.
‘How do you know German?’ I whispered.
‘I have an education,’ she said. ‘Please don’t let me burn. You’re a good man.’
I turned away from her, and stared at the snow through the vision block.
A good man?
Was she right about that?
The same month that my family were killed in the bombing, I shot a British prisoner in Sicily. At Kharkov, I watched while my unit burned the peasants’ houses and drove them away with rifle butts, leaving the dead scattered in the fields. At Kursk, I saw our shells land on a Russian ambulance convoy, and smash it to nothing.
Once, I waited in my Tiger while Polish civilian prisoners filled craters in a road in front of us. Those that died were thrown into the holes among the earth and rocks, and then we drove forward over the new road.
How was I a good man?
‘Go to sleep,’ I said. ‘The battle will come soon enough.’
I heard her settle back against the turret cage, her chain clinking.
Outside, the wind was dropping slightly, and the snowfall was becoming thinner. Helmann came back in, and kicked the radio operator to wake him. They began trying the radio frequencies, seeking to raise Divisional command. Helmann glanced at the Russian woman as he leaned over the radio man’s shoulder, then at me.
‘Did she cause any trouble?’
‘No, Herr Ober.’
I kept quiet after that. I didn’t tell him that the girl spoke German. After all, her time with the interrogators would come soon enough, and there was no sense in complicating our situation in the panzer. That’s what I told myself.
*
We had no further sleep, and my drowsy memory of home faded like smoke. Helmann’s contact with Divisional command became animated, then heated, and finally optimistic. I heard him talking about a regiment of Panthers arriving at dawn, about a Nebelwerfer rocket mortar unit that would decimate any Russian attack, about squadrons of cannon-Stukas that would hold off a rush on the crossing point.
Finally, he called me, Wilf, the other two Tiger commanders and the Flak wagon boys together in the artillery bunker. The lights in there had failed, and a single kerosene lamp hung from the concrete roof. The artillery officer was there, and also the commanders of the six Panther tanks that were dug in along the approaches.
‘Midday,’ Helmann said. His cat-like grey eyes glinted with ferocity. ‘The Divisional command assures me that by midday tomorrow, we will have massed German armour on the western bank. There will be Panthers, Stugs and a Nebelwerfer rocket battery at the minimum; possibly 88mm PAK and more Tigers from fresh regiments. The Reds will never be able to cross against us here, with all that armour. We must hold the Reds off from the bridge until then – only until midday. We will guard the movement of the last of our forces across the river. When our armour comes, we ourselves will withdraw across the bridge and blow it. The Reds will be stuck here on this side, unable to cross against us, while our defences build up in the plain to the west. In this way will safeguard the plateau to the west, and ultimately the frontier of the Reich.’
‘So we are to be heroes,’ the artillery officer said in a flat voice. ‘Just until midday. Very well, this appears to be our destiny. The bridge is fitted with aircraft bombs all along its superstructure, inside the columns themselves. I will set a timing mechanism to detonate them at midday. Nothing can then prevent the demolition or delay it. Even if we are all killed, the bombs will still blow at 12.00.’
Helmann expressed his approval of this plan.
‘But what about your prisoner,’ the artillery man said, ‘your valuable asset?’
The Panther commanders looked at Helmann with interest.
‘We have a valuable prisoner?’ one of them said. ‘Where is he?’
‘The prisoner is in my Tiger and will remain there,’ Helmann said, adjusting his cap. ‘When we withdraw over the bridge, and the situation to the west is stabilised, I will hand the prisoner to the correct intelligence officers. The prisoner is an asset and cannot be allowed to go to the west in this confused situation at present.’
‘You keep a prisoner in your vehicle during a battle, Herr Oberleutnant?’ the Panther man said, genuinely mystified. ‘That is unorthodox.’
‘The prisoner is nobody’s concern but mine. Your concern is holding the bridge, gentlemen,’ Helmann said. His persona was very powerful; more than a product of his rank, he radiated audacity and determination, and a feline cleverness that inspired confidence. ‘We hold until midday – or we fall in the attempt. We must be ready for the attack at any time, before dawn possibly. I know for a fact that the eyes of the Division, of the highest authorities, of Germany itself are on this bridge today.’
At his throat, his Iron Cross gleamed in the kerosene light.
*
In fact, the assault began at dawn itself, as the light paled slightly, showing the transformed landscape outside our Tiger. I opened the hatch and peered out at the sight.
Our three Tigers were positioned in a triangle around the approach to the bridge, facing the rising ground that we had retreated down the day before. The entire slope, stretching several kilometres north and south along the banks, and for a kilometre up to the ridge, was a perfect sheet of white, crossed in places by the tracks of the straggling vehicles and men hurrying down through the snow to the river. The snow was some two metres deep, as Kurt had predicted. In places, drifts of several metres had built up against abandoned trucks or on the boulders that dotted the area.
In front of our Tigers, spread to left and right, were the six Panthers and two Panzer IV tanks, dug into scrapes in the ground and now up to their hull tops in snow. They practised reversing out of their emplacements, to ensure they could manoeuvre if needed, and then settled in again, the air above their engines distorted with sudden heat.
Behind us, the two concrete bunkers that covered the bridge access had two 75mm PAK guns in embrasures, and multiple MG points in loopholes. There were various 20mm single Flak guns in sandbagged posts to either side. Behind the bunkers, there was a mortar platoon, and then, dug in along the river sides, shivering and hunched, were several platoons of infantry pulled together as a scratch unit. These were our remaining Panzergrenadiers, plus dismounted panzer crews, artillery men with only rifles, all thrown together in sandbagged trenches to await the onslaught. Our friendly Flak Wagon was sited among them, its four cannons raised skyward in readiness.
The bridge was still streaming with foot-soldiers and vehicles – many in bad shape, with frozen faces and barely able to walk, having struggled through the snow to escape the advancing Reds. We questioned many of them, and they told us of massed lines of heavy armour, Katyushas and ferocious infantry that took no prisoners.
I felt little emotion, watching them pass under our gun barrel. If I was mourning Kurt, I was doing it in a secret part of my heart that even I couldn’t feel. I felt numb and indifferent, and I wanted to get the fighting over.
As the emerging light showed up the contours of the slope in front of us in a mauve-coloured relief, I saw a final Panzer IV appear at the top of the ridge and begin trying to make its way down to us. I focussed my binoculars on it. It evidently had engine trouble, as it was belching oil smoke and its front transmission covers were open.
‘Come on, poor little friend,’ my new MG man said on my right. ‘Come to breakfast.’
We were all sucking on pieces of dried fruit from packets we had picked up in the retreat. I gave a packet to the Russian woman behind me, and she looked into m
y eyes as she raised it to her mouth with her chained hands. Looking up again at that lame-duck Panzer IV on the ridge, I squinted as a series of shapes appeared on the skyline above it.
They were tiny, box-shaped objects, vehicles of some sort, mounted on lengthy skis and driven – I realised as more of them appeared on the ridge – by an aero propeller facing to the rear. Some kind of motorised sled, crude but perfectly suited to travelling on the snow, they raced over the white surface with an ease that made a mockery of the Panzer IV’s stumbling progress. Five in total, they swooped and glided across the snow, descending on the German panzer like hyenas surrounding a wounded animal.
‘Hold your fire,’ Helmann ordered. ‘Save our shells for the Stalins. That panzer is no use to us anyway.’
It was cruel, but it was necessary. All our panzers, short on ammunition, held fire – even the PAK in the bunkers behind us, who would be key in holding back the Stalin machines when they appeared. So it was that we stood and watched as the motorised sledges surrounded the panzer on the high slope, dodging its feeble MG fire, until one sled got close enough to get in behind the panzer’s rear plate. The sledge gave out a flash, and a sparking projectile flew out to strike the Panzer IV in the back hull. This was an infantry anti-tank rocket, no doubt – the type the Americans called the bazooka and we called the Panzerfaust. A hollow-headed explosive charge that could smash a hole in almost any armour. I saw the impact rip off the panzer’s exhaust cover and send it whirling across the snow, and then the rocket detonated inside the engine compartment, blowing open the grilles in a shower of flames and smoke.
The panzer halted and rotated its turret rapidly, firing off long bursts of MG from the gun mantle as it ground to a halt, but the motor sledges were fast and kept away from the arc of fire. As flames spread from the engine to the lower hull, and the running gear was blazing with gasoline fire, the panzer crew jumped from the hatches and began running towards us down the slope. Even had we been allowed to fire now, it would have been impossible to aim between the running men in their dark overalls and the sleds that chased them and toyed with them as they fled. One crewman fired an MP40, but the prows of the Russian machines seemed to be armoured, as the bullets had no effect – and he was cut down under the skis, his body left crumpled in the snow. One by one, the other crew were run down by these strange, armoured sledges, their rear-facing propellers whirling and their skis slicing like sabres across the surface.
Tiger Tracks - The Classic Panzer Memoir Page 10
