Death's Head

by Leo Kessler

  Five minutes later Schwarz burst into the hut, the sweat pouring down his face, his eyes wild with excitement. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he cried, forgetting to use von Dodenburg’s rank in his haste. “Where the devil have you been all the time?”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “Great news – great news. We’re marching in an hour! The orders have just come in from Division.” Von Dodenburg grabbed his helmet and buckled on his pistol.

  “Come on Schwarz, let’s go!”

  Outside, NCOs were blowing their whistles. Officers were yelling orders. The men were hurriedly packing their bedrolls and flinging them onto the tanks’ decks. All was ordered confusion. But in the dark cool hut, the old man with the beard continued to giggle. “You’ll find out, German,” he said. “You’ll find out.”

  Notes

  1. The German national anthem.

  2. Popular contemptuous nickname for Hitler.

  3. District of Hamburg in which a famous lunatic asylum is situated.

  4. Huts

  TWO

  It was nearly dawn.

  Cautiously, von Dodenburg’s tanks rolled over the log road which bridged the swamp, throwing long shadows on the mud in the fading moonlight. There was no sound save the rusty squeak of their tracks and the marsh grass gurgling on both sides of them. Once a green verey light hissed into the sky a couple of hundred metres away and bathed them in its sickly light. But still the Russians did not appear to have spotted them.

  Nobody spoke a word. Their heads were bent to one side, ears straining to catch the least sound. Up on the turret of the lead tank von Dodenburg and the Vulture searched the track for any gaps. Both knew the vital importance of getting across before dawn. The whole drive of the Eleventh Army across the Perekop Isthmus depended upon their establishing a bridgehead on the other side before the Russians became aware that the Manstein Army had gone over to the offensive. The narrow Isthmus which linked the Crimean Peninsula to the mainland was surrounded on both sides by a salt marsh which was completely impassable. It was not even possible to get across it in an infantry dinghy, especially in daylight under Russian fire. Ahead of them the two young volunteers from von Dodenburg’s company, walking backwards through the heavy gloom, swung their blue torches back and forth to show that the way was still clear. Twice in the last hour, small sections of the log track had been missing and the two officers had sweated blood as the Mark IVs had edged their way across the gaps, with the remaining logs on either side slowly sinking into the stinking mire below. But luck had been on their side up to now and the marsh had opened its greedy maw in vain.

  The minutes passed slowly. Schulze had taken over the driving himself and on the turret they could hear him cursing in his broad waterfront accent as he moved the tillers back and forth trying to keep the tank on course in the darkness. In spite of the night chill, von Dodenburg found himself sweating. He wiped his brow and whispered, “It can’t be much further, sir!”

  “I hope to God you’re right. The Popovs’ll massacre us if they catch us out here in the open. No room to manoeuvre. We’re absolutely like sitting…” A shrill scream broke into his words. Schulze put his foot on the brake and hauled the tiller bars back. The tank came to a stop. “What was that?” the Vulture snapped. “The right light! It’s gone out!”

  The man carrying the other light hurried out of the gloom. “Sir,” he cried. “It’s Stefan!” Von Dodenburg recognized the boy. He was one of their new ‘Folk German’ recruits from Rumania – the old hands of the Battalion sneered at them as ‘booty Germans’1.

  “What is it, Dudeck?”

  “Stefan, he’s fallen in the swamp,” the boy stammered in his strange foreign-sounding German. “Listen, sir.” A cry rang out from the gloom ahead and there was a sucking, slapping noise, as if the young soldier was fighting to stay on the surface.

  Von Dodenburg grabbed the side of the turret, but the Vulture grabbed him before he could spring out. “Stay there,” he commanded.

  “But sir, we must help the poor bastard!” he protested.

  “You can’t. These marshes are bottomless. You’ll suffer the same fate yourself if you venture one foot off the track.”

  “But we can’t just let…” He broke off as the soldier in the marsh screamed. “My God, he mustn’t die like that!”

  “He must,” the Vulture said coldly. “The success of our mission can’t be risked on account of some peasant boy from the back of beyond. You,” he bent down to the other young soldier, “get back to your post. I’ll take the other side.” He flicked on the torch attached to his tunic. “All right, von Dodenburg, roll them again. I’m going out there.” Without waiting for any further protest he dropped silently on to the soft ground and doubled ahead into the gloom. Von Dodenburg kicked Schulze’s shoulder. Schulze rammed home the gear. The tank started to rumble forward again, following the two blue lights winking ahead in the gloom.

  It was dawn. The Nogay Steppe glowed in the ruddy hue cast by the sun, poised like a red ball on the far horizon. The view, uninterrupted by a single hill, not even a tree, was boundless, losing itself in infinity. Von Dodenburg lowered his binoculars and rubbing his unshaven chin wearily, asked: “What do you make of those poles in the distance, sir?” The Vulture yawned, showing the gold teeth at the back of his mouth. “The old Anglo-Iranian telegraph line built by Siemens in the 1900s,” he answered. “Otherwise not one thing to be seen far and wide, eh?”

  Von Dodenburg nodded.

  All around, the tankers and the attached grenadiers were stretching themselves, smoking, conversing in low tones, their tired eyes taking in the boundless steppe with its telegraph posts standing out like ghostly sign posts.

  “Excellent tank country,” the Vulture commented. “All the same, it’ll pay to move forward in open order. One cannot overrule the possibility that the Popovs are out there somewhere. We’ll head for the village of Preobrazhenka.” He tapped his map. “Two hours’ march away if this is correct. We’ll group there, eat and then move off in the general direction of Parpach.” He stroked his monstrous nose for a second. “It would be better if you took the point with your company, von Dodenburg, and take six halftracks of grenadiers with you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Five minutes later they set off, the tanks in open order, flanked on both sides by the half tracks, the grenadiers ready to drop to the steppe at the first sign of trouble. To their front the sun was rising, blinding them, making it impossible to see directly ahead. Schulze had come up on to the turret again and the two of them searched the steppe carefully. “I’ve got a funny tingling in my fingers, sir,” Schulze said warily, his back to von Dodenburg, “and it ain’t rheumatics.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s something out there, but I’ll be buggered if I can make out what it is!”

  Von Dodenburg laughed. “Imagination. Schulze! Yer getting a bit too old for this kind of thing.”

  “I’ll take an immediate posting to the Veterinary Corps, sir,” he snapped. “I’ve got a way with animals – after all I’ve been over a year in the Wotan.” But there was no humour in his voice, and his hand shook a little as he raised to his eyes to shade them from the sun.

  Thirty minutes later a handful of horsemen appeared far off to their right. Before von Dodenburg could bring his glasses to bear upon them they had vanished like grey ghosts, as speedily and silently as they had come. But he knew what they signified. He pressed his throat mike and spoke to all vehicles. “Here Dora One

  Here Dora One. Now get this! …Popovs to our right…three o’clock. Do you read me? Popovs to our right?”

  They had been spotted by Soviet scouts.

  It was now nearly six. Already the sun was high in the sky. But they had no eyes for the beauty of the morning. Their wary eyes were fixed on the dark low outline of the little village of Preobrazhenka, directly to their front. While his tanks deployed in open order, with the armoured grena
diers to their rear, von Dodenburg surveyed it carefully through his binoculars.

  The ramshackle collection of straw-roofed isbas seemed all right. Here and there the first thick smoke of the morning fires was streaming straight up into the sky. A couple of dark figures moved around slowly and with early-morning doggedness. In the sudden silence, now that their motors were no longer roaring, he could hear the geese cackling and far away a dog howling. It seemed a typical early morning rural scene.

  He licked his lips. Should he go on? Was he walking into a trap? He knew that Geier was only a couple of kilometres to his rear with the rest of the Battalion, but could he risk a showdown with the Russians before the follow-up infantry division had crossed the Perekop Isthmus? What if he advanced into a trap and the Ivans cut through him and caught the infantry in the middle of their crossing? A wrong move now might endanger the whole success of the operation.

  “What are we going to do, sir?” Schulze asked. “Me guts is beginning to do flip-flops with hunger. I wouldn’t mind getting in there and feeding the inner pigdog.” Schulze’s comment made up his mind for him. The men hadn’t eaten anything for nearly fifteen hours now. In the village they would be able to take a break and heat up a bowl of soup at least. “Move out,” he ordered and waved his hands three times in rapid succession – the cavalry signal for advance.

  The tank motors roared.

  “Drive in open order,” he yelled through the throat mike.

  The tank commanders needed no urging. There had been something uncanny about the steppe since they bad spotted the Soviet cavalry scouts. Here and there the more fearful pulled down their turret covers and everywhere the gunners stood by their 75mms.

  Five hundred metres – four hundred – three hundred. Nothing disturbed the tranquil picture of a village coming to life. Two hundred metres. A long line of dirty-white sheep started to stream from the tumbledown collection of straw huts. Von Dodenburg, standing upright in the turret, knowing he was being a fool, yet ignoring the danger from snipers in order to inspire confidence in the young reinforcements, began to relax. Preobrazhenka seemed to be all right. As the ragged peasant driving the sheep came level with him, he tightened his grip on his Schmeisser all the same and cried: “Schrastje!”2

  “Schrastje!” the shepherd grunted and looked up at the German officer, black eyes slanted in a dirty yellow face.

  Von Dodenburg looked him up and down, ascertaining whether his dirty rags concealed any weapon. “Your sheep – get them off the road – Davai!” The peasant nodded sullenly and bellowed at the sheep, encouraging the lead animal to get on to the verge with a kick in its ribs.

  “Obviously an animal lover,” Schulze said. “He’ll twist his knickers if he goes on like that.”

  While the Russian cleared the animals out of the way von Dodenburg pressed his throat mike and gave his orders: “Tanks stay here – panzer grenadiers up to the front!” The half track drivers pressed down on their accelerators and rattled forward, the grenadiers hanging grimly on to the shaking metal sides.

  Von Dodenburg turned to Schulze as the leading half-track came level with him. “You take over here, I’m going to have a look at the village with the grenadiers.”

  Schulze opened his mouth to object but von Dodenburg cut him short. “If there’s trouble, Father Schulze, you can come and get me out.”

  Schulze mumbled something about some people ‘losing their eggs if they weren’t sewn up in their sacks’, but did as he was ordered, while von Dodenburg sprang on to the waiting halftrack. He gave the hand signal to advance and the six halftracks moved off.

  With a hefty kick, von Dodenburg smashed open the door of the first isba. A smell of unwashed bodies, black Russian tobacco, boiled cabbage and misery greeted him. Clasping the machine pistol firmly, he searched the hut for any sign of the enemy.

  But the civilians cowering in the gloom at the back of the hut were not to be feared. They were nothing but bundles of rags, scarecrows, their angular bones and stringy flesh showing through the holes in their clothing, their hands raised in the gesture of mercy.

  “Don’t be scared, little mother,” one of the ‘booty Germans’ said. “We mean no harm.”

  “Ask them if there are any Russian soldiers here?” But they could get nothing out of them. Feeling ashamed at having frightened them so much, von Dodenburg dug his free hand in his pocket and tossed them a bar of ration chocolate.

  The next isba was no different: an old Babuschka, her toothless face withered like a mummy’s shrunken skull with hard work and the harsh sun, and a couple of pot-bellied, half naked children, tears streaming from their fearful eyes. Again they flung the bitter, dope-filled ration chocolate onto the floor and backed out. For some reason the filthy children did not grab the chocolate.

  Von Dodenburg wrinkled up his nose and looked at the young lieutenant in charge of the Panzer Grenadiers. “What a shitty pong everywhere!”

  The officer, who had joined the Battalion from Bad Toelz two weeks before, shrugged. “Sub-human, they are. Like swine in shit. What can you expect…” There was a sudden sharp crack like a branch breaking underfoot in a wood. The Lieutenant’s mouth fell open and the rest of his sentence ended in a soft groan. He began to sink slowly to the floor, as if his legs had given way. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” von Dodenburg said. A burst of machine-gun fire not fifty metres away answered his question. The ‘booty German’ plummeted forward and lay writhing in the dust. The man next to him pitched forward, a line of holes suddenly punched along his face. Dark yellow faces with slant eyes appeared at the glass-free windows of the huts. The whole rear half of the village was full of Russian soldiers! Von Dodenburg flung himself into the dust next to the dead Lieutenant and loosed a wild burst at the nearest isba. “Down,” he yelled. “Get sodding well down!”

  Throwing themselves among the writhing bodies of their comrades, they began to answer the Soviet fire.

  Scores of bandy-legged, little men in earth-coloured uniforms burst out of the huts and charged shoulder-to-shoulder towards the SS men trapped in the centre of the square.

  Beside himself with anger at having walked into the trap, von Dodenburg sprang to his feet, legs thrust wide apart, machine pistol tucked into his hip. “Standfast!” he yelled above the noise of the bullets. He pressed the trigger and the nearest Russian fell dead. The man next to him stumbled and the long bayonet of the man behind him went through his chest. He screamed and the two of them fell in a tangled mess. “Grenades!” von Dodenburg roared.

  Potato mashers sailed through the air. One – two – three – four. They exploded into the Russians’ front line. At that distance the young Grenadiers couldn’t miss. A body somersaulted through the smoke and landed just in front of them. And then the tanks were among them, their drivers even running over their own dead, as Sergeant Schulze in the lead tank urged them forward, his radio crackling with invective, the Mark IV’s glacis dripping with the blood of the dying sheep.

  “As soon as the firing opened up, that cunning sod of a shepherd drove the fucking sheep right at us,” Schulze said. “Thought he was being smart. They’d attached tank grenades to them.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Drove right through them. One of the lads bought it. But nobody was badly hurt.”

  Von Dodenburg put his helmet back on and rose to his feet wearily. “Thank you, Schulze. That was a bit of quick thinking.” Schulze’s dirty face broke into a grin. “That’ll be five marks fifty, sir,” he said.

  An hour later, the Vulture gave the order for them to move on towards Parpach. With Schwarz’s company in the lead, the tanks rattled through the ruined village towards the east and the long drive into the unknown that lay before them.

  Notes

  1. Beutedeutsche, a contemptuous name given to volunteers for the SS formations from the German minorities in countries such as Hungary, Jugoslavia, Rumania, etc.

  2. Roughly, “hello”.

  THREE

>   In the years to come the incident at the village would stand out in von Dodenburg’s mind as a turning point in the war. Up to then the war had been no different from the wars he had read about as a young cadet at Bad Toelz. In 1939, in Poland, the Polish generals had ridden out to meet them and surrender on horseback, complete with flag bearer and trumpeter like something out of a romantic battlefield painting of the nineteenth century. Belgium in 1940 had been little different; the commandant of Eben-Emael had even worn a sword. In France the British had bedded down punctually at six o’clock for the day, as if one ran a war according to a timetable. Undoubtedly they also had a break for afternoon tea.

  But Russia was different. There was something horrifyingly elemental about it, as if it were being fought by two naked savages; as if the rule book had never even been written.

  After the counter-attack at Parpach, when they had retaken the key town in bitter hand-to-hand fighting, they had discovered two hundred German prisoners in the courtyard of the local police barracks, the backs of their heads blown away by the pistols of the KVD. At Kerch it had been even worse. One of the Bodyguard’s patrols, searching the seashore for boats, found two corpses floating on the surface. They were both officers of the Bodyguard, their hands tied to their backs, their severed genitals stuffed in their mouths.

  Nor were the Russians any different when it came to their own civilians. As Manstein’s Army pushed closer to Sevastopol, the feared Russian Katyuska mortars – ‘Stalin’s Organs’, the troops called them – systematically destroyed village after village in the path of the invaders in accordance with their scorched earth policy; and to make doubly sure that nothing was left for the Germans, they sent wave after wave of Stormovik dive-bombers to finish off the job. As Wotan’s tanks ploughed a path through the smoking rubble, they rolled past the scarecrow bodies of the barefoot peasants sprawled everywhere in the rubble of their isbas. “If you ask me, sir,” Schulze said as they drove through yet another destroyed village, “the whole fucking Crimea is one big cemetery!” And as the days passed, with the fighting getting ever more severe, it seemed to von Dodenburg that Schulze wasn’t far from wrong.