Cauldron of Blood

by Leo Kessler

  ‘You’ll get your bellyful of old Ivan before yer finished, sonny boy, believe you me,’ the old man said stolidly.

  ‘Ay, that he will!’ a half-dozen gruff voices agreed.

  ‘I order you to move out of the way!’

  The man barring the way laughed hollowly. ‘Order! The only officer giving orders here, is the Fireball, sonny boy!’

  The young officer’s nerve broke. ‘Driver,’ he cried, voice shrill with overwhelming rage. ‘Advance!’

  ‘I’m warning you—’

  The driver let go of the clutch. The steep prow of the Panther smashed into the hurdle, scattering it in half-a-dozen pieces to both sides of the road. The Panther started to rumble forward. The sentry sprang to one side. He didn’t hesitate. Almost automatically he pressed his trigger. The schmeisser chattered. A stream of white tracer cut the darkness. The young lieutenant screamed. His spine arched like a taut bow and he fell across the front of his turret.

  Task Force Peiper had suffered its first casualty....

  *

  Now the little convoy was approaching the area where the Russians had to be dug in. Up ahead was the vague blur of the high bank. Obviously they would have men up there, but undoubtedly they would have already sited a couple of outposts at the bank’s base too.

  Peiper pressed his throatmike. ‘To all crews. Button up now. Keep well spaced. We’re running—’

  The rest of his words were drowned by a tremendous explosion to his rear, which flung him against the front of the turret. For one long moment the sky was as light as day, as explosion after explosion rent the night stillness, and angry red flame ripped the darkness apart.

  Peiper cursed. Fireball had been true to his word. He had blown the damned bridge. Now they were cut off too. But at this moment what was more important was that the explosions must have alerted the Ivans. He pressed the throatmike again.

  ‘All right, boys, no use playing cat and mouse now. The Popovs will be waiting for us. So let’s hit hard where it hurts most — in the eggs! Over and out!’

  At top speed the little group of Panthers, spread out now in battle formation, long overhanging cannon waving from side to side, ready for the first sign of trouble, rattled towards the stark black incline, still silent and ominous, though Peiper had the eerie feeling that they were being watched all the time.

  ‘Driver, you ready?’ he rapped through the intercom. ‘Yes sir. The old trick?’

  ‘Right.’

  Now Peiper’s tank started to draw ahead of the others, so that they were drawn out in a flying arrow formation with the command Panther at the point. The ridge grew ever closer. Peiper could already make out the lines of firs which marked its summit like a regiment of spike-helmeted Prussian Guards on the march. Eyes narrowed to slits, he swung the periscope from side to side, searching the gloom for the Ivans who he knew had to be there.

  A soft thud, muted by the noise the tracks made. ‘Enemy fire ten o’clock!’ the driver’s scared voice reported.

  Peiper pressed the button. The electronically operated turret swung round easily. A faint white blur was hurrying towards them, gathering speed at every instant. ‘AP!’ he yelled. ‘Driver, you ready?’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Now!’

  In the same instant that the anti-tank gun to their left fired again, the driver threw the Panther around as if it were a child’s toy and flashed on the powerful headlights. Suddenly night was transformed into day, as the twin white beams shot through the darkness, illuminating the little group of enemy soldiers scuttling around a small anti-tank cannon, abruptly pinned down by the blinding light like insects trapped by a lamp.

  ‘Fire!’ Peiper commanded, knowing the old trick only worked if its user was quicker off the mark than his opponent — then if he wasn’t, the lights gave away his position completely.

  The gunner needed no urging. He jerked back the firing bar. The gun erupted. The breech shot backwards, ejecting the glistening golden shell-case with a stream of smoke and clatter of metal onto the steel floor.

  ‘Dead on, gunner!’ Peiper cried joyously, as the anti-tank gun exploded in a ball of angry red-flame, its barrel peeling back like a skinned banana, its crew flying to all sides in a mess of flailing arms and legs. ‘Now the shit will really hit the fan!’

  Peiper was not exaggerating.

  Flame began to stab the darkness on all sides. Abruptly the night was hideous with the noise of battle, as tracer and shell zipped back and forth, with the V-shaped Panthers firing to both sides like old-style men-of-war. They relentlessly pushed forward towards the crest and the relative safety they hoped to find on the other side.

  Metal clanged against metal. At the right side of Peiper’s head, the inner wall of the turret glowed an angry red. They had been struck by anti-tank shell. Would it penetrate? the frightening thought flashed through his brain. If it did, then within seconds every man in the tank would be a moaning, mangled wreck, for the shell would fly round and round in the confined space, ripping man and metal apart.

  With a howl, the shell ricocheted off the sloping metal of the turret. Peiper breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow. They’d got away with it once again.

  Now the flying V started to slow down, as the lead tanks hit the incline that led up to the tree lined ridge. Peiper’s brow creased in an anxious frown. This would be the spot where the trouble could really start. Any Popov hero with a grenade could hit them at this slow speed. ‘Gunner,’ he ordered, ‘man the m.g. Keep your eyes peeled for infantry.’

  ‘Sir!’

  Knowing the risk he was taking, for the Soviets had excellent snipers, Peiper threw back the hatch cover and peered over the edge of the turret.

  Behind him, the timber bridge, or what was left of it, was burning fiercely, outlining the dark shapes of men running everywhere. Hastily he counted the number of tanks crawling up the slope behind him. He nodded his head in silent approval. They were all still there. Then he concentrated on his front, as below him the driver slammed through the gears and the tank’s progress up the steep slope was reduced to almost a walking pace.

  It happened so abruptly that he was almost caught off guard. Suddenly, a dark shape raced out of a hole and was pelting towards the command tank. Expertly, he ran right up the steep glacis like a bold child might do up a slide and was on the deck, sticky anti-tank grenade clutched in his hand. At the very last moment, Peiper automatically whipped out his pistol and pumped a wild volley at the Russian. He screamed shrilly, his hands clawing the air, as if he were climbing the rungs of an invisible ladder. Next instant he was over the side and being churned to a bloody pulp by the tracks of the following tank. But the bold Russian was only one of several. Now the bombers were streaking out of their hiding places all around the slow tank formation, running forward, ducked low against the hail of tracer and desperately attempting to fix their sticky grenades to the Panthers’ sides.

  Man after man was bowled over by the hail of fire. Then tragedy struck the little force. Even above the racket kicked up by his command tank, Peiper could hear the fatal clang of metal adhering to metal. Just behind him in the second Panther, one of the attackers had managed to attach a sticky grenade to its side — there was no mistaking the noise as the powerful magnets made contact. He swung about and fired a burst from his pistol at the running man. Too late! He ducked into a shell-hole out of sight. ‘Bail out... bail out...’ Peiper screamed hopelessly. The crew of the other tank had buttoned up.

  Frantically he pressed his throatmike. But already he was too late. There was a thick muffled crump. The second tank came to a sudden halt, as if it had just run into a brick wall. For one long moment nothing happened. Suddenly great puffs of ugly black smoke came from every welded seam on the stranded Panther. Then the massive structure started to fall apart, great pieces of torn metal sailing through the air, as it trembled and shivered, the streams of smoke growing denser by the second. Then one great rending, ear-split
ting crash and the turret flew twenty metres into the sky to come thumping down with an impact that made the very earth tremble.

  Blinded by the smoke and the sudden greedy yellow-red flames, the next driver smashed into the wreck — and the next. The Russians were not slow to recognize their advantage. They swarmed forward, sticky grenades at the ready, ignoring the flying shreds of metal and the deadly tracer which were cutting through the air everywhere.

  They clambered on to the stranded tanks, clamping home their mines, ducking beneath the machine gun fire of the trapped crews, to drop off and pelt for cover.

  They did their job well. One after the other, both tanks erupted into flame, rocked and torn apart by the tremendous explosions, while Peiper looked impotently on. Not only was he cut off from his own lines, but he had already lost one half of his little force. Now Task Force Peiper was down to exactly three Panthers and the four halftracks laden with frightened young panzergrenadiers. It was not exactly the greatest military formation to tackle the Soviet army which would soon be flooding in the Kessel....

  THE BATTLE OF FEDOROVKA

  ‘There’s Frogs and Tommies, and Amis and Ivans, there’s even Spaghetti-Eaters in this war. But mark my words, lad — they all shit out of the same hole!’

  The Sayings of Sergeant Schulze

  ONE

  ‘What do you make of that, you little fart-cannon?’ Schulze demanded, as the driver braked the tractor and the two of them stared through the steamed-up windscreen at the collection of battered, bomb-shattered buildings down in the valley some two kilometres away.

  Matz pursed his lips thoughtfully. They had been travelling cross-country for over a day now, without food, their only drink snow, melted in mess-tins placed on the tractor’s red-hot engine cowling. Even as he surveyed the little Russian town, his stomach rumbled noisily.

  ‘Don’t know, Schulzi,’ he said morosely. ‘Only thing I do know is that it’s occupied.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You heard, tin-ears! Look over there, next to the church tower, there’s smoke coming up.’

  Schulze nodded and dropping heavily into the deep snow, waded through it to where a crooked signpost stood. He wiped the ice away to reveal the bullet-pocked sign. With difficulty he deciphered the Cyrillic lettering. ‘Fed... or... o... vka.’ Turning to the others, he called, ‘It’s Fedorovka!’

  Matz said, ‘That’s about fifty kilometres from the edge of the Kessel.’

  ‘That is,’ someone commented miserably, ‘if there still is a Kessel. The Popovs might well have carved it up into little bits by now, for all we know.’

  ‘Oh, knock it off, you shitty happy ray of sunshine!’ Matz cursed, as Schulze plodded back to the tractor.

  ‘But what are we going to do?’ the Golden Pheasant moaned. ‘My stomach’s doing double back-flips for the want of food!’

  ‘You ain’t the only one,’ Matz said sourly.

  ‘But he’s right,’ the Butcher affirmed. ‘In this miserable climate, a man must eat or die.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Schulze cut into the moans and protests. ‘Some of you cardboard soldiers give me a pain in the arse. Always complaining. Why you never had it so good. Winter holidays in Russia at the government’s expense! Now where would you bunch of dead-beats get anything like that in civvie street? ‘

  But the big Hamburger’s attempt at humour fell flat; the men were too tired and too hungry to be amused. He sniffed and said, ‘All right, be it on your own necks. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘The Ivans can’t have got this far — yet,’ the Butcher said. ‘I vote we go down and have a look-see.’ He licked his cracked, parched lips and resisted the temptation to pick up a handful of snow and suck it, because he knew that would only result in diarrhoea and a mouthful of painful sores. ‘To judge by that smoke they’ve got some grub down there — otherwise why the fire.’

  ‘Ay, ay,’ there was mutter of agreement from the others.

  ‘Then we’ll go and have a dekko. But I’m not taking any risks. We’ll swing right round the place and come in from the rear. The first sign that it might be held by the Popovs and we make dust. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Half an hour later, Sculze ordered the driver to take his vehicle out of the cover of the trees and start heading for the battered little town, saying, ‘The first sign of trouble, mate, and you swing this monster round and get the hell out of it.’ To the others he added. ‘Let ’em see yer uniforms, so they know we’re German in advance. The Popovs, apart from their snipers, can’t shoot to save their lives. If it’s them down there we’ll soon know about it.’

  At a snail’s pace, trailing a white wake behind it in the virgin snow, the tractor advanced towards the village, the front man standing up in full view, while an anxious Schulze tensed for the first outbreak of firing. None came. As they came closer and Schulze could see quite clearly the bomb-shattered houses, the surviving walls pock-marked with shrapnel marks like the symptoms of some loathsome skin disease, the place remained obstinately silent. But now he knew it was occupied. The smoke from cooking fires rose from half-a-dozen spots and there was no mistaking the smell of warm food.

  Next to him the Butcher rumbled joyfully. ‘Grub, I can smell, hot grub!’

  ‘Trap!’ Schulze snapped. ‘Can t you close yer arse-crack, you big greedy chow-hound?’ He bit his bottom lip and threw anxious glances at the snow-covered ruins which lay to both sides of the track upon which they were now riding. If the place were inhabited by troops, they would have to have some sort of positions there.

  They did. Suddenly a challenge rang out above the roar of the engine. Schulze swung round, not understanding the language, but the tone was a warning all right.

  A small, dark-faced soldier in an overlarge uniform was standing there, rifle held tight to his hip. Schulze breathed out a sigh of relief. The strangely swarthy soldier was wearing the field-grey and typical scuttle-helmet of the Greater German Wehrmacht. The town was still in German hands.

  *

  ‘Hijo de Puta — adelante!’ the little soldier growled and dug his bayonet into Matz’s back. ‘Adelante!’

  Matz moved under protest. ‘Watch it with that toothpick, spaghetti-eater,’ he complained, but stumbled forward all the same, knowing instinctively that the fifty little men already around them in German uniform would not hesitate to use their weapons. ‘I’m delicate, you know, a bit weak on the chest like.’

  The swarthy little man was not impressed. ‘Go... we see commandant,’ he said in heavily accented German.

  Thus the survivors were herded through the miserable shattered streets, heaps of rubble covered by dirty snow on all sides, scattered with carefully dug in and camouflaged posts, manned by the same little men as those taking them to see the ‘commandant’.

  ‘What do you make of it, Sergeant Schulze?’ the Golden Pheasant asked under his breath.

  But before Schulze could answer, the little man with the bayonet, who was obviously in charge, cried, ‘No speak... no speak till see commandant... bastante, hombre.’

  Five minutes later they entered what must have once been the little Russian town’s main square: a shabby old onion-roofed church, a bullet-pocked statue of Lenin in his usual dramatic pose, a bomb-shattered house-of-culture and a handful of German vehicles, heavily camouflaged, but all clearly bearing the same yellow and red divisional sign worn on their sleeves by the little men.

  ‘You wait!’ the little man ordered. ‘First speak to commandant. No habla.’

  Shouldering his rifle, he went into the house-of-culture, while the Wotan men shuffled their feet uneasily and cast slightly anxious glances around them, trying to find out in what kind of place they now found themselves. But their captors revealed nothing, nor did the square. It was bare of soldiers and civilians, though a pair of red silk knickers, decorated with black lace, was dangling on a line from Lenin’s outstretched arm and seemingly indicated that there were not just the strange little soldiers in
occupation in Federovka. Schulze looked at Matz significantly.

  ‘Pase!’ it was the little man. He pointed at Schulze, Matz and the Golden Pheasant. ‘You... you and you... Pase!’

  Again one of the little men stuck his bayonet into Matz ‘s ribs and the three of them stumbled forward, entering the

  former house-of-culture, which was obviously this strange outfit ‘s HQ. They walked down a long corridor, the roof supported by heavy beams and sandbags, with little rooms to each side filled with dark little men busy with papers and telephones. ‘Organisacion,’ the little man said proudly, ‘muy importance.’

  Out of the side of his mouth, Matz whispered to Schulze, ‘Do you think these slime-shitters have still got all their cups in their cupboard? You’d think they were settling in here for the duration, when the Ivans are only kilometres away.’

  Schulze shrugged, as puzzled as Matz.

  They turned off the corridor and were faced with a closed door. The little man with the bayonet snapped to attention in front of it and knocked. From inside there came a muffled voice. It was obviously a command for them to enter. The little man looked his captives up and down sternly and indicated with a jerk of his head that Matz should fasten up an open collar-button. Bewildered, Matz did as he was commanded.

  ‘March!’ the little man commanded and flung open the door.

  They ‘marched’ along the long strip of threadbare red carpet until the little man barked, ‘Halt!’ in a hard, proud voice.

  Awkwardly they did so and stood there, the three of them, facing the man who posed like some nineteenth century captain in front of a big desk.

  He was small, like the rest of these strange men who occupied the Russian town, but unlike them he was fat, exceedingly fat. But the man did not let his lack of stature or gross belly affect his heroic pose, one hand thrust behind his back, the other stuck between the third and fourth button of his immaculate bemedalled uniform, his short thinning black hair carefully plastered down over his low brow.