by Leo Kessler
‘So. Knock out the flag-wavers and they lose control. There’s no coordination and their attack goes to pot. You’ve seen it before often enough Matzi?’
‘Yeah, so I have,’ Matz agreed. It was true. The Popovs led their attacks from a command tank in which the tank commander stood upright in the turret and directed the rest of his force by means of signal-flags. In the autumn of the previous year, when SS Assault Battalion Wotan had swept through Russia in the bold drive for Moscow, the knowledge had helped the Vulture to defeat superior enemy forces. ‘But what’s this got to do with us, you big barn-shitter?’
‘This, you tin-legged toy soldier,’ Schulze rapped, trying to muster the old contempt he always tried to display when speaking to his running-mate, but failing lamentably in this instant. ‘Someone has got to knock those flag-wavers out.’ He looked significantly at the smaller man.
Matz paled visibly. ‘You’ve got a little bird that goes peep-peep-peep, Schulzi!’ he declared.
‘Yeah, and you’ve got a little yeller arse that goes drip-drip-drip!’ Schulze snarled and rising to his feet, ignoring the shrapnel that still howled frighteningly through the air, cried, ‘Come on, let’s go and see the head spaghetti-eater...’
*
‘I do not know — understand exactly,’ Little Napoleon said and swiftly popped the cork back in between his lips.
Schulze flashed him a look that had been known, in the old days, to make new recruits feel decidedly wet about the nether regions, and repeated what he had just said.
‘You’ve got to give me and the Wotan boys permission to go in front of your fellas and knock off their command tank commanders before they can really launch a concerted attack.’
Little Napoleon, now dressed in his number one uniform, complete with decorations that covered the whole right side of his portly chest, flashed a suspicious look from one face to the other.
‘But how do I know,’ he asked, taking out the cork again, ‘that you will not go?’ He gave an elegant Latin shrug, half-raising his hands as he did so. ‘Desert me?’
Matz puckered up his lips and closing his eyes pressed his face forward closer to that of the Spaniard’s. ‘Kiss me, darling. How could I ever leave you — now?’
Schulze nudged him violently in the ribs. ‘Knock it off, you asparagus Tarzan!’ he growled.
Matz opened his eyes and grinned at him wickedly, while the Little Napoleon looked at the two of them in complete bewilderment. ‘Of course, I forgot, I’m now betrothed to my darling Gerda.’
Schulze ignored him. Time was running out too fast now for Matz’s type of humour. ‘Well,’ he demanded, ‘what’s it gonna be? The Popovs’ll be coming over those heights any minute now.’
Little Napoleon swallowed hard. ‘You promise... not to run away?’
‘Of course I do!’ Schulze cried. ‘Where the shit do you think we’re gonna run to now, with the whole of the shitting Red Army out there?’
‘Bueno. De acuerdo!’ the Little Napoleon snapped. ‘You may do so.’ He raised his hand in the falange salute and cried: ‘Presente!’ with such force that his upper jaw came tumbling down upon the lower. Thus they left the little man, rapidly flushing a convulsive crimson, as he twisted his jaw with both hands, trying to push it back into place, pelting down the corridor to rouse out the others....
*
Ears numbed by the roar and clatter of scores of tanks, the men crouched in a thin grey line among the mess of still-steaming fresh-brown shell-holes and gazed at the phalanx of steel monsters with eyes that were wide with terror.
Behind them marched the Russian infantry, packed in earth brown ranks, coming on in a solid wall, as if they were crossing Moscow ‘s Red Square in some peacetime parade. There seemed no end to them, as more and more flares sailed into the air, obviously signalling to those Popovs beyond the horizon that the advance on the little town below seemed clear.
Schulze looked to left and right and knew what his men were feeling at this moment. All the same, he had confidence in his veterans of the Wotan. Now they knew, as he did too, that there was no possible chance of retreat. It was either fight or die.
Now he and the rest of the Wotan troopers started to seek out troop and company commanders, knowing that, because their rifles did not possess telescopic sights, they would have to let the tanks come within a range of one hundred and fifty metres before they could be sure they could kill the commanders.
The air was full of the rattle of the tanks and the steady eerie tramp of the packed ranks of infantry behind them. The ground shook with their weight. Everywhere the waiting troopers felt their throats constrict and their hearts begin to beat rapidly. Time and time again they had to swallow hard to clear the tightness which threatened to choke them.
Four hundred metres... three hundred and fifty metres... three hundred.... Now Schulze, crouched behind a snow-covered boulder in front of a large shell-hole, could see the T-34s clearly, in spite of their whirling white wakes. His gaze, seemingly more acute than normal, swept the first line of tanks, searching for the best target. Then he had him: an exceedingly tall figure in a leather helmet, standing proud and high in his turret, waving his flags with both hands, a look of haughty scorn on his dark face, as if nothing could ever happen to him.
‘Right, Soviet asshole,’ Schulze whispered to himself, ‘it’s you.’ Automatically, he tucked the butt of his rifle deeper into his right shoulder and waited.
Two hundred and fifty metres... two hundred.... Now there seemed nothing else in the whole wide world but these metal monsters and the infantry plodding on inexorably behind them, as if they could march for ever. Schulze swallowed hard, sensing his men must be feeling the same, as they waited there inactively for what well could be death under the flailing cruel tracks of those seemingly invulnerable monsters.
One hundred and seventy-five metres... : Schulze swallowed hard, again. Almost as if he were watching some other person doing so, he sensed the brass butt of the rifle press almost painfully into his shoulder and a damp, sweaty finger curl around the trigger. First pressure. The tall Russian was waving his two flags frantically now. On both flanks the T-34s started to gather speed, while those in the centre kept their speed constant. They were coming in for the attack. The massed infantry started to run awkwardly after the tanks as they began to draw away.
One hundred and fifty metres!
Schulze’s finger eased back the trigger all the way. The rifle jumped at his shoulder. He started at the crack and resultant explosion. In the command tank, the tall Russian stopped waving his flags, with both of them absurdly poised in mid-air. Rifle still clenched to his shoulder, mesmerized, unable to eject the spent cartridge case, Schulze watched as the tank with its dying commander continued to rumble forward, as if nothing had happened. Slowly the Russian dropped one flag and then the other. Gently, very gently, almost as if he had become very tired, the Russian slumped down over the edge of the turret, his leather helmet rolling away on the deck to reveal long black curly hair. He was dead!
Abruptly the centre group of tanks milled to a confused stop. It seemed to act as a signal. A wild volley of rifle fire erupted from the Wotan troopers’ pits. Commander after commander slammed into the back of his turret, clutching a wounded arm or chest, blood streaming through clenched fingers from a holed face, drooping over the front of the turret already dead, screaming piteously as everything disappeared into an agonizing blood-red mist and the man knew that he was blind, as the snipers worked their bolts back and forth furiously, firing with crazed energy, knowing that if they failed now they would disappear under the tanks’ flailing tracks.
Suddenly the whole Soviet attack rumbled to a chaotic halt, with the leaderless tanks hopelessly mixed up among the massed infantry, leaving themselves wide-open to the counter-attack that the Little Napoleon had planned for this moment.
‘Arriba Espana!... Viva Franco!... Muerto los Rojos...!’
With frenzied, hysterical cries wrenched from their
gaping mouths, they streamed from both flanks, the deadly glass bottles clenched in their fists, attempting as they ran to continue puffing at the cigarettes and cigars they had clenched to their bottom lips, each of the men armed with the bottles protected by two riflemen.
‘Give them hell, spaghetti-eaters!’ the Wotan troopers roared from the cover of their holes, relaxed now that their part of the plan had been carried out successfully. ‘Make their rags flutter... Give ’em it up the arse... Happy Christmas, Ivan, here comes the roast duck...’
The massed Russians woke up to the new danger too late. Here and there a gunner ripped off a wild burst and mowed down a couple of the undersized figures racing across the surface of the hard-packed snow. But by now the Spaniards, screaming their battle-cries and prayers to the Holy Virgin were in among the stalled, confused tanks, Molotov cocktails sailing through the air. Everywhere they landed on the flat metal decks of the T-34s, exploding in a burst of ugly yellow, oily flame, instantly swamping the tanks in fire.
At once all hell broke loose. In an instant the whole first line of tanks was ablaze, with burning tankers dropping off their vehicles to roll back and forth in the snow in exquisite agony, trying to put out the flames or running crazily away from them, trailing the flames behind them until they could not run anymore and lay there moaning as they were consumed by the cruel fire.
A great sheet of black smoke, tinged with flame, started to rise to the leaden sky, through which came the screams and unearthly whimpering of the dying, blasted apart at regular intervals as yet another T-34 exploded, its tracer ammunition zig-zagging wildly through the smoke like some gigantic pre-war fireworks display.
Schulze could stand it no longer. With the last of his strength he blew the three shrill blasts on his whistle which were the signal for the Wotan troopers to withdraw and then, sick at heart and drained of all energy, he started to trail back to the little town, followed by a silent Matz, who, like Schulze, tried not to hear those terrible cries which went on and on....
The defenders had won the first round of the Battle for Fedorovka but in spite of the exited, wildly triumphant ‘vivas’ of the Spaniards who rose from their foxholes to cheer the weary SS veterans, they all knew in their inner hearts that they were doomed. In the end the Russians had to win....
SIX
It was snowing softly again. Thick, wet persistent flakes that would undoubtedly bog down any enemy attack this particular day. Not that the defenders would have cared. There had been so many attacks these last forty-eight hours that they had become hardened to them. Now it was not the Ivans, but the weather which seemed their greatest enemy.
Like a black cloak, the tremendous frost had folded itself over the bloody, battle-torn steppe the previous night. Now all this long day they had frozen in their holes and trenches, numb with cold, their weapons white and glittering with frost — like Christmas decorations in another and happier time. When they spoke, which was rarely, their breath was as dense as cigarette smoke and solidified on the rims of their helmets in gleaming silver crystals of ice.
Now the occasional shell which came across from the Russian positions hit the deeply frozen ground with a new hard ringing resonance and the clods of earth and snow thrown up by the explosion were like lumps of concrete.
Heads tucked deep inside their frozen collars, their shoulders already powdered with the new snow, their footsteps muffled by it, Schulze and Matz did the rounds of the Wotan men.
All were filthy and lice-ridden, eyes lacklustred, their skin stretched loose over their protruding facial bones, grey with exhaustion and hunger. Schulze plodded on from post to post in silence, noting just how much weight his men had lost in these last forty-eight hours, although the Spaniards had shared their rations with them — a handful of millet boiled in salt water. But it would not take long before the first one would decide he was no longer afraid of death and fall to the ground for good, like an engine that has used its last drop of fuel and will run no more.
It was the Butcher, who shared a foxhole with the Golden Pheasant (now shrunk so much that his fancy uniform hung around him in loose folds), who finally put his own gloomy thoughts into words.
‘Schulze, you’ve always had a big trap,’ he growled, wiping his hand across his parched, cracked lips. ‘Well, what about using yer turnip instead of yer trap and providing us with some grub.’
Schulze looked at him sourly, as the snowflakes whirled around his broad shoulders, but said nothing.
‘Those cardboard soldiers of yours won’t last much longer if they don’t get something fat and hot between their ribs, yer know,’ the Butcher persisted, while the Golden Pheasant licked his lips sadly, as if remembering better and happier times.
‘And where do you think we’re gonna get something fat and hot from, eh — from up our candycracks?’ Matz sneered. ‘There ain’t a shining roof-hare left in the whole town! Why the spaghetti-eaters are even sieving the seed from horse-apples and boiling out the flour-glue from wallpaper in order to fill their bellies.’ Matz’s skinny body heaved with the effort of so much explanation.
The Butcher remained unconvinced. ‘You two are the best skivvers in the whole of Wotan. You always have been and always will be till yer cash in yer chips one of these days.’ He looked challengingly at a wooden-faced Schulze. ‘All right, smart-ass, skiv! Find us some chow!’
‘But where?’ Schulze asked almost plaintively, knowing that the big NCO was right. Most of the younger men wouldn’t last much longer without warm food.
The Butcher ‘s face broke into an ugly grin as he raised his hand and pointed to the east. ‘There, in the Popov lines, smart-ass...’
*
‘Schulze — now!’ Matz hissed.
The big NCO doubled forward, grateful for the hiss of the falling snow which deadened any sound he might make. The Ivan never knew what hit him. Schulze’s right hand grabbed up and pulled the back of the sentry’s helmet. The strap slipped back and tightened around his adam’s apple, stifling the man’s cry of alarm. Next instant, Schulze’s knee dug into the small of his back. With both hands the big NCO pulled at the rim of the helmet, swiftly garrotting him to death. One minute later Schulze lowered the dead sentry gently to the snow.
For one moment, the two lone German raiders crouched there on the edge of the Russian encampment, hearts pounding furiously, ears alert for the slightest sound. But there was none, save the howl of the wind, the hiss of the snow, and the muted drunken singing far away.
Matz pressed his mouth close to Schulze’s right ear. ‘All right?’
‘All right,’ Schulze whispered back, the words snatched from his mouth by the wind. ‘Move in five metres behind me. Any trouble — use the Hamburg Equalizer.’ He indicated his brass knuckles which now adorned Matz ‘s right fist.
‘Will do... But watch it, yer big shit. Remember if you don’t bring home the bacon this night, it’s gonna be a piss-poor Christmas.’
Schulze looked at him aghast, the tension and their present situation forgotten for a moment, ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard me. Or have you got tin-ears. It’s Christmas Eve tonight.’ Matz replied.
‘Great God and all His Triangles! Christmas Eve — was fur eine Bescherung!’ Schulze exclaimed. ‘Now you lot really have got me by the short and curlies.’
‘Get on with it, you big oaf,’ Matz hissed urgently and pushed him forward to where there was the faint glimmer of a blacked-out lantern. ‘My guts is doing a double back-flop, I’m so starved. Let’s see what we can get our biters into.’
Together they plodded through the knee-deep snow, bodies tensed for action and bent double against the driving snow. The going was terrible, but for once Schulze was grateful for the murderous Russian weather — it would undoubtedly keep the Popovs under cover.
Carefully they skirted the white-covered hump, surrounded by already rusting barbed wire, which would be an advanced Observation Post, their nostrils taking in the typical Popov smell of Ma
rhorka and sour black-bread. The place was occupied all right. Now they started to veer to the right, drawn automatically in that direction by the magical smell of cooking.
Closer and closer they came to it, now aware of muffled voices, occasionally glimpsing a flash of light through the whirling white wall of snow. Suddenly Schulze halted and clasped Matz’s arm in warning. ‘Look!’ he whispered.
‘Arseholes up — heil Amerika!’ Matz hissed in delight as the snow storm parted for an instant and he could see the two fat-bellied goulash-cannon, tended by three sweating Popovs, bubbling away merrily, as one of them opened the lid of the mobile oven and stirred its contents with a great wooden spoon. ‘Vittels!’
‘Vittels indeed,’ Schulze agreed, ignoring the almost fanatical look which had now appeared in Matz’s eyes, concentrating on sizing up the situation.
To left and right there were the snow-covered mounds of what were, he knew, Popov dugouts with here and there a tin-pipe chimney sticking up through the snow. They were occupied all right, but assuming the Popov stubble-hoppers were no different from their German equivalents, they’d be hugging the underground warmth this particularly miserable day. If they played their cards right, there would be little difficulty from that quarter.
‘What yer waiting for, you big barn-shitter?’ Matz hissed urgently. ‘A written invitation! That’s good old giddi-up goulash cooking over there and you’re standing here like a virgin scared to take her knickers off after she’s just seen her first bit of salami.’
‘I’ll give you a piece of my salami in a minute, right between yer cheeks.’ Schulze growled. ‘A bloke can’t hear himself think with you rabbiting on.’
‘I didn’t know you loved me, Sergeant Schulze!’ Matz simpered. Schulze made his decision. ‘Matz, we’re taking ’em back with us to the lads.’
‘The whole lot — goulash-cannon and all!’ Matz hissed incredulously.
‘The whole shoot!’ Schulze said firmly. ‘This is where we act like a whole sodding army... follow me, my peglegged friend.’
