Casca 4: Panzer Soldier

by Barry Sadler

  Langer stopped him before he could make any comment. "All right, let's take care of the bodies. We don't want them found until later. We'll haul them over to the side of the bakery, there's a small ditch, we'll bury them there."

  Gus pointed at Yuri. "What about him?"

  "Him, too, but we'll bury him the way he would have liked, as chieftain of the high steppes."

  Gus wondered what the hell that meant, but didn't really give a damn, his mind already on the fresh pork. The dead, it does no good to feel any more for them. Their troubles were over, and right now he was still hungry.

  Teacher had a suspicion of what Langer meant, but kept his own council. Gus found out what his sergeant meant when Carl laid the dead Russians at the feet of the Tatar, placing Yuri's head where it belonged on his shoulders, his butcher knife in his hand. He held the Cossack's head in his own hands, grasping it to his chest. Langer backed away after they had filled the ditch, and faced the four corners of the world all the time making a slow, upward sweeping motion of his hand and chanting low beneath his breath. Gus knew he was watching some kind of religious ceremony, but just what, he couldn't fathom.

  "What is he doing, Teacher? You know everything, all those books you read."

  Responding, in a low voice in order not to interrupt the proceedings, he explained as best he could, for Gus's simple mind.

  The ceremony completed, Langer looked at the wondering faces of Gus and Teacher. "I'll tell you about it later. Right now let's get loaded and haul ass out of here."

  Once in the T-34, Gus took a moment to familiarize himself with the controls. "It's just like a tractor, Sarge; no problem."

  "Teacher, you take the hull gun, I'll handle the turret and 76 mm."

  Gus squealed with pleasure. "Look here, Sarge." He held up one of the new Russian PPs 43 submachine guns and a bottle of vodka. "We're loaded for bear now." He cracked open the bottle and drained it. The pig's carcass rested right behind the driver's seat, close to him. He wasn't going to let anything happen to his dinner. If they had to bail out of the tank, it was even odds which he would take, the submachine gun or the pig. Langer gave odds mentally on the pig.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They spent the rest of the day in a wrecked barn, moving the tank straight through the side. They had been bypassed in the night; the rest of the German forces in the pocket were an hour's march to the west. Most of them would never make it to the new line outside Kaunas. Langer would wait for dark and move through the Russian lines right down the rail tracks after bypassing the German pocket of resistance. Once past that, they should have easy going until they reached the bridge at Nieman. They would have to be careful or the defenders, thinking they were Russians, would blow them away.

  That night they fed on roast pig. Gus, gulping down chunks of half-raw meat and swigging vodka, reminded Langer of someone he had known long ago in another place.

  The fuel gauges showed half a tank of gas, more than enough to reach the bridge crossing at Kaunas. On good roads the T-34 had a range of over 250 kilometers. At dusk they moved out, the clanking of the treads a familiar, friendly sound. As they swung through the fields, Carl put on a Russian tanker's leather helmet, put his head out of the turret and called out directions. They passed burned-out villages and hamlets, isolated farms and houses, which had all received the same treatment. This was the first of the enemy countries that had fallen to the Soviets. Twice, Langer had to forcibly restrain Gus when they passed a couple of farmhouses and saw the women of the farm nailed to the barn doors, their men and children lying in front of them. The women had obviously been raped. Gus wanted to head for the nearest Russian unit and run them down under the treads of their own tank.

  The road leading to the frontiers of East Prussia were littered with burned-out transport and tanks; dead horses lay bloated all along the way, their legs stiff, the carts and guns they had been pulling turned over or burned and the contents looted. The bodies of men lay by the hundreds where Soviet armor had overrun the slower, horse-drawn wagons. Near them were neat, orderly ranks of men that had been lined up first and machine gunned down in rows.

  The T-34 was passed by fast trucks filled with laughing Russians, the victors heading to the new line. They waved to their comrades in the tank and wished them well in continuing their slaughter. Langer himself had to force his mind elsewhere and resist the temptation to send a shell into them and blow the savages to pieces. Savages? What difference did it make who did the killing, they're no better or worse than the Nazis. The truth of the matter was, the Nazis were perhaps more horrible in that they were educated men who sometimes cried over something tragic in an opera, and then would order thousands of deaths in the concentration camps.

  The Russians were brutal, but it was the mindless brutality of the hordes that had ravaged Europe centuries before. Fewer than one out of a hundred could write his own name, and fewer than that among those who came from Asian Russia. They were the ones most feared; they had the blood of the vanquished legions of Genghis Khan and the Huns in their veins and were now let loose on the world to do what their instincts told them they did best, kill.

  Trucks were beginning to slow down; they were reaching the staging areas of the Soviets. Langer moved the tank off the road to the side and had to slow down carefully to avoid running over the milling infantry. He waved and laughed at jokes, and kept on going, ignoring offers to stop and drink, or eat. He called out orders and kept moving. To stop risked being found out and he had no desire to be sent to the slave camps in Siberia.

  The flames of burning villages were small bright spots on the plains, the smell of smoke carried to them by a gentle northerly wind coming off the Baltic Sea. They were nearing the last Soviet positions as was evidenced by the freshly dug bunkers and position lines of cannon being pulled into position. The Russians believed in cannon just as Napoleon did; the more the better, and they had plenty more.

  The German positions were marked by the impact of Russian rockets and artillery. The bridge still held. Continuous fire from concrete bunkers made it extremely hazardous for any Russian tank that tried to approach them. Already a half dozen lay on and off the tracks of the rail bridge, evidence of the German gunners' accuracy and tenacity. Russians waved the oncoming T-34 on, praising the courage of the crew riding into the face of almost certain death, "Urra! Urra!"

  They had one hope of getting through; in front of them was a former German pillbox, now occupied by the elite guard troops of Marshal Chernyakhovsky. Leaping down to Gus and Teacher, Carl explained, "All right, this is it. I'm going to take out the bunker, you just get this bastard over the bridge and when you reach the center un-ass it."

  "Teacher, you won't be needed on the MG when we stop. You bail out and toss a grenade in before you leave. That should blow this bastard to hell and let our guys know that we're on their side.

  "Gus, you use that magnificent set of lungs to yell as loud as you can that we're Germans and coming through, and not to fire. Everybody got it?"

  Teacher acknowledged the order and Gus fretted and bitched about his leftover pig and what to do with it.

  The unsuspecting Russians in the bunker raised their fists and saluted. A round from a 75 mm pak whanged off the glass plating and ricocheted into the night. Langer swung the turret over slightly at a range of less than twenty meters and fired. The bunker erupted; the Russians died without ever knowing they had been tricked. On the German side, a lieutenant held his fire, confident that he had plenty of time to take out the lone tank; there was no rush, he had a good crew that had already destroyed over forty Russian tanks; the rings around the barrels of their guns kept an accurate count for them. What's this!? The Russian has stopped dead in the center, the crew is getting out. Why? He called to his infantry support to train their machine guns on the crewmen.

  The T-34 exploded, a burned, twisted hulk was all that remained, all in less than thirty seconds. The gunners on the MG-42 sighted only a monstrous bellowing Gus, which halted
the pulling of the triggers.

  "Don't shoot, you sons of bitches, it's Gus Beiderman and a couple of friends back from the dead." He led the way, twisting and dodging all the time, keeping up his cursing order not to fire. One of the gunners was tempted anyway; he recognized the voice as belonging to a human gorilla who cheated him out of two months' pay shooting craps.

  The Russians finally woke up and got around to sending round after round at the fleeing impostors. Tracers licked their heels and flashed between their legs. Gus yelped as one of them left the inside of his trousers singed, and burned his thigh just inches from the pride and hope of German womanhood.

  * * *

  From August on, they fought with one unit, then another, as the Russian advances continued, more slowly than in the spring, but still advancing a few more yards or kilometers every day as the supply lines of the Soviet forces built up their reserves for the push into Germany itself. The Russians held back their armies when the Polish Home Army revolted against the Nazis. Because the Poles were not Communists, Stalin held back his forces until the SS could eliminate them in fierce house-to-house battles that wiped out all effective non-Communist resistance that his forces might encounter.

  By the end of August, Langer and his men were in East Prussia facing again their old nemesis from the great battles at Kursk and Kharkov. Here in East Prussia the German forces resisted with fanatical determination, but it was of no avail. There were too few men and weapons were left spread out over a front stretching 1,600 kilometers. General Busch's Army Group Center, which Langer had been attached to at Vilnyus, had been decimated. Twenty-five divisions had been trapped; only eight escaped. Most of the captured Germans were simply mowed down. They were the thousands of bodies they had passed on the tracks leading to Kaunas. The Russians claimed 158,000 captured and nearly 400,000 dead. By the time the leaves began to turn, Army Group North was trapped with its back to the Baltic. The Russians were content to leave them where they were tying up the German armies there, with minimal forces keeping them from breaking up to join Army Group Center to the south. They didn't know the situation or they would have attempted to break out. Anyway, Hitler had ordered them to remain there, tying up men that could have been used at the undermanned center.

  By the end of October they were still holding the front on the borders of East Prussia. News from the west was scanty and filled with phrases from the minister of propaganda, such as fanatical promises of secret weapons to be unleashed on the allies.

  Gus Parted at this news. "Secret weapons, my ass; they can't even produce the old ones. I ain't seen a German fighter in the air for weeks. What the hell happened to them all?"

  Teacher merely shook his head, "It's all just about over, I don't know why they don't just finish us off now, what the hell do we have left to fight with?"

  Langer lit a smoke from a pack of Russian cigarettes that he had taken off a body; they tasted dry and acrid in his mouth. "They aren't going to finish us off for a while, not with winter coming on and before that the rains slowing things down a bit before their supply lines can catch up to them. I'd guess it would be spring before the big push comes; they have time on their side. Step by step they push us back and shorten the lines a little. They're finally forcing us to do what should have been done years ago and concentrate our forces where we could get the most strength from them, not stretch them out all over the whole of Russia." Exhaling, he smelled the air. "No, it will go on a while longer."

  The earth shook under them as a salvage of heavy Russian artillery ranged about them; the big guns were being brought up. The more familiar sounds of the 76 mm was superseded by the heavier crump of guns up to 210 mm firing a shell that weighed 297 pounds. One of these crater makers hit less than forty feet away, blowing Gus clear out of his foxhole, landing him fifteen feet away, ears ringing and deaf. Langer raced out, grabbed him and dragged him back into a hole. For the next week Gus said he heard the bells of the cathedrals in Cologne, playing the "Horst Wessel Lied."

  Gus finally disappeared in the middle of October while out scrounging for food; he just walked off to the rear of a village he was visiting between Suwalki and Johannesburg. He had heard that there was a supply depot there holding rations which they had received no orders to distribute. The Russians had picked that time to blast the village from the face of the earth with a barrage from their big guns, combined with an air strike of twin-engine bombers. The last Langer had seen of him was his waddling walk; he had picked up a new style of walking to compensate for the loss of his toes. It made him change the pressure of his step and gave him a gait that looked as if he was about to lose his balance and fall over on his already pushed-in face.

  Langer and Teacher searched the rubble of the village and found only the dead. Supplies not destroyed were spread out over three miles and already the scavengers, soldiers and civilians, were fighting over tins of burned food. Of Gus, they assumed that he had finally gone to meet the great quartermaster in the sky, where the clouds rained vodka and the women were always young and pretty. The two made their way alone, stopping to stay awhile with one group, then another, until they were rounded up by some field police in Allenstein along with others and formed into a new group and assigned orders to return to the front. They would have to make their way on foot, there was no transportation available, but from this day on, anyone without written orders would be shot or hung on sight. They shrugged; what difference did it make, now or later? At least it gave them something to do, rather than just wait.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  From the occupied and allied countries they came in the thousands; men, women and children. Transport that should have been used for the Wehrmacht was assigned to the Deathshead Einsatzgrüppen. Instead of men and munitions, human cargo. Langer and Teacher moved through the yards. Nausea filled them, their mouths tasting the bitter taste of vomit, barely held back. Truncheons were in widespread use as were pistols. The Germans were retreating, but they were making sure that they took with them all the human misery that they could. The final solution must be carried out. Jews, in their faces a strange mixture of fear and resignation, knowing where they were going, but not wanting to believe the unimaginable. By the hundreds they were pushed and packed into cattle cars until there was no room to stand. Mothers held their babies over their heads so they could breathe, but before the trains could unload, over half the people in each car would die of suffocation, or simply be crushed to death when they fell. SS guards, aided by enthusiastic Ukrainian police, went about their task in a businesslike manner, their faces devoid of any semblance of compassion or mercy; these were beasts who relished their work.

  Sweat ran freely down Teacher's face, his eyes wide in their sunken sockets, skin waxy, pale, his hands trembling. The schmeisser swung from its shoulder strap, bumping his leg with each step. "Carl," he half whispered hoarsely, his throat dry, "is this what we've become?"

  A child cried, then silence. They passed a group of laughing SS and their Ukrainian counterparts standing in a huddle.

  Teacher paused. "Carl, go on, I have something to do and I know you can't help me. Go on, you'll find your destiny later alone, as you always have."

  Langer stopped, face grim; the beginning look of killing gathered at the corners of his eyes. Teacher gave a gentle shove with his hand.

  "No, Carl, this is the way I want it. You told me once that life is a great circle with no beginning or end. Well, my circle has turned long enough. It's time for me to make a new beginning. Please go on, get away from me, now is not the time for you, it's mine and if you don't go I can't do it."

  Langer sighed deeply, put his arms around the shoulders of the thin, sad-faced man and hugged him farewell. Silent, he walked away, not looking back. He passed between a couple of cars and their cargos of pain out of sight.

  Teacher unslung his submachine gun, pulled the cocking lever back slowly. His back straightened, he held the gun to his hip, barrel straight ahead. He moved to where the SS and their toa
dies were enjoying themselves. Stopping at about fifteen meters, he called out, voice crackling, "Kamaraden."

  The heads turned, curious at first at the intrusion. Then they saw the weapon pointed at them. "Heil Hitler, Kamaraden." The Schmeisser spoke its rapid, flat, cracking chatter; the bullets smashed into the packed group, dropping them to the earth to twitch and die, wondering at their pain. They weren't supposed to be hurt, they were the ones who gave pain, not received it. Teacher emptied the magazine on full auto, spraying the twitching bodies until they were still.

  He dropped the weapon to the dirt, reached into his coat pocket, took out a grenade, knelt down and pulled the pin, holding the lever tight, tears running down his face into his beard. He raised his eyes to the gray skies. "God," he cried, "forgive me, God, that I didn't do this sooner."

  Two SS Sturmmen seeing him on his knees from the back, with his gun lying beside him, rushed to throw themselves on this traitor; they reached him seconds after he released the hammer; they grabbed him in time to participate in the dull thud of the grenade's explosion, and died with him. Teacher crumpled over on his back, stomach almost completely ripped out, eyes wide; but for the first time in years his face was calm; he found his way to end the pain.

  When the firing started Langer hesitated, started to turn back, then stopped again. No, this was Teacher's to do alone the way he wanted it. He had no right to interfere. The crump of the grenade going off told him it was over. He walked on out of the yards across to the road, where columns of men fresh from Germany were being herded up to the lines to fill gaps that couldn't be replaced with ten times their numbers. Bright young faces, full of confidence in the final victory. They knew the Fuhrer would triumph and they would show those who went before them how to fight; all it took was the proper spirit and faith.