Last Citadel wwi-3

by David L. Robbins

  The smoke wafted away. Under a beaded curtain of rain, he spotted ranks of Soviet tanks in two, three, four rows powering down the hill. The Russians always attacked in waves. The T-34s rolled down in another hundred, as though that were their smallest integer. They were speedy, better in the mud than the heavy Tiger, even quicker than the Mark IVs. The panzer grenadiers greeted the Red tanks with antitank fire that knocked out a quarter of the first echelon in the initial minute of the charge. Balthasar, unleashed, stomped on the firing pedal again and again. Luis gave orders with his eyes glued to his commander’s optics.

  The Russians stayed at a distance and Luis’s company parried, toiling forward only slightly, trading shots. Luis held his panzers back; why charge into a charge and lose every advantage? The Reds had superior numbers, and after another hour of tumult, when the first tank assault was beaten back, a second torrent came down the hill. Luis had days ago stopped being dumbfounded at the multitudes the Soviets tossed into battle, but he shook his head at this. He followed his grenadiers through the clinging mud, keeping his fourteen tanks at a snail’s pace alongside them, answering the Red tanks, keeping them at bay. It would do no good for his company to mount the hill alone, they would not hold it against Red infantry; this was always the perversion of mobile armor, a machine was at its most vulnerable against a man.

  The fighting on the incline of the hill dragged on through lightning and deepening muck. Twice more Luis’s Tiger took blows, all of them glancing and disconcerting but without damage. Three of his Mark IVs were knocked out. In the middle afternoon he ordered his company by platoon back to Komsomolets to refuel and rearm. Though he was famished and out of crackers he was also without fatigue. His little body could stay in this fray for hours more, his focus through the scope and his strength to command were untarnished by the intensity of the last five hours of battle. Balthasar wanted to stay when Luis gave the order to retreat to the trees, he had a T-34 in his sights. Luis let his gunner fire one more round. Balthasar missed.

  The Tiger was the last to withdraw the two kilometers to cover. Field kitchens, fuel trucks, and a medic station waited under the dripping trees. The thunderstorm had moved on, leaving dusk in its wake like a bruise. Hill 241.6 fell into German hands while Luis sat on a tree chewing bread. The sounds of fighting from the Psel finally began to rise from a point north of the river, where Totenkopf had at last established a bridgehead. Das Reich made progress south of the road in the forests and villages there. Leibstandarte’s grenadiers dug into positions on top of the hill and between the slope and the rail tracks. All three SS divisions were inching forward to Prokhorovka.

  Luis kept his company under the trees until 22.00 hours. He mounted his Tiger and rode out into a quiet field under a tufted, starless sky. His eleven remaining tanks moved abreast. They found no standing grass or grain to trample, every blade was flattened and scored by the day’s fighting or blown to bits in the bottom of craters. There were no German tanks or bodies. Salvage and burial: These were extra benefits of winning the ground. Luis did not bother to count the number of Red T-34s and lighter T-70S left in hulks in a variety of reposes. A graveyard eeriness swept past his lurching turret as though, in moving across today’s battlefield, he were motoring through some gray vision of his own future, one of wreckage.

  At midnight Luis was on top of Hill 241.6. An intense humidity seeped out of the ground. His crew had stripped to their skivvies to try and sleep on a spread tarpaulin. Luis was finished conferring with the other company commanders over a lantern. The casualty report was light for Leibstandarte, only twenty-six killed, one hundred and sixty-eight wounded, and three missing. Estimates indicated the division had smashed over fifty Red tanks. The company commanders were informed that the two other SS divisions were both shy of their objectives on the left and right flanks. None of Totenkopf’s armor had crossed the Psel yet, and Das Reich had not fought any farther than Yasnaya Poliyana, five kilometers behind Leibstandarte, which remained at the leading edge of the assault. During this night, the rest of Leibstandarte’s force would complete its turn away from Oboyan and catch up, bringing the division to full strength. Hopefully the trailing regiments would be accompanied by more repaired tanks. This would allow the division to send a panzergrenadier regiment across the road and rail mound in the morning to assist Das Reich with its progress through the defended forests and villages there.

  Luis stood over his snoring crew, white-skinned in their underwear in the clouded half-moon light. The four were curled like giant grubs brought out of the ground by the moisture, heaped at the feet of the Tiger. He had no urge to lie down among his men and rest. He would stay erect and private to ensure that any word spoken about him now or later would be spoken with awe.

  Luis had no duty for several more hours. He was not sleepy, he snapped his fingers walking around his tank to burn off energy. The Tiger was armed and fueled, it, too, needed nothing. He climbed up on the deck and stood over the engine in the filtered moonlight, looking east from the hill’s summit. The next day’s objective was to advance another five kilometers up the Prokhorovka road, that black ribbon below dissolving into the night. The Reds out there were keeping their lights off, shifting their thousands in the dark. The first morning target will be another strategic high ground beside the road, Hill 252.2. Once that fell, his panzers would swing northwest and attack another state farm, Oktyabrski. It would be the following day, the twelfth of July, that would send Leibstandarte into Prokhorovka itself. That will be the day, Luis thought. He could not foretell what would happen, he did not have that power. But standing on his Tiger looking into the murky east, he felt certain of when.

  He turned to look back at the alley between the Psel and the rail mound. A line of vehicle headlamps snaked his direction along the battered road. The late-arriving regiments of his division wouldn’t run with their lights on like that; if they did, there would be a hundred trucks and armored carriers and tanks, they’d light up the whole river valley. No, these were other vehicles, ones not accustomed to battlefields and the need to travel below notice.

  Staff cars.

  Luis watched them wend closer, he heard the fine engines of Mercedes sedans and the tinny pops of several motorcycles in retinue. This was someone important coming.

  The cars stopped and dodged potholes in the road. Luis folded his arms and stared. The sky was too low for there to be any risk to this little convoy of enemy bombers. The night brooded, a boxer awaiting the next bout. The column of cars and motorbikes slipped past Komsomolets state farm, heading straight for the base of Hill 241.6. There the column stopped.

  A motorcycle split off from the convoy and came across the field. In a broken path – the rider may have seen Red bodies on the ground in his headlamps – it came up the hill. This motorcycle had a sidecar attached to it. Without concern for the noise he made or the sleeping soldiers sitting up from their ground cloths, the rider stopped at one of the Mark IVs in Luis’s company. He paused, then revved his little motor down the line to the rear of the Tiger.

  ‘Captain de Vega, sir?’

  Luis stayed high on the Tiger. The light from the motorcycle spilled over him, he was spotlit.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Major Grimm would like a word with you, sir.’

  Luis glanced down at his crew. Balthasar sat upright in his underclothes. The gunner elbowed the radioman, who elbowed the loader and the driver. All watched.

  Luis jumped off the Tiger and landed like a cat. He strode to the sidecar without a word and climbed in. The courier whisked him away in a sharp turn, the headlamp swept in a circle across many white faces turned his way.

  The motorcycle caromed down the hillside, avoiding lifeless Soviet tanks, craters, and gloomy lumps that had been men. At the bottom of the hill, the row of vehicles had shut down to wait inside the night. Major Grimm had come all the way up from Belgorod to see Luis, over thirty miles of battered road and ground, with six vehicles attending him, twenty armed men.
Why?

  The courier halted next to a long black Mercedes. Luis rose out of the sidecar. A Wehrmacht private opened the rear door of the Mercedes. The courier pulled the motorcycle a few meters away and cut his engine. Luis folded and got into the car.

  He chose the open seat, the bench facing the rear. On the opposite long seat was a heavy man mopping his brow.

  Luis inclined his head. ‘Major.’

  ‘Captain de Vega.’ Grimm spoke, lowering his kerchief for a moment. He looked out the car window at the dim silhouettes of Soviet tanks across the slope.

  The major said, ‘You’ve been doing well, Captain. We’ve pushed your block quite a ways in the past five days. Now you’re on your way to Prokhorovka. Then Kursk, we hope.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Luis was not glad to see Grimm, even with his constant affability. What did the major want? Grimm knitted flabby fingers in his lap to keep himself from tapping on his knees.

  The major said, ‘I thought I owed you a visit.’

  ‘Thank you, Major.’

  Grimm swiped his kerchief under his bullfrog neck. ‘Captain.’

  ‘Yes, Major.’

  ‘You have performed well. First you defended the Tigers against the partisans. Then you served Colonel Breit and myself capably in the situation room. And you have done splendidly in the field. You know this.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You have been put up for several medals.’

  Luis said nothing. It was good to hear but this was not the point of the midnight visit.

  Grimm’s eyes flagged. Some new defeat was in them, something not on the map table.

  ‘I understand, son.’ Grimm aimed a finger at Luis’s chest. ‘I know how important it is to you. And you’ve done well.’

  Luis was impatient. He cocked his head and prodded. ‘But?’

  Grimm did not hesitate anymore.

  ‘But the Americans invaded Sicily this morning.’

  Luis was rocked more by this statement than by any shell that had hit his Tiger. The news pierced him, his chances for redemption.

  Grimm continued. ‘Over three thousand ships. The American landing force consisted of eight divisions. Reports say that some of Mussolini’s troops helped the Americans unload their transports.’

  And what about Citadel?’ Luis forced himself to keep his voice even. ‘Is the battle called off?’

  ‘Not yet. Hitler’s waiting to see the progress at Prokhorovka. There’s no more movement in the north. Model’s been completely stopped there. The same on the Oboyan road, Hoth is at a standstill dealing with attacks on his left flank. The only chance to reach Kursk is here. With you and the SS through Prokhorovka. I came to see your positions for myself. And to tell you. Privately. This is not information for anyone else. You’re the only one, Captain, who I am certain will fight harder because of it. The rest of the men will find out when they have to. You understand.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course.’

  Grimm ran a hand across his pate, the bristles of his cropped rim of hair sizzled under his palm. He looked again out at the dim battlefield. There were plenty of knocked-out Soviet tanks there. If Hitler could come and see for himself, Luis thought, he would never stop Citadel. We’re still strong, we’ll beat them. Let us fight. Let me fight.

  ‘Two or three days, Captain,’ Grimm said. ‘That’s all the Führer is going to wait. If there’s no breakthrough at Prokhorovka, he’ll put a stop to this. So.’

  ‘I will do my duty, Major.’

  Grimm smiled again, insipid and still eager to please. ‘I’ll keep an eye on your block, Captain la Daga.’

  Luis wanted to lean forward from his seat and snarl at the tip of Grimm’s fat nose. Climb into my Tiger with me, you tubby slab of shit, keep an eye on me there! Tell Hitler to let me fight!

  Luis took one breath to calm himself, he drew in the safe stink from this officer, his sweat and resignation, the cleanliness of his game board in Belgorod. Luis knew his lips were tight, clamped against his anger at the news and the man who’d brought it, even his kindness in doing so. You’ve done well, Captain. But not well enough. I thought you’d like to know. You’ve got two days to take Prokhorovka. The Americans, you understand. Out of my hands.

  The staff car started and flung on its lights. Luis watched it pull off the road and circle to return west, followed by its entourage, except for the sidecar motorcycle. He waved the rider off. The courier nodded, then followed Grimm.

  Luis had hours left to him before morning. He’d walk up the long hill and count the dead Russian tanks.

  CHAPTER 23

  July 11

  0540 hours

  the Karteshevka-Prokhorovka road

  Dimitri had never seen this much traffic. He moved the General at a slow walk, the pace of the thousands of men and trucks ambling east with him over the road and in the fields on all sides this morning. He hadn’t shifted past second gear in more than four hours, most of that spent jerking along in first. He’d grown impatient with the bumpy ride and the grinding transmission. He wanted to stand up and yell at the shuffling soldiers and spewing trucks, You’re in the way of a tank! A tank! With a shell or two in their tails they’d clear the road fast enough and let the General speed through.

  Dimitri was simmering, warming and angry since sunup inside the empty tank. The rest of the crew rode outside on the deck in the fresh air, Valentin with his new lieutenant’s stars, admired by Pasha, and poor Sasha, a cliche of the wounded patriot soldier with white gauze lapped around his head. Dimitri felt used. Last night rolling, crawling, with the metal tide along the road, Valentin’s boots propped out of habit on his shoulders, he felt like a horse, blinkered and reined and ridden. For the first several hours he’d muttered to himself that he was a Cossack and a hetman and many things that were not a horse, but his mumblings had been shaken out of him by the long ride in first gear and by no one to listen; now he stared out his open hatch, out of grim eyes at the exhaust smoke pouring from beneath the truck bumper directly in front of him.

  A major reshuffling of forces was taking place. It seemed every able-bodied man, truck, and tank was being crammed into the area around Prokhorovka. The General had picked up a dozen hitchers since sunrise. Valentin had told the crew they were headed southeast to join the defense of Prokhorovka. They were going to hook up with the 32nd Tank Brigade of the 211th Tank Corps. Dimitri had heard nothing about this unit. What had they done in the battle of Kursk? They were Steppe Front units, reserves. He had been running under enemy gun sights for a week now, he’d carted Valentin and his cannon in front of a hundred German tanks, Sasha had depleted fifty ammo belts, Pasha had reloaded his bins a dozen times. He’d got them all out safe every time. Now they were going to join a brigade of sixty tanks that didn’t even have a scuff on the paint yet. Valentin told them the 32nd Tank Brigade was arrayed directly beside the Prokhorovka road, right in the Germans’ route. Valya was proud, calling it the place of honor. Pasha nearly shit himself hearing this. Another road to defend, Dimitri thought, as if this were some specialty they’d developed. More like a curse, he thought. He swished his tongue but found no moisture, just road dust and ire.

  He pulled the General out of line, off the road. He shut down the engine and stood in his hatch, pushing past a thicket of strange legs and muddy boots to shove himself out of the opening and drop to the ground. He looked up at his tank, it was scabbed with soldiers clinging to every open spot. He stomped into the field away from the road and the endless line of creeping vehicles, all of them going too slow. Behind him men called Hey and What’s he doing? Dimitri walked far enough into the field to not hear them, he stood looking north into open land where a horseman could clip along nicely. Out of the south the booms of combat lobbed over his head.

  He expected his son, waiting with his back turned. If he sends Sasha he’s a coward, Dimitri thought. Come yourself.

  Finally boots kicked through the crop rows, coming to him. He had swearing ready and his tired hands w
ere balled.

  ‘Papa.’

  Dimitri turned. Pasha and Sasha watched from the deck of the tank. Valentin was bareheaded. Dimitri pulled his own padded helmet off and dropped it on the ground. He ran both hands through his damp hair, grimacing beneath his mitts.

  ‘Papa, I’ve got to ask you to stop this.’

  So easy a trap I could lay for him, Dimitri thought. I could demand, Stop what? Make him say it. Stop being insubordinate, Papa. Stop being a danger. Stop being unpredictable. Then I can yell back.

  ‘Why am I so mad at you all the time, Valya?’

  Valentin knew the answer, and he said it.

  ‘We’ve traded places, Papa. You weren’t ready for it. That’s all.’

  Dimitri had seen a wife die. Comrades skewered or shot. A powerful father wasted to illness and gone too young. He’d seen a man’s life and knew he should not have this as his saddest moment. But there it was, and it seemed so wrong to be this crushed at something a boy said.

  Is this what happens to every father, at war or not? Does this moment hurt all fathers this much? When did I do this to mine? Did I stare him down like a dog that got too old to hunt?

  Dimitri gazed at the ground and waited for it, the notion to slap his son. Then he lifted his eyes to his son’s face.

  Valentin had not moved or flinched. His son stood with the backdrop of a mural behind him, men and machines rushing to the defense of Russia, to bar the road to Prokhorovka; this Lieutenant Berko and his crew had fought in the worst of the battles for Kursk and now hurried to fight in another. Dimitri’s hands relaxed. He chuckled at himself. No matter how little else was left to him, either pride or time, he was the father of a Soviet hero. In a Soviet country, this was not so bad a thing.