by Leo Kessler
‘Stay where you are!’ Stuermer commanded. ‘Not a move. He might come—’
The words died on the big colonel’s lips. The Rata had emerged from behind the glistening peak, a harsh black against the bright blue of the sky. Now the spotter plane was coming in at tree-top height, its engine barely above stalling speed. Instinctively Stuermer knew they had been spotted.
There was no use attempting to hide any more. ‘Independent fire!’ he ordered urgently. ‘Knock the bastard out of the sky!’
The mountaineers needed no further urging. They all knew what it might mean if the pilot reported his sighting back to the Red HQ. Everywhere they sprang from the snow, fumbling with their carbines as they did so.
Ox-Jo let fly with a futile burst of machine-pistol fire. The tracer zipped by the plane harmlessly. Greul, standing as if he were back on the ranges, one hand behind his back in the classic stance of the pistol marksman, took aim carefully and fired. The perspex shattered into a gleaming spider’s web. The little Rata seemed to fall from the sky, as the blinded pilot fought with the controls.
‘You’ve got him, sir,’ the words sprang up from half a dozen gleeful throats to die the next instant, as the pilot somehow regained control of the spotter plane and, flying blind, speed increasing at every moment, fled for the safety of the high peaks.
‘For God’s sake don’t let him get away!’ Stuermer cried furiously above the roar of the plane’s engine.
The men opened up again. Tracer slit the blue sky angrily after the speeding plane. But already it was too late. The Russian pilot banked to the right, leaving the angry tracer hissing harmlessly into nothing. A moment later the Rata had vanished behind the nearest rock wall and the firing started to die away. Suddenly there was no sound save the steady throb of the motor in the east, becoming fainter by the second.
Greul stamped across to where a red-faced, angry Stuermer stared into the sky. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘Well what?’
Greul indicated the spot where the Rata had disappeared. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, sir, that that plane spells trouble for us.’
‘You don’t, Major Greul,’ Stuermer answered icily, turning his attention to his arrogant second and. ‘So?’
‘So, sir, assuming that the Rata is an indication that we shall soon be receiving visitors, what are we to do about them?’ He indicated the wounded lying on the makeshift sledges.
Stuermer knew exactly what Major Greul meant, but it was something he did not even want to think about. He played stupid. What do you mean, Greul?’
‘I mean sir, that one can’t make an omelette—’
‘—without breaking eggs,’ Stuermer interrupted him angrily, ‘I know your favourite motto, Greul. Come to the point.’
Greul flushed. ‘In this kind of country, we should be pretty safe against aerial attack. With five or ten seconds’ notice the men could be up the rock walls on either side and out of harm’s way. We are safe as long as we are in a position to disperse swiftly. But not with those wounded.’
Greul had expressed what he had not dared even to think about, yet Stuermer was still shocked. ‘But we can’t abandon the wounded, Greul!’ he cried. ‘They are our comrades and our responsibility.’
‘The decision is yours, sir,’ Greul replied. ‘It is either the wounded or us — and the success of our mission.’ With that he turned and stumped back through the snow, leaving Stuermer standing there, his shoulders bowed, his face stricken with grief.
The dive-bombers appeared suddenly on the blood-red horizon. For one long moment they seemed to hover there, the red ball of the sun behind them.
Stuermer watched them through his binoculars, horror-stricken. They were Stormoviks, Russian dive-bombers, and they were preparing to come in with the sun behind them. It was the usual tactic: a means of blinding any gunner attempting to stop them. Standing next to him, his glasses focussed on the sinister black hawks of planes hovering on the horizon, Major Greul said quietly: Well, sir?’
Stuermer knew they had only a matter of moments. Could they fight the dive-bombers off? Even as he asked himself the question, he knew the answer. No! Their sole heavy weapons were the machine guns. But could he sacrifice the wounded like that? His face revealed the agony of decision.
Greul said, ‘Time is running out, sir.’
‘I know, for God’s sake, I know!’ Stuermer exploded. ‘But the wounded, what can I do about the wounded?’
‘Nothing, sir — and here they come.’ He lowered his glasses as the black hawks sped from the horizon, growing larger by the instant.
‘All right…all right,’ Stuermer sobbed. ‘Tell the men to get up on the rock wall!’
Greul did not hesitate. ‘Up the rock…up the rock…at the double!’ he yelled above the frightening roar of the approaching dive.
The mountaineers broke at once. Like human flies, weapons slung over their shoulders, they started to scale the almost sheer walls on both sides of the snow-bound mountain track. Stuermer hesitated, his face contorted with horror at the knowledge of what was soon to come. Greul grabbed him roughly by the arm. ‘Come on…come on, Colonel. There is nothing you can do!’ He broke into a run, dragging the reluctant Stuermer with him.
As they ran by the sledge which bore the dying Sergeant Hackebeil, the NCO raised himself painfully and croaked, ‘The best of luck, sir. Berg Heil!’ he gave the mountaineer’s greeting and fell back exhausted to wait for the inevitable.
Stuermer sobbed and staggered on, knowing that he would not forget the look in the dying man’s eyes for as long as he lived.
The squadron commander jiggled his wings. Abruptly he dropped out of the hard blue sky. At four hundred kilometres an hour, sirens howling, he hurtled for the ground. Behind him one after another the Stormoviks peeled off and did the same. Watching them from the relative safety of the rock wall, the mountaineers stared wide-eyed at the diving planes which seemed to threaten to smash into the ground at any moment.
Just when it seemed the leader would not make it, he levelled off. From their hiding place they could see quite clearly his pale blur of a face and the great red crosses on the Stormovik’s side. The dive shuddered violently. Tiny deadly black eggs tumbled wildly from its belly. Behind the almost stationary Stormovik, plane after plane levelled off and discharged their bombs too.
Just as the first stick exploded with an ear-splitting crash, Stuermer caught one last glimpse of the men trapped below on their sledges, their faces contorted with fear and horror. Then his world was swamped in furious sound, drowning the screams of the dying men…
The bombers had gone now, winging their triumphant way to the east, leaving behind them only dead mountaineers. Silently, his head bared, his eyes filled with tears of compassion and shame, Colonel Stuermer wandered in a daze through the shattered sledges: a jumbled mass of twisted weapons, smashed wood and severed limbs, already beginning, in the cold mountain air, to settle into a pool of congealing blood.
‘Sir.’
Slowly Stuermer turned round. It was Ox-Jo. In his big hand he held a canteen. ‘A drink sir. The last of the Enzian,’1 he said, his voice unusually soft for him.
Numbly Colonel Stuermer shook his head.
‘It’ll do you good, sir. Put—’ the words faltered to nothing, as the NCO realized that they were having no effect. He put the canteen away and said, his voice heavy and without its usual bite, ‘Volunteers to bury the dead!’
Thirty minutes later, they began their progress up the Pass once more, leaving behind them fourteen rough mounds of earth and stone already beginning to be covered by the new snow. Colonel Stuermer did not look back. He couldn’t.
Note
1. A Bavarian and Austrian mountain drink.
FIVE
Sergeant Lermintov swept the ground below with her glasses, ignoring her cramped leg muscles and the stiffness in her arms. She had held the same position for nearly an hour now — ever since dawn when she had begun to search t
he area beyond the pass for any sign that the Fritzes had survived the bombing of the previous day. For Comrade Captain Mikhailovna had informed her by radio that what appeared to be another German patrol was on its way into the high mountains.
Now the sun, rime-ringed and a pale, luminous yellow after the night’s fresh snow, had appeared behind the towering buttressed giant of the Elbrus and was casting long black shadows, which raced like live things across the gleaming white surface below. Everything was outlined against it a harsh stark black. Lermintov adjusted the focus of her glasses and swept the area to the right of the track which led up to the pass. She had covered the same terrain only ten minutes before. Then it had been empty. Now things had changed. From that direction came the faint shrill wheep of a whistle.
For what seemed a long time, the cropped woman sergeant, lying among the snow boulders, her brow creased in a puzzled frown, tried to work out the reason for this strange alien sound among the white mountain wilderness.
Then she had it. Tiny dark figures were advancing with the slow, measured movements of men ploughing through deep snow. She felt a thrill of sudden fear, but dismissed the feeling the next instant. Raising herself a little from her hiding place, she started to count them.
It wasn’t easy. The tiny figures, startlingly black against the ascending sun, continually slipped into the shadows cast by the great boulders which littered the slope below, and disappeared from sight. But in the end she had it. Nearly thirty of them, spread out in a line about a kilometre in length, in its centre a man directing them forward by means of an alpenstock — an officer, probably. Thirty against a dozen women. For a moment she lay there, considering the odds watching the snail-like relentlessness with which the Fritzes advanced up the slope, knowing that inevitably they and her own force would clash. Then she remembered how well sited her own position was, and just how loyal and brave the Red Ravens were. Encouraged she slipped out of her hiding place and started to steal back to the caves. It was a badly timed move. Because of it she missed the second force — another thirty men — moving in from the left flank.
She pushed back the canvas which covered the entrance to the caves.
‘Anything wrong, Comrade Sergeant?’ one of the girls asked, alarmed by the look on her broad masculine face.
Sergeant Lermintov pulled herself together. She was ten years older than her girls; she must not alarm them. ‘Not much,’ she said casually, taking out one of the long ration cigarettes, biting off the paper mouthpiece and lighting it with demonstrative casualness. ‘I’ve just seen a bunch of Fritzes out there.’ She breathed out a stream of blue smoke, her eyes wrinkled up as she did so.
‘Fritzes?’
‘Yes, perhaps thirty of them. They are spread out like fleas on a poodle’s back. Easy meat for us to pick them off. Listen,’ she continued more urgently. ‘We have nothing to fear. We are in an excellent position up here. We have the heights and there is no way in hell that they can get past us. They might have the superior numbers, but we have the advantage of the dug-in position. Now then, don’t look so glum, my beautiful Red Ravens. We’re going to give those Fritzes a bloody nose — a very bloody one. Come on!’
The Fritzes, more closely bunched now as they came closer to the pass, were less than half a kilometre away. Sergeant Lermintov tucked the stock of her sniper’s rifle deep into the hollow formed by her cheek and shoulder. The time had come to stop them. All around her the Red Ravens waited tensely. She swung the rifle round. An NCO came into the round glittering eye of the sight. She watched the Fritz blow his whistle and heard the noise it made echo mournfully down the snow bound valley like the wailing of some lost bird. She sucked in her breath and in that same moment, gently squeezed the trigger. The rifle slapped against her shoulder — hard. The whistle sound merged into a long bubbling scream of agony. The NCO’s hands fanned the air frantically. His knees started to crumble beneath him like those of a new-born calf. Next instant he pitched face-forward into the snow and lay still.
It was the signal the Red Ravens had been waiting for. They opened fire. The first volley crashed into the line of advancing Germans. Fritzes went down everywhere, suddenly galvanized into frenetic lethal activity, bowled over, slapped against the boulders by the impact of the slugs smacking into their bodies, doubling crazily for cover. Next moment the first wild flurry of bullets began to patter against the Ravens’ positions. The battle for the Chotyu-Tau Pass had commenced…
SIX
As the echo of that first startling volley rolled and rolled dramatically down the valley, the first gentle, feathery flakes of a new snowfall began to trickle down, growing in intensity by the instant.
‘Return fire—’ Colonel Stuermer began, his voice snatched away by the sudden wind, which had already started whipping the snow into their bent faces and stinging tears from their blinking eyes.
Within seconds, visibility was down to a metre and they were blanketed in an impenetrable cocoon of swirling white. Colonel Stuermer ducked. A burst of automatic fire whined off the rocks to his right in a murderous ricochet. Everywhere, scarlet flame stabbed the whirling white gloom, as their attackers fired blind at the mountaineers. Stuermer flung a hasty prayer to heaven. This day God had been looking after them. Undoubtedly Stormtroop had suffered some casualties, but the sudden snowstorm was now giving them all the protection they needed.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Return fire,’ he yelled with all his strength; then, ‘Meier and Jap — to me! Over here — quick now!’
An instant later the two NCOs emerged from the snow.
‘Listen, you two,’ he yelled above the howling wind, ‘I want two volunteers to come with me up the track. We’ve got to find out the kind of opposition we’re facing. Major Greul on the right can’t put in an attack until he knows what he’s up against.’
‘And I suppose we’re the two volunteers, sir?’ Jap grunted.
‘That’s right. How did you guess?’
‘I just felt it somehow, sir,’ Jap replied and tugged his snow smock, closer to his skinny frame.
‘You’ll be feeling the toe of my boot up yer arse — somehow,’ Ox-Jo snarled. ‘When do we start, sir?’
‘Now. . . Come on.’
Bent almost double against the howling wind, which whipped the snowflakes into their crimson streaming faces like white tracer, the three men worked their way along a line of broken rock, hardly noticing the stray slugs which whined off it every, now and again. In comparison with this howling crazy onslaught by Nature, man-made viciousness seemed relatively harmless.
Stuermer stumbled to a halt at the edge of the track which led upwards. They had left it early, because he had reasoned that if the pass were held, its defenders would have a fixed machine-gun covering it, firing regularly at intervals, its range already set.
The next moment his guess was proved right. There was the chatter of a heavy machine-gun. Red glowing tracer zipped through the whirling white fog. Slugs howled off the rock a couple of metres away from them. Stuermer didn’t hesitate. ‘Come on — quick,’ he, commanded, and broke cover. Madly the three of them, bodies bent double, scurried across the trail and pitched into the deep snow of the other side, just as the machine-gun fired its next vicious burst.
Doggedly, the three men began to stumble up the mountainside, slipping and falling lime after time on the treacherous surface of the new snow, bodies wet with sweat in spite of the biting cold, faces whipped mercilessly by the bitter flying flakes. The ascent seemed interminable. No-one spoke. The only sound was the harsh rasping of their own breath. Their sole concern was not the enemy, but the physical effort of keeping going, fighting the vicious whirling snow.
Then, as suddenly as it had commenced, the snow-storm started to peter out. Visibility, began to improve. The wind dropped and the intensity of the flakes diminished. Now Colonel Stuermer, in the lead, could catch glimpses of the great swell of Elbrus with to its front the sharp twin peaks on either side of the pass. He kne
w that it would only be a matter of minutes before the snow storm stopped altogether and they would be completely exposed to the unknown defenders’ view. He decided they could go no further. ‘Hit the dirt,’ he ordered.
They needed no urging. The storm had taken its toll. They were exhausted. Wearily, the two of them slumped behind the cover of the nearest boulder, while Colonel Stuermer wormed his way forward in order to get a better view of the summit. The last few feathery flakes melted on his face. Stuermer blinked a couple of times to clear them from his eyelids, then squirming round on his back in the hollow in which he found himself, he pulled out his metal shaving mirror.
Slowly, very slowly, he raised it above his head. Nothing happened. No angry burst of fire. The mirror had not been spotted. For a moment he could see nothing. The steel was misted from the heat of his body. But only for an instant; the chill mountain air soon cleared the grey film and he could see the top of the pass. Gingerly he turned the mirror, grateful that there was no sun to betray the shining surface, and covered the heights. Soon a dark figure came into view — and another. He held the mirror still and surveyed them. Then he nearly dropped the mirror. The bigger of the two figures had thrown back its snow hood to reveal a full head of blonde curls. The defenders of the Chotyu-Tau Pass were women!
‘Women or no women, Greul,’ Stuermer said firmly ‘they’ve got a beautiful position up there!’ He drew a line in the snow with his knife. ‘They’re covering it — here and here, with a fixed line machine-gun — here. Then,’ he paused and let the ragged burst of firing from the other Edelweiss’s position die away, telling himself that they were carrying out his order to keep the defenders occupied during the night, ‘they’ve got another couple of machine-guns over to their right — here and here.’
