Shiveringly we crawl down into a snow-hole together, and soon forget the cold in the lure of the dice dancing over the green cloth. We lose our shirts.
Gregor Martin is the first to go broke, but he doesn’t lose hope and borrows a large amount from Porta at the 80% other ranks rate.
Heide is cleaned out. Shortly after that Barcelona goes. Albert refuses to believe he has gone broke. As a black amongst so many whites he cannot be unlucky, he feels. He tells us again it was his father who played the drum in the hussars.
‘If you can find anything at all in those vacuum-cleaned pockets of yours I’ll give you double,’ promises Porta, in comradely fashion.
‘If not, then we’ll lend you!’ offers Tiny, who is Porta’s treasurer.
Albert nods, with a sad, lost look on his black features.
‘But don’t you forget what whites do to people as don’t pay their debts of honour,’ growls Tiny, threateningly, as he hands a bundle of notes to Albert.
‘Hell, it’s cold? moans Gregor, blowing his breath up over his face. Tiny icicles are hanging from his eyebrows.
In the distance wolves can be heard howling against the icy wind, which blows in sharp blasts across the steppe.
‘Too goddam right it’s cold!’ says the Old Man, making his point. ‘But what the hell else can you expect on a winter’s night in Russia?’
‘Merde aux yeux,’ mutters the Legionnaire, slapping his hands together.
‘Section leaders to O.C.!’ The shout passes from dugout to dugout.
‘May Satan himself run up and down their throats with a roll o’ barbed wire on his back!’ the Old Man curses, viciously. ‘A winnin’ streak at last and the goddam Army sods it all up for the poor bugger of a section leader!’
‘C’est la guerre, mon ami!’ says the Legionnaire, and takes a puff at his eternal cigarette.
The spasmodic blasts of icy wind steady, and turn into one of the feared Russian snow storms. Even the wolves take cover. But for us there is no cover. The attack continues in the face of the storm. The wind is strong enough to push a cow along over the steppe.
The Old Man comes struggling back, on the lee side of the high snow drifts.
‘On your feet, you lazy sods! Fingers out!’ he shouts, while still some distance off.
Grumbling, we pick up our gear.
‘Who’s up front?’ asks Barcelona, angrily, and takes a long, gurgling drink from the vodka can.
‘114th,’ answers the Old Man, slowly lighting his silver-lidded pipe.
‘Let’s take it easy then,’ suggests Porta. ‘Leave it to the foot-sloggers to cut us a path. We’ll take pace from them. Cuts the danger by 50%!’
Tiny breaks open the triple-barrelled shotgun, loads for bear, and snaps the breech closed.
‘Let’s get on with it an’ pull chum Ivan’s arse’ole up over ’is ears so’s we can ’ave a little peace around ’ere,’ he snarls, wickedly. He moves off at a jog after the Old Man who is carrying his gun under his arm like a man on his way to a day’s hunting.
The company has been issued with some strange-looking harpoon guns, which shoot scaling ropes up the sides of cliffs.
‘Monkeys on a bloody stick, that’s us,’ grumbles Porta, as he begins to climb up the icy rope.
One of the new men slides back down the rope, his body spinning. He almost takes me with him. In panic he lets go of the rope and winds his arms round my neck.
‘Let go you fucking madman,’ I scream, fearfully, and feel my hands beginning to lose their grip on the rope.
‘Bite his fingers off!’ shouts Porta, who is swinging on a rope alongside me.
Desperately I follow his advice and sink my teeth into the man’s hands. To the bone. With a cutting scream he lets go, and whirls away down the cliff-side in a cloud of snow. He hangs for a moment on a ledge of ice, and then goes sliding on down into the depths.
At last we reach the top, and hang on for dear life with hands and feet.
A can-opener of a flare cuts the lid off the pitch-black night. In the harsh glare a village appears, as if it had jumped up out of the snow.
In short rushes we work our way in on the village. I kick open a door with my assault riñe at the ready.
A Russian officer stands up with a look of absolute astonishment on his face.
‘Germanski!’ he almost manages to shout. But gets no further than ‘Ger. . .’. My explosive bullet catches him in the mouth and pushes the rest of the word back into his throat. Head and neck are blown open, the contents spattering a colourful poster showing happy bathers on the Crimean beaches. In all its horror the sight is almost comical. His body shakes, and takes two steps towards me. I fire again. The rest of the clip takes him in the middle, and slams him up into the air, where he seems to hang for a second as if he intended to throw a backward somersault. His arms are stretched out on both sides. In one hand he still holds his cap with its gold cockade and hammer and sickle emblem. His back arches violently, and blood pours out of him. With a crash he goes to the floor. A bookcase is knocked over, and a rain of small trinkets comes down on the body.
A lieutenant and two NCO’s come rushing out of an adjoining room. As they come an Mpi goes off beside me. A long, wicked burst.
The three Russians are thrown back against the door-jamb, and collapse like punctured balloons.
‘Hey, man!’ cries Albert, patting his Mpi. ‘These good ol’ machine-guitars do make a man feel big an’ strong!’
‘What the hell’re you standin’ there daydreamin’ about?’ shouts the Old Man, sticking his head in at the door. ‘Get on! Get on! Speed it up! You’ll have time enough to study corpses when you’re lyin’ in a mass-grave!’
It seems as if thousands of machine-guns are aimed at us. An umbrella of tracer tracks criss-crosses the narrow streets of the village. Muzzle-flashes come from every door and window. Hand grenades whirl through the air and explode with a sharp crack. Every bit of cover, however small, contains a Red Army soldier ready to fight on with fanatical contempt for death.
Tiny gives a high scream and stumbles, bleeding, against a wall.
‘Tiny!’ I shout, fearfully, throwing myself down alongside him..
He opens his eyes and looks at me confusedly.
Porta appears, on the run, from the opposite side, closely followed by Gregor. Gregor has a Russian medical bag in his hand.
‘Are you dead?’ asks Porta, putting his face close to Tiny’s.
‘No!’ answers Tiny. ‘The bleedin’ ’eathen’s shot me in the throat.’
‘I’ll be damned!’ cries Porta, in amazement, after he has cut open Tiny’s uniform collar.
‘I can see daylight through you! Never seen anything like it! Look!’ he points at the entrance hole. ‘The bloody bullet’s gone clean through him. Ought to have taken his bloody bonce off!’
‘That came close to making a hurdy-gurdy man out of you,’ says Gregor, pressing a dressing over the exit hole. ‘Holy Agnes, but you’re lucky! Just the tiniest bit higher and the atheists’d have emptied your skull for you.’
‘Can you drink anything?’ asks Porta, worriedly, handing him the big 5-litre waterbottle, which is filled with vodka.
‘Don’t ask silly questions,’ says Tiny, with difficulty. He takes the waterbottle, and half empties it in exactly 21 seconds flat.
‘Must be running out of the holes and getting soaked up by the dressings,’ says Porta, in wonder. ‘No normal person could drink that much vodka that fast.’
‘And it went down good,’ Tiny exhales contentedly. ‘Made a new man of me, that little sip did! Let’s ’ave the bottle! The new man’d like a drop of that ’eroes water too!’
‘Well, would you believe it?’ cries Porta, shaking the empty waterbottle.
A new slobbering fills the air, and a rain of mortar shells falls with a grating crash on the village. Fires spring up. Countless thatched cottages begin to flame.
‘Let’s get outa this before the neighbours begin shoo
tin’ our ears off!’ says Gregor.
‘’Ang on a mo’,’ grins Tiny, gripping his three-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. ‘Let me just try out this old cannon’n see what way she shoots. Maybe we can find the sod as shot a bleedin’ ’ole in me!’
The whole of that night and the next day we battle our way through all kinds of devilishness. After three days we have moved forward a hundred yards. No more. Every time we try to make ourselves a little comfortable in some cover we have taken, the Russians counter-attack, more fiercely than we have ever seen them do before, and throw us back again. We go through a hell of close combat during the next few days. When we withdraw a little, for a rest, Albert is the only one of us still unwounded.
‘How do you do it?’ asks Porta, in amazement, pulling the large bandage wound round his head to a more insovciant angle.
‘Bullets don’t know where I’m to be found, man. ’Cause I’m black, don’t you see!’ Albert flashes his pearly teeth and rolls his eyes whitely. ‘They go round me, an’ then they just bores their little old road into you white arseholes! I tell you it’s a big, big advantage bein’ black in this white man’s world war!’
That the Führer escaped from this base attempt on his life is a fiery sign from God that Adolf Hitler is our provider, who has been chosen to carry out great designs, and that no power on earth can stop his march along the predestined path which leads to the final German Victory.
‘Völkischer Beobachter’ 21. July, 1944.
‘We have no winter equipment,’ says Field Quartermaster Bauer. ‘The Führer has assured the leaders of the Army that there will be no more winter campaigns, and that there is, therefore, no need for winter equipment.’
‘Are you trying to make a fool of me, or what?’ Oberst Hinka roars. ‘We are at the beginning of November! Fourteen days ago we got the first snows. If they continue we’ll be up to our necks in snow within a week!’
‘The Führer’s orders are that no winter equipment of any kind is to be issued. There will be no more winter campaigns.’ The Field Quartermaster smiles, resignedly.
‘Are you mad?’ rumbles Hinka. ‘Many of my men have no greatcoats, and we are short of other things, ammunition issues are at lowest level. We need winter oil, both for our vehicles and our weapons!’
‘I am sorry, Herr Oberst,’ replies the Field Quartermaster, shrugging his shoulders regretfully. ‘I have received no winter equipment for the Army Group whatsoever. My last consignment consisted of fatigue jackets, motor goggles and contraceptives.’
‘You must be mad!’ Oberst Hinka rages. ‘Fatigues and contraceptives! What the hell can we use those things for?’
‘Come and see for yourself, Oberst Hinka. The whole consignment’s still at the rail receiving point. I’ve signed for it, yes! But what am I to do with mountains of fatigues and millions of french letters? I don’t know! I ordered what was needed! Winter oil! Furs! What have you? I’ve received none of the things I asked for. Führer’s orders, Oberst Hinka!’
‘What are we supposed to do with condoms? Pull ’em down over the Russkis’ heads and suffocate ’em?’ roars Hinka. It almost seems as if he is about to throw himself at the Field Quartermaster.
That night German soldiers of 4th Panzer Army began to strip Russian dead of their winter equipment.
1HKL: Hauptkampflinie: The front line.
2Panjemajo? (Russian): Understood?
3OGPU: Russian Secret Police organization which preceded the KGB.
4The enemy loves treachery, but despises the traitor!
5GEKADOS: (Geheime Kommandosache): Secret matter.
6Heimat»chuss: Blighty wound.
7SMG (Schweres Maschioengewehr): Heavy Machine-gun.
8GROFAZ: Grtsster Feldherr aller Zeiten (The Greatest Army Leader of All Time) A nickname for Hitler.
9Fuhlibüttel: Prison near Hamburg.
l0Kak wy etc. (How are things going, Comrade?)
11Job Tvojemadjl: Go home and fuck your mother.
3
Fire Controller
Generalleutnant von der Hecht, Divisional Commander, screws his monocle more tightly into his eye and bends over the charts spread out over the roughly-made table. The Division’s regimental commanders and staff officers are assembled in the small, low-ceilinged room.
The lanky, hard-looking Chief of Staff, Oberst von Balk, explains brusquely why one attack on the heights after another has failed.
‘Nothing but excuses! Always excuses!’ he snarls, angrily. He strikes the charts with his pointer. ‘The truth of it is that the men have no guts, and the junior officers are spineless. That’s got to be changed! No more velvet gloves! Bring on the iron hand! The smallest sign of cowardice — or dodging — will be punished out of hand! Mobile court-martials will be established, with summary powers! Discipline will be reestablished! We have been attacking the sanatorium on 409, and the long mill on the far side of it, for three weeks now. The goal is the OGPU prison! Where are we? Still at the sanatorium and the mill! And the enemy is re-taking ground almost as soon as we have taken it!’
‘Führer HQ has given Army Corps three days for this job. Here.…’ he hammers his pointer down on a red-ringed spot on the chart, ‘… is the gate to the sanatorium and the mill! Through there and we can soon take the heights; and after that it’s only a stone’s throw to that long hill-top where the prison stands. Get there, and it’s a short stroll to the Dnieper!’
‘We are going to be the first division to reach the Dnieper!’ He stands up straight, and looks at the Divisional Commander. The General’s Knight’s Cross with oak leaves glitters in the white light of the carbide lamp.
The General’s thin lips achieve a smile. He withdraws a very white handkerchief from his sleeve and pats his high forehead with it. His cold, fishy eyes run assessingly over the assembled officers.
‘General, sir!’ the infantry commander protests, weakly, ‘this is going to cost a lot of lives.’
‘Every battle costs lives, Oberst,’ snarls the General, contemptuously. ‘Losses don’t count. The bloodiest battles are the ones which are remembered!’
‘An attack will be impossible without massive artillery support,’ the operations officer puts in, avoiding the General’s ice-cold glance.
‘Are you telling me something new, Oberst?’ barks the General, harshly. He fills a glass with cognac, and throws it down his throat in one short movement.
An aide-de-camp fills the glass again, rapidly.
The General straightens his back with a jerk, and throws a wicked glance at the Commander of the Panzer regiment, one-armed Oberst Hinka.
‘Your 2nd Battalion made a mess of things, Oberst! How could that kind of thing happen? What a pity Major Blank was killed. He would have made a fine figure at a court-martial!’
‘They surprised us, sir!’ Hinka defends himself. ‘Anybody would have fallen into that trap! From only two yards away those buried Russian tanks were completely invisible. The enemy just blew 2nd. Battalion off the face of the earth. Major Blank could not have prevented it!’
‘Save your excuses,’ the General cuts him off, sharply. ‘The remains of your 2nd. Battalion will go in as infantry. Those lazy swine could do with some exercise. All they do is sit warming their backsides inside their tanks!’
‘Very good, General,’ says Hinka, throwing a hopeless look up at the low ceiling.
With a crash a Rittmeister from the motorcycle regiment falls to the floor. He takes a chair with him.
The General screws his monocle more firmly into his eye and examines the unconscious form with obvious disgust.
‘My DR commander, Rittmeister Opel, sir,’ says Oberst-leutnant Winkel, Commander of the 4th Cavalry Regiment.
‘Get that weakling out of here,’ orders the General sharply. ‘Transfer him to an assault regiment immediately!’
‘The Rittmeister has not slept for a week, sir!’ Oberstleutnant Winkel attempts to defend his unconscious officer.
The dry little Gener
al raises his long horsey lace from the charts, and sends the Oberstleutnant a killing look.
‘Do you think I have slept while my division has been attempting to take that bloody prison?’ he hisses, hoarsely. ‘Do you see me drop down on a filthy Russian floor? Do our soldiers collapse in their tracks? Don’t give me that kind of rubbish in future, Oberstleutnant Winkel. Your sleepy Rittmeister is worthless to me. Keep him out of my sight! If he lives through the attack I want that man court-martialled for weakness and ineffectiveness in service.’ He leans forward over the charts, and points with his riding-whip at the red-circled attack point. ‘Listen to me, gentlemen,’ he trumpets, in a voice as sharp as a knife. ‘That height is to be taken, and my division is going to take it! The two other divisions will attack on the flanks. The reserve division will clean up behind the attack. I have been given permission from OKH1 to take the centre with my division. Feldmarschall von Mannstein trusts us!’ He passes his hand nervously over his shaven head. ‘Gentlemen I want that height before tomorrow evening! That is an order] And mark my words! Anyone who fails me, irrespective of reason, will go before a court-martial for cowardice and incompetence.’ He hits the chart again with his silver-mounted whip. ‘That’s an order! If it costs me the entire division I’ll have those heights before tomorrow night!’
A rattling crash comes from the door. An Artillery-Leutnant has fallen flat on his face.
The General goes almost purple, and lashes his riding boots savagely with his whip.
‘Any more of you want to fall on their faces?’ he hisses, wickedly. ‘Do it now, then, so that I can be rid of you as soon as possible!’
There is a dead silence while two medical orderlies remove the Leutnant as if he were a sack of potatoes.
‘Go on Balk,’ the General turns to his Chief of Staff. ‘But be quick about it! Time’s short!’
‘The Army Corps will attack in three waves,’ the Chief of Staff tells them. ‘As you have been told, we lead the attack. It’s to be a fast-moving attack. You will not stop, irrespective of what the enemy throws at us. We start here, at 209. Rush the ravine. We’ll be supported by a barrage. It’ll be laid down over the heights and will roll down the sides. It’ll knock the breath out of the enemy. In front of us we’ve got the 39. Soviet Guards. An elite unit, led by that stubborn chap, General Koniev. They have been strengthened by 521, Panzer Division and 16. Cavalry Brigade. Their reserves will be here, twenty kilometres in the rear. They are the 731. Rifle Division, who don’t mean anything. If they are sent in, one of our battalions can take care of them easily. They’ve neither battle experience nor bravery. A collection of half-trained peasants we can crack like lice. Oberstleutnant Winkel, you will attack from this point as support infantry to the panzer regiment, and you’ll tell your people to stick close to the tanks. Have a military police command as a security force behind you. Anybody attempting to fall back will be liquidated regardless. Oberst Jevers, you are liaison to the flanking division, and follow 104. Grenadier Regiment with your No. 6. Motorcycle Regiment.’