Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6) (4 page)

In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance.

Joseph Stalin.
 

Vasilevsky took a moment to sip the water as the men around him took in the information he had laid before them.

Normally, it would have been Stalin that led off, but today Bulganin spoke first.

“So that’s that? We’ve stopped the Fascist bastards?”

All eyes turned to the commander of the Red Banner Forces of Soviet Europe.

“I can only repeat, Comrade. They have stopped advancing across the whole front. All their advances. There is nothing moving forward now. Our soldiers have performed magnificently… truly astounding… glorious… and yet…”

“And yet, we look at a situation where we’ve ceded much ground that was won at the cost of many, many Soviet lives.”

The attention swivelled immediately to Stalin as he interrupted Vasilevsky.

“Yes, Comrade General Secretary.”

Stalin resisted the urge for nicotine and pressed ahead, his voice raised in anger and frustration.

“And yet you seem to portray this as some sort of victory? Some sort of magnificent undertaking by the Army? Something we can tell our Comrades is an achievement on a parallel with Kursk? Leningrad? What…even Stalingrad?”

The sarcasm stung and the wound was deep.

Vasilevsky stood his ground.

“Comrade General Secretary… Comrades… I say to you that the Red Army and Air Force are performing miracles in the defence of our Motherland. The enemy is strong and well supported, with no shortages in any department. Our forces, whilst high on morale and fervour, are constantly short of the goods of war because of the logistical situation and the bombing.”

His hand ran down the map he had used to break to them the loss of much of the German territorial gains.

“Yes, we have lost much of what we gained, but we still have an Army… intact and capable. Our supply lines are shorter, which can only be an improvement.”

Stalin raised his hand imperiously.

“Tell me you’re not intending to retreat to the Urals to make the supply line easier, Comrade Vasilevsky?”

A number of men laughed before Stalin’s icy stare cut them short and chilled their hearts.

He had intended no humour.

“No, Comrade General Secretary.”

“No.”

A silence descended on the room, one that was oppressive and dangerous.

The Soviet leader succumbed to his craving and lit up a cigarette.

“So, Comrade Marshal. Paint this rosy picture for us. Tell us how well things are really going, eh?”

There was danger in Stalin’s sarcasm, but the increasingly resilient Vasilevsky did not step back.

“We have lost a tremendous number of men and a great deal of war materiel. Historically, our nation and army have shown themselves capable of sustaining such losses and still being able to function effectively.”

Molotov went to say something, but Stalin’s unspoken warning stopped him on the in-breath.

“The Allies are softer… not as soft as we once thought, Comrades, but definitely less resilient when it comes to hardship and national spirit.”

Vasilevsky took another moment to moisten his mouth.

“They have sustained huge losses too, spread across the range of nations arraigned against us.”

He sought a document and nodded in thanks to the person who had provided it.

“General Nazarbayeva’s department has already advised me that the Brazilians are seeking to withdraw to a support role, following public criticism of casualties at home.”

A number of minds wondered why the woman hadn’t informed members of the GKO first and were decidedly unhappy, even though Vasilevsky’s briefing had taken priority over hers.

“Similarly, I would expect public support in the main Allied countries to be wilting with every son or husband we put in the ground… or send home broken by war.”

Stalin coughed uncontrollably.

Vasilevsky pushed his water across the table, which Stalin waved away as he coughed more, and his displaced cigarette end burnt a penny-sized hole in a priceless Chinese rug.

He recovered, wiping his face with a handkerchief that had been proffered up by he knew not who.

“Comrade Marshal. Are you trying to tell us that, despite the loss of much of the Fascist lands, and a considerable portion of our army and air force, we have, in some way, gained an advantage?”

“No, Comrade General Secretary. Militarily, we have been beaten back, but with resilience of heart and Communist will, we have stopped a well-supplied enemy ahead of his planned timetable. In essence, Comrades, whilst we have lost ground, the present result is a draw.”

“A fucking draw? We do not draw… not with the Fascists… not with the Amerikanski… not with that drunken fuck Churchill…. we do not draw!”

The echoes of Stalin’s words continued long after he had closed his mouth and his eyes burned more penny-sized holes through his commander in chief.

“We did not draw against the fucking Nazis! We destroyed them!”

“Comrade General Secretary, the situation now is different. This is not a small group of countries arraigned against us, controlled by a single madman, with limited resources and manpower at their disposal.”

He turned his back on the ensemble to address the map.

“We have lost ground… lost men… lost tanks and aircraft… the Baltic is lost… our Japanese allies stand on the brink of defeat… and yet…”

He turned back.

“…I believe that we have done great damage to their cause.”

He held up Nazarbayeva’s report.

“This shows a chink in their armour, a weakness, brought about by the casualties this nation received.”

He nodded at Beria.

“Who knows what information Comrade Marshal Beria might develop… or even… what mischief he and his men could cause in the home countries of our enemies. Agitate, cause political instability. These democracies are weak, and if the proletariat and workers rise up in protest… well, Comrades, you are the politicians here and will understand how best to exploit the damage our valiant soldiers and airmen have inflicted on the Allied armies.”

It was as if a light was switched on and the room was bathed in its warm glow, as Stalin understood the situation with greater clarity than ever.

“Yes… you may be right, in some respects… our comrades on the GRU and NKVD will find out as quickly as possible.”

Stalin’s words translated into definite orders in the minds of both Beria and Nazarbayeva.

“But that is for later. For now, tell us what you intend to do about that.”

Vasilevsky inwardly relaxed, knowing that he had passed an important point and would not be relieved, or worse, this day.

“Comrades, whether I am right or wrong, I intend to go with my gut feeling and attack our enemy… mainly one enemy… attack hard and without mercy, where I cannot attack, I will defend fanatically, using every resource at my disposal,” his voice almost slipped into a soft fairy tale tone as he slipped his eyes over the map, eyeing the points where he would implement his plan, “…With the intention of bringing him to his knees politically… to inflict awful loss upon him… savage him… kill him in huge numbers…”

Vasilevsky suddenly remembered where he was and turned back to the GKO.

“We will knock him out of the war by using his own political system against him. Kill their sons and husbands in such numbers that the will to fight will go and the political pressure to withdraw will be irresistible.”

Stalin and his cronies were amazed at Vasilevsky’s presentation, seeing it appear to lapse into more of a political diatribe than a military presentation.

“Which of the lackeys will we turn, Comrade Marshal?”

Vasilevsky smiled at Molotov’s question.

“Oh no, Comrade Molotov, you don’t understand. Not a lackey, but the leader. We will drive the Amerikanski out of the war.”

By the end of all the presentations, the malaise had lifted from the GKO and a new spirit of optimism positively oozed from every pore.

Beria and Nazarbayeva had definite orders to support Vasilevsky’s military plan, and Vasilevsky had confidently put his intentions over, intentions that were approved there and then.

The ever-present supply and fuel issues were addressed, and positive sounds made, although there the military men present retained doubts that the promises would be met, given that none made in the last eight months had even been close to actual figures arriving at the front. Plus, the last vestiges of production from the Caucasian, Caspian oil fields, and from Ploesti, had come to an end, courtesy of the intense Allied bombing campaign.

Never the less, the fuel was promised, and no one dared to question the figures in the face of such positive feelings.

To back up the promise, an impeccably dressed professor was hustled into the meeting, just to deliver a small presentation on how to obtain fuel from other sources.

Stalin and most of the GKO pretended to take in the science of the hydrogenation of coal, with the possibilities for future fuel uses.

The presentation also covered octane levels and the need for high-octane fuels, especially for aircraft, which was received with a modicum of understanding.

They nearly grasped the process of extracting synthetic fuel from coal, although the Fischer-Tropsch process was well over everyone’s head, except for the scientist summoned to try and explain it.

They understood far better that the oilfields discovered in Tatarstan and Orsk now secretly pumped their products to the new refinery at Yamansarovo, a facility constructed in record time and, importantly, one as yet undetected by the Allies.

Even though they were still months away from anything like decent production from Yamansarovo, it was a much happier group that went their separate ways as Thursday slipped quietly into Friday.

The Gedser-Warnemünde ferry had pulled out exactly on schedule, carrying a leavening of civilian traffic alongside the German military unit to be transported to the mainland that day.

At 1106 precisely, the bow of the ferry briefly encountered one of the mines released during the destruction of L3 ‘Frunzenets’, the Soviet mine-laying submarine lost during the Spectrum operations months beforehand.

All over the ship, men, women, and children were knocked off their feet by the shock that hammered through the structure. The harmful waves of energy sought out weakness and opened up leaks from plates to shaft stuffing boxes.

The whole front of the ferry opened like a whale’s mouth, scooping up the sea as the engines drove the vessel forward and under the water.

Boats hastily put out from Gedser, but found little to rescue, and spent more time recovering the dead.

Pionier-Bataillon 230 of the 169th Infanterie Division lost all but two dozen men, and only three of the party of children from the
Nykøbing Katedralskole survived to return to their loved ones.

The long dead crew of ‘Frunzenets’ had added over six hundred lives to their haul of victims.