March Battalion (10 page)

'Last shell going in,' announced Heide, suddenly.

'And only thirty litres of petrol left,' added Porta.

Following in the rear, in the wake of the carnage, were the refueling tanks. We turned back and in record time were stocked up once more with ammunition. New orders came over the radio: Russian tanks to our right. Distance 1,200 metres. Deal with them.

It was a whole formation of T.34s. We could see them massed on the far side of the railway line, and as we brought our guns to bear I felt fear returning to me. At moments like that it is sheer hell to be trapped in a tank.

'Fire!' commanded Alte.

The heavy guns roared. Almost at once, the leading T.34s were in flames - but on our side, also, vast torches had been set alight. Within minutes we were surrounded by burning masses of steel. Few men managed to escape from the inferno before the ammunition exploded and blew both tank and occupants into a million unrecognizable pieces. It was the light tanks that suffered: the Tigers withstood the onslaught, while the others were wiped out almost completely. After an hour's hard fighting, the Russians were defeated. The cost to both sides had been devastating.

The enemy had discovered that a breakthrough at that section of the front was not possible: we had discovered that we could hold out against a concerted attack. We opened up the hatches and gulped in the cold air; lords, for the moment, of all we surveyed, which was nothing but a tangled mass of burnt-out tanks, charred bodies, and the maimed and bloody wrecks of humanity that were still left alive.

We had but a moment to savour our victory. It was Alte who first noticed the T.34s once again massing on the far side of the railway line. There must have, been more than a hundred of them. Their aim was immediately obvious : to cut off our means of retreat. The Russians were past-masters at such tactics, as we knew from previous bitter experience.

There was no time to reflect upon our situation. Alte passed the message straight on to Major Mercedes, and he at once gave the order to withdraw. It was a race to beat death. We turned and fled, each tank heading on its own course for the safety of the German lines. There was a T.34 ahead of us. We had it in our sights ...

Fire! The tank shuddered. Flame roared out of the mouth of the cannon. A second later, an answering flame shot heavenwards from the T.34 and a black cloud of smoke mushroomed after it. Then the explosion, which destroyed both tank and men.

Two more we disposed of in similar fashion, but the luck could not hold out indefinitely. We pushed on at full speed, passing the blackened remains of several of our own tanks. At one point we came upon a band of German soldiers, blood-smeared and limping, the lame and the blind supporting each other. We slowed down to take them on board and within seconds the turret and the bonnet were swarming with men. Inevitably some lost their grip and fell back into the road, but we had no alternative but to abandon them. This was no time for sentiment. If we stopped to pick up everyone, we should all end our days as a heap of charred bones. Nevertheless, it required a strong man to move on and leave his companions to the mercy of the enemy. Hands clawed piteously at the sides of the tank, voices were raised in despairing cries. Porta instinctively put his foot on the brake and Alte turned furiously on him.

'Keep going, you bloody fool.'

For a moment, Porta looked mutinous.

'I said, keep going!' repeated Alte. 'And that, my friend, is an order.'

Porta opened his mouth to speak but his words were drowned by the impact of some heavy metallic object on the outside of the tank. The whole thing shuddered and shook. Inside, we fell about in a mass of unco-ordinated arms and legs. Outside, the wounded soldiers shrieked in agony.

'Dive bombers,' hissed Alte. 'Now perhaps you'll bloody get a move on.'

Porta hunched a shoulder indifferently, but none the less the tank started up again. I think we all let out sighs of relief. Porta was the best driver in the whole regiment, and if anyone could get us safely back, he could. A blood-chilling scream ripped the air as we moved on our way. There was a moment's stillness. Then the Legionnaire hunched a shoulder.

'Someone caught underneath,' he said, laconically.

We rolled on across the steppes, now crunching our way through a sea of ruins, fallen masonry, broken glass, now ploughing across abandoned trenches, through shellholes and craters. Far ahead of us were the other Tigers. Only Barcelona was at our side, his own tank submerged beneath a horde of wounded infantrymen.

Alte kept muttering beneath his breath. We caught the word 'bridge', and we knew what was running through his mind. There was a certain bridge we had to cross, to reach the other side of the river. Much depended on whether we or the Russians reached it first.

A fresh obstacle came our way: Barcelona's tank ran into a patch of marshy ground and was soon completely bogged down. We passed him a cable, but as we were only able to pull crossways, and not straight ahead, it was of very little use. Even as we watched, the heavy tank sank lower in the mud, and Mercedes, when called up on the radio and informed of the situ ation, gave orders that it should be abandoned and destroyed. Barcelona and his crew were installed with us and we set off again, once more with a mass of bodies clinging to every foothold on the exterior of the tank.

We ran into a Russian battery and were upon it before they had time to scatter themselves. We caught only a glimpse of horrified faces, contorted with fear, as we plunged our way through the centre of them.

Shortly afterwards, it was our turn to start trembling: the tank began losing speed. Porta and Little John worked feverishly, to no avail. The distance between us and the rest of the Tigers widened still further.

'What the hell's happening?' we demanded, made irritable and unreasoning through sheer terror at our likely predicament.

'Get it moving, for Chrissake!' 'I'm not a bleeding magician! ' snarled Porta.

Alte called up Lt. Ohlsen on the radio: no reply. We saw the last of our fellow tanks disappear over the brow of a hill, far ahead of us. It seemed unlikely, now, that we should ever reach the bridge... And then, suddenly, the motor started up again. It coughed and spluttered, cut out altogether, came back to life. The tank jerked forward. For the umpteenth time, Porta had worked a miracle. We showered him with extravagant praise and he merely spat contemptuously and changed gear.

'We are heroes,' announced Little John. 'It is our duty to die a hero's death... Heil Adolf! What luck for you that we were born at this hour . What luck for us that we're still alive to fight another bleeding day.'

'What the flaming hell are we fighting for, anyway?' grumbled Barcelona, who was crouching in a corner to be out of our way.

'Don't ask damn fool questions,' advised Alte.

In a cloud of dust, we reached the bridge. It was still intact, guarded by a section of Russian infantry. We didn't wait to exchange pleasantries, we literally drove through and over them. Two daring spirits hurled themselves on to the front of the tank: one had an arm torn off, and our passengers dealt with the other.

Across the bridge, we had to pass through a village that was heavily defended. Somehow we managed to survive constant barrage from the enemy anti-tank guns, but judging from the shrieks and yells, many of those on the outside must have suffered appallingly. There was nothing we could do for them.

Outside the village we came face to face with a T.34. The first we knew was when a shell exploded on the armour-plating on the forefront of the tank. Fortunately it was not of sufficient strength to harm us, but the remainder of our passengers were swept off like straws in a high wind. I fixed the Russian tank in our sights. Before I could fire, Porta had pressed his foot down and was moving head-on towards them. The two tanks met with a hideous crash and rebounded off each other. Inside the Tiger we fell about all over the place. I nearly knocked myself senseless hitting my head on the sharp corner of an ammunition box. The lighter Russian tank was in worse case than our 52-tonner. She had slewed right round, and two members of her crew, who had been half in and half out of the hatch at the time of the collision, were sliced in two as the impact closed the heavy cover of the hatch on their legs.

After a bit we overtook a section of German infantry which had obviously seen some heavy fighting at some time during the day. All were half dead with fatigue, their eyes sunk deep into their sockets, their faces grey and haggard; most of them wore filthy bloodstained bandages, some had lost an arm, a leg, an eye. They knew the whereabouts of neither the Russian nor the German lines. They called out to us as we passed, appealing to us to take them up. We waved and shouted words of helpless encouragement, and as they saw we had no intention of stopping, their appeals turned to threats and vituperation. A captain of artillery drew his revolver and fired several shots at us, and an Oberwachtmeister planted himself foursquare in the middle of the road with a machine gun and bawled at us to stop. We moved on inexorably. The Oberwachtmeister refused to give ground, and the result was inevitable, A howl of fury rose up behind us from his companions.

Some time later we met up with the rest of the Tigers in a wood a few kilometres to the south of Lichnovskoj. Under cover of darkness the mechanics set to work on the battered tanks. Ours was given a new engine and fresh plating, and one of the tracks was changed. Barcelona took over a Tiger that had been abandoned by the S.S. The gun had been put out of action but was swiftly replaced by a more modern weapon taken from a tank that had been too damaged to be worth repairing.

Lt. Ohlsen joined our group and handed round cigarettes. 'How about giving us a tune?' he demanded of Porta.

'Such as what?' asked Porta, pulling out his flute.

'Something gay. Whatever you like.'

'Horst Wessel,' suggested the Professor. General hoots and jeers.

'The Lieutenant said something gay,' Porta reminded him.

A bottle of vodka was passed round in the wake of the cigarettes. Slowly, we began to relax after the rigours of the day.

'Let's sing, "I was born and brought up in a brothel",' proposed Porta.

We roared it out at the tops of our voices, savouring the mounting crudity as verse succeeded verse. The vodka bottle circulated. A sense of peace and well-being gradually stole over us.

'If only they'd provide us with a tanktoad of whores,' sighed Little John.

For a while, we discussed the possibility with all the enthusiasm we generally brought to affairs sexual. As usual, the discussion deteriorated and finally broke up in a riot of fighting and disorder. Lt. Ohlsen grew bored with us. He told us to shut up and then wandered away to a more peaceable group while we continued with our skirmishes. Someone hit Porta over the head with the handle of a grenade. Little John quietly finished off the vodka while the rest of us were otherwise engaged. Someone else then bashed Heide with a spade, and the Professor, as usual, ended up with a bloody nose. In the middle of it al1, the order came through: prepare for departure. We heard the first tanks set off through the trees and saw the long tongues of flame licking out of their exhausts.

Once again we moved into action. We left the shelter of the wood and took our place on the road, part of a long column of vehicles - tanks, lorries, armoured cars, amphibious VWs, jeeps - all heading east for an unspecified destination.

We pulled up again some miles further on. Porta leaned out of the tank and yelled at an infantry division that had joined us.

'Hey, be a pal and tell us if we're on the right road for the war! We'd like to have a bash if we're not too late.'

'You'll bleeding find out where it is soon enough,' came the disgruntled reply.

In the distance were the familiar rumblings of heavy artillery. The sky was criss-crossed with searchlights, and away beyond the treetops coloured flares lit up the night.

The Tigers mustered together and stood patiently awaiting orders, a long line of tanks stretching far back down the road. Porta and Little John left the comparative comfort of the interior and ventured outside, where they installed themselves in a ditch and played dice for vast sums of money that neither possessed. They were joined after a while by Heide and the Legionnaire, and the game swiftly became the opportunity for a fresh bout of brawling.

Somewhere too close for comfort a cannon gave a short, dry bark.

'T.34,' said Alte, calmly.

The order came through to move forward. The four gamblers forgot their differences and leapt back into the tank, Barcelona gave us the thumbs-up sign. Ahead of us, a stream of white and green tracer bullets rose into the blackness. It was the signal for attack.

Slowly we edged forward into the thick undergrowth, crushing bushes and young trees beneath us. Our guns fired in short bursts. Somewhere a T.34 exploded and rained down a red-hot shower of steel upon us. All around us the anti-tank guns were hard at work. Each time we heard one we instinctively sunk our heads into our shoulders.

Suddenly the booming and roaring of the heavy artillery stopped, and there came instead the cracking of automatics and rattle of machine guns. From the raucous shouts of encouragement we heard, we gathered that the infantry had gone into the attack.

'Tigers, forward!'

We increased speed. Thick gouts of mud were thrown up, trees were knocked down like so many skittles. We halted momentarily to let a column of infantry pass through, then advanced in formation on the Russians ahead of us. The fever of the chase was on us again, but with this difference: no one was sure whether we were the hunters or the hunted. Everything was in a state of confusion.

We came to a small village, a railway crossroads, where there was fierce fighting. The steady chattering of machine gunfire; hand grenades, rockets, flame throwers; harsh cries in Russian and German; screams and yells and thick columns of smoke. An ammunition dump went up in a sheet of flame. Gigantic torches that were burning houses lit our path. We were given a warm welcome by a couple of anti-tank guns, both of which had to be wiped out before we could continue. The usual carnage littered the streets. Dead soldiers, dead horses, dead civilians. Pieces of equipment that had been abandoned. A Russian captain trapped beneath an overturned vehicle, screaming with his mouth wide open and his eyes staring, unseeing. Many of the wounded, unable to crawl away fast enough, were crushed beneath our tracks. A constant fine shower of burning cinders fell over everything, even penetrating to the interior of the tank. We drove through hell with our arms held protectively across our faces, but for those outside it was far worse. We saw many soldiers yelling with pain and staggering across the street with both hands clapped to their eyes.