On Desperate Ground (40 page)

“Same thing towards Aufhausen,” chimed in Kowalski. “No one on the roads, only civilians in the village. Real quiet.”

“Damn it!” Mack exploded. “The front’s wide open and the goddamn radio’s busted! Luther, can you get that thing to work?”

Luther had been sitting with the radio headphones on, working the dial. His eyes were closed as his fingers worked the frequency dial very, very slowly. He didn’t hear Mack. He opened his eyes and was startled to see seven sets of eyes watching him.

“Whoa! Didn’t know you fellas were watching. Might have some good news, Captain, and some bad.”

“What is it?” Mack barked at him.

“Well, I think I just heard a transmission. Can’t pick it up again, though. Somethin’s messed up with the frequencies.”

“What’s the good news?”

“Hell, Captain, that was the good news. If I heard ‘em once, it means I can get this receiver to work. Bad news is I still can’t transmit a damned thing.”

“All right, Luther, keep trying. Good work.”

“Pack it up, Luther,” Rose ordered. “We’re getting out of here now while we can cross that road. Gear up!” The men pulled on their packs and policed the area for any trace of their stay. They buried C-Ration containers and other refuse. With Mandelbaum taking point, they silently crept out of the stand of trees and made their way to the road. It was highly dangerous to cross open country in the middle of the day, but Rose was determined to get them out of the trap they were in, stranded between two roads and the village. Keeping the hill between them and the buildings, they crossed a field to a drainage ditch along the road that had blocked their way north. Using hand signals, Rose motioned Kowalski to cross over and Mandelbaum to watch the route from the village. When each gave the all-clear sign, he tapped the men one at a time to cross over. There were low trees and shrubs on the other side that gave some cover. Beyond that, gently sloping hills rose up slightly on their route north. The hillside was covered in short grass that softly waved in the breeze.

As the fifth man began to cross, Mandelbaum signaled him to stop, and a second later Rose heard the sound of cowbells coming up from the village. He cursed himself as he understood. In his haste to leave, he had picked a crossing point that led right into a grazing pasture. With miles of meadows and forest, he had chosen the closest crossing point without thinking. Damn! He slammed his fist down into the side of the ditch. Four men across, four on this side. Even if they all got across, they’d be seen before they could reach cover. If they stayed here, they’d been seen too.

“What are you going to do?” asked Mack. Luther had made it across and he didn’t want to be separated from that radio, now that there was a chance it could work. “Get across, fast,” answered Rose, as he took out his .45 automatic and began to affix the silencer. He hated the thought of killing the farmer, since it would tip off the Germans, but also because the poor bastard just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In that instant they all froze. The sound of a heavy vehicle came from the opposite direction. Rose motioned everyone down. From around the curve to their right came an open truck, towing a 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft weapon. The crew in the truck wore
Luftwaffe
blue uniforms and were talking and laughing among themselves. The truck passed by and turned the corner leading to the village. Then they heard the sound of brakes screeching and cows scattering, their bells and mooing creating a cacophony of sound that was nearly drowned out by the shouts of the farmer and driver, each yelling at the other to clear the road.

“Now!” said Rose in a loud whisper, as they jumped out of the ditch and ran to the other side. “Woodis,” he pointed to one man, “take Luther’s weapon, I know he won’t give up that radio.”

“OK, Rosie,” Woodis answered, taking Luther’s carbine. “You need any help, Luther?”  
“No, I can make it.” Rose signaled Mandelbaum to take point again. They ran along the treeline at the bottom of the pasture until they reached a stonewall that marked off this pasture from the next. They ran straight up the hill, Rose bringing up the rear, the sounds of the near-accident fading behind him. They scurried down the opposite slope and vanished into another line of trees, stopping for a moment to let Luther catch his breath. He was bent over, gasping for air.

“It’s okay fellas,” he said. “It only hurts when I breathe.”
 

Woodis handed him his carbine and they headed out, single file. Mack fell in next to Rose.

“Now we know not every Jerry pulled out.”

“Yeah, but those were
Luftwaffe
troops, probably part of an AA unit. Why would they pull out all ground support and leave those guys behind?”

“I don’t know, Rose,” Mack answered. “But I do know something’s up, and like it or not, I can smell who’s behind it.” Rose didn’t answer him. He pulled out his compass and checked the heading. Due north, to Hill 182.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

16 April 1945

Pretzsch, Germany

Benedikt surveyed the ground around him from the turret of his Puma armored car. It had taken them longer than expected to get the two slow
Maus
heavy panzers into place, but they now had a perfect firing position. The small town of Pretzsch was spread out on the west bank of the Elbe, on the downward slope of a ridge that ran across the river. From the top of the ridge, there was a clear line of sight across the river, and along both roads leading to Dommitzsch and Bad Schmiedeberg. If the SS came back up the road from the south, they would be annihilated. If Dieter needed support to the west, the guns of the two
Maus
panzers and the four
Jagdtigers
could easily be brought to bear. They could also hold off the Russians here, for a while anyway, forcing them downriver to Dommitzsch and Strauch’s ambush.
 

Benedikt directed the placement of the
Panzergrenadiers
, their half-tracks and two of the
Wirbelwind
anti-aircraft vehicles. Satisfied at last that these troops could hold this vital crossroads, he drove off in the armored car with another
Wirbelwind
in escort behind him. The quad 20mm anti-aircraft guns swiveled and searched the skies as they sped down the open road, always a dangerous activity for German forces. This time though, the
Luftwaffe
was in evidence. They saw two Me 262 jets screech by, their graceful swept wings tracing an arc across the sky as their twin jet engines thundered.

Benedikt tapped the driver on the shoulder and pointed to a road on their right. They pulled in and parked next to another Puma armored car. Hans von Schierke stepped out and greeted Benedikt.
 

“They’ve vanished.” Hans shrugged. For the past twenty-four hours they had been searching for the SS troops last seen heading towards Dommitzsch. “We’ve been up and down this road a dozen times. No one has seen them in Dommitzsch—there’s a
Luftwaffe
anti-aircraft battery there and they’ve seen no other units since Twelfth Army pulled out.”

“Is Strauch all set?” asked Benedikt.
 

“Yes, he found some good ground half a kilometer from the bridge. He’s digging in now. Here, I marked it on the map for you.” Hans handed Benedikt his map of the area, bewildered at the sudden disappearance of the SS.

* * *

Hauptsturmführer
Hugo Raalte eased back in the chair in the comfortable
Gasthaus
in the tiny village of Dahlenburg, hidden in the middle of the
Dübener Heide
, off the main road to Dommitzsch. He raised a glass of schnapps in toast to himself and drank. “A stroke of genius, Karl, a stroke of genius!” His aide,
Untersturmführer
Karl Goche, bowed and answered, “I congratulate you, sir.”

“Those bastards at headquarters would have let us die out on the Courland Peninsula if they didn’t need us to die for them in Berlin! Well, the hell with that!”

Weeks ago, the SS Frundsberg Division had retreated to Latvia with ten other divisions after the recent Russian offensives. They held a diminishing line against the Russian onslaught, and were pushed almost into the sea. They waited weeks, expecting evacuation by ship. Hitler continually refused, exhorting them to “fight to the last man and the last bullet.” Thousands died uselessly, until the transports finally came to take off the survivors. Hitler had ordered that all equipment, tanks and vehicles be loaded first, and only then the men. There were no tanks or any other equipment left, and word of this order confirmed to the survivors that their leader was not only indifferent to their fate, but ill-informed as well.
 

As the remnants of the Frundsberg Division rested and refitted outside of Berlin, Raalte and the officers and men of his company were not inclined to die in the final and inevitable battle for Berlin. So the assignment to search for Faust’s unit, in charge of a full battalion, was a godsend to him. It got him out of Berlin, and then when they found Faust was not at the Wittenberg castle, he had realized they were free to roam the countryside, the search for Faust the perfect excuse to avoid a return to the final battle. It was indeed a stroke of genius, to send the other two companies off on a wild goose chase, leaving him and his loyal men alone, close to the American lines.

Raalte had already drunk too much schnapps, but he hardly cared. “Have the other companies reported in yet?”

“No sir,” replied Goche. “They are well to the east of the Elbe.”

“Ha! Good!” He lifted his glass again. “Too bad boys, say hello to Ivan for me!”
 

He downed the schnapps and looked at his aide, swaying slightly in his seat as he did.

“Karl, I vowed that if we ever got out of Courland, I would not let them chew us up again. I’ve commanded this company since ’43, and by God I’ll see you boys home safe at the end. Which is any day now.”

“Our men trust you, totally. We will follow you, whatever your orders.”

“Are you certain, Karl?”

“Remember when Himmler came by and showered us with medals?”

“Yes, that spineless bastard!”

“Each platoon’s non-com collected them in a chamber pot, to send them back to Himmler, full of their piss and shit. I, of course, put a halt to that, but thought you would want to know.”

Raalte sputtered as he tried to take another drink, then laughed hysterically. When he calmed down, he stood up and slapped Goche on the back. “Come on then. Such men deserve to be surrendered to the Americans. And if we run into this Faust and his men, then tough luck for them if they stand in our way.”

He grabbed the half-empty bottle of schnapps and walked out of the
Gasthaus
, barking orders to his men in a slurred, but still authoritative, voice.
 

* * *

Faust’s staff car sped down the road with his personal anti-aircraft vehicle behind him. The
Ostwind
armored car, mounting a rapid-fire 37mm cannon, searched the skies for enemy planes, protecting the staff car like a nervous mother hen.

The car pulled into the Bad Schmiedeberg castle courtyard and halted near the tower entrance. It was a small castle, a single tower rising from twenty-foot high walls which encompassed several small structures built into the sides of the interior walls. It had been a garrison castle, not built for living or luxury, but to house soldiers collecting the tolls on the road. Faust asked
Feldwebel
Schmidt, on duty in the courtyard, where Dieter was.
 

“Up in the tower, sir,” Schmidt answered. “Quite a view from up there.”
 

Faust bounded up the steps to the top, where he found Dieter and Jost Brunner scanning the horizon with binoculars. They turned and saluted. He dismissed them with an impatient wave of his hand.

“Do you have an observation post set up on that hill yet?” Faust demanded. The hill was visible down the road, off to the right, about two kilometers distant.

“Yes sir, I just came back. There’s a squad over there now and we’re in radio contact. We ran into some
Luftwaffe
men burying their dead.”

“What?” Faust lowered his glasses and frowned. “Tell me everything.”

“There was an 88 stationed on that hill. It was an excellent spot for it. It seems that during that raid on Wittenberg a few nights ago, some bombers targeted the hill and destroyed the gun emplacement.”

“You mean that the Allies deliberately bombed that hill?”
 

“It seems so.”

“Did any other anti-aircraft emplacements get hit?”
 

“No sir,” Jost interjected, “the
Luftwaffe
non-com said the others were all operational, but they didn’t know what to do next because they lost their officers in that raid.”

“It’s clearly one of two things,” Faust stated flatly.
 

“What, sir?” Jost asked. Dieter already understood.

“Either the Americans are planning on crossing the Mulde, right in front of us, and wanted to take out that emplacement before they came up that road,” he said, pointing to the road that passed the hill and the castle. “Or—”

“Or they know about us,” Dieter finished for him.