Wheels of Terror (33 page)

Pluto turned to us and said conversationally:

'Did you hear that the fellow who wrote: "
Es ist so schon, soldat zu sein
" has committed suicide?'

'Why?' asked Porta.

'Well, you see,' smiled Pluto. 'When he was called up he realized what a lunatic he'd been when he wrote that song. He got depressed and hanged himself with a pair of braces in front of the colonel's door.'

Pluto guffawed loudly. A shell exploded near him.

Quickly we slipped down to the bottom of the trench with shrapnel whistling round our ears and thumping into the trench wall.

I felt a hefty thump in the back. When I put my hand to it, it got covered in blood. Sticky and hot, it clung to my fingers. Astonished, I sat up. Then my mouth opened and I felt the blood draining from my face. Straight in front of me lay Pluto's decapitated head, the eyes staring glassily at me. The lips were drawn back from the teeth as if in laughter. Long fleshy tendrils hung from the open neck and blood soaked into the dry earth.

For a moment I was paralysed. Then panic seized me. With a drawn-out scream I jumped up. If The Old Un had not hung on to my leg I would have run out into the open to death.

Beneath a fir tree in the forest we buried Pluto. Porta cut a cross in the trunk with our dead comrade's name beneath it.

'Another of the old ones from 1939,' said The Old Un heavily. 'There are precious few left.'

Tiny was deeply shaken.

'My turn next,' he groaned. 'Pluto's life-line was only a little bit shorter than mine.'

Nobody answered.

Stege went through Pluto's possessions. An old purse with a few marks and roubles. A small faded photo of a girl with a bicycle. A pocket-knife, three keys, one ring artistically fashioned from a bone, and two light-blue field postage stamps. A half-finished letter to a girl in Hamburg. These were Corporal Gustav Eicken's only worldly possessions.

A good friend was no more. For him there would be no great feast, and we would never be able to sit with him on the quay by the Elbe and spit in the water.

We were silent for a long time.

21

I sincerely regret to inform you that your son has fallen, but I am happy to be able to write that he fell like a brave soldier in the field of honour fighting for Adolf Hitler and Great Germany.

He died like a man, faithful to his oath of enlistment. Heil Hitler! The Fuhrer greets you and thanks you for your sacrifice. God will reward you!

Twenty thousand times that was repeated to this one regiment.

Childbirth

Porta was madly excited. He kept running round the big new Tiger tanks the regiment had received. He kicked the tracks in delight.

Tiny filled the tanks with petrol. The lockers were packed with shells and machine-gun ammunition.

The Little Legionnaire was kissing a large S-shell.

'Just you stuff Ivan up the back,' he said to the steel and threw it up to The Old Un and me.

The large 8.8-cm. tank-gun was pulled-through for the twentieth time. The two machine-guns were over-hauled. The sighting-mechanism was tested. Porta tried the engines till the ground shook.

It was dark when we started, the engines growling. Huge steel tracks ate crushingly through the mud and undergrowth. The small huts shook as the great battle-ships of the land trundled past with the cooling-turbines whining.

'What are we really up to?' shouted Porta from among his steering-rods. 'They order: "Drive!" and we drive, but where the hell are we going? It would be nice to know a little more.'

'You drive because there's war,' interrupted Tiny. 'When you see some Russians running round this sledge, you nice and politely say: "Dear Tiny, will you be good enough to let those bandits have it?" I bend my finger, and the old comforter spreads a little confetti over Ivan.'

'Shut up,' said Porta. 'You've no idea what war is, you stupid clot.'

North-east of Olovsk we halted. The company commanders were called to a conference to be given the plans for each company.

Grey forms popped out of the darkness. They were our grenadiers and gunners.

We sat on top of our tanks and talked to them. A sergeant from the 104th maintained there was something important going on.

'It's swarming with troops from every imaginable unit. Look, here come the flame-thrower pioneers!'

We bent forward to see the unique sight. He was right. There they came, small, tough men, loaded with the easily recognizable containers on their backs. They were silent, taciturn people who answered in short syllables when we asked them about their ominous job.

A sergeant, irritated by Tiny's question whether he thought it a difficult job being a flame-thrower pioneer snapped:

'No, we enjoy ourselves, you dope.'

He threw a dull container at Tiny. 'Try racing and jumping with that thing on your back when our colleagues point all barrels at you!'

Tiny gave the sergeant a nasty look, but the sergeant went on sourly preparing his men's kit.

'Sorry I asked.'

'What the hell!' screamed the sergeant. 'That big animal wants a clout on the snout!'

Tiny slapped his thighs with glee.

'Oh Jesus-Maria, that baby's bum from the "Blacks" has delusions of grandeur!'

Like lightning the sergeant hit out at Tiny and bashed him on the chin with a hollow smack. But Tiny stood like a rock.

Then the sergeant ran at him and hit him in the stomach with the same negative result. A third smack landed with the precision of a sledge hammer under Tiny's ribs, but before the sergeant could get away Tiny grabbed him and held him up. He threatened him:

'Be good now or Tiny'll be angry and smack you.'

He pushed the sergeant away and he rolled over on the ground. Without further notice Tiny crawled upon the tank turret and spat at the pioneers. He turned to Porta who was hanging out of his driver's hatch.

Tiny and Porta became involved in a long discussion with the Little Legionnaire about the mixing of schnapps. When this subject was exhausted they threw themselves into a debate about how girls ought to look in order to afford the utmost satisfaction.

'Enemy tanks!' The cry suddenly goes up. The shout makes everyone instantly alert.

The engines roar. Lights flicker. The tanks swing out. The tracks rattle.

The companies growl through the village. Pass over a hill. Four miles east we cross over a broad road. The Jitomir-Lemberg Road most likely. Then another hill.

The whole 27th Regiment attacks in a broad wedge with No. 5 and No. 7 Companies out in front.

Tiny is standing ready with an S-shell in his hands. The read lamp shows a black F. A sign that all fire-arms are unshipped. Death's apparatus is ready for the big kill.

Porta whistles unconcernedly down by his steering-rods. His eyes are glued to the small look-out slits.

The Little Legionnaire blows in his telephone to test the radio. A couple of swift, instinctive motions load his machine-gun and he is ready.

We hear Stege over the transmitter. He is commander of No. 2 tank. He grins at the Little Legionnaire.

I look at the images in the sighting mechanism.

From the hill the landscape lies like an enormous panorama beneath us. The roads are jammed with Russian vehicles and artillery. On one flank, five or six miles away, we see T34s and SU85s. Lugini lies under heavy Russian artillery-fire.

About noon we discover, about a thousand yards away, a collection of tanks parked in parade-ground formation. Tank behind tank. In the binoculars we see the crews having a chat while they smoke. All the tanks are painted white like ours, with black numbers on the turrets.

Nervous questions fly through the transmitters.

We hear von Barring asking Hinka:

'What are these tanks?'

He answers hesitatingly:

'I don't know. Drive slowly forward. We've got to identify them. Maybe they're from the 17th Panzer Division. They're going to support us on the left flank.'

The hatches are opened. Carefully we stick our heads out to see better.

'They're ours,' whispers the Little Legionnaire.

'You see that long gun and short bonnet? It's a Panther.'

'I think you're right,' The Old Un says slowly. 'They've got no turret-dome. It can't be T34s. Why the hell did they make the Panther so like the T34? Slowly Porta, slowly! If we get too near and it's Ivan he'll crush us before we can say Amen.'

Tiny is hanging half-way out of the turret.

'Damn it, it can't be Ivan. You can't mistake those wheels. It's a Panther. They're already sitting there grinning at us because we're so scared.'

We are now within 600 yards without anything happening. Our nerves are almost snapping with anxiety.

Sweat is pouring into my eyes and my legs are shaking. Every second sixty huge barrels might open fire at us.

Slowly, rocking, we advance. It seems as if the tanks too are sweating with fright.

Suddenly there is life in the men across there. They jump into their tanks. Four swing round and drive straight at us. Simultaneously an infernal row comes from the radio. Some of the words we make out:

'Open fire, Russians! Attack straight ahead, fire!'

Before a single shot is fired by us the rounds thunder from the Russian panzers. Despite the short range they miss.

Then seconds later the four Russian tanks rolling towards us are blown to atoms. Uncountable shells hit them from every tank of ours which have had them in the sighting mechanism and triggered off simultaneously.

All eight companies in the 27th Regiment hurl a broadside at the Russian tanks. At that range even our 7.5-cm. guns are deadly to the T34s.

We trundle forward furiously, earth and mud flying round the tracks. Shell after shell wings to its target. The whole area is very soon filled with a coal-black, nauseating smoke from the many burning enemy tanks.

The crews try to escape, but are mown down by machine-guns and flame-throwers. Others are crushed by the great caterpillar tracks.

A dozen tanks try to get away, but our 10.5-cm. guns smash them. A support squadron tries to draw our fire from them, but they are herded together like pigs escaped from the sty.

We chase them down into a depression and they get hopelessly trapped. We sit in wonderful cover and pick them off as if at the shooting-range at the depot.

After a wild moment of firing, the 'cease-fire' signal goes up.

When the battle is over, eighty-five T34s are standing like burned-out wrecks. It all happens in a short half-hour.

'My goodness,' laughs The Old Un. 'This goes one better than Goebbels's wildest fantasy. What on earth was Ivan thinking of sitting there like a target? I wouldn't like to be the commander of that lot after this. He'll lose his head for sure.'

Intoxicated with success the regiment rolls forward, almost recklessly. At Norinsk we surprise a whole cavalry-unit and after a short but violent fight they are scythed down.

Wild with panic the riderless horses race round the tanks. Possessed with killer-fever we point our machine-guns at them, and shoot them down one by one.

Horse after horse rolls over, and they cry like children. A Panther IV trundled over one at full speed and blood and guts spray up both sides of the tank.

The river is filled with corpses. The soldiers who have tried to save themselves have been caught by the whispering machine-gun bullets.

Before the last tanks leave the village every house, every shed is in roaring flames and a terrible reek of burned flesh is spreading across the plain.

No. 2 Platoon is chosen for a reccy. With four tanks we roll past Veledniki in the direction of Ubort.

The third tank tips over backwards when we go up a steep slope. Two are killed and Peters is fatally wounded. Both legs are crushed. He whimpers when we put him into a motor-cycle combination to send him to the casualty-clearing station. We try to stop the blood by tying a couple of belts round his thighs, but it's like a spring-tide.

The Old Un shakes his head.

'It's hopeless. What in hell's name can we do to stop the blood?'

Peters smiles with difficulty at Tiny.

'You can take it easy now, big pig. My life-line was much longer than yours. So it doesn't always count.'

'You'll get over this, old man. Pecker up. You're going to get a pair of bloody fine leather legs with silver hinges. They never use wooden-legs now.' He grins encouragingly at the groaning Peters who has already turned yellow, death's mark. 'You'll have a lot of fun with legs like that. At the depot in Paderborn we had a lad like that. He used to run his knife into his thighs and the girls shrieked with fright and collapsed. We called him "thigh-cutter". It's much more fun with legs like that. Wish it was me.'

Tiny pushes a handful of narcotic cigarettes into Peter's breast-pocket.

The Old Un signals to the driver of the motor-cycle and shakes Peter's hand.

'My love to Germany and be prepared for the revolution.'

Peters died three hours later on the stone steps of a village school. They buried him in the kitchen garden. They had placed a steel-helmet to mark the spot but someone had played football with it so we could not even put a cross on his grave when we returned.

The reccy party went on with the job minus one tank.

We travelled across ravine-country. We had the greatest difficulty in getting through.

At last we were again out on the big steppe. There we came upon fifty or sixty T34s rolling west.

After reporting to the regiment we received orders to keep them under observation and to go on with our reccy job.

The enemy tanks soon discovered us and showed an uncomfortable amount of curiosity.

Porta crawled half-way out of the tank and waved at the Red colleagues who waved back, believing us to be theirs. They turned away and went on their jerky way.

Tiny let off a yelp:

'Holy Virgin! Do you see what's coming here!'

We looked. From Olovsk came an enemy unit even larger than the first. Apart from T34s, it counted KW 1s and KW 2s.

Porta asked The Old Un: