Casca 42: Barbarossa, page 10
He glanced at Becker who nodded, and the eternal mercenary counted down from three to one, then heaved himself up and began the twenty meter dash across the open, followed by Gus, Teacher and half of Becker’s squad. The rest shot up the approaches while Langer led the ten men he had with him over the road to the ruined emplacement, throwing himself over the edge of the shattered sandbags.
As he got to his knees a Soviet figure rose up, blood streaming down his face, wielding a shovel. He swung it, hoping to decapitate Langer, but Gus, following close behind, sent a bullet through the man’s chest, throwing him back onto the ground.
The rest took cover and avoided the remains of the anti-tank crew, which were scattered all over the place. The gun was buckled but seemingly in one piece. Shells were screaming overhead from the panzers, exploding on the far bank, keeping what Soviet troops there were there away from the bridge. None could fire on the one remaining emplacement because of the two wrecks of panzers that had fallen victim to the guns, and now the schutzen were there they couldn’t fire for fear of hitting their own men.
Langer edged to the lip of the sandbags. A troop of Soviets rose up and charged, encouraged by their commissar, so Langer blasted them with the entire magazine. Bodies span and toppled, falling like wheat before the scythe. None made it to him.
“Let’s get this gun swung round,” Langer snapped, throwing down his useless MP40. He had memories of his time with the American army in the Mexican War of the 1840s when he’d done a similar thing outside Monterrey.
The rest helped, swinging it round to face the other emplacement. Teacher picked up a shell and slid it home. “Looks fine,” he noted, then squinted down the sight. “Take cover,” he said, and pulled the trigger, ducking down as he did so.
The gun barked and sent a shell at point blank range into the other emplacement, blowing it apart.
Debris rained down on them and the men clutched their helmets, eyes squeezed shut, until it stopped. Becker opened one eye cautiously. “Fucking hell,” he commented, “took those swine out alright.”
Smoke was rising from the wrecked emplacement, the gun twisted in ruin. With a cheer the schutzen rose up from all round and sprinted onto the bridge, exchanging fire with the remaining defenders, but hands were going up now and the panzers came clattering along the road, swerving round the burning wrecks. Heidemann’s tank pulled over and he popped up out of the hatch. “Langer, you maniac. Well done. Hitch a ride. We’re not stopping. We’ll get you a replacement tank soon enough.”
Gus, Teacher, Felix and Steffan came running up. Langer picked up his empty MP40 and accepted Gus’ offer to pull him up onto the engine cover.
They roared on over the bridge even as German engineers were removing the charges and the Soviet survivors were being herded into captivity.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As expected, Isabella was taken by the police to the main station for questioning. No Polish policeman was allowed onto the case, for it was the death of a German SS officer. The enquiry was being handled very high up, and Isabella caught sight of a Gestapo officer in the station, talking to the senior German police officer.
Two men stood over her in a small cell, lit by a naked bulb. She was perched on a rudimentary chair next to a small square table. “You are a known associate of the deceased Herr Fuessl,” one had begun, his face hot and sweaty. “We have already established you left the castle five minutes before Herr Fuessl. Where did you go?”
“Home,” Isabella had said, her face tight. This had been a tricky situation. One wrong word would have put her in deep trouble. “I ate alone.”
“Not with Herr Fuessl?”
She had shaken her head. “I did not see him. We had – argued earlier that day. He wished to end our relationship which upset me so I did not want to see him or anyone.”
The two men had exchanged looks. The second man, a bigger and much more threatening figure, had loomed over her. “So, a motive for killing Herr Fuessl, fraulein? Who saw you walking home last night, then?”
“I – I do not know,” Isabella had said, trying to look as frightened as she could. “Maybe someone did, I hope so!”
“For your sake, fraulein, so do we,” the first policeman had responded.
She clearly hadn’t convinced the two policemen and had been sent to spend time in a cell to think over her answers, according to the two men. She still did not know the full details of where he had been found or what they knew of matters. The following day two things had happened; firstly a woman interrogator had turned up, fresh from Berlin, a cold, clinical individual used to getting answers out of reluctant people. She had begun repeating the questions that had been put to Isabella but much more searching. For the first time Isabella began to worry she was not going to get out of the situation she was in.
Then the second thing that had happened saved her. Someone had come forward vouching for her on the evening in question. With this development, not even the Nazi police could argue. There were apologies and smiles, and Isabella had emerged into the sunlight with a huge amount of relief.
A man had met her at the gates and walked with her away towards the castle. Isabella had said little until they had turned the corner so that the police headquarters was out of sight. “I hope they did not hurt you,” the man had said.
“No, but it was close. Thank you for getting me out of there.”
The man had grinned, then had looked serious again. “Luckily your letter arrived in time. I was in Vienna and got the first train to Krakow. I literally got off at the station and picked up a newspaper. Look.” He had passed the paper to Isabella who had finally read the story.
From what the paper had said, Fuessl had been picked up out of the river the following morning entangled in undergrowth not far from the castle. Police had found a single wound in his neck and were looking for the murderer of a popular member of the local administration.
Isabella had passed the paper back and made her way to work. People had been curious but Isabella put it down to being upset about Fuessl and of course the police interrogation. The fact they had let her go had more or less cleared her from any guilt. Her contact had told the police she had been walking alone through the park with no sign of Fuessl or any other man just as darkness fell. Whether the police fully believed it or not was irrelevant; a seemingly unconnected witness had verified she had been alone and therefore could not have killed Fuessl.
This had left the woman to develop a relationship with Curt Luttens, and it wasn’t long before he had introduced her to his uncle at one of the musical functions in the evening at the Krakow Philharmonic. Isabella quite liked classical music; coming from Vienna it was no surprise she did, but preferred Strauss to Wagner, whom she thought was too strident and forceful. She much preferred the Blue Danube to Ride of the Valkyrie, but manners dictated she politely clapped when the performance was finished. She admitted to herself that the General Government Symphony Orchestra were quite talented.
All this of course had got her promoted thanks to her new patronage, and before long she had replaced the supervisor who had been moved on to another duty. Things had gone rather quickly, and she knew one or two toes had been stepped on to get her to where she wanted to be, but that was too bad; her mission was to keep Casca Longinus anonymous and away from the Brotherhood. She hadn’t been able to keep an eye on everything, of course, and it might well have been during her time in police custody that the file had been checked.
She looked over the files in her tray. The old supervisor clearly had done nothing in the past few days, out of spite, no doubt, but that was all to the better. A quick check on the fifteen or so files revealed they were not her man, but she forwarded seven to the Gestapo just to keep them busy and show she wasn’t being slack.
She got a stiff note the next morning about wasting their time, since three were clearly not suspects, and she smiled. One thing to guarantee bunging up a bureaucracy was to give them work. Who was it said ‘the bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy’? She couldn’t recall.
Two days later she got a chill down her spine. There it was; Carl Langer, 6th Pz rgt. All the scars, medical report and so on. She was ready for it. It went into the middle of a small pile of files, and late that day, when some people had done their day’s job, she swiftly removed the file and slipped the contents into her handbag, folding them twice. The cover was something else, but she needed to dispose of it all the same. She slid it up her blouse, under one arm, and walked to the female bathroom. Two girls came out chatting and stopped when they saw Isabella. She was not a popular figure, being in tight with the powers-that-be, having been fast-tracked to promotion. They said it was because she was pretty and had no brain. Bitches.
There was nobody there and she slipped into a cubicle and tore up the cover slowly. In pieces she flushed it away, having to do it twice, then it was gone.
The papers she took with her to her flat and examined them that evening. She had an appointment with Curt, and he was going to call for her. But she had to get rid of these first. She consigned as much of the information there to her memory, then burned every sheet, putting them in the fire.
Curt called later that evening and they went to a café and spoke about the future, which to Isabella was odd, because she knew there was none. Her task having been done she now needed to get out of Krakow and vanish again. Switzerland was calling.
They were returning back to her flat when a man stepped out of the shadows, a trilby hat putting his eyes completely in darkness. “Fraulein, you will come with me.”
“What?” Isabella began.
Curt stepped in front of her and the man swung his arm, and a pistol’s barrel connected with his head. Curt fell like a stone to the pavement. The man grabbed Isabella’s arm. “Hurry, we haven’t much time! They’ve found your hat pin in the park.”
“Oh God,” she exclaimed, then hurried in his wake, casting one glance back at the prone Curt. “Will he be alright?”
“Yes,” her contact said testily, “he’ll have a headache. He’ll go to the police and since they’re looking for you, they’ll be here in minutes. We haven’t got much time. They’re watching the railway stations and all roads out of the city.”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ll have to go to ground. I’m unknown to the police and authorities here, so my place is safe for the moment. You’re too distinctive, Isabella. Your locks will have to come off.”
“Whatever,” she replied. “Just keep those animals away from me.”
They plunged into the side streets of Krakow, moving away from Isabella’s flat which was at that moment being ransacked by the Gestapo.
____
September came and went. Langer and his crew were given another tank, a beaten up IV, and plowed south towards Kiev, helping to trap another half a million Soviet soldiers in the Kiev Kessel. It was a disaster for Stalin and at the end of it most of the Ukraine had been lost along with invaluable wheatfields. The Russian commander Kirponos had perhaps fortunately been killed in the fighting. Stalin was not known for his mercy.
For the crew, they had pushed their new panzer to the limit and it had, like many of the German tanks, broken down just as the pocket had closed. Fortunately there was not much in the way of fighting, although the new weapon in the skies, the dive bomber called the Sturmovik, had made things uncomfortable on the odd occasion. Like the new Soviet tanks, it wasn’t yet in sufficient numbers to affect the way the war was going, but it was as good as and probably better than the Stuka.
They were rested and sent back north to the central region. There was a build-up of panzers and soldiers, ready to launch in a huge attack against the Russians who had built up a defensive line which had stopped the infantry, now denuded of tank support. The Russians had thought they were now capable of halting the Wehrmacht.
“That’s crap,” Felix said decisively. “Once we get our panzers back up in working order and in enough numbers, we’ll hit them harder than before.”
“True,” Gus conceded, pausing for a moment in sinking a bottle of vodka he had somehow managed to acquire. “But they’re sending all these new T34s to the front and it won’t be as easy as before. They’re starting to get the hang of our tactics.”
Langer mulled on the situation. “They’ll always have enough men to take us on, it’s just a matter whether they have the equipment or not. We’ll have to fight harder to get through them this time round.”
Teacher nodded from his place at the back of the room, sat silently at a small table. “It won’t be so easy, Felix. Lucky we’re having this rest; I doubt we’ll get much once we get going.”
“And the weather’s going to turn before long. It’s nearly October, and soon enough it’ll start raining and then well get stuck in the mud, or it’ll freeze and we’ll get breakdowns and frostbite.” Langer knew from experience the horror of the Russian winter. At least with Napoleon by now he’d made it to Moscow. Not this time round. He was getting worried.
They were sent to the front near the Russian-held town of Glukhov. Word was that there were five Soviet divisions facing them under Ermakov. Heidemann gave the men a prep talk on the evening before the attack. “We’re resupplied, fueled up and as ready as we’ll ever be. There will be an artillery bombardment at dawn, followed by the Luftwaffe attacking their rear areas. Our start time is 6am, so get what sleep you can because I doubt any of us will get any for a while. We’re to sweep south of Glukhov, letting the infantry take the town, and drive on north-east towards Moscow. The weather forecast isn’t great and it’s likely we’ll get rain before long. Good luck!”
They retired to their tanks and slept under tarpaulins and in sleeping bags. It was too chilly and damp now to sleep in the open. Langer sat up against the wheels of the panzer, smoking quietly. All his crew were asleep. His dreams were usually bad, involving nightmares of past wars or people he’d killed. At least these days with the improved efficiency of the weaponry one hardly ever saw who you killed close up. Still there were times…….
He cursed under his breath. The damned Russians were doing what they always did. Take blows that with anyone else would finish them off, then come back as hard and hammering you senseless. It all depended on getting to Moscow as soon as they could. He cursed Hitler and the high command for halting the attack on Moscow in late August; he was certain if they had carried on by now they would be resting in the shadow of the Kremlin, and not out here in the wilds.
Still, no matter. He would do what he always did, fight, and fight hard. He wanted to keep his four comrades as safe as he could in this insane struggle, and hopefully come out the far side intact in mind as well as body. He wondered how he had kept his sanity at times; what he had endured was enough to give anyone the screaming habdabs. He guessed he had gone mad a few times, but to someone like him madness was as transitory as a king’s reign. It may last for a few years but eventually it would end.
He had certainly lost his mind before Attila had arrived on the scene, and he didn’t want to go back there, where his mind contained some dark memories half remembered. No, best he stayed away from that cloak of darkness.
He shivered, then covered himself up with his coat and settled down for what might be his last good night’s sleep for some time.
The morning came reluctantly, sluggishly, as if not wanting to witness what was about to happen. The tankmen piled into their machines, checked for the umpteenth time that everything was in order and working, and waited. Langer had the hatch shut. They would be at it hard in a short while and he wanted to be as prepared as he could be. “Everyone set?”
He looked down at Teacher and Steffan who nodded, then leaned down to peer forward. Felix put his thumb up and resumed fiddling with the radio equipment, and Gus leaned backwards, his hands behind his head. “I’m fine, Carl, don’t fret so. Whatever is going to happen will happen, and nothing we do will change that. If the gods of war are looking over us, then we’ll be fine. If not….” he shrugged and slumped even further into his protesting chair.
Langer knew what he meant. For him it wasn’t the same, of course. He may be wounded and left for dead, but he would return as if from the dead a day or two later. For his crew, and for everyone else, for that matter, they would be fighting for their lives. For him? Ahh, he sucked in his breath. To destroy communism? To answer the Curse’s call to fight? Both? Neither? Something else? He really, deep down, had no idea. He just had the awful feeling he was performing for some greater power.
“Regiment will advance,” Heidemann’s voice came to him.
“Right, Gus, let’s go.”
Gus obediently jabbed the panzer into life and peered ahead. The dawn was spreading from the horizon, lighting up the sky, and suddenly all hell broke loose as shells screamed overhead to plunge down onto the Soviet lines. Aircraft came droning from behind, ready to drop their ordnance on the unsuspecting Russians, and the panzers growled into motion, rumbling across fields, plowing through fences and crossing countryside tracks. Ahead were the Soviet lines, lit up by explosions and flames. The peasants who had lived around here had fled, leaving the two armies to fight it out for their patch of earth.
They clattered towards the forward positions of the army lines and were waved through, a mass of movement clattering out of the dark. Behind, the schutzen were piling into trucks, half-tracks and, incredibly, horse-drawn wagons. The shortage of vehicles and the terrain meant that these outdated methods of transportation were still being used.
Langer peered through the sights. He could see little to start off with, but gradually detail solidified and the growing light made things easier. They were now through the final trenches of the division and were pouring out of the gaps the engineers had made in the wire and minefields and making for the burning Russian positions.
