by Jana Petken
“And you want to work with that loose cannon?”
“I do, because you are going to convince him to stop the assassinations. Christ, that lot across the Atlantic are even getting involved in this now. I got a copy of President Roosevelt’s formal statement yesterday condemning reprisal executions carried out by the Nazis in occupied Europe.” Heller rummaged through a pile of papers and then picked one up. “Ah, here it is. ‘The practice of executing scores of innocent hostages in reprisal for isolated attacks on Germans in countries temporarily under the Nazi heel disgusts a world already inured to suffering brutality.’
“But while he sympathises in public with the men and women being slaughtered, he is spitting mad with the irresponsible tactics of the resistance groups who have no regard for the lives of their compatriots – I’m paraphrasing that part of the statement.”
“So, you think if we work with the Communists, we might be able to control their missions?” Max shrugged. “All right. I don’t believe they’ll stop, but I’ll do it.”
“Good man. You’ll leave from the usual place at 22:00 tomorrow. I’ll make sure Blackthorn and your father are kept out of this.”
“And you’ll also make sure neither of my parents find out about Paul until I return with definitive answers.”
“That seems fair.”
“Then fair it is,” said Max, finishing his Scotch.
Chapter Four
Wilmot Vogel
Leningrad, Russia.
1 November, 1941
The German Army Group North had already destroyed the North Western Front and had virtually eliminated two Russian armies. Wilmot, in the 18th Army had been fighting battles to the west of Leningrad in a place that had become known as the Oranienbaum Pocket, a strategically important semi-circle of land held by Russians units. The prize was the Russian naval base, which was still supplying the city’s population with food, medicines and weapons. The mission, however, was not going well at all, for no matter how many times the German army tried to breach the target, they were repelled.
A week earlier, Wilmot’s unit had been moved to the east of Leningrad. Tired of being held back by Russian soldiers at Oranienbaum – who on paper didn’t stand a chance against the Wehrmacht – he’d been jubilant when his unit broke through the Russian lines at Schlusselburg, a town at the head of the Neva River on Lake Ladoga thirty-five kilometres east of Leningrad city. The battle had been relatively easy compared to previous fighting, but the Russians had apparently foreseen Schlusselburg’s fall and had taken measures to deny the Germans any spoils of war. Thus, the German soldiers were weak with hunger and freezing in the icy tundra.
Wilmot was sitting with his back against a brick wall during a heavy snowfall, nibbling his measly five ounces of bread and gazing across the water to the island fortress of Orekhovets. He was wearing a heavy wool greatcoat painted green to provide camouflage with silver dimpled buttons that didn’t reflect the light. But he was blue with cold despite the coat; his body from head to toes was ill-equipped to deal with the start of the Russian winter.
Like many of the soldiers serving with him, he was angry at Adolf Hitler’s High Command, who were supposed to excel in organisation and logistics. But the hubristic German commissariat had not transported anything like enough woollen hats, gloves, long johns and overcoats to their position, leaving the men freezing to death with the promise of the full-blown winter to come.
Claus and Geert, Willie’s closest friends, were huddled next to him, protecting their hands inside the folds of their coats, and tucking their chins into their collars. They were a miserable looking trio among the thousands of men scattered along the riverbank.
Wilmot picked up the last crumb of bread mingled with the snowflakes on his coat, shoved it in his mouth, and then blew on his gloveless fingers. One hundred metres behind the three men, a group of officers were snuggled up inside a heated wooden hut. They had been in there for over an hour, leaving their soldiers exposed to the frigid air with stiffening joints and no information or new orders to get their blood flowing.
“They’re going to take their time,” Wilmot said to Geert and Claus, putting his gloves back on. “They’ve got a wood-burning stove in there. Would you come out if you were them?”
“I just want to know if we’re going to have another go at that fortress today, or not. We’ll turn into ice statues if we don’t move,” Claus moaned.
Geert kicked the snow off his boot. “That’s what they’re probably talking about, but I don’t think they’ll do anything until it stops snowing.”
“Which could be never by the looks of it. What do you think, Willie? Will we assault it today, or not?” Claus shivered and pulled his hood down over his face as far it could go.
Wilmot stood up. “I don’t know, but I think I’m going to get off my backside and take a listen to what they’re saying. Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.”
The officers’ garbled voices grew clearer as Willie neared the hut. This was no discussion. It was a full-blown argument with raised voices and insults being thrown in to boot. He listened for a good ten minutes, along with a handful of other men who were there trying to catch what was being said or using the hut’s outer walls for shelter from the wind. When he’d heard enough, he returned to Claus and Geert in an even darker mood than he’d been in when he’d woken up that morning.
“Well, what’s the latest?” Claus asked, before Willie had even sat down.
“I don’t want to spook you two, but the fortress is a heavily fortified garrison. That’s why we’ve not rushed across there.”
“How many Russians?”
“I don’t know, Claus, hundreds maybe? They’re using the island to take supplies and ammunition to their frontline, and if we don’t take it, we won’t be able to cut the Russian’s transit route from Leningrad to the mainland. That’s what I heard the officers say.”
Willie had stupidly believed that the North Army Group had Leningrad in a stranglehold. They’d already cut off rail transportation links and had the city surrounded on the east, west, and north where the Finnish troops were positioned. He’d felt sure the next phase of the battle would be a full-frontal attack on the beleaguered city despite the on-going rumours of the Führer’s siege strategy.
“Do you remember a month ago when we could see across the river to the buildings right in the heart of Leningrad?” Wilmot said to no one in particular.
“We’ve bloody gone backwards,” said a disgruntled Geert.
“And from what I overheard, we’re not going to move forwards again, at least, not as an army.”
“Why do you say that?” Claus perked up from his slouched position.
“We’re losing the 4th Panzer division. They’re leaving us to support the Battle Group South. One of the officers said we’re no longer a mobile army and we’ll be stuck here without the tanks.”
“So, we’re the poor relation now – fucking great,” Geert grumbled.
For a while, the three men vented their anger with a colourful variety of expletives and crude gestures to describe the officers who knew much more than they were willing to tell their soldiers. Wilmot accepted a tin cup of steaming hot tea from Claus. They had become good friends despite Wilmot’s initial dislike of Claus during the first days of the Leningrad campaign. He supposed sharing a harsh, dreary existence in a series of manholes with someone who had a similar character could only end in one of two ways; they would either kill each other or become good mates. Thankfully, it was the latter.
Claus filled another cup with black, sugarless tea for himself and then took a sneaky look around the area. “This is Hitler’s fault. He wants us to be right here.”
“What do you mean, he wants us right here?” Geert scoffed.
“It stands to reason, Geert. He wants Leningrad at any cost because of its name and political status.”
“It’s just a city. There’s nothing political about it,” Wilmot disagreed. “Politics ended when
the war started. Okay, so it’s called after Lenin, I get that, but it’s not worth all this cat and mouse carry-on. We should have blown every building to smithereens when we first got here.”
Claus shook his head. “Jesus, Willie, you’ll never make an officer. There are such things as history and strategy. Leningrad used to be the capital of Russia…”
“And it was the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution back in 1917,” Geert piped up.
Claus carried on, “The city is full of arms factories. What would be the point of blowing them all up when we can use the weapons and explosives to our advantage later?”
“You two think you know everything.”
“We know a hell of a lot more than you do, Willie Vogel,” Claus laughed.
“Maybe. But can either of you tell me why we’re even in the Soviet Union to begin with? I can’t see any German person wanting to live here, can you?”
“It’s rich,” Geert said.
“What? Are you off your head?”
“No, my head is firmly on my shoulders. Look, Willie,” Geert used his teacher voice, as if Willie were a backward student. “Russia makes up one sixth of the earth’s land mass. Deep veins of gold and silver run through its mountains. Copper, manganese, magnesium, nickel, tin, and a lot of oil are in its lowlands. It’s rich in raw materials. Its forests cover millions of acres, and it has a quarter of the world’s lumber reserves…”
“All right … all right … Jesus, I only asked a simple question. How do you know all this stuff?”
Geert’s animated face turned serious, almost mournful. “I just graduated a month before the war in Europe began. I obtained a Masters in International Relations and Diplomacy at Berlin University. I also spent a year in Boston, America. Did you know that? Ach, I don’t suppose any of that matters now. This war has shot all my plans to hell.”
Willie started laughing and had to hold his side when he got a painful stitch.
“What are you laughing at?” Geert demanded.
“Sorry … sorry, Geert. It’s just the thought of you going all the way through university to learn diplomacy only to find yourself fighting all those countries you hoped to be diplomatic with … ach, I couldn’t help it.”
A while later, and after Willie had apologised a second time for laughing at Geert, the three men found out the rumours of the day’s orders were true. They weren’t going anywhere that day, or the next.
By late afternoon, the snowstorm had intensified, doubling its ground height during the morning. Wilmot, taking the initiative, suggested to Geert and Claus that they secure their dugout from the worst of the weather before the ground became too hard to dig out the new snow.
Claus foraged for tree branches which the men then positioned across three quarters of the trench’s length. They covered them with wet sheeting, normally used to sit on, and a few rocks that Geert had collected to stop the sheeting from blowing away. Wilmot built a campfire on the tiny open part of the trench despite the snow swirling in every possible direction. It was forbidden to build a fire, but the trench was deep, and the men were confident that the Russians wouldn’t spot it. Besides, the officers did it as well.
When the fire was lit, Wilmot helped the flames along with the aid of a cupful of gasoline he had acquired from a truck driver in exchange for the rest of his bread allowance for that day. It was going to be a hard job keeping it going, but they’d all agreed that just the sight of the flames made them feel better.
The three had nothing to sit on, having used the rubber sheeting for the roof, but they were a damn site cosier than they’d been out in the open and were pleased with their innovation. Other soldiers who walked by also liked the idea and set off to make structures for themselves.
Willie, Geert, and Claus made a pact not to let the fire go out, and they established shifts so that they could stoke it and keep it going in any way they could until the kindling ran out. They had also arranged to periodically brush the snow off the branch and rubber sheeting roof in case the roof became too heavy and caved in.
Willie lay down against the trench wall in the foetus position with his head close to the fire. He shut his eyes, luxuriating in the heat warming his crown and the crude ceiling above him keeping out most of the snow. Clause snored, and Geert tutted his displeasure at the wailing wind. And in that relative peace, Willie thought about his family.
Since receiving the correspondence about his father’s death and mother’s abandonment, Willie had predicted that he wouldn’t receive a single letter from anyone. Gestapo Kriminaldirektor Biermann had stated that his mother wouldn’t be returning to the Fatherland. He’d also informed Wilmot that Paul had been posted to Paris – lucky bastard. Hannah was living with Frank in Kent, and Max was probably in the British army knowing him and his love for all things English.
He had written four times in as many weeks to the Gestapo major whom he now regarded as a friend. He didn’t have personal feelings or thoughts to share with a man he hardly knew, but he was the only bugger he could think of to write a letter to. All who remained to him in Germany were his aunt and uncle in Berlin, and he didn’t feel like burdening them with soppy, depressing tales about his beleaguered existence on the Eastern Front when his cousins were in similar situations. Biermann was the only person he could connect with. He understood this life, and eventually he’d reply.
Wilmot’s letters had been sent via the German Army’s very large and complex Field Post system. Wilmot had enjoyed writing them. They were an escape from the bitter fighting and long days of drudgery and…
His eyes shot open. Geert held a stick in his outstretched hand, and it snaked past him on the way to poking the fire. “It’s your turn in five minutes, Willie.”
“Then tell me again in five minutes, dope,” Willie snapped and turned to face the wall again.
The blasts came in quick succession. Three loud booms that shook the snow off the dug-out roof. A fourth explosion deafened the men and collapsed the roof with the weight of passing infantrymen who’d been knocked off their feet and then dropped onto the snow-covered branches and sheeting.
Geert and Claus had completely disappeared under the mess of snow, branches, sheeting, and three blood-soaked soldiers. Wilmot’s body was only partially buried, but his head, having been near the fire, had been struck by a soldier’s boot and was bleeding with a gash on his crown. The man’s back was right on top of the flames, instantly smothering them. His ankle and foot, the one that had kicked Wilmot in the head, was hanging vertically and almost separately from the end of his leg. Wilmot tried to move but the ground was vibrating beneath him, and his body was trembling like an earthquake.
The explosions continued, and although he couldn’t hear a thing. Fountains of crisp white snow rained down on his face. He was paralysed under the soldier’s weight pressing on his torso and legs. He tried to lift his head but couldn’t see anything of Geert or Claus. They hadn’t struggled to the surface, and he couldn’t help them – they were going to die, all of them – the man without his foot, his friends, the whole bloody lot of them, snuffed out by a sneak Russian attack that no one saw coming.
Chapter Five
Wilmot Vogel
After a monumental struggle, Wilmot managed to dislodge the rubble on top of him. The incoming explosions seemed to have stopped, but he still couldn’t hear properly because of the blast waves, and now adding to this, the noise of the rocket launchers from his own lines returning fire on the Russians.
He scrambled to his knees, panting with exertion, while he studied the soldier lying across what had been their comforting camp fire. He was dead. Wilmot didn’t need to feel for a pulse to confirm that; the foot that had hit him in the head, was hanging on by only a thread, and a thick pine branch was sticking out from his chest, having pierced his body from the back. One of his eyes was caked with blood from a deep gash just above his eyebrow and his mouth was wide open with no misty breath coming out of it.
In the confine
d, cluttered hole, Wilmot began to bawl, tears coursing down his filthy cheeks leaving clean streaks in their salty wake. He scrabbled about on his knees, howling for his friends and throwing away branches and rocks that had been jutting through the snow. He imagined Geert and Claus suffocating under the weight of dead men, buried alive with soundless screams for help inside their heads. The thought of them suffocating spurred him on, but time was running out; he couldn’t get to them quickly enough.
Wilmot grunted as he hauled the second body from where his friends had lain, but he was having to lift rocks and branches before he could get to the third soldier, who was a mangled heap in the spot directly on top of where Geert and Claus had been lying. As he yelled for help, Wilmot was aware of men running across the ground slightly above him, but he continued to throw rocks and branches out of the hole, not giving a damn where they landed.
The second soldier who had been lying beside Wilmot suddenly came to and shook his head. He tentatively explored an egg-sized lump and open gash on his forehead, then rose, staggered past Wilmot and clawed his way on to the ground above.
“Hey, come back and help me! My friends were underneath your feet … bloody moron!” Wilmot screamed after the man.
“You! Get out of that hole and report to me.”
Wilmot stopped digging in the snow with his hands to look up at his Unteroffizier. “Sergeant. Thank God. My friends are under here. I’m out of time … I can’t get … help me.”
“We can’t do anything for them now, Schütze,” said the Unteroffizier stretching his hand to Wilmot. “They’re gone, come.”
Wilmot reluctantly abandoned the dugout and followed the Unteroffizier, denial of Geert and Claus’s deaths filling his head. His rifle and rucksack were lost to him in the hole he’d called home, so he picked up a weapon and the equipment he needed from the dead along the way. He felt like a scavenger, but guns were for the living; corpses had no further use for them.