by Barry Sadler
The Armenian was shocked at first, then started to scramble up the side of the tank to get inside and batten down. He had rolled out from under Langer, and out of the pig guts, some still hanging to his face and chest. Growling, Gus struck at him with the edge of his shovel. There was a "thunk," then a wet sucking sound, as it pulled out of the Armenian's spine. Gus had hit him right at the junction between the shoulder blades with a straight thrust that sank the sharpened sides in to a depth of five inches. Gus caught a look at Yuri's head lying on the ground by the tracks, and screamed like a berserker of old. He lunged forward, swinging his tool like a meat cleaver, only to feel his hand go numb, and find he was holding only the wooden handle. The head of the entrenching tool had been severed with a clean quarter wrist sweep of the major's saber hand.
The Cossack paused, noting that the Germans were carrying no guns; he decided to enjoy himself a little. He fended off Gus's attempt to brain him with the shovel handle with a series of light taps and touches, leaving the big German's face pricked and cut in half a dozen places, in less than ten seconds. Gus couldn't get through the flashing blade, and backed away, a wounded animal, his eyes shrunk to tiny pinpoints, blood running freely down his face. The major moved in the classic flèche, the long, smooth, almost running lunge to the heart; Gus was backed up to the tank with nowhere to run. The saber blade moved off center to ring off the hull of the T-34. The Cossack recovered.
Langer stood between them, his bayonet held to the front. The major smiled and spoke in perfect German, with a slightly British accent, "Well, well, what have we here, a sergeant who thinks he understands the saber. Too bad you're not an officer at least, then I might have the confidence that you would have at least had some rudimentary training. But perhaps you can provide me with enough entertainment to make up for the loss of my men." He looked closely at the thick-set body of the man confronting him. "You are a tough-looking swine at any rate." He pointed the saber blade at Langer's face, at the scarred side. "Schlager mensur, perhaps?" his voice hopeful as he referred to the German dueling scar students of the universities loved to inflict on each other as badges of courage. "Perhaps you have had some experience after all."
The Cossack stepped, made a mock enveloppement that ended in the en garde position and saluted the man with the bayonet. "Sergei Ilye Rasdonovich at your service." Gus started to move, but Langer called out, loud enough for Teacher to hear, "Leave him alone. He's mine." The major thought he was only addressing Gus.
Teacher removed the Mauser from his shoulder and moved to a position where he could get a better look at the proceedings. He had seen Langer with a bayonet on a rifle or, in hand to hand, but this was different, a bayonet against a saber. He consoled himself with the thought that if Langer was killed, at least he would have the pleasure of putting a bullet through the brain of the Russian major.
Langer watched the body of the Russian; he was good, but he held his blade a little too tight, the arm was stiff and he was over confident. Carl held his blade with the cutting edge facing out to the right, the blade held flat, extended. He waited, went into a half crouch, right foot extended, his left hand held low to his side, fingers open. The Cossack finished his salute and extended the point of his saber, making a circular parry, small circles around the point of Langer's weapon, feeling the distance, and then performed a glide, not really wanting to kill, just toy with his mouse for a moment. The glide ended up being turned back on itself. The Cossack flinched.
His sleeve was opened from the wrist to the elbow, nothing deep, just enough to irritate, but how had the mouse done it? Pivoting, he again faced the German; this time there would be no toying with his prey, it was time to kill. He went on to coupe, trying to pass his blade over the point of the German's shorter bayonet by raising his point with a flexible movement of the fingers and hand bending the arm just a hair and extending to pierce the heart. Again he felt a burning, as his blade was turned and somehow his victim had come under him and made a quick slice on the face in the same spot that the German wore his scar. The Hun stepped back and smiled, raised his blade in a straight-arm salute, mocking him. "Ave! te moritu salutus." The ancient salute of the Roman arena. Blood dripped down the Cossack's arm on to his hand and wrist, making the grip slippery to the touch. He bled just enough to fog the vision in his left eye slightly. The Fascist was playing with him. He was the mouse, and the smiling, blue-eyed man in the strange stance in front of him was the cat.
Well, this mouse could still kill; with a cry he lunged, making one circular sweeping attack after another, trying to use the longer reach of his weapon to beat the German back and break through his defense, only to find the German holding him chest to chest for a moment, moving around like they were dancing. The German smiled and Rasdonovich again felt a stinging pain; this time the German stepped back and laughed. Sergei touched his face; the German had slit his nose an inch on both sides, leaving only two bloody flaps to breathe through.
Langer stepped back; the Cossack was breathing heavily, bloody bubbles swelling out of the torn nostrils and bursting with each breath. He knew he was going to die; he waited, Langer moved in, low blade extended. He lunged, the Cossack tried to parry. Langer's left hand grabbed the Russian's wrist, pulling him forward off balance; he then moved and stepped to the side, putting the arch of his boot on the back of Sergei's knee, forcing him down to the ground on one knee, sword arm held in a steel grip; another quick burning and Sergei saw his left ear lying in front of the Tatar's head.
Raising his head he cried out, "End it, in the name of God end it."
Langer smiled, his face like granite flesh. "As you wish." One long circular stroke like that of a master barber, a strong tug on the hair, and the Russian's head joined that of Yuri, the two of them watching each other.
Carl wiped his blade off on the Russian's tunic, and then resheathed it in its metal scabbard. It was over, and once more the old feeling of being drained washed over him.
Teacher came out of the cellar and joined Gus, speechless. He had never seen anything like the way Langer had played with the Cossack, breaking the man's spirit down before killing him. The Cossack never had a chance, he might as well have been unarmed. The positions and techniques used by Langer were not those taught in the fencing schools of Europe, at least not in this century. They resembled some of the old frescoes he had seen of gladiators in the Roman arena, right down to the Roman salute.
Langer stopped him before he could make any comment. "All right, let's take care of the bodies. We don't want them found until later. We'll haul them over to the side of the bakery, there's a small ditch, we'll bury them there."
Gus pointed at Yuri. "What about him?"
"Him, too, but we'll bury him the way he would have liked, as chieftain of the high steppes."
Gus wondered what the hell that meant, but didn't really give a damn, his mind already on the fresh pork. The dead, it does no good to feel any more for them. Their troubles were over, and right now he was still hungry.
Teacher had a suspicion of what Langer meant, but kept his own council. Gus found out what his sergeant meant when Carl laid the dead Russians at the feet of the Tatar, placing Yuri's head where it belonged on his shoulders, his butcher knife in his hand. He held the Cossack's head in his own hands, grasping it to his chest. Langer backed away after they had filled the ditch, and faced the four corners of the world all the time making a slow, upward sweeping motion of his hand and chanting low beneath his breath. Gus knew he was watching some kind of religious ceremony, but just what, he couldn't fathom.
"What is he doing. Teacher? You know everything, all those books you read."
Responding, in a low voice in order not to interrupt the proceedings, he explained as best he could, for Gus's simple mind.
The ceremony completed, Langer looked at the wondering faces of Gus and Teacher. "I'll tell you about it later. Right now let's get loaded and haul ass out of here."
Once in the T-34, Gus took a moment to famil
iarize himself with the controls. "It's just like a tractor, Sarge; no problem."
"Teacher, you take the hull gun, I'll handle the turret and 76 mm."
Gus squealed with pleasure. "Look here, Sarge." He held up one of the new Russian PPs 43 submachine guns and a bottle of vodka. "We're loaded for bear now." He cracked open the bottle and drained it. The pig's carcass rested right behind the driver's seat, close to him. He wasn't going to let anything happen to his dinner. If they had to bail out of the tank, it was even odds which he would take, the submachine gun or the pig. Langer gave odds mentally on the pig.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They spent the rest of the day in a wrecked bam, moving the tank straight through the side. They had been bypassed in the night; the rest of the German forces in the pocket were an hour's march to the west. Most of them would never make it to the new line outside Kaunas. Langer would wait for dark and move through the Russian lines right down the rail tracks after bypassing the German pocket of resistance. Once past that, they should have easy going until they reached the bridge at Nieman. They would have to be careful or the defenders, thinking they were Russians, would blow them away.
That night they fed on roast pig. Gus, gulping down chunks of half-raw meat and swigging vodka, reminded Langer of someone he had known long ago in another place.
The fuel gauges showed half a tank of gas, more than enough to reach the bridge crossing at Kaunas. On good roads the T-34 had a range of over 250 kilometers. At dusk they moved out, the clanking of the treads a familiar, friendly sound. As they swung through the fields, Carl put on a Russian tanker's leather helmet, put his head out of the turret and called out directions. They passed burned-out villages and hamlets, isolated farms and houses, which had all received the same treatment. This was the first of the enemy countries that had fallen to the Soviets. Twice, Langer had to forcibly restrain Gus when they passed a couple of farmhouses and saw the women of the farm nailed to the barn doors, their men and children lying in front of them. The women had obviously been raped. Gus wanted to head for the nearest Russian unit and run them down under the treads of their own tank.
The road leading to the frontiers of East Prussia were littered with burned-out transport and tanks; dead horses lay bloated all along the way, their legs stiff, the carts and guns they had been pulling turned over or burned and the contents looted. The bodies of men lay by the hundreds where Soviet armor had overrun the slower, horse-drawn wagons. Near them were neat, orderly ranks of men that had been lined up first and machine gunned down in rows.
The T-34 was passed by fast trucks filled with laughing Russians, the victors heading to the new line. They waved to their comrades in the tank and wished them well in continuing their slaughter. Langer himself had to force his mind elsewhere and resist the temptation to send a shell into them and blow the savages to pieces. Savages? What difference did it make who did the killing, they're no better or worse than the Nazis. The truth of the matter was, the Nazis were perhaps more horrible in that they were educated men who sometimes cried over something tragic in an opera, and then would order thousands of deaths in the concentration camps.
The Russians were brutal, but it was the mindless brutality of the hordes that had ravaged Europe centuries before. Fewer than one out of a hundred could write his own name, and fewer than that among those who came from Asian Russia. They were the ones most feared; they had the blood of the vanquished legions of Genghis Khan and the Huns in their veins and were now let loose on the world to do what their instincts told them they did best, kill.
Trucks were beginning to slow down; they were reaching the staging areas of the Soviets. Langer moved the tank off the road to the side and had to slow down carefully to avoid running over the milling infantry. He waved and laughed at jokes, and kept on going, ignoring offers to stop and drink, or eat. He called out orders and kept moving. To stop risked being found out and he had no desire to be sent to the slave camps in Siberia.
The flames of burning villages were small bright spots on the plains, the smell of smoke carried to them by a gentle northerly wind coming off the Baltic Sea. They were nearing the last Soviet positions as was evidenced by the freshly dug bunkers and position lines of cannon being pulled into position. The Russians believed in cannon just as Napoleon did; the more the better, and they had plenty more.
The German positions were marked by the impact of Russian rockets and artillery. The bridge still held. Continuous fire from concrete bunkers made it extremely hazardous for any Russian tank that tried to approach them. Already a half dozen lay on and off the tracks of the rail bridge, evidence of the German gunners' accuracy and tenacity. Russians waved the oncoming T-34 on, praising the courage of the crew riding into the face of almost certain death, "Urra! Urra!"
They had one hope of getting through; in front of them was a former German pillbox, now occupied by the elite guard troops of Marshal Chernyakhovsky. Leaping down to Gus and Teacher, Carl explained, "All right, this is it. I'm going to take out the bunker, you just get this bastard over the bridge and when you reach the center un-ass it."
"Teacher, you won't be needed on the MG when we stop. You bail out and toss a grenade in before you leave. That should blow this bastard to hell and let our guys know that we're on their side.
"Gus, you use that magnificent set of lungs to yell as loud as you can that we're Germans and coming through, and not to fire. Everybody got it?"
Teacher acknowledged the order and Gus fretted and bitched about his leftover pig and what to do with it.
The unsuspecting Russians in the bunker raised their fists and saluted. A round from a 75 mm pak whanged off the glass plating and ricocheted into the night. Langer swung the turret over slightly at a range of less than twenty meters and fired. The bunker erupted; the Russians died without ever knowing they had been tricked. On the German side, a lieutenant held his fire, confident that he had plenty of time to take out the lone tank; there was no rush, he had a good crew that had already destroyed over forty Russian tanks; the rings around the barrels of their guns kept an accurate count for them. What's this!? The Russian has stopped dead in the center, the crew is getting out. Why? He called to his infantry support to train their machine guns on the crewmen.
The T-34 exploded, a burned, twisted hulk was all that remained, all in less than thirty seconds. The gunners on the MG-42 sighted only a monstrous bellowing Gus, which halted the pulling of the triggers.
"Don't shoot, you sons of bitches, it's Gus Beiderman and a couple of friends back from the dead." He led the way, twisting and dodging all the time, keeping up his cursing order not to fire. One of the gunners was tempted anyway; he recognized the voice as belonging to a human gorilla who cheated him out of two months' pay shooting craps.
The Russians finally woke up and got around to sending round after round at the fleeing impostors. Tracers licked their heels and flashed between their legs. Gus yelped as one of them left the inside of his trousers singed, and burned his thigh just inches from the pride and hope of German womanhood.
* * *
From August on, they fought with one unit, then another, as the Russian advances continued, more slowly than in the spring, but still advancing a few more yards or kilometers every day as the supply lines of the Soviet forces built up their reserves for the push into Germany itself. The Russians held back their armies when the Polish Home Army revolted against the Nazis. Because the Poles were not Communists, Stalin held back his forces until the SS could eliminate them in fierce house-to-house battles that wiped out all effective non-Communist resistance that his forces might encounter.
By the end of August, Langer and his men were in East Prussia facing again their old nemesis from the great battles at Kursk and Kharkov. Here in East Prussia the German forces resisted with fanatical determination, but it was of no avail. There were too few men and weapons were left spread out over a front stretching 1,600 kilometers. General Busch's Army Group Center, which Langer had been attached to a
t Vilnyus, had been decimated. Twenty-five divisions had been trapped; only eight escaped. Most of the captured Germans were simply mowed down. They were the thousands of bodies they had passed on the tracks leading to Kaunas. The Russians claimed 158,000 captured and nearly 400,000 dead. By the time the leaves began to turn. Army Group North was trapped with its back to the Baltic. The Russians were content to leave them where they were tying up the German armies there, with minimal forces keeping them from breaking up to join Army Group Center to the south. They didn't know the situation or they would have attempted to break out. Anyway, Hitler had ordered them to remain there, tying up men that could have been used at the undermanned center.
By the end of October they were still holding the front on the borders of East Prussia. News from the west was scanty and filled with phrases from the minister of propaganda, such as fanatical promises of secret weapons to be unleashed on the allies.
Gus farted at this news. "Secret weapons, my ass; they can't even produce the old ones. I ain't seen a German fighter in the air for weeks. What the hell happened to them all?"