Wheels of Terror

by Sven Hassel

  We left the Russians and went on westwards. Near a small spinney a pack of T34s discovered us and followed. The rearmost of our tanks was hit by several shells and within seconds became a sea of flames. Not one of the crew of five escaped. We saw the tank commander stand up in his turret and then fall into the blood-red flames.

  Stege’s tank was hit next. Four men got away. We turned our tank to cover them and they climbed on at the back of our hull. A corporal got entangled in the tracks and was crushed as we drove off. His screams echoed across the open country. Stege put his fingers in his ears and his face twisted in pain.

  We did not get very far before five Russian tanks loomed up in front of us and started firing. We shot one neatly and set it on fire. The other four turned furiously for another attack.

  The Old Un ordered us to get out. Short of breath, we ran across the soft-churned earth, beautiful targets in our black panzer uniforms. There was no shelter. We had once chance: to pretend we were dead.

  One by one we fell down, very quiet but with hammering hearts.

  A hundred yards away the tanks halted. We did not dare look at them. Lie still.

  Some minutes passed. It seemed like an evil eternity. One engine revved up. The exhaust exploded. Very slowly one rolled past us only three or four yards away. The second and third followed. At last the fourth, so near that we feared it would roll over us. We could have touched the tracks by putting out a hand.

  It had barely passed when Porta jumped up and sheltered behind it. We remained where we were, panic-stricken.

  He waved us on, but we were paralysed. A shell whined above our heads and exploded a few yards away.

  The Russian tank turned at once to answer the fire. It came from some German Panthers which were speeding towards us.

  The ground trembled as they rocked by. The T34s hurried off, pursued by the Panthers.

  We jumped on the last Panther and presently rejoined the regiment – shaken but alive.

  Next day we had new tanks and went east where large forces of the 3rd Panzer Army were said to be surrounded. Our task was to open the noose the Russians were pulling tighter and tighter. We were three experienced panzer divisions with over 400 tanks rolling forward.

  Our opponents were supposed to be the 6th Russian Cavalry Corps under Lieutenant-General Meschkin, the 149th Guard Panzer Division and the 18th Cavalry Division.

  For me this march seemed to go on for ever. The moon shone brightly over the steppe and made the night ghostly. When a cloud hid the moon everything was wrapped in a velvet darkness and we had the greatest difficulty in maintaining contact.

  Time and time again we got lost and the tanks had to turn and twist in impossible places. Several slid into rivers and stayed their with their bottoms up. The crews drowned like rats in a trap.

  The order was that firing was strictly prohibited. Nobody was to open up, whatever happened.

  In one place we saw five T34s barely fifty yards in front rolling north. They disappeared without taking any notice of us. We also saw fortifications on both sides of the road. The Old Un swore they were manned by Ivan.

  In the middle of the night the column stopped. Nobody knew why. Silence reigned everywhere. Ominous silence. We stood there in a mile-long row, tank behind tank.

  The Old Un was half-way out of the turret, but dropped back with a cry.

  Tiny stared at him:

  ‘What the hell’s wrong?’

  ‘Well, you have a look,’ answered The Old Un.

  Tiny put his head and half his body out of the sidehatch, but was back again quickly.

  ‘God help us, it’s Ivan!’

  ‘Ivan?’ asked Porta. ‘Where?’

  ‘There,’ whispered Tiny and pointed.

  At the same time there came a light knock on the tank’s steel side and a voice in Russian asked for a cigarette.

  Porta pulled himself together first. He opened his hatch and without a word he handed out a cigarette to a dark form. A match flared and lit up a bony face with a Russian cap. The Red drew deeply and breathed happily:

  ‘Sspassibo!’

  The Russians teemed round the tanks. More and more appeared out of the darkness. They evidently thought we were Russians.

  Every second we expected firing, but the Reds leaned on the tanks and chatted. They tried to joke with us, but we remained silent, but for a word here and there.

  One cried:

  ‘You petrol rabbits are a dreary lot! Not a decent word from any of you!’

  The others agreed. The Old Un had to hold Tiny down when someone promised to box his ears because he did not answer.

  Sotto voce he hissed:

  ‘Nobody’s yet invited Tiny to fight and got away with it. Do you think I’m shy of a bunch of lousy Ivans?’

  ‘It’ll be your funeral,’ grinned The Old Un, ‘if you jump out and fight. It seems to me there are millions of Ivans here.’

  Tiny glared out. We were stiff with fright in case he started to shout.

  ‘Damn it, they must see we’ve got swastikas on the sledges and not stars,’ whispered the Little Legionnaire.

  Porta started to chat in Russian to the Little Legionnaire who succeeded in answering with one-syllable words.

  Very quietly we collected our pistols and handgrenades to be ready in case something happened.

  ‘What the hell are we going to do?’ whispered The Old Un. ‘This can’t go on.’ Carefully he looked out of the turret. ‘Ivan’s everywhere. Blimey, we must have stopped in the middle of a whole infantry division!’

  Only one explanation was possible. The Russians did not dream that we could be enemy tanks. We had come sixty to seventy miles into their positions behind the main front-line without a single shot, and had travelled in route-formation.

  We could easily have shot them all as they stood round the tanks. But firstly, firing was forbidden, and secondly I don’t think one of us had the heart to fire at these nosy colleagues standing there joking and teasing us.

  Over an hour passed. Then a terrible swearing started up in front of the column. Shots were fired. Some machine-guns coughed hoarsely. We disappeared into our tanks and made the hatches fast.

  Our colleagues looked astonished at the firing.

  A tank came racing down the column. A figure dressed in leather and an impressive helmet stood in the turret. A Russian officer. He shouted at the men. They flew to all sides. All at once they realized who we were.

  Banging and thundering started from all sides. The tanks swung out to the flanks and soon the whole position was overrun. The shells from the cannon exploded like volcanoes over the whole area.

  We did not get much further before large Russian tank units were thrown against us. A murderous battle started. After six hours we had to give way.

  Planes from both sides swept low and brushed away every exposed living thing with their machine-guns. In great shoals the Russian Yaks, Migs and Laggs came howling through the air and mowed our grenadiers down like grass.

  All our tanks ran westwards. The Russians nearly managed to get us in a scissor-like manoeuvre but small groups fought independently with desperate courage. Neither the Russians nor our leaders knew quite what went on until it was too late to take advantage of the situation.

  We drove on west over the churned up roads, filled by thousands of refugees. We could hardly get through. Russian peasants, city-dwellers, young and old, women and children, Germans lacking weapons and Russian prisoners who dare not stay behind because they feared the consequences of having been captured.

  Everywhere the shout went up:

  ‘Take us along, take us along!’

  Imploring hands were stretched at us. Money, food and jewels were offered in exchange for a seat in the tank. Mothers held up small children and prayed us to take them along. But we went on regardless. We turned our faces away, not to see the accusing eyes.

  Russian fighter planes, called ‘butchers’ by us, came tearing low along the road and stirred the hor
de of refugees to one single cry to heaven. They fired mercilessly at everything they saw.

  Chaos everywhere. The west was a big magnet pulling this desperate horde of people along in ever-increasing panic. Parents threw their children up to the foreign soldiers who rolled by. Some threw the children off again. Others tried to make room.

  Tiny and the Little Legionnaire sat on our tank. A child was thrown at them. A little girl of two or three. The Little Legionnaire missed her and she fell under the tracks and was crushed by the huge rollers. The mother became crazy and threw herself at the next tank. She was ground under the caterpillars.

  Tiny let out a long-drawn howl. We thought he had become insane. The Old Un shouted:

  ‘What’s the matter, you big peasant?’

  ‘By Satan! By Satan!’ He stood up to his full height and leaned forward. It looked as if he was going to jump off. ‘Listen you jokers, Nazi-dogs, Tiny’s mad. Tiny’s got a screw loose!’ A long, terrible wolf-howl came from him.

  Nobody knows what would have happened had his cry not been interrupted by a swarm of Jabos. They came shrieking at us and literally ploughed up the road with their guns.

  Instinctively Porta flung the tank off the road and drove at full speed into a narrow ravine completely hidden by bushes.

  We had hardly stopped in this heaven-sent shelter before the Jabos returned and let loose at the great mass of people on the road.

  From this shelter the five of us witnessed the most terrible scenes yet.

  Low over a group of trees fifty Jabos came racing. The flames from the guns spewed at the road. Hollow splashing explosions rent the air. The next minute most of the tanks were in flames, covered with a tarry phosphorous substance.

  The Jabos treated the people on the road the same way. They ran around like living torches. Many tried to shelter in nearby cottages. The ground shook. Licking flames shot from the noses of the howling devils with the red stars on their wings. In a second the houses changed into roaring gales of yellow-blue flames. People smeared with the incendiary liquid from the exploding shells came out screaming and were changed to mummies.

  This was our first acquaintance with the latest military invention.

  Tiny had apparently become calm. He was sitting under the tank’s nose playing dice with Porta and the Little Legionnaire. He grinned broadly when he threw six ones and when, at his next throw he threw three sixes, he became unmanageable. He rolled about roaring with laughter.

  Porta glared enviously at him and said to the Little Legionnaire:

  ‘What do you think, desert wanderer? Have you ever seen such a jackal? What’s he laughing at, the stupid animal?’

  ‘That,’ gulped Tiny and pointed at the six dice. Each one was lying there challenging them with a six. ‘You try it, you two Iron Cross candidates. It’s easier for you to get a Knight’s Cross than beat Tiny’s master-touch.’

  ‘Hell, I’d rather have six ones or six sixes than the Knight’s Cross,’ said Porta angrily.

  Tiny swept up the dice and kissed them. He swung his arm and hit his left hand with his right fist while spitting over his right shoulder.

  ‘God help us, what a superstitious hill-billy,’ said Porta, spitting at a headless body which was lying a few yards away.

  ‘That’s what you think,’ laughed Tiny, and flung the dice down.

  ‘It won’t help you a bit,’ Porta jeered.

  Tiny did not listen. He did head-over-heels and banged his head on an empty ammunition-box, but took no notice of it in his beaming delight.

  The other two could hardly believe their eyes, but the dice spoke the truth. They lay there smiling a ‘possible’ at the two doubters.

  A whimper, breaking into a scream, made us sit up and hold on to our weapons. Frightened, we looked into the undergrowth. A jerking, weeping, whimpering came to us as from a wounded animal.

  ‘What the hell’s that?’ asked Porta and cocked his machine-pistol. ‘Come out, you filthy devils,’ he hissed, ‘or we’ll lay you horizontal!’

  The Old Un pushed away his machine-pistol.

  ‘Stop it, you red-haired daft bugger. That sort of whimpering is past being dangerous.’

  He crawled through the bushes. Nervously we lagged behind. Tiny had his machine-pistol ready. The Little Legionnaire and I both carried hand-grenades in our sweaty hands.

  The Old Un called us. Carefully we crept forward.

  On the ground lay a young woman, her body arched like a bow. From her pale face blood-shot eyes stared at us.

  ‘Is she shot in the stomach?’ Porta asked The Old Un who knelt beside the woman.

  ‘Of course not, stupid.’

  ‘Where’s she hit?’

  ‘Has a bullet got her?’ Tiny wanted to know, and bent over Porta’s shoulder.

  The Little Legionnaire whistled meaningly.

  ‘Well, well, it looks as if we are going to be midwives.’

  ‘This is no labour-ward,’ growled Tiny. ‘I’ve heard no man ought to see this kind of thing.’

  ‘To hell with what you’ve heard.’ The Old Un brushed him off. ‘You’re in this with us, and we’ve got to see it through.’

  Tiny stared at The Old Un in astonishment.

  ‘Old Un, can’t we just finish this game. I’ve got—’

  The woman started to whimper again and twisted in agony as her labour-pains increased.

  Rapidly The Old Un gave his orders:

  ‘Desert-nomad, you stay with me. Porta, get hold of some soap and a bucket of water. Sven, start a fire, a big one. Tiny, a tent-sheet and some wool. Cut the wool in two lengths, 30-cm. each.’

  ‘My God, it’s never happened to me before that a real winner of a game is ruined because he’s a midwife. What a bloody war this is, and it’s all Adolf’s fault, to hell with him!’

  ‘Shut up, Tiny, and hurry up,’ The Old Un shouted impatiently and dried the sweat off the groaning woman’s brow.

  Tiny turned.

  ‘Will you—’ A drawn-out cry from the woman interrupted him. ‘God help us,’ he shouted and tore off through the bushes to carry out his instructions.

  The woman was placed on a tent-sheet. We boiled water on the fire. To Tiny’s horror The Old Un ordered us to wash our hands.

  The labour-pains became more frequent. Pale and excited we watched the human drama.

  Tiny cursed the absent father.

  ‘What a bastard! Fancy leaving the girl alone. What an immoral bastard.’ He cried angrily and stroked the woman’s hair. He promised the unborn child’s father terrible punishment if they met. ‘What a traitor. What a piece of rotten skin!’ Tiny gesticulated wildly in the direction of the road where we heard heavy trucks rolling past.

  We camouflaged the fire as much as possible.

  The Old Un threw the two pieces of wool and a combat-knife into the water.

  ‘Why the hell are you boiling the knife?’ Tiny asked curiously.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ The Old Un was nervous and trembling. He spoke soothingly to the woman. She groaned and twisted in pain.

  ‘It’ll be soon now,’ The Old Un said as he started to wash the woman with clumsy, untrained hands.

  The birth started. The head appeared and made us groan as if we ourselves were giving birth.

  ‘Do something,’ shouted Tiny and Porta to The Old Un.

  The Little Legionnaire bent forward and stretched his hands entreatingly to the woman. Sobbing, he repeated what the other two had said:

  ‘Do something. Maybe she’ll die, and then what about the infant? We can’t breast feed it.’

  ‘Stupid swine, filthy, stupid swine,’ The Old Un raged. ‘You can whore, but you can’t be bothered to help a child into the world, you lousy dogs!’

  Shaking, he placed both his hands round the infant’s head and helped with the birth.

  The Little Legionnaire sat by the woman’s head. She pressed both his hands until her nails cut deeply into his fingers, and arched her body to the climax of emission.
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  ‘Skin my fists if you like,’ sobbed the Little Legionnaire, ‘if it helps. Let me get hold of the swine who’s responsible for this. Fancy exposing a woman to this sort of thing!’

  During much shaking and swearing the child was born.

  The Old Un rose pale and sweaty, put his finger into the child’s mouth and removed some slime. He held the child by its feet and gave it a brisk slap on the bottom.

  The next second. The Old Un flew backwards after being hit by Tiny’s enormous fist.

  ‘You pious swine,’ roared Tiny to The Old Un who lay on the ground half-conscious. ‘What the hell do you mean by smacking such a tiny thing? It hasn’t hurt you. It’s the worst thing Tiny has ever seen and I’m not over-sensitive.’

  ‘Oh, my holy God,’ groaned The Old Un. ‘Don’t you see it was to make the child cry?’

  ‘Cry?’ howled Tiny and was about to hit out at The Old Un again. ‘Hell, I’ll make you cry, you sadist!’ He swung his fists in the air but the Little Legionnaire and Porta fell on him and threw him down.

  The Old Un stood up, cut the umbilical cord and tied it off with the wool. He dried his brow.

  ‘By God, this is the most evil birth yet. Not even in a spot like this can we avoid fighting.’

  He started to wash the child. A shirt was torn to pieces to provide a bandage for the navel. Tiny sat on his haunches beside the mother hopefully reassuring her and murmuring threats of murder against The Old Un and the child’s father. Porta and the Little Legionnaire broke a new bottle of vodka.

  We all started when Tiny emitted an ear-splitting shriek:

  ‘Another baby’s coming. Help! Old Un come here and help! You’re the only one who’s had babies before!’

  ‘Shut up,’ cried The Old Un and ordered as before: ‘Water, thread, knife, fire!’

  We flew about like frightened sparrows.

  ‘My God, a whole nursery’s on the way!’ said Porta.

  Half-an-hour later when it was all over we sat dead-tired smoking our cigarettes. We celebrated the birth of the twins in vodka.

  Tiny wanted to name them. He insisted that one should be called Oscar. When we protested we suddenly remembered we had forgotten to see if the children were boys or girls.