by Sven Hassel
‘So it’s forward again to honours and distinctions in battle for the Fatherland,’ he drawls arrogantly. ‘Comrades, children in schools everywhere will read of your deeds. Thank God for the good fortune that allowed you to take a part in all this.’
‘Good day for suicide,’ mumbles Stege dejectedly.
‘Turn off them negative waves,’ orders Tiny, sourly.
Oberst Hinka sits in his open turret with his grey-painted field glasses directed towards the T-34s, which are opening out for attack.
It is the first time we have seen T-34s in closed formation. Up to now we have only seen them used in sections as infantry support.
Oberst Hinka reaches for his microphone and sends to all vehicles: ‘Hear me,’ says the quiet voice. ‘Our only chance of taking those T-34s lies in movement. Don’t lose your heads! Go forward with all the speed you’re capable of! We’ve got to get inside 400 metres. Then swing round and put your shots up their backside! The T-34s weak points are the turret rings and the tracks! But movement, above all movement! Don’t stop even to fire. Shoot on the run!’
We pass a demolished roadblock and our section is the first to meet the leading T-34s. They roll forward in a V-formation which they have learnt from us. In June we were attacking confused novices but now in September we are meeting experienced specialists.
No. 2 Section’s tanks roll forward at top speed straight through houses and blockades. Water and mud spurt up behind us from the tracks.
‘Faster, faster!’ comes from the company commander, Oberleutnant Moser.
The Russian tank commanders in the T-34s turrets cheer triumphantly as they see the German tanks press forward to get within range. Captain Gorelik feels himself already a conquering hero in his new T-34 which for some years will be the world’s finest tank, purely because of its amazingly farsighted design. The engineers must have had the Silurian period in mind when they created this deadly monster. Its tracks were so broad that at first sight they seemed almost comical, but the idea behind the construction was soon taken up by foreign manufacturers.
It was flat without sharp angles like a tortoise, and its 76.5 mm gun with its long oversized barrel was a wonder. A mile from the T-34s waiting position the German tanks stick fast in the mud. They back and swing desperately but the more they struggle the deeper they bore themselves into the ooze. The Russian artillery lays down a worrying fire but for every pioneer who falls it seems a dozen others come from the woods to take up the work of the dead. Felled trees tied in bundles are rolled forward under the tracks of the tanks.
‘Do what they will, we’ll destroy them!’ laughs Captain Gorelik confidently.
Warrant Officer Tarsis, who is a section commander in Captain Gorelik’s company, is impatient for the battle to begin. He is an old soldier, a holder of the Zolostaja Zvezda,7 and left a safe job as Garrison WO three days after the war began to volunteer for front service. With a malicious smile on his tight lips he watches the German tanks bucking and sliding helplessly around in the mud. He leans back in his leather seat with a feeling of satisfaction. He has plenty of time. Let the fascist dogs do battle with Rasputiza 8 first. That ought to wear them out. The rest of the battle should be child’s-play for the T-34s.
He laughs heartily as he watches the German tanks through his periscope burrowing deeper and deeper into the mud. Revenge is at hand for the dreadful day when he had to abandon his Christi tank at Kiev. He was a prisoner of the fascists for four days. The very thought of his disgrace still sickened him. He had personally beaten up three of his soldiers for having worked for the occupying troops. When he got back to the Russian lines after escaping he reported them as collaborators. Their fate was sealed should they ever return home. Their families had no doubt been seen to already. In the Soviet Union there is room only for true believers.
‘Kill them!’ Ilja Ehrenburg had said speaking to the tank troops before they left. ‘Kill them in their mother’s womb!’ That was the way to talk.
‘Hönig!’ shouts Oberst Hinka to the commander of No. 1 Battalion. ‘I ordered you to attack in arrow-head! What are you doing clumped together in that hole?’
‘Herr Oberst,’ groans Major Hönig desperately. ‘My whole battalion’s stuck in that goddam mud. They’re slipping sideways and blocking one another in. Only No. 2 Company has a partially clear field of fire and at any minute Ivan may start up and turn us all to junk!’
‘Cool down,’ says the Oberst calmly. ‘I’ll send you a couple of cranes. No. 2 Battalion’ll cover you.’
‘Ivan has learnt a few things from us,’ groans the major. My No. 4 Company has been shot to pieces. Every one of their shots is a hit.’
‘Pull yourself together, man!’ answers Hinka sharply. ‘Get under cover. Use everything you’ve got in the way of smoke-shells. The enemy’s short of ammunition. He’ll shoot only when certain of a hit!’
No. 1 Battalion disappears under a dirty-yellow veil of smoke, but soon after the T-34s attack. They thunder forward in a seemingly irresistible V of steel. Without taking heed of the terrain they disappear into No. 1 Battalion’s smoke-screen. They seem to skim across the mud on their broad tracks.
Flashes brighten the smoke. It’s rough in there. Explosion follows explosion.
At a range of 40 yards we pump shell after shell into the T-34s. We swing, turn and back. We don’t stand still a second. In speed and manoeuverability we are superior to the Russians.
In a few minutes the Russian tanks are in wild confusion.
‘Djavolls!9 roars Captain Gorelik, frothing at the sight of his burning T-34s. He knows what this means for him. The execution wall or degradation to a penal regiment. ‘Load faster, you dog!’ he screams at his loader. Straight in front of the periscope, right in the gun’s sight-line, a blood-red cloud blooms. Lieutenant Sinewirskij’s tank has been hit. Soon three more T-34s glow in a sparkling sea of fire.
The captain sees what is coming. They had all put their faith in the new T-34. It would sweep the Nazis from the face of the earth, had Marshal Tsdukow rashly promised.
Warrant Officer Tarsis sits in the turret of his tank pale with suppressed rage. He has missed twenty times even when he has had a fascist dog right in his sights.
‘Tarsis, what do you suggest?’ asks the captain nervously over the wireless.
The Warrant Officer’s spirits rise appreciably. It is the first time an officer, a captain by the mark and an acting battalion commander, has asked his advice. He swallows the gob of spittle he has been about to eject onto the neck of his driver. He even spares the lives of three German infantrymen who run straight across in front of his machine-gun. He opens the turret hatch and elbows himself upwards. Under his black leather helmet his white teeth show in a satisfied grin. It is the high-spot of his life, this conceited captain asking him for advice.
‘Tovaritsch kamandir,’10 he answers superciliously into the microphone. ‘Let us use the new flame-throwers! They should frighten the dogs. Then into the woods and turn! They’ll think they’ve got us on the run and we’ll bang a few shots up their backsides! They’re used to an enemy running from them. A real stand-up fight will confuse them and get their tails between their legs.’
Captain Gorelik is shaking with nervousness. All round him the battalion’s tanks are exploding. A few yards behind each green T-34 lies a yellow fascist tank spitting flame and steel at its enemy’s rear.
‘How the devil do they do it?’ mumbles the captain to himself half aloud. ‘They’re not stupid, these Kraut lice!’
He gives his battalion the order to withdraw. Take cover in the woods. He realizes that this is going to be a narrow victory – if a victory at all.
The remaining T-34s take up position behind a dyke but the German P-IV’s are on their heels. Now there is firm ground under the tracks. When a tank catches fire the crew evacuates it and continues the fight with side-arms.
Our vehicle bursts into flames just before we reach the mouth of the river. I hardly catch the Ol
d Man’s order:
‘Tank on fire! Dismount!’
We lie at a little distance from the burning tank. He don’t dare to leave before it is burnt out. The Old Man is in a state of considerable excitement. He is the first who’ll be hanged if the vehicle isn’t a total wreck before we leave it. But it won’t catch fire properly. There’s a lot of smoke but no flames.
‘Goddam it!’ hisses Porta. ‘When you don’t want them to they catch so fast you’re passing St Peter before you’re finished shitting your pants!’
Tiny arms a T-mine determinedly and throws it through the turret hatch. A whole series of explosions wreck the tank. Only the red-glowing undercarriage is left.
We pick up our Mpis and run towards the hazel bushes, where three dead horses are lying. Porta takes time to cut a couple of hefty chunks from them.
Suddenly a machine-gun is throwing long salvos at us and a T-34 breaks through the hedge so violently that we only just manage to escape its whipping tracks.
Desperately I dig myself into a large mud-hole. As if in a slow-motion-film I see the commander in his turret; his black leather uniform coat shining wetly from the mist in the woods.
Like a weasel Porta springs on to the T-34 and throws a potato-masher down into the turret hatch behind the commander.
A hollow explosion and the commander is thrown a hundred feet into the air to burst like a star-shell.
The T-34 jerks to a stop and the crew, living torches, jump from the vehicle. They roll madly on the ground in an attempt to extinguish the flames.
‘Take ’em!’ shouts the Old Man pulling his 08.
Mpis crash and the Russian tank-men die.
We take up position in a deserted machine-gun nest in an orchard. Tiny takes over a black-mouthed SMG gaping skywards. Tracer rattles towards the Russian infantry.
‘Back!’ cries the Old Man appalled.
Behind us three T-34s burst through the brush.
A green under-belly rocks forward and I feel steel slide forward over my back pressing the breath from my lungs. I see the grey heavens again and feel the rain whip at my face. I am still alive . . . .
1 Sampolit: (Russian) Divisional Commissar.
2 Wáhlt den etc. (German)
Vote for National Socialism
The peoples friend!
New programmes daily
Lots of fun – laugh yourself to death!
Children and soldiers
From Feldwebel down
Half-price!
3 Mpi: Maschinen-pistole (German) submachine-gun.
4 Black and white: The Prussian colours.
5 Fuhlsbüttel: Prison just outside Hamburg.
6 Dassvidánja tovaritsch (Russian): So long, comrade.
7 Zolostaja Zvezda: Hero of the Soviet Union.
8 Rasputiza (Russian): bottomless mud.
9 Djavolls (Russian): Devils.
10 Tovaritsch kamandir (Russian): Comrade Commander.
‘The Germans are a nation with principles. Once an idea has taken hold of them they become completely convinced of its truth and do not give it up willingly.’
Lenin to the Turkish Ambassador Ali Fuad Pascha,
Moscow, 3 April 1921.
Corps and Divisional Commanders had taken their places in the great salon. The light from the chandeliers blinked from uniform buttons and decorations. Cigar smoke curled towards the ceiling. Feelings were animated and high. Champagne fizzed and sparkled. The toast was: ‘A quick end to the war!’
General-Oberst Guderian slapped dust from his long black leather overcoat, pressed Generalfeldmarschall von Bock’s hand in comradely fashion. The two high-ranking officers spoke in low voices of the latest events. The Feldmarschall moved over to the table and leafed through some documents.
‘Gentlemen, the Führer has ordered the attack on Moscow!’ he began with gladness in his voice. ‘This magnificently conceived campaign is now entering its final and decisive phase. With the fall of Moscow we will have achieved the greatest victory in all history. Our army has been given the great honour of smashing the Communist monster and forcing Bolshevism to unconditional surrender.’ The Feldmarschall went over to the large wall-chart.
‘Operation TAIFUN will be carried out in two phases. First we break through the Soviet western front, north and south of the Smolensk-Moscow autobahn. After this the tank groups consolidate at Vjasma. Then we round-up any escaped enemy forces, destroy them, move straight on to Moscow, surround it and take it. A bold and clearly conceived plan, gentlemen. 24 tank divisions and 46 infantry divisions will take part in the storming of Moscow. The army has three weeks in which to cover 200 miles. There is plenty of time. In four weeks time we will hold a victory parade for the Führer on the Red Square, and will re-christen it Adolf Hitler Platz.’ The aging Feldmarschall clasped his hands behind his back, stuck his eagle-nose forward into the faces of his officers, bounced elegantly forward and back on the tips of his beautifully polished boots and said in an almost convivial tone:
‘The Führer is a genius!’
‘There’s many a true word. . . .’ whispered Panzer-General von Hünersdorff confidentially to General Hoepner.
Hoepner laughed quietly.
‘If he was he wouldn’t have stopped at Smolensk in July when Moscow lay wide open to our Panzer divisions. Clausewitz says:
‘“Departures from the original conception should only be made in conditions of extreme necessity.”’
‘The Führer has studied Clausewitz,’ General-Leutenant Conradi broke in. ‘He had his reasons for sending our troops into the Ukraine instead of continuing towards Moscow. We haven’t his breadth of vision. I believe in the Führer,’ he added threateningly and stared sharply at the now patently nervous General Hoepner.
‘What do you think of the attack?’ von Hünersdorff turned to General Strauss.
‘Officially we shall succeed. What else?’ laughed the artillery general.
‘And unofficially?’ asked Hünersdorff with a crooked smile.
‘If I were to say what I think I’d be asking for a court-martial,’ smiled Strauss.
‘You’re in doubt, then?’ Hünersdorff pressed him.
‘The Bohemian Corporal’s waited too long,’ mumbled Strauss.
‘The plan is not only boldly and clearly conceived. It’s also crazy. We’re into autumn and the rains are already threatening.’
‘If the rains come we might as well give up,’ broke out General-Major von Hünersdorff.
‘The Russians will block us wherever they can,’ continued Strauss. ‘They know what it’s all about. If they don’t hold Moscow their prestige is gone. For that very reason they’ll fight like madmen. Stalin and his people aren’t soft. They’ll throw in everything they can scrape together.’
‘We’re the strongest army in the world,’ said von Hünersdorff proudly. ‘If the weather holds we’ll make it. But we’ll have to make it at a hell of a pace, every bit of speed we can get out of our tracks will be needed to make Moscow before the winter mud catches us.’
‘What about the winter equipment?’ asked General Hube cautiously.
‘The Führer has stopped manufacture of winter equipment,’ answered the Feldmarschall with a fatherly smile. ‘Talk of winter clothing is defeatism. The campaign will be over long before we need mittens and woollen helmets. Any winter equipment which has already been issued is to be withdrawn and returned to depot. That is the Führer’s order, gentlemen!’
Several generals looked at one another silently but not one protested.
4 | Porta helps the padre
We are lying in the shade from a row of fruit-trees. The autumn leaves fall gently on and around us. It is a beautifully warm autumn day, one of those late summery days which only occur in Russia.
The regiment is well behind the front line waiting to be reorganized. Of our two hundred tanks only sixteen are left. More than sixty-eight percent casualties amongst the men.
New tanks have already started to arrive.
We’ve been here five days now. Some of us feel they’re the best five days of the whole war. The supplies people have made a fortunate mistake. The company is still getting supplies for 220 men and that’s not bad when we number no more than about 60.
At the canteen the QM’s going crazy with only 60 men to consume all those rations.
‘What the hell can I do?’ he cries in despair. ‘I’ve signed for 220 men! And those bastards who ain’t here ‘ve let themselves get killed by the bloody untermensch and who’s it to go to? Somebody ought to get the wall for this!’
‘Give us the bloody lot,’ shouts Porta happily from the queue. ‘You’ll be surprised how fast we’ll get rid of it!’
A hot discussion commences. The QM can’t make up his mind what to do. Not even when Tiny offers to beat his brains out if he doesn’t pass the rations on.
Anything might have happened if Oberst Hinka hadn’t come past and ordered the QM to distribute the lot to the men.
The QM goes amok! The Old Man gets an extra stick of chewing tobacco, and the rest of us two cigars over the ration. Porta, of course, gets a whole carton of cognac.
And now we’re lying stretched out under the apple trees. We’ve put on half a stone in weight in under a couple of hours.
Porta looks as if he’s on the verge of giving birth. Twins at least. He’s not only eaten his own rations, but has also been over to No. 4 Company and finished up all their leavings.
He is sitting on an oil-drum which he uses as a latrine. We’re doing things the high society way. Puffing at big cigars. Using our military ranks when we address one another; and drinking cognac from real glasses. But when Porta begins to use a knife and fork we give up and send for the medical orderly and a strait-jacket.
Porta is wearing his monocle in honour of the day and Tiny has fixed a hen’s wing to each side of his bowler. He feels it gives him a distinguished appearance. Our boots are off for the first time in six weeks and it feels good.
‘Our padre’s a bleedin’ drunk,’ remarks Tiny suddenly between two slugs of cognac which he chases down with a beer.