by David Bishop
"I don't think that would be appropriate, commander," Willy warned.
"Commander? Willy, the only time you call me commander is when we're up to our necks in-"
"Vollmer," a gruff voice shouted. "What in God's name are you doing?"
"Scheisse," Ralf said. He twisted round to see another tank commander approaching. Feldwebel Erfurth was a humourless native of Hamburg, notorious for his by-the-book approach to all aspects of life within the Panzer division. He had a sallow, pockmarked complexion and small, beady eyes like those of a child's doll. What Erfurth lacked in physical stature was more than compensated for by his officious manner. He was almost Ralf's equal in battle, but the two men could not have been more different otherwise. Their mutual antipathy was heightened by the fact Erfurth outranked Ralf, encouraging the unsmiling Feldwebel to torment Vollmer and his crew at every opportunity.
"I asked you a question, Vollmer. I expect an answer."
Ralf swayed slightly. "I'm sorry, I thought it was rhetorical. Remind me again, what did you want to know?"
Erfurth grimaced. "Have you been throwing empty flasks at my men?"
"Not intentionally. Why, did I hit one?"
"My gunner. He's bleeding from a head wound."
Ralf shrugged. "Sorry."
"Is that all you have to say?"
"Well, I could tell you to-"
Willy stepped towards the red-faced Erfurth. "To have good luck on the battlefield tomorrow! That's what the commander wishes, isn't it, Helmut?"
"Y-yes, that's right."
"No, it isn't," Ralf insisted, jumping down from the turret to stand beside his crewmembers. "I was telling the Feldwebel to stay out on my way. I've saved his sorry skin too many times already. I can't guarantee what'll happen if he drives across my path again tomorrow."
Erfurth bristled angrily. "Are you threatening a superior officer, Vollmer?"
"You might outrank me, but you certainly aren't my superior," Ralf sneered.
Willy stepped between the two men, smiling ingratiatingly at Erfurth. "So, what opposition do you think we'll face tomorrow?"
"Get out of my way, or else I'll have you running alongside my machine as a Panzer-grenadier," Erfurth said.
"You want to attack one of my crew, you have to come through me," Ralf warned, as he reached round Willy for a handful of the Feldwebel.
"It would be my pleasure," Erfurth replied.
"Ralf," a different voice shouted. "Our orders have come through." Gunther ran into view, clutching a handful of papers. He slowed to a halt, taking in the confrontation between his commander and Erfurth. "Oh, forgive me, Feldwebel, I didn't realise you were here too." Gunther gave a decent imitation of a salute in Erfurth's direction. "I believe your driver has your orders too, sir."
The Feldwebel was still glowering at Ralf. "Very well," he said finally. "But don't think I have forgotten this incident, Vollmer. Your insubordination has been noted. It reflects badly upon the entire division, and I will not allow one rotten individual to hold me back." He swivelled on his heels and marched away.
Ralf and the others watched Erfurth until he was out of earshot, and then burst out laughing. "I swear that man's got a ramrod up his arse," Gunther said.
"Did you see the look on his face when I told him to come through me?" Ralf asked. "I thought he was going to spontaneously combust!"
"You shouldn't goad him like that," Helmut warned. "He could be in command of this division one day. What would you do then?"
"Join the Luftwaffe," Ralf said, smiling broadly. "Be worth it to see the look on my brother Klaus's face when I turned up."
Some three hundred kilometres north, Major Wolfgang Satzinger was studying maps on a table in his tent. A polite cough from outside got his attention. "Enter."
Oberleutnant Klaus Vollmer stepped inside and saluted crisply to his superior officer. "You sent for me, sir?"
Satzinger acknowledged the salute before studying the new arrival. Vollmer was at least a decade his junior, but the young pilot was already building a respectable tally as a flying ace. Vollmer had dark hair and chiselled features and an angular jaw line. His uniform was well turned out and his demeanour never less than respectful in the presence of a superior officer. But there was something about the Oberleutnant that Satzinger always found unnerving. It was Vollmer's brown eyes - he never seemed to blink. The major gestured for the pilot to stand easy. "I'd like you to lead the first echelon of Stukas across the border tomorrow. I'd like you to be Staffelführer."
Klaus's face broke into a smile of delight before quickly becoming serious. "It would be an honour, sir."
"Don't be so certain," Satzinger warned. "I know rumours are already circulating about what we can expect to face. Many of your fellow pilots believe the Red Air Force will make easy targets for us. What do you think?"
Klaus shrugged. "I judge our enemies by their actions, not by the gossip of those with nothing else better to fill their time with. The English flyers proved rumours are no match for reality." Vollmer's Stuka Gruppe had lost eighteen planes to the RAF in a single day during the Battle of Britain, the Ju 87 dive-bomber proving no match for the more manoeuvrable Hurricane and Spitfire fighters. Eventually the Luftwaffe had been forced to withdraw its Stukas from the skies above the English Channel. The Gruppe had subsequently been reinforced with new fliers. More than one hundred and twenty planes stood ready outside, waiting to lay claim to the clouds over Russia.
Satzinger nodded his agreement with Vollmer's comments. "We know the Red Air Force has little to match us in terms of technology or experience, but they may overcome this with weight of numbers. Our strike against their airfields tomorrow must be achieved using surgical precision. That is why I have selected you to lead the echelon. Even if hitting our enemy is like shooting fish in a barrel, we dare not allow any to escape. The Führer himself has asked to be kept notified, with hourly tallies of our successes."
"Then we shall not fail him," Klaus replied. But even with only one eye, Satzinger could see doubt still clouded the Oberleutnant's features.
"You seem troubled," the major ventured.
"Attacking planes while they are still on the ground. It hardly seems fair."
Satzinger snorted. "Remind me, how old are you, Vollmer?"
"Twenty-two, sir."
"Then you're too young to have lived through the last war. I was a boy when my father died in the trenches, machine-gunned by an enemy aircraft. I don't know what foolish ideas you have about the noble kinship of all pilots, but we are fighting a war. The days of the Red Baron are over, understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mark this, Vollmer. I would make a pact with the Devil himself if I thought it could end this war without another person dying. Since the Devil does not grace us with his presence, we must do our best to fulfil this mission with the fewest losses and the greatest of dispatch."
Vollner nodded, frown lines evident on his forehead.
"Very well. He 111s will drop the first bombs from high altitude at precisely 3.15 tomorrow morning. You will take the first wave of Stuka across the frontier shortly afterwards. I imagine the scream of your planes at first light will be a most unpleasant surprise for our enemy." The major handed Klaus a sheaf of papers. "Your targets are marked on these. Good luck."
The pilot stepped back and saluted. "Hals und Beinbruch!" he said before walking out of the tent and into the fading sunshine.
Satzinger shook his head. He would never get used to the traditional farewell shared by pilots about to take off: "Break your neck and legs!" How had such a saying become considered good luck? It defied reason. The major crossed to his tent's opening and watched the young Oberleutnant hurry away. Twilight would soon be upon them, but few of the Staffel would get much sleep that night. Ground crews would be busy checking and rechecking each plane, loading them with fragmentation bombs and ammunition for the machine guns. "I wish I was going with them," Satzinger whispered to himself. He rubbed a hand across the pa
tch where his left eye had been. Behind the leather was an empty socket, a sightless black void. No, the days of honour among pilots were long gone.
Klaus strode back to his tent and found Heinrich Bennent waiting inside. "Well?" the gunner asked, his cherubic face flushed with excitement. "Is it happening tomorrow? I hear Satzinger called you in personally." Klaus confirmed the details, showing Heinrich the orders and maps he had been given.
The gunner gave a low whistle as he surveyed the tasks allotted to StG 77, struggling to keep his sandy fringe out of his eyes. "How many sorties are they expecting us to make tomorrow? Twenty?"
"At least half a dozen, all going well." Klaus shook his head. "You should have seen Satzinger's face. He was almost green with envy."
"Can you blame him? The old man was out of action for months after his plane went down. He wants revenge. An eye for an eye - literally, in his case."
"But shooting planes on the ground, Heinrich, it doesn't seem-"
"Sporting?" The gunner slapped Klaus's back. "You want to be the most successful Stuka ace on the Russian Front, don't you?"
"Yes, but-"
"But nothing. Take your kills where you can get them, that's my advice. The glory boys in the Messerschmitts will get most of the kills, but there's no shame in stopping an enemy plane from ever taking off. Hell, its one less red devil in the air we have to worry about, right?"
"I suppose so," Vollmer shrugged. He watched Heinrich leave, then went back to studying the maps for the next day's mission. The well-prepared pilot is the one who comes back alive - that's what his tutors had taught him, and the lesson had proven true so far. Let tomorrow be the same.
Hans had volunteered for guard duty, knowing he would be too excited to sleep before the attack, but that was three hours ago and he was beginning to regret his enthusiasm. As midnight approached, he was patrolling the perimeter of his unit's encampment, listening for sounds in the evening air. The scorching summer sun had long since fallen beneath the horizon, but the night remained warm and humid, almost sultry. Hans tugged at the collar of his uniform, a trickle of sweat sliding down his neck to his spine. He rested the butt of his bolt-action Gewehr 98 rifle on the ground and wiped the perspiration from his brow.
A cold circle of metal pressed against the back of his skull. "If I were an enemy soldier, you would be dead by now," a gruff voice whispered in Hans's left ear. He twisted round to see Sergeant Witte behind him, a Luger 9mm pistol drawn and ready to fire. "Fortunately for you, I am not an enemy soldier. In future, never take both hands off your rifle while on guard duty."
"Yes, sergeant," Hans hastily agreed.
Witte smiled, sliding his pistol back into its holster. "At least you were still awake. Most of your comrades on guard duty were asleep when I visited them. You'd think they would be too excited to sleep, tonight of all nights."
"I couldn't," Hans said. He shook his head when Witte offered a cigarette.
"You don't smoke? Well, you will. Gives you something to do while you wait for the officers to decide what to do with us next. Keeps your hands warm in winter and busy in summer."
"My grandfather smoked for fifty years. Now he coughs for an hour every morning when he gets up. I don't want to be like that when I'm his age."
"So you're going to survive this war?" the sergeant asked, a wry smile playing about his lips.
"Of course."
"Think you're immortal, is that it?"
Hans frowned. "No, but we'll be home by Christmas."
Witte shook his head dismissively. "If you believe this war will end before Christmas, you're a bigger fool than the rest of the Hitlerjungen drones. Nothing between your ears, the lot of you. We'll be lucky to make it out of Rumania alive, let alone conquer Russia."
"How can you say that?" Hans protested. "Our generals will have planned every strategy to win this war."
The sergeant laughed. "Believe that, if you want." He went back to smoking his cigarette, two fingers and a thumb clasped round it. Hans noticed a glint of metal in a gap between the buttons on Witte's tunic.
"If you don't mind my asking, what were you arguing about with that man in Galati? I saw him give you something, a piece of metal."
Witte finished his cigarette and stubbed out its butt beneath the heel of his jackboot. After exhaling the last of the fumes, he undid the top button of his tunic to reveal a silver cross on a thin chain. Hans looked at the Christian symbol, still not comprehending. Witte sighed and fastened his tunic again.
"It's to ward off evil, private. The Greek wanted to buy it from me."
"Why? I don't understand."
"Clearly." Witte frowned. "I like to get my hair cut before going into battle, it's a habit my first sergeant instilled in me. I had to take my tunic off and that's when the barber saw my cross. Have you ever read the novels of Bram Stoker?" Hans shook his head. "What about a film called Nosferatu? Have you seen it?"
"About the creature that drinks blood?"
"That's it. To the west of here are two ranges of mountains: the Carpathians that stretch to the north, and another in the region known as Transylvania. Many Rumanian people believe monsters live in Transylvania. Monsters who drink human blood, who can only venture outside at night."
Hans laughed out loud. "You're talking about the vampyr. But they're myths, legends. Shadows to frighten small children!"
The sergeant shrugged. "To you, yes. But to the Rumanians, these legends are real."
"Even if they were, why should the people of Galati fear such creatures? We passed nearby Transylvania on our way here. It's more than a hundred kilometres away."
"True, but a squad of Rumanian Mountain troops is joining our infantry unit once we've crossed the Prut. The squad is coming here directly from-"
"Transylvania?"
Witte nodded.
"But how do the locals know this? Surely troop movements are-"
"Hardly a secret when loose-lipped soldiers have been visiting the town for the past three days," the sergeant sighed. He was studying the night sky, but did not miss Hans trying to suppress a yawn. "Go and get some sleep, private. I'll cover this position until your relief gets here."
"Thanks." Hans shouldered his rifle, ready to depart, but one last question still lingered in his tired mind. "Sergeant, do you believe in these vampyr?"
Witte did not reply quickly. "In any other place, I would not hesitate before saying no. But here... There is a darkness about this country. The sooner we move away from the shadow of those mountains, the happier I'll be."
"But creatures that suck blood. It sounds like some medieval fairy story."
"Myths and legends sometimes hide a fragment of truth within them," the sergeant said. "You would do well to remember that. Now, get to your bed."
Hans saluted. "Yes, sire."
Witte abruptly clamped a hand over the private's mouth. "Don't say that word here, private. Not even in jest. If what the Greek told me is true, that word has a meaning you did not suspect." He withdrew his hand. "Now, go."
Hans marched away, bewildered by the sergeant's words. Moving through the trees, he paused to look back. Witte was kneeling on the ground, looking up into the sky. Both his hands were clasped around the silver cross at his neck and Hans could see the sergeant's lips moving. It was years since Hans had been inside a church, but he still recognised the sight of someone praying.
Chapter Two
JUNE 22ND, 1941
First light was beginning to colour the horizon when Klaus led three Stukas over the frontier and into enemy territory. A handful of He 111s had already completed one sortie against Russian fighter bases, scattering hundreds of small fragmentation bombs. Now, as the sky was shifting from black to blue, Klaus and his Schwarm were next to enter the unknown. The first wave of bombers had surely alerted the Russians that we are coming, he thought. It was simply a matter of time before enemy fighters appeared in the sky, machine gun and cannon fire scything death through the air.
Heinrich s
at behind Klaus in the Ju 87's cockpit, the two men back to back inside the glass-panelled canopy. The gunner twisted round, searching the azure sky for a Russian response. "Where are they?"
"I don't know," Klaus replied, bemusement in his voice. "Before we took off, Satzinger said to expect a hornet's nest. But there's nothing in the sky except us." The pilot called one of the Bf 109 fighters escorting the Schwarm. "Vollmer to Lang, can you see anything on our approach?"
Horst Lang's voice was accompanied by a crackle of static, but his words were clear enough. "Nothing. You think the Bolsheviks have slept in? It is Sunday. They could be having a day of rest."
A Stuka pilot, Theodor Bruck, joined the transmission. "The Reds don't believe in God. Perhaps the first sortie did more damage than we realised."
"Perhaps," Klaus agreed, uncertainty still clouding his voice.
"We're coming up on our first target," Heinrich prompted.
"Tighten up for attack formation," Klaus commanded. "I'll take the lead, Bruck comes next and the rest of you follow us down. Horst, stay back as cover if the Russians appear." The gull-winged Ju 87 was a highly accurate dive-bomber, but it was also most vulnerable while pulling out after an attack. Stuka pilots had paid dearly to learn that fact during earlier phases of the war.
Klaus glanced round to confirm the Schwarm was taking attack formation, then turned back to study his instrument panel. "I'm going in," he announced, focusing his concentration on the target below. Beneath the Luftwaffe planes lay a Russian airfield, its runways clearly visible in the thin light of dawn. Klaus began the procedures he had practised countless times in training, a precise sequence of actions that had served him well in previous sorties. His hands went through the drill automatically, all outside distractions cut from his thoughts. There was the target below and nothing else - it was all that mattered.