by David Bishop
Once the crossing was judged secure, Hans and the rest of the unit were tasked with searching all the Russian bunkers to flush out any survivors. Hans was working in a twoman team with Franz Kral who insisted on wielding the hefty flamethrower, despite being considerably slighter of build. As they reached each bunker, Hans would shout a warning for anyone inside to surrender. If no movement was heard within a few seconds, Franz shot a sustained burst of flame into the confined concrete space. Hans would then burst into enclosure with his recently acquired MP 40 machine pistol, ready to finish off anyone still alive. It quickly became apparent someone had already carried out this grim task for them.
Each bunker the privates inspected offered the same spectacle. Where Russian soldiers had remained behind, they were cold and dead, their bodies pale and lifeless. A pair of puncture marks was visible on the neck of each corpse, a patch of dried blood mute evidence as to what happened to the Soviet troops. Some had managed to scratch warnings into the crumbling concrete walls of their emplacements, using the tips of bayonets or even their broken fingernails. "Djavo" and "Djavoli" were the most frequently seen words, but religious symbols also appeared on some of the bunkers' walls. It was the eyes of the dead men that perturbed Hans - glassy and staring, faces around them clenched with horror and fear.
"God in heaven," Franz whispered. "Who is doing this?"
"Fiends," Hans replied. He was becoming all too familiar with such sights, recognising them as symptoms of a battlefield appearance by Constanta or one of his kind. Hans had not seen the Hauptmann for weeks, but other Rumanians bearing the bat and swastika emblem were an all too common presence. "Desecrated bodies, drained of blood. We've seen this too often lately."
Franz pointed at the word "Djavo" written in blood beside a Russian corpse. "What is that? A warning? Or an accusation?"
"Both," Hans said bleakly. "Come on, we've one more of these to check." He marched out of the concrete tomb and straight into the next bunker, not bothering to shout a warning or let Franz incinerate the interior first.
Hans strode inside and felt something round and organic squash beneath his jackboot - he lifted the sole to see a cluster of garlic cloves crushed beneath it. At the same moment a circle of cold metal pressed against the back of his neck. "Scheisse!" he cursed, angry at himself for not following procedure. His haste could well cost him his life.
A quaking voice said something in Russian.
"I don't speak your language," Hans replied slowly, carefully.
The voice spoke again, this time using words he could understand. "Teeth... See... Teeth."
"You want to see my teeth?" Hans asked, pointing at his mouth.
"Da!"
Hans opened his mouth and turned sideways so whoever was behind him could look inside. He was startled to see a young woman in a Soviet soldier's uniform peering intently at his teeth. Hans had heard the Russians let females fight in their army, but was shocked to see one in person; the idea of German women joining the Wehrmacht was unthinkable.
Hans's captor relaxed a little when she saw his teeth were normal, removing the end of her pistol from the back of his neck. But when Hans smiled, her expression darkened. She snarled at him in her own tongue, rattling off as to what sounded like a string of insults and accusations.
Desperate to make himself understood, Hans dropped his weapon and held up his hands in surrender. "I don't want to hurt you." He tried to remember one of the few Russian phrases he had learned in a month of fighting the enemy. He vaguely remembered captured Soviets talking with each other, while awaiting transportation to a prisoner of war camp. What did they call friends? "Tovarisch."
The woman glared at him uncertainly. "Tovarisch?"
Hans nodded, his thoughts racing. Somehow this woman had survived, whereas Constanta's men had slaughtered all the other Russian soldiers in bunkers nearby. The question was how. "Djavoli?"
"Djavoli!" The woman's eyes flashed angrily. She pointed the pistol directly between his eyes, her finger moving to the trigger.
"No, no, not me," Hans protested, waving his hands, hoping his body language would speak for him. He made a series of awkward gestures to ask the Russian a question. "How... did you... stop the... djavoli?"
She looked at him, obviously confused. "Shtop?"
"Stop," Hans said. He pressed a hand out sideways, as if trying to halt traffic. "Stop! Err, halt. Prevent. Stop them. How did you stop the djavoli?"
The woman stared at Hans, then her face lit up, as if finally grasping what his strange words and gestures might mean. She pointed at a string of garlic bulbs hanging over the narrow doorway of the cold concrete bunker. "Chyesnok!"
"Chairs-nook?"
She nodded. "Chyesnok."
"You mean garlic," Hans said, pointing at the bulbs. "Garlic."
"Chyesnok!"
"Garlic keeps them out? Interesting..."
The Russian soldier cracked open her pistol and removed one of the bullets inside, showing it proudly to Hans. "Syeryebro."
He peered at the round. It appeared normal but for the tip, which had been crudely coated with a different metal. "Is this silver?"
"Syeryebro," the woman said, nodding vigorously. She replaced the bullet in her pistol and then aimed the weapon at Hans's head once more. "Bang! Myortvi."
"Myortvi?" he asked. The word sounded a little like "Mord", the German for murder. His mind raced, trying to interpret what she was saying. "You can kill them with a silver-coated bullet?"
The Russian began talking excitedly to Hans, her words racing away, pistol still pointed at his face. Over the woman's shoulder Hans could see Franz creeping into the bunker, the flamethrower ready to fire. Franz jerked his head sideways, his eyes urging Hans to jump out of harm's way.
"No, no, don't do it," Hans urged. "She's not-"
But his words and actions had alerted the female soldier to danger behind her. As she spun round to face Franz, Hans jumped aside. Franz let loose with the flamethrower, burning the woman alive, shouting in triumph as she turned into a human torch. She screamed and howled - flames melting her skin and flesh - before collapsing on to the cold floor, black smoke and the stench of scorched flesh choking the air inside the claustrophobic chamber.
Hans could not bring himself to look at the charred corpse as he staggered out of the bunker, his eyes streaming from the fumes. He had known the woman for a few minutes, yet had formed a bond with her, however fleeting - just as he had with the Russian about to kill him at Reni, before the intervention of those mist creatures. She had been plain-faced and rather dumpy in her ill-fitting Red Army uniform, but she was no different from him. They were both scared, both looking for a way of stopping the Rumanian fiends. Now she was dead, another statistic in a war where thousands were dying every hour, every day. I don't know who will weep for her passing, Hans thought, but I may owe my life to her.
It was several hours before he encountered Franz again. The little private was still bragging about how he had saved Vollmer from the Russian femme fatale. "Give it a rest, Kral, okay?"
"Why? It's the bravest thing I've ever done," Franz protested.
"She wasn't going to kill me," Hans said. "We were talking."
"Talking? She was waving a gun in your face."
"Yes, but not to..." Hans gave up, realising it would be too difficult to explain without sounding unbalanced. "Forget it, it doesn't matter."
"It matters to me," Franz insisted. "For once I'm a hero, not the unit mascot. Let somebody else have the glory for once, will you? We can't all be Witte's favourite."
Hans watched him go, bemused by Kral's final statement. I'm the sergeant's favourite? When did that happen? But the call of a familiar voice pulled his attention away from further wonderings. A column of cavalry was crossing the nearby bridge, followed by an armoured reconnaissance vehicle. Standing on top the Panzerspähwagen was Brunetti, waving and calling to Hans, beckoning the soldier to come nearer.
Once the vehicle had crossed the bri
dge the war correspondent jumped down to the ground, his camera in one hand, a small kitbag slung over the opposite shoulder. Brunetti shouted his thanks to the Panzerspähwagen's driver and then smiled at Hans broadly. "We meet again! I've been hoping to find you somewhere along this road. How goes the war with you?"
Hans pointed at the steady stream of vehicles that rolled past. "I can hardly hear you. Let's go some place else, where we can talk without shouting ourselves hoarse."
The Italian nodded, his warm eyes twinkling with intelligence. "Good idea." The two men retreated from the road, strolling through the devastated Russian defences while Hans related his encounter with the Soviet soldier. Brunetti was intrigued by what he heard. "That matches other reports I've had from sources along the Ostfront. Seems none of the Rumanians under Constanta's command are fond of silver, sunlight or symbols of faith. Garlic, you say? Remarkable. I wish I'd known that before I wrote my report."
"What report?" Hans asked anxiously.
"I filed copy three days ago about rumours of a malevolent new force committing atrocities in this war. I couldn't be too specific, for obvious reasons, but anyone who reads between the lines will guess what I'm talking about."
"Was that wise?"
Brunetti shrugged and smiled. "Perhaps not, but people deserve to know the truth. Even in war, a writer's duty is always to tell the truth as he sees it."
"But if word of what you've written reaches Constanta or one of his men-"
"The Rumanians are a tiny part of the Axis forces, and Constanta's troops from Transylvanian are the smallest fraction of the Rumanian contingent fighting alongside Army Group South. According to some of the documentation I've seen, the Hauptmann had little over a hundred men at his command when Operation Barbarossa was launched. How much influence can one man have?"
"Constanta is not like other men," Hans replied tensely. "His eyes, his voice... It's as if he can reach inside your soul, twist your thoughts to do his bidding. I'm still not sure how I managed to resist him in Reni."
"Vollmer! Why aren't you on patrol with Kral and the others?" The shouting voice belonged to Sergeant Witte, anger all too evident in his tone. He was striding toward Hans and the war correspondent, his face a scowl of anger.
"I was talking to-"
"I can see who you're talking to," Witte spat. "It's Brunetti I was looking for, not you. Get about your business, Vollmer, before I put you on report."
Hans nodded a hasty farewell to the Italian before marching away. Why would the sergeant be looking for Brunetti? The two men did nothing but argue on the few occasions Hans had seen them together.
It was almost dusk when the staff car transporting Giovanni Brunetti stopped outside an abandoned farmhouse, some twenty miles behind the frontline. Soldiers standing guard outside the battered building motioned for the Italian to get out. Witte had said the staff car was personally despatched by Generalfeldmarschall von Rundstedt to collect the war correspondent. No reason was given for the summons, but the sergeant made it clear that refusing the invitation to meet Army Group South's leader was not an option. So Brunetti had let himself be driven back across the Dnestr to von Rundstedt's field HQ.
Once inside the farmhouse, the Italian was escorted to a sparsely furnished room and told to wait. When he tried the door, Brunetti was surprised to discover it was locked. The sole window in the room had been boarded up, remnants of shattered glass on the floor evidence of the battles fought around the structure. The only illumination came from a smoky oil lamp on a wooden table, its fumes creating a greyish pall in the air. Brunetti sat on a lone chair and waited. Whatever happened next would happen, so he might as well be comfortable.
A cold chill of dread had been sinking into Brunetti's heart since talking with that German private, Vollmer. The Italian liked to think of the young soldier as an ally in his quest for the truth about Constanta and the Transylvanian troops, but Vollmer had looked aghast when told about the war correspondent's most recent story. The colour drained from the private's sun-bronzed face, making his blonde hair and blue eyes even more prominent. It had never occurred to Brunetti his article could have gone too far, that someone other than military censors might be reading everything he had filed.
I've been a fool, he realised belatedly. I did not believe the powers that be would concern themselves with my writings. What's the worst they can do? Deport me back to Italy, put me under house arrest? I haven't written anything that could be considered remotely treasonous, he decided. Besides, von Rundstedt is a legend in the Wehrmacht. I doubt he fears anyone but the Führer himself. Everything will be fine, it will all blow over, given time, Brunetti reassured himself.
But the creeping terror rising within his chest would not listen, instead is grew colder with each passing minute, as if someone was scooping him hollow.
It was almost a relief when the sound of approaching jackboots broke the silence. A key twisted inside the lock and the door swung inwards, admitting two armed guards. They glared at the Italian, who hastily vacated the sole chair. The third and final man to enter was Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, a figure Brunetti had seen once before during a military parade. Viewed up close, the Italian was surprised how tired the German officer looked. True, von Rundstedt was already sixty-five and had served during the Great War, but the burden of commanding Army Group South was plainly weighing heavily on his shoulders.
The Generalfeldmarschall removed his peaked cap and smoothed down his silver hair, the same hand then adjusting the Knight's Cross hanging below his throat. He looked at Brunetti, his eyes displaying a piercing intelligence, while one hand pointed at the chair. "May I?"
"Err, of course," the Italian replied, stepping aside.
The German officer sank into the seat, resting his cap on a nearby table. "You have caused me considerable difficulty," von Rundstedt began. "I should be concentrating all my energies on sealing off the Kessel at Uman. Instead I find myself here, talking to you. Others have long argued that allowing a non-German war correspondent to mingle with our troops was a mistake, but I supported your presence on the Ostfront. How else are we to prove the worth of our mission if independent observers are not allowed to report on the good we are doing, yes?"
"Yes," Brunetti agreed.
"However, others have not seen it this way. As a result, your reports have been filtered through the offices of our propaganda minister. Goebbels has not been pleased by your writings, but was willing to permit their publication - until the most recent article." The Generalfeldmarschall clicked his fingers and one of the guards produced several sheets of yellow paper, folded twice. "I will not dignify the fanciful claims you make on these pages by reading them aloud. Suffice to say they will not see print and any attempt on your part to repeat such nonsense or have them published elsewhere shall be dealt with severely. Step beyond the guidelines of our propaganda ministry again and I shall have no choice but to expel you from the war zone. Charges may yet be brought against you. I understand the Führer himself has expressed interest in your case," von Rundstedt added, holding up a hand to still Brunetti's voice before the war correspondent could ask a question. "Trust me when I say this interest is neither favourable, nor best sought by one in your position. Do I make myself clear?"
Brunetti thought of protesting but was all too aware of the soldiers on either side of the Generalfeldmarschall, their fingers poised over the triggers of their machine pistols. "Yes, sir."
The German commander smiled thinly as he stood once more. "Very well. Now, before I have you returned to the field, one of our allies wishes to have a word with you. Perhaps they can reassure you about the nature of this conflict." He strode from the room, followed by the two guards. The door remained open, but Brunetti made no attempt to leave. He was too busy digesting what he had been told, desperately trying to burn it into his memory. When this war was over, he would write about this day and he wanted to have perfect recall of its events.
So preoccupied was the Italian wit
h his thoughts, he did not notice the lone figure appear in the doorway. It was only when he heard the voice, with its familiar thick, throaty Rumanian accent, did Brunetti look up. A gasp fell from his lips, along with a cry for help from the heavens.
Hauptmann Constanta chuckled as he walked into the room, closing and locking the door behind him. "Praying for mercy will do you little good," the Transylvanian officer sneered. "And the Germans are pulling out of this location as I speak, so screaming is also of no use. But if either activity gives you comfort, I suggest now is a good time to start."
Chapter Nine
JUNE 25TH, 1941
Ralf had heard rumours about two new Russian tanks creating havoc for Panzer divisions along the northern frontier of the Ostfront, but had yet to see either of them for himself. According to rumour, one of the Russian monsters was a heavy tank called the KV. Its armour was said to be the equal of anything in the war, while its main gun was superior to anything the Panzerwaffe possessed. Tales abounded of a single KV squatting on a causeway, holding back an entire Panzer division for a day. Even when artillery guns were brought up to bombard the vehicle, the KV simply shrugged off their rounds.
Having spent so long inside medium tanks, Ralf was more interested in the other Soviet innovation, a design known as the T-34. According to frontline reports it also had a 76mm main gun, but had been seen travelling at speeds far in excess of any German battle tank. Most impressive of all was the T-34's angled plates of armour, giving it a resilience the equal of any heavy tank. The Wehrmacht's anti-tank crews reported their projectiles merely bounced off the T-34. Only chance hits on the turret ring or rear drive-sprockets disabled the vehicle. However, a single shot from the T-34 was capable of blowing off the commander's cupola from a Panzer III and there were multiple cases of German tanks being split apart by frontal hits from the formidable main gun. The mere appearance of these Red Army behemoths was said to induce Panzerschreck in German ground troops, but so far Army Group South had not encountered them, so "tank terror" remained an unseen phenomenon below the Pripyat Marshes.