by Leo Kessler
The sight of the burning halftrack took the heart out of the Frenchmen. They broke and ran, streaming back the way they had come, perfect targets against the red glare.
The Grey Eagles rose to their feet, regardless of the 20mm shells still peppering the peak of the mountain, and poured cruel automatic fire into their backs.
The first attack on Grey Eagle Mountain had been repulsed.
‘Damn, damn, damn! Habicht cursed, striking the metal of the nearest half track with his fist.
Kreuz looked anxiously at Habicht’s face – still peppered with the black dried blood of the untreated shrapnel wounds. They could neither go forward nor back. They were trapped on the top of this damn mountain.
‘If I could only get the Royal Tigers up,’ Habicht groaned. ‘I’d blast them out of their damn holes like the rats they are!’
‘Impossible on this road, Obersturmbanführer,’ Kreuz said pointedly. ‘The outer verge wouldn’t support their weight and we can’t simply toss the halftracks over the side to make room for them.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Habicht snarled. ‘I know that.’ Raising his night glasses, he stared at the stark outline of the peak ahead, as silent now as if it were deserted. ‘A frontal attack is out of the question,’ he commented to Kreuz.
He swung his glasses to both sides of the peak. ‘The flanks are just as bad, even if we could get into position there without their spotting us first.’ He raised the glasses and focused them on the sheer rock wall behind the Russian position. His trained Alpinist’s eye told him at once that they did not have a hope in hell of getting down there. Yet all the same – he lowered his glasses thoughtfully and turned to Schulze. ‘Sarnt-Major.’
‘Sir?’
‘What would you say off-hand those two automatic rifle cannon might weigh?’
Schulze knew the Hawk meant the two recoilless rifles, Germany’s latest secret weapon.
‘Fifty kilos or thereabouts, sir,’ he said hesitantly.
The Hawk mused, ‘A lot of weight to be carried by one man.’ He looked at Schulze and the big NCO could see his teeth gleam in a parody of a smile. ‘But not if he’s as big as you, Schulze, eh?’
‘Jesus,’ Schulze cursed to himself, ‘This is where I crap in my pants!’
Habicht raised his hand as a signal to halt. Schulze with the recoilless rifle strapped to his back and the four big Cheeseheads, laden with shells, flopped into the snow gratefully. They had run the gauntlet of the Russian positions without being spotted, and now they were on the peak, behind the Russians, ready to begin the impossible mission which the Hawk had dreamed up for them.
Close-up the rock face did not look as bad as he had anticipated. The wail sloped at about sixty degrees and was ribbed and terraced pretty fully. There would be plenty of hand- and foot-holds.
Carefully he searched its surface for a convenient ledge: not too high, broad enough to support them and at the same time allow them to see the Reds’ positions. Then he spotted it. He focused his glasses on the fault a couple of hundred metres above their heads.
It was broad enough, that was certain, and he was pretty sure that the inky-black darkness of the fold beyond it indicated that there was a deep narrow gully there, which might well overlook the Red positions.
He turned round and looked down at the men on the ground.
‘Now listen to me,’ he said softly and simply. ‘Everybody is frightened on mountains. But the main thing is to keep your head. Once you panic, you are finished. Do you understand that?’ He looked directly at the four Dutch volunteers.
‘Now you must rely on my judgement implicitly. Where I put my feet – I shall go first – you will put yours. There – and no other place. Clear?’
They nodded their understanding.
‘Fine. Our objective is there, that ridge at about ten o’clock.’
Schulze looked up the mountain, following the direction indicated by the Hawk’s outstretched arm. ‘Oh, Christ!’ he exclaimed, ‘That’s halfway to heaven, that bastard is.’
Habicht chuckled. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks, Schulze. Believe me.’
Reluctantly the men began to trail through the deep snow in single file behind the Hawk, plodding through its virgin surface like convicted criminals, condemned to a nameless fate.
It was a beautiful winter dawn in the high mountains, the sky above a hard glittering blue and the mountains gleaming an eye-blinking perfect white.
But the Commander of the Grey Eagles had no eyes for the beauty of the morning. His gaze was fixed on the dead littering the snowfield and the burnt-out wreck of the halftrack. What were the SS up to?
He bit his lip and wondered. Would they whistle up their planes? Was that what they were waiting for – air support before they began another attack? Suddenly Major Suslov was strangely uneasy. Turning round he blew his whistle three times to sound the alarm. The men not on stand-to sprang to their feet at once, as if they had not been really sleeping, and grabbed their weapons. Those on stand-to peered alertly from their weapon pits, waiting for orders.
Swiftly Suslov rapped out a stream of commands, putting his Grey Eagles on immediate alert. Veterans that they were, they carried out his orders at once, the new air lookouts seizing binoculars and beginning to search the quarter of the sky allotted to them, while the rest started to hack even deeper holes in the snow for when the German bombers came. But none of them had eyes for the sheer rockface behind their position. There could be no danger from that particular quarter.
After two abortive attempts, Habicht had found what he sought. A sloping ledge took him to a crack and on to a snow-covered platform, perhaps some two hundred metres to the right of the ledge on which he wanted to position the recoilless rifle. It had taken him a good hour of threatening, cajoling, persuading, encouraging to get his men to make it, but in the end he had managed it. Now breathless and obviously not daring to look down at the giddy spectacle of what lay below them, they were ready to attempt the traverse of the rock face to the ledge.
He smiled at them coldly. ‘I think we’d better get started now,’ he said, ‘before you gentlemen take root here.’ They were not amused, he could see that. Their eyes, even those of the big NCO, were round and wide with fear like those of sheep, scenting the freshly shed blood and knowing that soon it would be their turn to enter the slaughterhouse.
They began to move across the gleaming face of the mountain towards their objective, sweating profusely in spite of the biting cold and travelling with incredible slowness, but moving all the same.
Habicht led them to a crack. It ran slantwise up a perpendicular rock. He knew it would be easier for them than any other hold. It was not too bad at first, then his foot jammed. Below they halted bewildered by his suddenly frantic struggles to free his foot, but their red, strained faces still showing an almost pathetic belief in his ability to get them to their objective.
Habicht calmed himself. He paused for a moment, forcing himself to be calm, the sweat streaming down and blinding him, his muscles screaming with pain. Gently he tugged at his foot and worked it free. ‘Watch that hole,’ he called down, controlling his voice with his iron will.
Bringing up the rear with the fifty kilo gun barrel strapped to his shoulders, Schulze was no longer afraid; he was too exhausted to register positive emotion. All his efforts were directed to getting to the ledge which seemed so impossibly far away and slumping down in the snow to rest. The strain was tremendous even for his huge powerful body as the murderous weight of the gun tried to pluck him backwards into the abyss. The sweat streaming down his face, his eyes bulging wildly from his crimson features, he clambered upwards.
And then finally, after what seemed an age, they had made it and were flinging themselves face-downwards on the snow-covered ledge, choking violently for breath. Habicht looked down at them for a moment before crawling carefully to the narrow gully beyond the ledge and peering through it.
He had been right. The Red positions were set out
exactly below him at some two hundred metres distance. He could see their every detail – the weapon pits, the snow walls, which sheltered their gunners, the little mortar pit, even the red flag fluttering bravely in the centre of their perimeter.
He had them completely at his mercy. Suddenly Obersturmbanführer Otto Habicht chuckled. It was an unearthly sound.
THREE
The flare hissed into the still morning air like a bird of prey. Down below the startled Russians stared up at the green ball of light descending on their perimeter, staining the snow a sickly hue. Gradually the flare came to rest and died a slow, hissing death in the snow.
Everywhere Suslov’s Grey Eagles clutched their weapons and stared to their front. The Major, upright next to his command post, machine pistol in hand, was as tense and uneasy as his men. What the hell was going on?
Suslov darted through the scuffed snow and focused his glasses on the bend from which the Fritzes must surely come. There was no sign of activity. One thing he noticed, however. The campfires had gone out. Did that signify the Fritzes were going to attack? Or were they perhaps withdrawing, realizing that it would be impossible to pass his position. His heart leapt with sudden joy. He had stopped the Fritz drive through the mountains with only a handful of casualties – the men lost in the crashed glider. He swung round to his expectant men and opened his mouth to pass on the news. But no words emerged.
For in that same moment, two things happened. Down below engines roared into life, among them the massive rumble of tanks. A second later there was a sharp crack high above his head. He glanced upwards in alarm. Just in time to catch the stab of scarlet flame burning across the snow.
‘Alarm!’ he cried at the top of his voice. ‘Stand by everywhere! Mortars?’ – his words were drowned by the crash of a medium sized shell bursting right into the centre of the perimeter and exploding with a hellish roar. The Fritzes had some how managed to get a gun on the height above them! In that same moment, the first halftrack burst round the bend and into the open.
Schulze, crouched behind the long recoilless rifle took careful aim, just as the first halftrack came rattling up the mountain road. Controlling his breathing, he squeezed the trigger gently. The gun thudded against his shoulder. Hot blast swept backwards and the dark flash of the shell whizzed from the muzzle of the strange gun. The shell exploded right in the middle of the Russians manning the furthest mortar. They flew apart, as if punched into the air by some gigantic fist.
‘Excellent, Schulze!’ Habicht cried exuberantly and ducked as the first enraged burst of Russian machine-gun fire came zipping in their direction.
‘Load!’ Schulze bellowed. ‘Come on you big Cheesehead, move it!’
‘In!’ the, big flaxen-headed Hollander yelled and thrust the shell home.
Schulze took aim again. He pressed the trigger. The gun cracked once more and Schulze cried, ‘Now try that one for size, you Popov pigs!’
Suslov fought his panic. If his Eagles could only stop one of the vehicles now emerging from cover, they could still block the way over the pass. ‘Kolchak!’ he bellowed over the roar of the escaping German halftracks and the firing of the gun on the heights above them. ‘Knock me out one of those damn Fritzes. QUICK!’
Suslov left him to it. He grabbed a rifle. ‘Boris, get some grenades – from that box there.’
‘Smoke?’
‘Yes,’ Suslov said impatiently, fitting the special grenade-launching device to the rifle. Finished, he kicked the nearest machine-gunner in the ribs. ‘You, swing round and give us covering fire up there.’
‘But you can’t get up there, Major,’ Boris protested, ducking smartly as another shell slammed home into the perimeter.
‘I know. But at least I can blind the swine, while Kolchak does his job. Come on.’
Together the two of them doubled to the rear of the perimeter, while behind them the machine-gunner opened up, sending a stream of white and red tracer towards the narrow gap high up on the glittering rock face from which the gunfire was coming. They flung themselves into the snow at the base of the rockwall. Frantically Suslov fitted one of the smoke grenades to the top of the long clumsy rifle. He held it upright, pointing straight up at the gorge and fired.
It was an unlucky shot. The grenade struck the rockwall and went ricocheting off like a crazy bird. Suslov muttered a gross obscenity. A heavy stick grenade came whirling down towards them. They ducked as it exploded harmlessly a dozen metres away, showering them with snow. Wildly Suslov raised the rifle knowing that the Fritzes’ aim might well be more accurate next time. He fired. This time the dark ball of the grenade sailed right into the entrance of the gully. For a moment nothing happened, then Suslov heard the ping and crack of the grenade exploding. In a flash, thick white smoke started to emerge from the gully.
Ignoring the wild burst of fire from above, Suslov fired grenade after grenade at the opening, as swiftly as Boris could hand them to him knowing now he was effectively masking the Fritz gun and giving Kolchak the time he needed to knock out a halftrack.
Kolchak was ready. He glanced at the level on the big mortar and was satisfied. Below the mountain road was black with the fleeing men. Kolchak raised his arm and then brought it down sharply. ‘FIRE!’ he bellowed.
The sheet of scarlet flame spewed the dark deadly bomb from the mortar’s muzzle. Clumsily it waggled through the air, gaining height by the second until suddenly it seemed to stop, before falling towards the road at a speed, trailing its obscene, stomach churning howl behind it.
Kolchak watched spell-bound as it fell directly in the centre of the line of Fritz halftracks. One of them trembled violently, as if it had been struck by a sudden great wind. The next moment it came to an abrupt stop, thick smoke pouring from its shattered engine, while men sprang frantically over the side before the halftrack caught fire. Behind it the rest of the column around to a halt.
‘We’ve done it, boys!’ Kolchak cried, flinging up his arms with joy. ‘We’ve shown the Fritz –’
The words died on his lips. A monstrous shadow lay across the snow at the tail of the stalled convoy.
‘A Royal Tiger,’ Kolchak breathed in horror, as the hooded gun started to swing round slowly in their direction.
‘Piss on it!’ Schulze cried frantically, trying to control his choking breath. ‘Quick!’
The Dutchman ripped open his flies and choking and coughing, the tears streaming down his face with the smoke, he urinated on the dirty handkerchief tendered him. Schulze did not hesitate. He bound the disgusting rag around his mouth. ‘Well, don’t stand there like a fart in a trance, you stupid Cheesehead. Do the same!’ Schulze ordered. ‘And bring me some more ammo.’
He dropped onto his belly and crawling through the smoke advanced to the edge of the sheer drop. Ignoring the ricochets and the vicious crack of rifle grenades exploding all around him, he drew his last grenade. Narrowing his eyes against the ever thickening smoke which had blinded the gun, he pulled the china pin at its base and lobbed it over the edge of the rock wall and ducked.
The stick grenade exploded directly below the two Russians. The snow erupted and obscured them in a wild whirling white storm for a brief moment. When it had cleared, one of them lay sprawled in the snow, his head blown away while the other, helmetless, his clothes ripped by shrapnel and blast, was pelting across the snow the way he had come.
‘You’ll get a medal for that,’ the Hawk’s voice cut into Schulze’s consciousness. ‘I’ll see that you do, Schulze when this business is over.’
‘Got a whole drawer full of them, Colonel,’ Schulze answered. He doubled back to his gun, while the Hawk chopped at the smoke and tried to clear it so that the big NCO could start firing again.
But there was no need for Schulze’s recoilless rifle now. In the same moment that Suslov, his face begrimed and smeared with Boris’s blood, flung himself headlong into the snow, just behind Kolchak’s mortar pit, there was a tremendous roar. It tore the air apart as if in eternal a
nguish. Even as it engulfed Suslov, wreathing him in its awesome, hot, choking, deafening fury, he knew with a sense of despair what it was. The Fritzes had managed to bring one of the 90mm cannons of their tanks into action. Next moment, the shell exploded right in the centre of Kolchak’s mortar pit, one hundred pounds of high explosive, packed in high grade Krupp steel, tearing, ripping, gouging, hacking all in front of it, leaving the pit a smoking horror of mangled, limbless bodies swimming in their own thick, hot blood.
Suslov struggled to his feet. Right at the bend the hooded gun was preparing to fire again. Hurriedly he turned to his terrified radio operator. ‘Sergei, tell HQ we can’t hold them. We’ll have to give up the mountain. Quick!’
‘In clear?’
‘In clear. No time for code now.’ He cringed instinctively as the 90mm cannon spoke again with a mighty roar and the H.E. shell zipped flat across the snowfield with the sound of a huge piece of canvas being ripped apart by a pair of gigantic hands. It exploded in a monstrous burst of crimson flame on the Eagles’ perimeter, scything down a good dozen of his men.
The radio operator’s finger flew up and down on the key. The man was terrified, veteran that he was, Suslov could see that. But then they all were, himself included. There was no protection against that great gun; even if they dug themselves down as far as hell, it would find them.
‘Finished, Comrade Commander,’ the radio operator cried over the hellish racket, his voice almost hysterical.
‘Sign off!’ Suslov yelled. ‘We’re moving out. Our position here is untenable.’