by Gee, Colin
Eisenhower felt the man’s discomfort and took up the trail.
“So we have bombers reporting fire and explosions at 0208 hrs, continuing through to last witnesses, the Poles, at 0330 hrs.”
Rossiter nodded.
“Explosives or fuel.”
Not a question as such, just a statement in the first instance.
“You’ve gone somewhere with this already haven’t you, Sam?”
Ike knew his man.
“Yes Sir. I figured you’d want to know so I’ve done some rooting around. The Soviet tank force that has stopped dead has not been meaningfully engaged, period.”
“Meaning, Sam?”
“Meaning it’s a fresh unit Sir, and it’s not attacking. There has to be a reason for that, as it doesn’t seem to be a military one that we have imposed.”
“Meaning?”
Eisenhower felt he knew why but wanted confirmation from a man he trusted.
“Meaning, in my view, it could be fuel Sir. It isn’t ammo because they haven’t fired any, pretty much the only thing they are consuming when advancing is POL and foodstuffs.”
“We discussed this quickly downstairs and not one of us felt that Ivan would pause because he didn’t have his K’s.”
Not that the Soviets had K ration packs but it illustrated the point he was making.
POL. Petrol, oil and lubricants to the uninitiated.
Eisenhower closed his eyes for just one moment, enough for two inner voices to congratulate themselves, before opening his eyes to reality once more.
“We have a team working on their military fuel reserves right now, but I guess we could be looking at an Ardennes repeat if we can interdict appropriately.”
Ignoring the fact that his cigarette had just deposited ash all over the remainder of his meal, Eisenhower took a deep draft of his coffee.
“Excellent work Sam, and don’t be too hard on yourself. Things get missed and the team picked it up before harm was done. Thank you and stay on it.”
Mentally terminating the discussion, Ike suddenly wondered if there was something else and refocused.
“Oh, anything else Sam?”
A question with unspoken meaning.
“Not at this time Sir.”
A reply addressing the concerns voiced.
“Keep me informed Sam, and thank you again.”
Salutes exchanged and Eisenhower was alone once more.
A cigarette dealt with his craving but his stomach still felt light, and it had nothing to do with the half-eaten meal.
‘History shows that there are no invincible armies, General.’
The two sentries stood outside Eisenhower’s door swore later that they heard uncharacteristic laughter from within.
‘Amen General, amen.’
He commenced his telephone discussions with his senior commanders making his last call to Field-Marshall Harold Alexander.
After getting a report and passing on his own situation, he discussed the possible fuel issue with his British commander in the Mediterranean.
“Yes Ike, I do understand, and wouldn’t it be absolutely marvellous if it were true?”
“Harry, you think I’m holding the wrong pig here?”
“Let me just say that my own staff have done work on this. I will get copies to you by pip-emma tomorrow. Obviously, I was interested in knowing how far our Red friends could drive if they chose to go sightseeing.”
Ike had heard the substitution of pip-emma for p.m. before from Alexander so did not lose the meaning. However, he would never get used to the British way of talking in riddles.
“Our conclusion was they have no shortage of fuel whatsoever, unless some local depletion is achieved, such as you might have seen with this instance.”
“Others seem to think we may have something to work with here, Harry.”
“Well yes, we may, but I actually think not, certainly not on what my staff generated, Sir.”
Negative input from one of his seniors made all Eisenhower’s other positive feelings fade a little.
Sensing the moment correctly, Alexander pushed a bit harder.
“If I might offer a few words of Kipling, General. His boy was in my Regiment in the First War don’t you know; tragic loss. You are familiar with ‘If’ I trust?”
“I have read it, but familiar may be too much of a claim, Harry.”
“Understood Sir,” Alexander chuckled.
“There is more than a little that is pertinent there.”
Eisenhower tried to summon the words for himself.
Alexander recited the poem by memory. For an ex-Irish Guards officer it was an easy enough task.
Ike found himself nodding.
“Thank you for that Harry. The message there is loud and clear. Keep my feet on the ground while those about me get carried away and don’t dream something into a fact that it isn’t.”
“I think that puts it rather well General.”
“You are right of course. I will wait on more information before I start imagining the ticker tape parade through New York.”
Alexander laughed sincerely at that one. Remembering something important, he curtailed his response.
“By the way Sir, Mr Attlee was none too pleased that McCreery was popped into place without so much as a by your leave. It’s the province of His Majesty’s Government etc etc. Just so you know. He is ok with it now but I think he felt circumvented, which of course, he was. I don’t think he understood the necessity of immediate action, despite my championing the appointment. You know what I mean. Maybe a little bit of careful handling for a while, Sir?”
“As you say and thank you again Harry.”
“My pleasure Sir, Good night, and good luck.”
“And to you.”
Eisenhower went to his bed feeling less buoyant than an hour beforehand but slept reasonably well for the second time since the lead had started to fly once more.
None the less, in his initial slumber the dreams were uneasy, raising doubts and questions.
As he slipped into deeper less turbulent sleep he wrestled with one final session as Devil’s Advocate to his own mental processes.
‘Is Alexander right and there isn’t a fuel problem for the commies?’
Lots of fuel?
‘But that tank corps has stopped.’
No fuel?
‘But that could be local loss, not theatre-wide.’
Lots of fuel but just not there?
‘Wait until the morning.’
Enough fuel?
‘Why would they not have?’
How much fuel?
‘It can’t be that simple can it?’
And, of course, it wasn’t.
1422 hrs 10th August 1945, Durnbucherforst, Germany.
Having arrived at the site of the attack during the early afternoon, the 10th Tank Corps commander was being briefed on what exactly had befallen his supplies. One of his Staff Colonel’s, sent on first thing that morning, was imparting the bad news. Henceforth Major-General Sakhno was in a blue funk. His Chief-of-Staff NKVD KomBrig Davydov was even worse, having summarily executed both the trigger-happy Sergeant who brought the destruction down upon the supply train as well as the Captain who spoke in the man’s defence.
The forest around the site had been incinerated, along with over 75% of the 10th Tank Corps fuel supply and a modest 25% chunk of the corps ammunition. Losses in service manpower were extreme and Sakhno had yet to find any officer from his supply units above the rank of Lieutenant, except for the burnt and shocked man shot dead by his incandescent Chief of Staff.
It was also reported that most of the protecting AA battalion from 1701st AA Regiment had also been ravaged.
Valuable assets that had been equipped with the highly effective German 20mm Quad weapons mounted on trucks, one of the few German weapons that had not disappeared so completely and strangely from the Soviet order of battle in Europe that summer.
Mikhail Gordeevich Sakhno sat dow
n on a fallen tree and ran his hands through his hair, or more accurately where his hair had once been, the balding patch emphasised by the bushier growths on either side of his crown.
As he sat, Davydov strode up muttering oath after oath.
Sakhno indicted a space on the fallen trunk next to him.
“Let us sit and take stock Nikanor Karpovich. I must think how best to present this disaster to Savelev or the pair of us will be counting trees.”
Davydov looked at his superior surprised.
“The Army Commander is aware of the situation Comrade General. His Supplies section is working on how to get us moving again as we speak.”
It was Sakhno’s turn to look at his companion with surprise.
Indicating a truck drawn up on the edge of the devastated zone, the NKVD officer spat smoky oily phlegm and rummaged for his cigarettes to freshen his mouth.
“Our valiant Comrade Colonel Rassov from Army Command with a radio truck, reporting back as we speak Mikhail Gordeevich.”
Both men spat on cue for the same reason, a disgust and fear of Rassov both shared.
Polkovnik Rassov was an asshole but, unfortunately a powerful one who had the Army Commander’s ear. Throughout the Red Army he was known as the weasel.
Both men lit up and inhaled, coinciding with the first drops of rain dropping on the General’s balding pate.
“Well that’s just fucking great. Now it simply can’t get any worse,” chuckling in the way that people who have had a sense of humour failure chuckle in the face of great adversity.
“There is more Comrade.”
Reluctantly Davydov drew his commander’s attention to a previously anonymous set of wrecks lined up on a woodland path, deliberately parked close together and hidden from aerial view, until such time as the fireballs consumed vehicles, occupants, and protective forest canopy.
“According to Rassov, that is apparently the illustrious 2nd Battalion of the 8th Pontoon Brigade, sent here last night to fuel up before moving forward behind the attack we have just failed to make because of our lack of fuel.”
Sakhno screwed his face up, concentrating on the numerous wrecks that were now apparent to his gaze, making out the remains of vital bridging equipment as he moved his eyes up and down the charred lines.
“Well that’s just fucking great.”
Davydov could do no more than nod at that. Going through the options in his mind, the General was unaware of the approaching figure until his companion stiffened at his side.
Casting a swift look, he saw the diminutive figure of Rassov marching with purpose in their direction.
The two comrades exchanged a knowing look.
As the NKVD officer stood, he leaned naturally, allowing him to whisper in his general’s ear.
“I’d love to shoot the little bastard but I think it would only make matters worse my friend.”
Sakhno, remaining seated, spoke his thought rather more openly.
“Well if it looks like going bad for us, the fucking weasel will be the first to bite a bullet.”
Davydov gestured to the approaching Rassov and spoke with a lightness he did not feel.
“Comrade Colonel Rassov. Please join us.”
1748 hrs Friday 10th August 1945, Ainauwald, Germany.
Rassov had insisted on accompanying Sakhno back to his mobile headquarters at Starzhausen, just over a mile north of Wolnzach.
The five-vehicle convoy was led by a BA64 armoured car as advance screen, with the security section in an American Studebaker truck leading the main group of the 10th Tank Corps Commander’s GAZ staff car, Rassov’s Jeep and finally with the Signal vehicle from which Rassov had sent his damning reports bringing up the rear.
The BA64 driver, anxious to be back to his unit by mealtime, moved his vehicle forward above the agreed speed, his vehicle commander failing to notice the error as he examined in detail some interesting photos liberated from a ladies salon in Straubling.
Quite often in life, where there exists one error, another arrives to make matters worse.
The driver of the security section vehicle, having lost sight of the armoured car made an assumption and, instead of carrying on down the same road, turned his lorry left just past Ainau, heading down a woodland track to nowhere.
The three senior officers deep in conversation in the GAZ behind noticed nothing, the last two vehicle’s drivers would not have recognised the error in any case.
One large lorry, a signal truck, and two staff 4x4’s make quite a lot of noise, especially when driven in the Russian style down unmade roads.
Without that warning, things might have been different.
However, the racket the four vehicles made ensured that the matter was never in doubt, as the Ainauwald contained nothing but a swift death for anything with a Red Star.
Davydov had just finished remonstrating against Rassov’s accusation about the possible effects on his health of the obvious deviation from standard procedures regarding positioning of battle fuel stocks. Angry, he turned away and slowly became aware of his surroundings. He started to question the driver, an extremely average looking leviathan called Anasimova, picked for her driving ability and nothing else.
The security lorry disappeared in a wall of flame as it drove straight over a teller mine chain, three devices exploding virtually in unison.
The radio truck and crew lasted less than three seconds more as two panzerfausts arrowed in, one from each side, obliterating the cab.
The rattle of small arms fire suddenly exceeded the screams from the dying and the air was filled with deadly metal insects, each capable of taking a life.
Three, fired from an ST44 assault rifle, took Olga Anasimova in the chest, stopping her heart in an instant.
The vehicle continued forward, losing momentum and coming to a halt by bumping into the rear of the burning Studebaker.
The front seat passenger, Colonel Rassov, was hit by the same burst that killed Anasimova. Eyes wide open in shock and horror, he was conscious but unable to move, his spine severed by one strike, his arms broken and chest penetrated by the five others. Rassov’s death was noisy, protracted and excruciating as the flames advanced.
Davydov and Sakhno had bailed out, each already hit and bleeding, firing with their pistols at imagined shapes in the undergrowth.
Nodding at a thicker clump of bushes to their rear, the two gathered themselves for a superhuman effort.
They burst from behind their cover and made for relative safety behind them, from where emerged a middle-aged man wearing an SS camouflage smock.
“Sieg Heil!”
Instead of attacking that morning and exploiting the break in the line caused by the collapse of the French division, 10th Tank Corps was paralysed by the loss of its allocated fuel supply and the loss of its two key senior commanders.
Commander of 5th Guards Tank Army, Lieutenant-General Mikhail Ivanovich Savelev stepped in, reorganising the hierarchy of the 10th, mourning the loss of two competent veteran officers, and spared no thought whatsoever for the weasel he had despised.
The hiding place of Kommando Lenz had been well and truly blown and the armed group, led by the former SS Hauptsturmfuhrer of Fallschirmjager, had long disappeared.
1959 hrs Friday 10th August 1945, The Kremlin, Moscow, USSR.
Leaning back into his comfortable chair and drawing deeply on a simple pipe, the General-Secretary read the military intelligence estimate compiled following the Spanish radio message that same day, something that they had been forewarned of by agents in Spain.
Beria sat similarly comfortably polishing his glasses, enjoying the fact that Pekunin was in the limelight. Of course, he had himself been quizzed but the NKVD had already done some of the basic footwork, so his report had been examined and accepted some time before the GRU one arrived. It was delivered by a strikingly attractive GRU female Colonel, in itself a novelty.
Beria made a mental note to check out this Nazarbayeva more thoroughly, as she
must have achieved her status by clever use of her obvious charms, and to his mind that meant leverage and compliance to any proposition he might put to her in future.
As she stood there, he studied how she favoured her left leg whilst stood at attention and amused himself with reaching into the recesses of his mind for the details he must have read on her at one time or another.
The shiny star on the upper left chest helped prod him in the right direction and he recalled her report on the French symposiums and then brought forward details of her service.
‘You have a husband too,’ he reflected, smiling inside but not out,
‘All the better for what I have in mind Tatiana.’
Catching her eye accidentally, he was immediately aware of a strength and resilience in her gaze, and part of him spoke a warning, whereas another part relished the challenge.
His warped thought process was interrupted.
“So Comrade Colonel, you conclude that this new development will interfere with our schedule?”
Nazarbayeva, inwardly feeling slightly overwhelmed at her present company but outwardly cool and composed briefly replied.
“Most certainly Comrade General-Secretary, I can see no other conclusion.”
Both Stalin and Beria knew that the NKVD report agreed with that but anticipated only a modest effect throughout the run of Kingdom39.
Stalin, referring to the document, challenged the GRU officer.
“I see here that this report originated from you, authored from start to finish by you, delivered to my hands by you. Why is that Comrade?”
“Comrade General Pekunin was wounded in an air attack on our Headquarters, not seriously, but enough to place him in hospital for the moment, Comrade General-Secretary. Comrade Lieutenant General Kochetkov is in temporary command and it was on his order that I compiled the report and presented it to you.”
Neither man said a word but both thought that Kochetkov was keeping his neck off the block and setting up his Colonel for the fall if things went wrong.
In actual fact, he had directed Nazarbayeva to do the work because of her ability, something that never occurred to either of them.