Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “Trottman,” I shouted, “hurry up and get under cover, the sniper is still around her somewhere!”

  He waved cheerily to us. “It’s my fucking ankle, I tripped on something. An old pipe I think. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Get down, man, you’re in full view!” I shouted again.

  I saw him smile, heard the crack of another rifle bullet, then he flung his arms up and spun around, dropping his machine pistol with a clatter.

  “Roland!” Wesserman shouted to his friend.

  I took hold of his arm. “He’s finished, Wesserman. All we can do for him now is get this sniper.”

  The partisan was incredibly brazen, knowing that heavily armed Waffen SS soldiers pursued him he’d stopped to find a target and kill another of my men. I determined to finish him no matter what it took. Until he was killed we’d be hamstrung in the city, unable to move in the open without fear of being shot. “You’d better stay here and watch our backs, Gerd. Leave Trottman, he’s finished, we’ll try and flush out the sniper.”

  “I want to come with you and kill the bastard!” he shouted.

  “You’ll stay here, Wesserman, I’ve lost two men already, and I don’t want to lose another one because you’re too hot-headed to obey orders.”

  I was about to enter the apartment block when Mundt came running around the corner with Bauer.

  “I’ve left Voss to guard the back door of the building, Sir, we’ve got him sealed in.”

  “Very well, Scharfuhrer, let’s go and find this gentleman. Be careful, he knows we’re coming.”

  Glass crunched underfoot as we crept through the lobby. I heard a noise, we swung our machine pistols around but it was a woman descending the stairs, shapeless in a long, black dress, apron and headscarf. The babushka, without a doubt the building’s concierge. She would also be the resident NKVD spy. The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, the NKVD, was the public and secret police organisation of the Soviet Union that directly executed Soviet control for Joseph Stalin. The NKVD controlled the police force as well as the Gulags and State Security. It conducted mass executions, ran the Gulag system of forced labour camps, suppressed underground resistance, conducted mass deportations of entire nationalities and Kulaks to unpopulated regions of the country. It also guarded state borders and possessed a network of informers, including the concierges who reported to them from almost every apartment block in the Soviet Union. She would need to be watched carefully, I beckoned her over to us.

  “Did you see a man up there with a rifle?”

  She shook her head in incomprehension.

  “Josef, try her with Russian.”

  He asked the question and this time she pointed up the stairs. I nodded to thank her and we started moving, but something was wrong, something jarred with the way she’d given up the information so readily. In the police state of the Soviet Union no one ever gave away information that easily. I whirled around, she had a gun in her hand that she’d been hiding under her apron, a pistol, and her face was now contorted with hate. In one continuous motion I swept up my MP38 and fired off the whole clip in a single burst, the 9mm bullets hit her and threw her body to the ground where it lay in a shapeless, bleeding mass. Her pistol skidded across the floor and stopped at the feet of Wesserman who had just run in when he heard the firing.

  They all gaped in astonishment. “How did you know it was the woman, Sir?” Mundt asked.

  “She was too helpful, Willy. People are not helpful in the Soviet Union, not to anyone. Take a look for her rifle, it will be upstairs somewhere close. We need to find it, we don’t want to leave it here for someone else to use against us. ”

  Mundt found the rifle leaning against the wall at the top of the first flight of stairs. We left the body where it was, burying partisans who’d slaughtered our comrades was not a task we were interested in doing. We picked up the body of Trottman and carried him back to our quarters. We laid him out carefully in the woodshed and put the body of Schutze Wagner, the first casualty of the sniper, next to him. Then I walked the five hundred metres to Regimental Headquarters to tell them about my losses. Obersturmbannfuhrer Muller, the acting CO, saw me approaching.

  “Hoffman, you’re the very man I want to see. What’s the problem?”

  I told him about the sniper. He nodded. “It’s good news that you got the bastard. I’m not surprised that they used a woman, they use a lot of them, soldiers, pilots, partisans, maybe they think we won’t be so quick to shoot them as men.”

  “They’re quite correct, Sir, she almost got past us.”

  He grunted. “I’ll make sure that the rest of the Regiment is warned. I’ve got a reconnaissance mission for you, come into my office and I’ll show you what I need.”

  The room was festooned with maps pinned on the walls, orders, organisational charts and unit rosters. There was a large-scale map of our part of the front, a wavy line that pushed a bulge, or salient, into the German lines. In the middle of the salient was a city marked in bold letters, Kursk, and the bulge surrounded by German armies. To the south Erich von Manstein’s Army Group South that included Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army, of which our regiment was a part. To the north was von Kluge’s Army Group Centre, stalled in their drive on Moscow and desperately trying to win back the offensive. In the centre were the unknown hordes of the Red Army. Most of the Russian area was blank with no information. He saw the direction of my gaze.

  “Exactly, Hoffman. We know they’re there, but we don’t know who they are and how many of them. How many Soviet armies, artillery, infantry, anti-tank guns, minefields, we need to know what they have.”

  “So we are going to try and take Kursk, Sir?”

  “As you can see, we can bring the weight of Army Group Centre and Army Group South crashing down onto the Soviets, one group from either side of the salient. It’s the classic encirclement manoeuvre, one that we’ve succeeded with many times before. The Fuhrer is anxious to restart the offensive and Kursk is our best opportunity.”

  “Kursk must be two hundred kilometres from here, Sir.”

  “There’s no need to go that far, other units will carry out their own reconnaissance. We’ll get you to the nearest front line and from there you can cross over and observe our assigned sector. It is also very important that you capture a couple of Soviet officers that you can bring back here for interrogation.”

  “And the mud?”

  “What do you mean the mud?”

  “It prevents all movement, Sir. How can we move around the salient when the whole of the country is one huge swamp?”

  He dismissed my question with a wave. “Use your initiative, man. You’re an officer in the SS, not a boy scout. Besides, the muddy season is ending. There will be routes that are passable, you’ll just have to find them.”

  I had a picture in my mind of my platoon staggering through mud like in a Flanders battlefield.

  “When do we leave, Sir? My platoon is under-strength. I was hoping to get replacements. We’re even worse off now since the sniper killed two more of my people.”

  Muller looked tired, even worse than usual. “I want you to jump off tomorrow evening. There aren’t any replacements, I’m afraid we all have to make do with what we have. Since the surrender of the Sixth Army, the Waffen SS has been called on more and more to fill the gap. Our manning levels are critically low, we have the volunteer units, the SS-Freiwilligen from the Greater Reich, but they’re not of the calibre we’re used to. Not the same commitment as our own men.”

  I nodded. “I understand, Sir.”

  “Look, I’ll see if I can find someone to help out with the manual tasks when you get back, there are thousands of Hiwis serving with our Fourth Panzer Army. That’ll take the pressure off you, allow you to get some rest.”

  The Hiwis, or Hilfswilligen, were enlisted volunteers from the occupied territories and worked as drivers, cooks, hospital attendants, ammunition carriers and messengers, some even fought alongside our front line troops and
were known as Cossack Sections.

  “I’ll ask intelligence too, they may know of someone who has local knowledge. If there is anyone suitable, they will report to you before you leave. I’ve arranged for a half-track to transport you to the front, you leave at six o’clock tomorrow evening. Just make sure you bring back some prisoners to interrogate. I’ll send the maps over to you in the morning, everything we have that may be useful.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “One more thing before you go, Hoffman, we have a new CO taking over the Regiment shortly.”

  I stared at him, surprised. “I thought that they’d given it to you after the death of the previous CO, Sir.”

  A sniper had killed Standartenfuhrer Brandt during the fighting around Kharkov and Muller had taken charge. He was an honest man, perhaps not the most imaginative senior SS officer, but he always did his utmost to ensure the security and welfare of his men.

  “Yes, I had hoped to keep command, but our superiors decided otherwise.”

  “Who is he, this new officer, Sir?”

  “His name is Standartenfuhrer Ritter von Meusebach, he transferred only recently to the Waffen-SS.”

  Muller’s tone was slightly derisory, he obviously thought that this new man might be a problem.

  “Was he an infantry officer before he joined the SS?” I persisted, wondering what fighting skills he could bring to our Regiment. We needed every advantage in the battles to come.

  “Not exactly, no. Standartenfuhrer von Meusebach served in the Hauptamt SS-Gericht in Berlin, he has only recently transferred to the Waffen-SS.”

  The Hauptamt SS-Gericht was the legal department of the SS. It was responsible for formulating the laws and codes that the SS and the secret police, as well as the Wehrmacht, had to adhere to. In fact, our new commanding officer was a lawyer. He saw my crestfallen expression.

  “He made a brave decision volunteering to take over a fighting regiment on the Eastern Front, Hoffman, I’m sure that he’ll do his best.”

  I didn’t believe it, and neither did he.

  “Christ, a bloody lawyer, it’s not just me, Sir, even the Fuhrer despises lawyers.”

  “We’ll just have to do our best to help him then, we have no choice. Give him the benefit of the doubt, Hoffman.”

  I saluted him and left. I decided to make no mention of the new commanding officer for the time being, we had enough problems as it was without worrying about being led by a damned lawyer. I was glad I’d made the decision to keep it quiet, when I told them we were going into the Kursk salient the men were thought it was incredulous.

  “They want us to invade Russia all on our own, do they?” Voss snarled. “It’s a damned suicide mission!”

  Mundt was uncharacteristically gloomy. “He’s right, you know. The Soviets could have half of the Red Army packed in there, in fact they probably have. They know that an attack is certain once the rasputitza has ended. Our chances are not good, Sir, not good at all.”

  I tried to ignore the pessimism. “They’re trying to locate us a guide, someone who knows the area well. When he arrives we’ll go over the maps and find a good route in and out. We’ll be fine.”

  “Or we’ll be dead!” Voss snapped.

  I took no notice and looked at Mundt. “Scharfuhrer, you’d better make an inventory of our weapons and equipment, we’ll travel light so bear that in mind. We won’t need the machine gun. The half-track is collecting us at six o’clock. We’ll need rations for three days, as well.”

  “Three days?” he grimaced. “I thought this was to be in one night and out the next.”

  “You never know, Willy.”

  That evening I sat drinking vodka on my own. Eventually I drifted off to sleep, thinking that the men seemed to blame me, as if I’d volunteered for this mission. I drank too much and fell into a deep sleep and in the morning Mundt shook me awake.

  “Our local guide is here, Sir,” he said in a strange voice.

  “What is it, Mundt, what’s wrong with him? Is he eighty years old?”

  “Not exactly, no. You’d better come and take a look.”

  I pulled on my boots, ran some fingers through my hair and buttoned up my tunic, I was ready to face another day on the Eastern Front. I looked for a mug of coffee to start the day and heard Mundt asking the guide to enter. She was nearer twenty than eighty, a very pretty young woman. She was of average height wearing rough, Ukrainian peasant clothes, woollen trousers, a cloth cap on her head and a short heavy woollen coat fastened at the waist with a belt. She unbuttoned her coat, she had a perfectly proportioned body, breasts that jutted firmly forward, slim waist and short, dark hair that shone as she removed her cap and shook it out. Her skin was smooth and cream-coloured, anything but peasant in appearance. A wide mouth, huge, dark brown eyes and fine cheekbones framed a face that could have broken a thousand hearts.

  “This is Irena Rakevsky,” Mundt said.

  Voss looked up from the stove where he was pouring some coffee.

  “What’s she here for, is she taking over my cooking duties?”

  He grinned, but I noticed her give him a venomous look.

  “She’s our guide,” Mundt said, “she’s taking us into the Kursk salient.”

  I knew I looked stupefied. I just couldn’t help it.

  “What’s the matter, do you think women are not up to the task, Obersturmfuhrer?” she said abruptly. Her voice was slightly lower in pitch than I would have expected. I could have described it as sultry, but I doubted that she would appreciate me saying so. To gain time, I asked her where she learned to speak German.

  “I trained to be an interpreter, I was at the University of Kiev when the war started.”

  “How many languages do you speak?”

  “German, Russian of course and Ukrainian. I also learned some French and English. I was brought up outside the city of Kursk and I also know the countryside quite well. My father had his own estate, he used to hunt and I often went with him.”

  “I didn’t think there were any landowners left in the Soviet Union?”

  "He planned to become a member of the Politburo. He was a very powerful man.”

  “Was?”

  “Yes, was. The Communists accused him of treachery and executed him, it was one of his local rivals, of course, he seized the excuse when the Germans invaded.”

  “So is this about vengeance?”

  She laughed. “My father would have done the same thing to him. It’s not vengeance at all, for him it was just politics. For me I hate the Communists and I would anything to help bring them down. But you haven’t answered my question, is a woman not good enough for you?”

  I sighed. “It’s not that, Miss Rakevsky. For us it’s not so normal for women to fight, not in the SS, nor in any of the German armies.”

  “In that case you’d better make sure you don’t us get into a fight, hadn’t you? I shall be back later to go over the route with you. Make sure you have a good map, I don’t want to waste my time.”

  She swept out of the room leaving us open-mouthed.

  “My God,” Mundt said, staring at the door, “that is some woman!”

  “Damn right,” Voss added. “I wouldn’t mind having her guiding me, but not behind enemy lines.”

  I could see Miss Irina Rakevsky causing problems even before we left. Already my NCOs were feeling their testosterone levels beginning to rise.

  “We’ll have to treat her properly, all of us, just like she’s one of the men.”

  The both looked at me incredulously. Yes, it was going to cause problems. But I had a feeling that the beautiful and feisty Miss Rakevsky was well able to take care of herself. Voss produced some breakfast, a thick potato soup with black bread and I ate it with ersatz coffee to wash it down. I spent the morning checking and inspecting the weapons and supplies. A trooper brought the packet of maps and I went over the whole area of the Kursk salient. It was obvious to me that we would attack, we had powerful, well-equipped armies deployed to n
orth and south, it was equally obvious that the Russians knew and they would be well prepared. Shortly after lunch the girl came back. She picked up the maps without asking, looked at them closely and tossed them to one side.

  “Is this the best you can do?” she asked. “They’re not even accurate, look, the distance between Sumy and Kursk is much greater than they show here.”

  I felt the crazy need to defend myself from this fiery Ukrainian. “Miss Rakevsky, they’re the maps that Division supplied, they’re the best we have available.”

  “They’ll have to do then, where do you intend to cross the lines?”

  I pointed at the map. “Here, at Belgorod.”

  “No, not there. It’s no good.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s flat, open country. There is nowhere to hide, the Russians will see us coming from kilometres away.”

  “We’ll be travelling at night, Miss Rakevsky, I doubt they’ll see us at all.”

  “And when something goes wrong and we’re stuck in the middle of the Red Army in broad daylight, what then?”

  The men were listening intently and I had to concede she had a point.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Here! We can cross over fifteen kilometres south of Belgorod. I know that area well, I can get us through the Soviet lines.”

  I nodded. “In that case we’ll do it your way. Are you armed, do you need a pistol?”

  She reached under her thick coat and pulled out a long, vicious-looking hunting knife. “I have this, it is all I need.”

  “Good enough. All of you be ready to depart at six.”

  The half-track arrived an hour late, at seven o’clock.

  “Engine wouldn’t start, damp electrics,” the driver said miserably. A sad looking SS-Oberschutze, he looked as if he’d sooner be anywhere in the world than here in Kharkov, about to go up to the front line. We piled on board, our packs laden with additional ammunition and food. For once, our Hanomag SDK 251 half-track clanked along the Ukrainian tracks without bogging down, the mud was obviously drying out. We already appreciated having the girl with us, she directed us along a route that was less churned up than the roads the military used. It took us two hours to reach our forward positions, after I had to convince a suspicious Haupsturmfuhrer that we weren’t deserting and taking a valuable vehicle as a present for the Soviets at the same time.