by Eric Meyer
We clambered off the truck and I arranged to meet the driver at midnight. I kept the pistol in the pocket of my tunic, I had a suspicion that if I parted with it now he might ‘forget’ to return later to collect us. The bar we went into was packed with men, Wehrmacht, SS, a few Hiwis, a couple of Luftwaffe infantry. A band was on a low stage at one end of the room, enthusiastically playing traditional Ukrainian songs with a collection of accordions, violins and even a saxophone. Sadly their passion for their music was not matched by their skill, but nobody seemed to mind and the whole room was buzzing with life, a welcome change from the war outside. We downed three glasses of local beer in quick succession and then Mundt suggested we move somewhere else.
“It’s much too crowded here, besides, there’s nothing to look at.”
“You mean women,” I smiled.
He nodded. “It would be nice to see one or two pretty faces.”
We left and walked along the main street until we spotted a bar in a side street. It looked a little dark and away from the regular areas patrolled by our Feldgendarmerie, but I agreed to give it a try.
“Are you all carrying side arms?” I asked them.
They nodded and I looked down to check that they did indeed all have holsters on their belts.
We walked down the street and into the bar, it was totally different from the previous establishment, here they had a band that played in tune, passable versions of American New Orleans jazz. And there were women, at least a dozen of them, admittedly most were already with a partner but at least we could look. It was Bauer’s turn to get the drinks and we sat at a table while he ordered the beer. A buxom waitress brought a tray of foaming glasses and set them down, we all looked hungrily at her cleavage, artfully displayed inside her low-cut Ukrainian traditional dress. We gratefully drank the beer and looked around the bar, we were the only German soldiers in the room, there was a small dance floor and several couples were attempting to dance some kind of a folk dance to the raucous jazz. Then the music slowed and the men and women held each other close and smooched around the floor. I felt sad, hungry for the physical and emotional connection with a girl. It made me think of Irina and I thought I was having an illusion when suddenly I spotted her face as a crowd of people parted. She saw me at the same time and came across to our table.
“Aren’t you going to invite me to dance?” she smiled
She saw the confusion on my face. “It’s ok, Jurgen, I haven’t got Alina with me.”
I got up and went with her to the dance floor. Despite everything, it felt good to hold a soft, warm, female body in my arms.
“How is Alina?”
“Alina? She’s fine, I think. She went home this morning so I doubt that she’ll be back.”
“That’s a shame, I thought you were very close.”
“I suppose we were,” she said, “but I rather fancied you too, I thought you might have contacted me before now.”
She must have seen my jaw drop. “What, you thought that I only liked women? In this war, Obersturmfuhrer, you have to take anything you can get.”
I didn’t reply for a few moments, I had never been so confused in all my life. I was about to answer when there was a commotion at the door. I tried to clear my mind from the alcohol and the heady confusion of this pretty young woman. A group of civilians had walked in, four of them. Stupidly I wondered why they were armed with Soviet PPSh submachine guns and then it dawned on me. There were partisans, in the bar. A voice rang out in perfect German.
“Everyone stay where you are, you Germans put up your hands!”
I slowly put up my hands and looked across to our table. Two partisans had submachine guns pointed directly at my men. While I watched, one of them relieved them of their pistols, then came over to me and took my Walther automatic. The German-speaking leader, the gaunt young man standing in the middle of the room with his PPSh covering us, looked directly at me.
“You, SS officer. Are there any more of your people in here? Answer me honestly or I’ll kill one of those men at the table!”
I shook my head. “No, this is everyone. What do you want?”
He didn’t reply. “Andriy, check the front door, make sure there are no soldiers nearby. Pavlo, get everyone to move away from the Fascists.”
They herded the crowd of customers away from us and the leader looked warily around the bar. Andriy looked outside and then closed the door. “It’s all clear, Petro.”
“Good. You, fascists, you will come with us. Andriy, go to the back, we’ll go out that way. Pavlo, you and Olek make sure they make no noise. You, fascists, do not make any trouble or you will be killed!”
I had no doubt that we were about to be killed anyway. Mundt looked across at me, but I shook my head, I was out of ideas.
They moved us to a narrow, dark passage that led out of the bar, I knocked against a wooden shelf as we walked through and something snagged in my pocket. The Nagant, the Russian pistol, I still had it in my pocket. It was loaded with six bullets, it wasn’t much against four PPSh machine pistols but it was all I had. I turned so that they couldn’t see what I was doing and palmed the pistol. I was trying to work out the best time to start shooting when a row erupted in the bar. It was Irina.
“You, Petro, what are you doing with these German soldiers?”
“What is it to you? Why do you want to know?”
“I want revenge on them, I’ve lost a brother to these people.”
The partisan hesitated, but a pretty girl was not easy to say no to.
“Very well, you may accompany us, but keep out of the way.”
We walked through the door and they held us at gunpoint in the yard outside. I kept behind Mundt so that my hand holding the pistol was out of sight. “I have a pistol, be ready when I start shooting,” I murmured quietly. I saw his head incline in a tiny nod.
Petro their leader stood to one side of us with Irina next to him. Did I know her well enough to trust her motives for coming out with the partisans? Yes, probably, she had every reason to hate the Soviets, so she must be on our side. I’d have to trust her. The three other partisans were in front of us, barely two metres away. I wondered how accurate the Nagant was while I whispered to Mundt, “When I start shooting, go for Petro, I think Irina will try to spoil his aim.”
Another tiny nod, it was time, I brought up the pistol and shot the first man in the stomach, the other two started bringing up their guns but I shot both of them in quick succession, all three were down and Bauer sprinted forward with his combat knife out. Mundt and Wesserman had rushed over to help Irina with the leader, Petro. As I’d hoped, she’d held his arm, stopping him from aiming the weapon, but with an angry shout he threw her off, brought up his PPSh, and pointed it directly at her to kill her, shouting curses in Ukrainian. I knew it was too late when the noise of a volley of automatic fire split the night, but Petro merely toppled, shredded by the 7.62mm Soviet bullets. Bauer had snatched up one of the weapons from the felled partisans and pulled the trigger, in an instant stopping Petro.
We stood frozen for a few moments with the sudden violence that had come to this backstreet bar, our near brush with death, before we came to life again. Mundt and Bauer checked the bodies of the partisans, one of them had our pistols in his backpack and Bauer retrieved them and handed them back to us. Astonishingly, Petro was still alive. When I stood over him he stared back at me with hate-filled eyes. He tried to say something, but blood was oozing out of his mouth and eventually he gave a loud sigh and his eyes closed forever.
“Irina, thank you for helping us.” I said. “He nearly killed you.”
She was trembling. She must have expected her body to be riddled with bullets from Petro’s gun. She tried to speak but couldn’t get her words out.
“Would you like me to take you home?”
She nodded. Mundt was holstering his pistol, still holding one of the PPShs.
“Scharfuhrer, give me one of those, just in case they have any friends around
the corner. I’ll see Irina to her home and try to catch our lift back later. You know where to meet the truck?”
“Midnight, same place as he dropped us off.”
“Yes, you’d better give him this.”
I handed him the Nagant M1895. “If I don’t get back you can tell him it came in useful but it may need reloading.”
“You’ll be ok?”
“Yes, but cover for me if I’m delayed. We’ll go out through the bar, I don’t want anyone thinking that a bunch of partisans got the better of the SS.”
We walked through the back door and into the bar. The whole place went silent when they saw us carrying the partisans PPShs. The message was obvious, stay away from the Waffen-SS. Our drinks were still on the table, we picked them up and calmly finished them off to make the point.
“We’ll stay here for a while, I should think it’s safe now,” Mundt said, “I’ll see you later.”
I took Irina’s arm to take her home. The band was taking a break and the barman had the radio on listening to the news from Radio Kiev, a Ukrainian station approved by the German occupiers.
“Here is the news on May 13, 1943. The war in North Africa is over. German and Italian forces have surrendered to the Allies in Tunisia, ending the campaign of Rommel’s Afrika Corps.”
I felt all eyes in the bar on me. Much of the Ukraine was nominally sympathetic to the German cause, having suffered so many years of famine and purges at the hands of Stalin. However, this was the second major defeat of German arms, following so closely the surrender at Stalingrad three months before. Our next major test of arms was about to occur in the Kursk salient, I had seen the massive preparation of both sides. We couldn’t afford to lose another big battle. The collapse of morale after Stalingrad was palpable, like a damp fog settling all around us. If we lost here, I doubted the ability of our troops to carry on. It could be the beginning of the end of our efforts to conquer the Soviet Union.
“Let’s go, I don’t want to hear any more of this,” I said to Irina.
She moved closer to me, as if to give me some comfort at such a miserable time. She still hadn’t spoken to me, she looked pale and I could feel her body trembling. It was an astonishing change from the girl who had guided us into the Soviet sector so confidently, who then seemed to turn away from the company of men for the voluptuous Ukrainian girl we had brought back with us. More than anything I pitied her, she should have been dating a boy, or perhaps a girl in a university bar, not dodging bullets and having to see bodies piled on bodies in her own backyard. We threaded though the dark streets, when we reached a junction she pulled me in the direction of her home, but still she didn’t speak. We walked along deserted streets, past parked Panzers, waiting silently for the coming battle. Finally we turned into a cul-de-sac on the outskirts of the city, she opened a gate, and we walked up the path to her front door. The house was in darkness, but most houses in Kharkov were without lights, even those that possessed them didn’t want to attract the bombers or the artillery shells. I let her arm go and said goodnight, then turned away to go back to my unit. Only then did she speak.
“Jurgen. Please, stay with me tonight.”
I considered for half a second at most. Heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, I didn’t really care. It was true. In war you took what you could get. Just before we went inside I heard a massive, low rumble, like the sound of engines. We both looked up, but there were no signs of any aircraft. The wind had changed direction to blow from the east, the noise was tank engines warming up, Russian tank engines from inside the salient, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. I looked eastwards, but there was nothing to see, the Russians were probably making the noise at night to unsettle us and lower our morale, they were masters of psychological warfare. Their point was well made, they were there, ready for us, thousands of tanks and guns, mines and traps waiting for us to come to them.
Chapter Three
‘With amazement and disappointment, we discovered in late October and early November that the beaten Russians seemed quite unaware that as a military force they had almost ceased to exist’.
General Blumentritt
I never found out where her family were, but Irina’s house was empty. She led me up to her bedroom and left me for a few moments. When she came back, she was naked. I kissed her, tasting her warm lips, our tongues intertwining while my hands caressed her breasts and felt around her body and she stiffened as my hand slipped between her legs. She was touching my body, a soft, tantalising touch that I found shockingly arousing, then began to stroke my penis. I was hard and erect, all thoughts of the war had fled and I gently probed between her legs and touched inside her. She was wet, soaking with the wetness of her own arousal, she moaned as I pushed my fingers in further and then lifted her onto the bed, one hand behind her back, the other pushed inside her. She pulled me down onto her and guided me into her, then we made love, not the gentle erotic exploration of two new lovers but the animal need of two of war’s victims. It was harsh, rough and incredibly exciting. Soon, she was screaming, or maybe it was both of us and within a few short minutes we both reached an orgasm. We lay together holding each other, saying nothing. For two hours we were silent, there was nothing to say, the night had brought us its quota of blood and death and our sexual union was just a way of blotting out the terrible realities of those four corpses lying bloodied and broken against the wall behind the bar. Still without a word she started to kiss me, then bent down to lick my body until she reached my groin and took me into her mouth, sucking until I became hard again. I reached for her and stroked her, we made love again, but this time we had spent the bitter anger, stress and frustration of the war, and we wanted more, an emotional bonding. We gently gyrated our hips and I pumped in and out of her, perhaps half an hour elapsed before she reached a climax and I had my second orgasm of the night. After holding her to me for another ten minutes I gently removed her arm and got up.
“Irina, I have to get back, otherwise I will be disciplined for desertion. I’m sorry.”
“You remind me of Bizet’s opera, Carmen,” she said with humour in her voice. “You know, when Jose, the corporal, has to leave Carmen to go back on duty. She tries to persuade him to desert, would you like me to try to persuade you too?”
“Did the opera end well?”
“Not really, no, she finds another lover, the toreador and Jose kills her in the final act."
“Perhaps I’d better go back then. Irina, I’d like to look you up again when I get back into the city.”
“Are you sure? Tonight was just desperation, Jurgen, two people in each other’s warmth.”
“I’m sure. How do I contact you?”
“You can get a message to me at that bar we were in, it is called The Dive. They will pass a message.”
“I’ll do that.”
I kissed her and we held each other briefly, then I went down the stairs, out of the house and found my way back to the city centre. I checked my watch, it was nearly four in the morning, and I had time to get back if I could find a lift. I started walking out of the city I was lucky, there was an incredible roaring noise and a clatter of tracks. I turned to see a Tiger tank rumbling towards me along the main street. It stopped alongside me and the commander looked down.
“We’re headed to Podvirky, do you need a lift?”
“That’s marvellous.”
I climbed up onto the hull of the Tiger and clung to the barrel of the machine gun. The commander gave an order into his microphone and the tank started forward again.
“How did you know where I was going?” I asked him, shouting above the roar of the engine.
He laughed. “There are only two destinations in this direction, Podvirky or Germany. I assume you’re not deserting?”
“The only thing I’m deserting is a beautiful girl tucked up in bed!”
He nodded. “I thought that might be the case. What are you doing at the railway, anti-partisan duties?”
“We are yes, at
least, until the battle starts. Why are you taking this tank to Podvirky, surely it came from there only recently?”
“It did, yes. The turret mechanism is faulty so they’re sending another one in. It’s due some time today. We’ll just use the railway crane to swing this one off and the new one in place. It’s the easiest way. Damn turrets weigh a lot, they’re not easy to transport.”
“It’s lucky for me you came along, there’s not much traffic on the road at night.”
“It’s the damned partisans, they come out like rats in the darkness. Have you had any brushes with them?”
“Some, yes,” I admitted, but I didn’t want to give him any details, it had been a strange night. A night of warm companionship and then sudden violence, blood and death, followed by sex with a girl who I had thought was a lesbian. Yet strange didn’t seem a word strong enough to describe it. Outlandish possibly. Surreal definitely.