Global Conflict

by Tom Zola

  "Hopefully, Sepp." Ludwig's voice was thin.

  "What kind of water would I take!" Münster hissed. "Just ordinary water! I mean, it doesn't even have to be beer. Water would be enough for me!"

  Then they all went quiet with their own thoughts circling in their minds. Engelmann thought of home. Finally, when the lingering smell of corpses and the stench of oil had settled in Engelmann's nose like a tick and he was overcome by the feeling that a noose of stinging fog was strangling him, he suddenly pushed his body upwards and threw the hatch lids open on both sides. He stretched his upper body out of the tank and felt the relief as the fresh night air flowed into his lungs.

  After minutes of silence, Münster spoke again: "And something decent to eat. That would be fine." He got approval from the others. "I mean, really something real. The brass can start to gorge on those shabby meat pies themselves!"

  "Wait and see. Once the big battles are over, we'll be better taken care of." Engelmann's answer was half-hearted and unconvincing. He almost didn't believe it himself. He too was aware that the soldier's life was an existence full of privation, but as the war continued, everything became more and more difficult. Hot meals were now a rarity, dry bread and shoddy side dishes the rule. The National Socialists had always talked about the Germans as the master race. Well, if Engelmann looked at it that way, he had found out that at present, about twelve million German men were living anything but a master-race existence. But such thoughts he quickly wiped away. The situation was what it was. He couldn't help it. He could only make the best of it.

  "No!" was Münster's response to Engelmann's attempt to keep hope alive. "I've been doing this shit for three years now. And for three years, they've been saying, ‘Wait a minute, it's gonna get better.’ I'm 26 now. How much longer do I have to wait? I spend my best years waiting for better times! I'm really starting to get mad at our highly-praised brass, especially the new one since our Führer has died, when I see all this!" Anger had boiled over in Münster and now gushed out with every syllable the sergeant spoke. While his hands continued to rest on the steering levers, he now shook his head vigorously and distorted his face. "They all can fuck off," he grumbled. Afterwards the tankers went silent again and resigned themselves to the rattling of the tank engine, while the whole panzer vibrated to the movement of the tracks. Engelmann wrinkled his forehead. Small things like the poor supply – the lack of fuel, ammunition, and everything else – meant daily new deprivations and burdens for the German soldiers, which certainly did not make the war more bearable for them. Engelmann's soul also was increasingly burdened by the difficult overall situation, but now for the first time he had experienced how quickly morale could deteriorate – how dangerous it was to deprive the German soldier of any basis for hope in his life, draining it away with a thousand tiny pinpricks. But he couldn't change that either. There he was, a lieutenant, a mediocrity in this huge army. And so they drove, mute, along the road. They slowly rumbled toward the lightning created by humans fighting against humans, and the thunder generated by apparatuses they had invented solely for the purpose of killing their own kind. The radio stayed soundless. Silence on the airwaves was ordered, so no Russian listening post could pick up what was moving towards Nikolskoye.

  After about three minutes, Münster broke the hush again: "Franzi is kicking up some vibration I don't like at all."

  Engelmann listened, "Something bad?"

  "I can't say, Sepp. It’s only that I can feel the levers vibrating oddly. Maybe the steering is fucked? But Franzi's still running."

  Engelmann just nodded, while Jahnke mumbled, "Franzi's dead, man."

  "Then make a suggestion for a new name. You can go right out and paint it on the gun." Münster grinned diabolically, but Jahnke pondered immediately.

  "How about Elfriede?" he threw around.

  New rage seized Münster. "No! Shut the fuck up! I don't care what this screwed tin can’s called," he ranted. "We call her Franzi II. That's it." After a few seconds, Münster looked up mischievously, blinking at the lieutenant: "Unless Herr Leutnant has something against it?"

  "It's all right." Franzi II it was.

  Nikolskoye, Soviet Union, June 4th, 1943

  "Ivan’s coming again," moaned Private Emil Walther resignedly when he heard a Russian call from afar echoing over the plain. He looked over the projectile-eaten windowsill into the verge, which was shrouded in complete darkness.

  "Now they're finally going to bash us up," whispered his comrade, Private First Class Remigius "Remme" Tillmann, his pale face visible under his stahlhelm despite the darkness.

  "Shut up, you two whiners!" Sergeant Hans-Joachim "Ha-Jo" Brinkmann intervened verbally. "You two crybabies are nothing to write home about!" His strong dialect revealed that he came from the depths of Bavaria.

  "But ..." Walther began, to be immediately stalled by Brinkmann: "No buts! Our tanks are coming. They’re gonna make Ivan leg it. Until then, we have to hold out."

  At that moment the Russian Ratsch Bumms tossed another salvo into the city center of Nikolskoye. The buildings shook under the impacts, but they did not bring any further losses to Anti-tank Battalion 355. It had already been badly affected by the fighting of the last few days. Again and again the enemy's artillery fire cascaded into the village, without the Russians having really understood where the German positions were. The defenders of Nikolskoye still believed they were fooling the enemy about their true strength.

  Walther, Tillmann, and Brinkmann squatted in an arbor riddled with bullet holes at the southern end of the village and listened into the night, but no further noises could be heard. Only the chirping of insects and the cracking of branches in the wind broke the silence of the scenery.

  Suddenly there were a lot of dark figures in the distance, rushing over the plain with long leaps.

  "There!" Brinkmann growled. "The Russians are coming. Take your positions, men!"

  Behind each of the four southeast-facing windows, and thus covering enemy territory, were loaded machine guns and carbines. In addition, an improvised breach in the wall led directly into a trench, which was about 80 meters long and ran along the edge of the village. Tillmann reached under one of the windows and pulled out a machine gun, while at the same time Walther disappeared into the trench. There, also, several loaded weapons waited to be employed. After the heavy fighting of the past few days, the battalion had lost dozens of men. For once, however, there was no shortage of weapons or ammunition.

  "Let's show the Russians that there's a whole battalion here!" Brinkmann hissed, and grinned. "Surprise fire on flare gun shot." The sergeant reached for the signal pistol and looked over the windowsill. Several men with rifles in their hands ran across the meadow, sidestepping.

  Brinkmann fired the flare gun. With a puff, the projectile left the barrel of the weapon and marched into the firmament, where it turned into a brightly shining star that made the front area of the arbor shine like it was under a spotlight. Immediately the barking of the MGs of Walther and Tillmann began. Fine, glowing lines darted into the foreground, where tracer bullets painted bright spots into the meadow. One of the Soviet soldiers collapsed and began howling. His comrades retreated while shooting wildly.

  Brinkmann, Tillmann, and Walther changed weapons almost every second, and thus fired bursts of MG 34, MG 42, and a Russian PPSh, as well as single-fire with carbines. Walther paced up and down the whole trench to simulate fire from different positions.

  After a few seconds, the light ball in the sky went out and the cloak of darkness covered the land once more. The Russian who had been hit held his stomach and screamed loudly, while his legs were kicking violently, as if to fend off an attacker. Russian words rang through the night, but the rest of the enemy attackers was no longer visible.

  Brinkmann grinned, satisfied, while Walther fell back into the arbor. Snorting, he let himself sink to the floor next to the wall. Brinkmann looked over the windowsill again and saw the fiercely squirming man. His bowl-like he
lmet, typical of the Red Army, was glaring in the moonlight. It was cruel, but often it was better to wound the enemy than to kill. This had nothing to do with humanity, but was due to the fact that a dead soldier was dead, while a roaring, wounded man was able to demoralize his comrades and immediately tied down half a squad during his rescue. In addition, most soldiers simply did not leave their fellow behind, so Brinkmann and his men only had to wait and see.

  The three German soldiers had grabbed K98k carbines in order to be able to fire targeted shots. They looked spellbound into the verge, where the Russian wounded one wriggled like a horse with broken legs. In a wavering voice, he screamed for help. One didn't have to speak Russian to understand the meaning of his desperate shouts.

  "I want to see clean belly shots, men," Brinkmann said. His yellow teeth flashed in the darkness. "Always the liver or kidneys. Then the Ivans’ definitely done for – but not right away." Walther and Tillmann nodded, their faces grim.

  Suddenly, a Russian Maxim machine gun started chattering mechanically. The projectiles randomly scattered into the village. The three German defenders ducked away under their windowsills, but then immediately peered back into the verge. The shrill screeching of the wounded Russian, whose thread of life Atropos had already in between her scissor's blades, still penetrated through the enemy cover fire to the ears of the Germans.

  "Yes, Kameraden! There, I tell you!" the sergeant rejoiced. "Ivan can be relied upon! They're about to send in some poor devil."

  "The Russians never leave one behind," Tillmann remarked without any irony.

  The Soviet attempt to recover the wounded man began at the exact moment the Maxim machine gun fell silent. Two Red Army soldiers raced in bounds over the plain and finally reached the wounded. He moaned and held his stomach while his legs twitched. Brinkmann told his soldiers, by hand signal, to wait for the right moment. Tense, he held his hand in the air and narrowed his eyes to slits, while one of the Russians shifted his submachine gun to his back and then lifted the screamer by the shoulders. The other one crouched next to him, nervously looking around. The enemies were seen only as shadows in the darkness, but shimmered brightly enough in the moonlight, so that no further flare light was necessary.

  When the bearer had just settled the wounded man on his shoulders and he continued yowling, Brinkmann let his hand down. One shot each, from the rifles of his two compatriots. Walther caught the bearer in the thigh. The Russian howled and collapsed under the weight of the wounded man, who buried his comrade under himself, still bellowing. Tillmann's bullet slammed into the chest of the squatting Red Army soldier, shattered his solar plexus, and cut the nerve channels that curled around the spine. Immediately the man collapsed, as if he were imploding. He lay there screaming and did not yet know that he would never be able to move his limbs again.

  "Sacrament!" said an amazed Brinkmann, "a true medal shot!"

  Three screaming Russians were now lying on the verge, and just at this moment the Maxim began to stutter again.

  The projectiles sprayed far into Nikolskoye. After only a few seconds the enemy stopped firing, then the background noise again became the screeching of the agonized Russians and their cries for help. In complete desperation, the men croaked. Quantities of blood shot out of ruptured arteries, flowing into their bodies and uniforms. Probably they knew that they would bleed to death, but still did not want to admit their fate, and reared up in a cacophony of lamentation against it.

  "Morons!" Brinkmann literally spat out. "Always falling for the same trick."

  Walther joked, "That's what you get if you mess with the German Reich," while the Russians on the meadow were struggling to die.

  "Didn't the Ivans somehow ... had no choice?" Tillmann remarked. He could not tear his gaze away from the events before him. The screaming of the Russians was soul-shattering.

  "Ha, no choice? It's their own fault if they were born in Russia, I'm just saying," Brinkmann said. His words were almost completely drowned out by the horrifying cries of the wounded.

  The Red Army soldier with the thigh hit, a stocky man, fought his way out from under the man with the bullet in his stomach. Moaning with exertion, weakened by the already high blood loss and trembling with pain, he heaved himself up and finally managed to kneel on all fours. He lifted his head, as if he wanted to fight against his death sentence, as if he wanted to shout from full lungs: "I am still alive! The Grim Reaper hasn't taken me yet!"

  "Iron him over, Emil, will ya?" Brinkmann said while looking on at the spectacle of the fighting Russian. Walther immediately brought his K98k over the windowsill into position and looked over the iron sights at his target. He pulled the trigger. The projectile slammed out of the barrel with a loud rumble, while the carbine drove hard into the shoulder of the PFC. Brightly, the tracer round whipped like a glowing string through the night and zipped past the Russian just next to the skull. He looked around phlegmatically, but because of his high blood loss, he didn't seem to fully understand what was happening around him.

  "You blind ox!" Brinkmann raged in a whisper, and ordered Walther to try again. The PFC immediately reloaded his gun and took another shot at the Russian. This one went home and threw the Red Army soldier's helmet off his head with a loud clang. The upper body twitched, reared up once more, then the victim fell over on his back. Blood, shimmering bizarrely in the moonlight, poured over his face like a thousand-legged octopus.

  Again, the Maxim went off, and this time the impacts were right next to the arbor. Bullets clapped against the outer walls.

  The three Germans took cover before the last Russian burst of fire echoed over the plain.

  "Watch out, the next ones will show up soon, I can tell you that. It's going to go on all night now," Brinkmann roared. He nodded triumphantly. And he would be right:

  The next ones appeared, but the noise accompanying them made the German soldiers freeze and pale. Tank tracks were squeaking across the meadow ...

  Brinkmann ducked away under the windowsill and grasped his weapon tighter, then he pulled a big question mark with his face as he pondered. Walther and Tillmann also disappeared from the windows and took cover.

  "Dawai! Dawai!" Russian shouts rang out over the outer area. "Come on!"

  The shiny metal of a T-34 appeared out of the darkness behind the wounded Russians. Infantrymen surrounded their wounded comrades, and the tank rolled directly towards the arbor. A machine gun DP, mounted in the tank's hull, began to speak, stroking the facade of the arbor. At 600 rounds per minute, the Germans had projectiles flying all around their ears. The fire tore the window frames apart, and bullets dug themselves into the walls where they shattered the wood paneling. The Germans threw their hands protectively over their heads, endured the fire, and hoped to be spared.

  "Remme, give me the knocker," Brinkmann yelled during a break in the firing from the tank. The crawler tracks of the T-34 continued working their way inexorably towards the German position.

  "That thing is gonna squash us like bugs!" Walther screamed at him until Brinkmann realized that silhouettes of Russian infantrymen were advancing behind the tank. Immediately some of the Soviets took care of the wounded.

  Meanwhile Tillmann had sprinted to the window next to the breach to the trench, where along with some pistols, hand grenades, and ammunition, a Faustpatrone ordnance device was lying – a narrow wand one meter long, with a warhead at the tip. Tillmann rushed over to Brinkmann, who immediately took the anti-tank weapon from the hand of the PFC.

  "Cover me with the machine guns!" the sergeant yelled. Immediately the two grenadiers seized a MG each and pulled the triggers. Muzzles flashed, illuminating the arbor. Tracer bullets raced through the night, bounced off the tank's steely skin, or lost themselves in the distance. The T-34 engine stopped rattling. Only 50 meters lay between it and the arbor. Slowly it aimed its main gun at the Germans, while fire from Russian small arms struck the walls and drilled holes in them.

  Brinkmann jumped up. He roughly aimed
the Faustpatrone at the tank – this weapon did not have a sight for exact aiming. Brinkmann pulled the trigger. Smoke and hell-hot steam chased from the rear part of the anti-tank weapon and heated up the whole room within a blink of an eye. The warhead, on the other side, darted at the tank and hit the steel colossus to the right of the main gun on the turret. But the charge slid from the sloped armor of the T-34, whirled into the ground, and ignited there in a fluorescent explosion. Flame tongues licked at the Russian tank but could not harm it. Instead, it opened fire and spat an explosive shell into the arbor with a loud roar. The three Germans threw themselves flat on the ground while the building around them was torn apart. Rock chunks and splinters of wood shot through the air, burying the soldiers under them. Dust and the stench of cordite ate into their lungs and choked them, making them cough violently. Panting and struggling to breathe, the men wormed their way out of the rubble. Their hands and faces were bloody and dusty, their uniforms torn and dirty.

  "Retreat to the Biber line!" Brinkmann screamed and pulled his pistol out of the holster. Walther was still reaching for a K98k, but Tillmann couldn't find a weapon and just stormed off under the fire of the Russians. The two grenadiers followed Brinkmann, who jumped into the trench, then out of it, and headed for the next ditch, 150 meters behind it, running around the village. From there he intended to get to the main road, which he only had to follow for 100 meters before they would reach said Biber line. There, two soldiers waited behind a Russian Ratsch Bumm to welcome enemy troops who tried to enter the town. There was also an MG nest in a window on the first floor of a pub. Unfortunately, the Ratsch Bumm had only six rounds left, while the AT-gun on the other side of the village – also a captured weapon – still had 40 rounds to distribute among attackers. Since the cannons were of different calibers, however, ammunition supplies could not been balanced.

  Captain Droste had had to disperse his sparse personnel over all of Nikolskoye, because the Russians were looking for weak points in the defense everywhere. The German officer had installed four defense perimeters around the village – called Iltis where Brinkmann's fire team was, then Biber, Hummer, and Tiger. Tiger was located directly at the bridge over the Toplinka River, which was why this last-resort perimeter had to be defended at all costs. Droste hoped that this tiered defense would wear the Russians out to such an extent that the enemy had already bled to death by the time they reached the Tiger perimeter.