Russian Front (1) Russian Front By Aidan Steer * Prologue BARBAROSSA Conquer the world, my ass! thought the young Leutnant as he dropped into a shell-hole for the umpteenth time that day. Above him a wicked spray of machinegun bullets, blindly seeking his body, flicked earth from the edge of the crater. He twisted around on to his back, hands and arms cradling his Schmeisser. Looking around, he met the eyes of the corporal of his platoon, which seemed startlingly blue in the grime of his face. The corporal was looking at the Leutnant with an expression that combined exhaustion and near panic. The uniform and physique suggested a tough soldier in control of the situation. But the face and eyes said: My God, we are close to death! What shall we do? What are we doing in this inferno? Mother! When they were marching towards the outskirts of Stalingrad a fortnight earlier it was just another Russian City to be conquered. Get it done quickly, like all the rest, was the feeling among troops. Drive Stalin back beyond the Ural Mountains, give Hitler and the German people their precious lebensraum, finish the war, get demobbed, go home to bask in the glory of being victorious heroes, get laid, get a good job in the new German Empire that would stretch from the English Channel practically to Asia. That was the plan. But the Russians didn’t seem to see it that way. The previous December, in hastily dug bunkers and trenches before Moscow, two of the Leutnant’s platoon had literally frozen to death and he had nearly lost some toes himself. Nobody had imagined that they would have to fight through a winter that was pitiless even by Russian standards. Somehow, even at the edge of the Moscow subway system, the Russians denied them victory. Very well, then, wait until the spring, Ivan! When the thaw came and the mud dried, the Panzers and half-tracks and trucks – not to mention hundreds of thousands of horses – all began to roll forward again. He passed his twenty-third birthday mostly sleeping, completely exhausted, after his men had winkled out a die-hard group of Russian Guardsmen in yet another godforsaken group of timber shacks that passed for a village somewhere on the endless steppe. But Wehrmacht casualties - previously light in the glorious era of Blitzkrieg - began to mount. After a few days getting more and more bogged down in Stalingrad, the Leutnant had even heard rumors of one or two desertions. Unthinkable, a year ago. The Leutnant squirmed around in the fresh earth of the shell-hole, looking for the rest of his men. Several faces, wide-eyed with fear under their helmets, looked at him from behind huge chunks of smashed concrete, the reinforcing steel twisting and reaching out of the concrete like agonized fingers. With one part of his mind the Leutnant was mildly surprised: he didn’t imagine the Russians to be capable of making reinforced concrete. According to the newsreels they were slow-witted Slavs stuck in the last century. The corporal, meanwhile, had got a grip on himself and scuttled over to a gap in the crater where it overlapped another. Waving his hand carefully, so that it would not be seen over the lip of the crater, he urged the stragglers to move up. The Leutnant also waved, an impatient gesture, motioning the group behind the concrete blocks to take up position on the edge of the shell-hole, ready to continue the advance. Then he turned and cautiously crawled up to the lip of their sunken oasis. It didn’t enter his mind to withdraw. ‘Careful, boss, the Ivans have learned how to use their muskets,’ called the Corporal. The young officer almost laughed. Before now they had encountered Russian troops who barely knew how to load their weapons, much less take proper aim. Yet their Politrook, political troops sent to keep them in line, still expected them to fight to the death. The odd thing was, they often did. As the officer inched forward and upward, a flight of three Stuka dive-bombers peeled out of a larger formation away high to his right and began their dive out of what the Leutnant was almost surprised to notice was a beautiful blue sky. Just a few drifting white clouds creating a slight haze in the sunshine. A perfect autumn day. He sighed quietly and, inching his head up, he surveyed the ground before him. The Stukas completed their dive-bombing, sirens howling, and a few more bits of building were blown to pieces. Huge clouds of dust rose in the still air. In front of the Leutnant, as he cautiously brushed aside some loose debris, lay about two hundred yards of more-or-less open ground, pitted with shell-holes, odd bits of barbed wire, irregular piles of brick, dirt, dust and one or two bundles of stained clothing that might have been corpses. At the far edge of the open ground stood a massive concrete tower, a grain silo until a few weeks ago; now a pockmarked and battered fortress. German troops had been struggling to subdue the Ivans inside for days. Unbelievably, a few Russians still held the place. How did they do it? He asked himself. Fanatics! But the really disturbing sight was beyond the silo. Blocks after block of flats with every one of their windows blown out, looking like wounded eyes, staring at him. For days the Luftwaffe had methodically bombed the city, bursting open its heart. The populace had fled across the Volga, but the defenders hadn’t. And now they had turned the piles of brick and debris, the cellars, the ruined blocks of flats, the blasted concrete into an unknowable maze of foxholes, trenches and strongpoints. The Leutnant lowered his head, his hair coated with dust, and considered what to do. A few weeks ago, it seemed as though all they had to do was keep going, and they could conquer the world. What, or rather who, was going to stop them? The Leutnant, not normally given to rhetoric of any sort, had said as much at an impromptu barbecue of looted pork with other junior officers out on the steppe. Knocking back vodka that had been ‘liberated from Bolshevism’, he gave a very drunken speech to the effect that when they had finished in Russia they would cross the English Channel - building rafts themselves ‘since those fucking engineers couldn’t build a sand-castle’ - and sort the English out. He had bellowed to his pals around the campfire that he personally would impregnate the English princesses – what were their names? – and thereby claim the English throne. It was all good fun and no harm done. Except, of course, to the peasants from whom the precious meat had been stolen. They would starve. The machine-gunning had stopped. There was still a lot of noise, but the ground in front of their refuge seemed reasonably quiet. Time to make a move. The Leutnant thought about dividing his platoon into squads under a corporal each and get them to move forward in bounds, running forward in stages from cover to cover. But, things seemed to be getting quieter – had the Ivans pulled back? – and he was a bit concerned about some of his guys. The same two seemed to be among the stragglers each time, and he wanted to be present to prod them on. Better for morale. Slowly, he raised his head and looked through the remains of a small patch of weeds on the very edge of the shell-hole. There was a mound of bricks ahead and to the left, about thirty yards. They would rush there, he decided. At that moment, he realized that a small mound next to his mouth and nose was in fact a pile of turds. Wrinkling his nose he moved his head slightly to one side. Just over two hundred yards away a Russian soldier known only as Yuri, peering through a telescopic sight deep in the shadow of one of the many smashed rooms looking out over the battlefield, slowly squeezed the trigger of his rifle. * * * * * The corporal made a startled noise as he and the remains of his platoon watched the lifeless body of the Leutnant tumble slowly down the side of the crater, coming to rest with arms and legs at bizarre angles. The bullet had taken off part of the Leutnant’s skull and brains oozed out of the side of his head. A moment ago they had looked for him to leadership. Now he was dead. All officers are bastards, of course, but he wasn’t bad as they go. ‘We should continue the advance, shouldn’t we?’ said one bright spark. ‘No!’ shrieked the Corporal. ‘No, we’ll wait here for orders.’ Chapter One THE DESERT A small column of vehicles trundled and bumped out of the Libyan Desert and, wheeling left, joined the road running North to the small port of Tobruk. It was late October 1942. The convoy consisted of three heavily armed Chevrolet open trucks and one captured Mercedes lorry. The occupants, covered in dust and red-eyed with exhaustion beneath their goggles, were members of the Long Range Desert Group. At the back of the lead truck one man seemed even more tired than the rest, holding on to the barrel of his rifle with both hands as if for support. It was difficult to tell whether he was awake or asleep. Like the others, his head was wrapped in an Arab-style headdress. His rifle was equipped with a telescopic sight. A few miles out of Tobruk, the convoy slowed to a halt at a roadblock, engines ticking over. A sergeant with Australian insignia approached the lead truck, carrying his Sten gun loosely in one hand. He had a broad smile on his face but watchful eyes. Dust swirled and there was a moment of threatening silence in the mid-day heat. The sergeant looked at the men in the trucks. He couldn’t see their eyes; they were all wearing goggles, and most seemed to be armed with Tommy guns. He swallowed. His corporal murmured, ‘Watch these bastards, Sarge. Don’t like the look of them.’ And moved the cocking lever on his Sten gun. In the desert, all uniforms quickly became a dusty shade of khaki, and when two groups of armed men met there was a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. In the passenger seat of the first truck, a corporal who possessed a long and colorful criminal record grinned delightedly and brought his twin Vickers K machine guns to bear on the men at the roadblock. This is bloody stupid, thought the Australian sergeant, and cleared his throat to speak. Before he could do so, a lieutenant at the back of the first truck stirred himself and snapped: ‘For Christ’s sake, boss, give them the pass word.’ ‘’E can’t. ‘E’s asleep,’ chirped the corporal holding the twin Vickers, his tone suggesting a clear preference for a violent end to the volatile situation. ‘Well, fucking wake him up, then,’ said somebody else irritably. ‘We’re using up drinking time.’ said another man. This was the right approach. The corporal thumped the driver of the lead vehicle, a captain, on the shoulder. He started awake, assessing the situation instantly. Hoisting himself athletically out of the Chevrolet he ambled up to the Australian sergeant, scratching his head. ‘Terribly sorry. Must have dozed off. How can I help?’ The Australian sergeant was more than half-convinced that this lanky, doe-eyed public school Pom was taking the piss. He stared at the Captain. The captain met his gaze with a kindly, puzzled, questioning look. The Australian sergeant sighed and suddenly felt tired as the adrenaline surge passed. ‘Look, sir, just bugger off, will you?’ The captain was an expert climber, skier and could navigate by the stars. It had never taken him more than seven minutes to complete ‘The Times’ crossword. He was trained and capable of killing with knife, gun or garrote. He had the intuition of a mollusk. ‘Don’t you want to know the pass word?’ he said, genuinely confused. ‘No, thanks, mate. I already know it,’ said the sergeant as he gestured for one of his soldiers to move the wooden barrier. The LRDG vehicles moved slowly forward and the captain flipped himself in with one movement. As they picked up speed, he said: ‘He let us through without making us repeat the password. Strictly speaking, he should be reported to his superiors.’ ‘The Aussies are just a bit upset about the sheep, boss,’ said the corporal. ‘Sheep?’ said the captain, still rather at sea. ‘There’s not enough of them to go round, and they’re all a bit scrawny.’ ‘I could just do with some lamb and mint sauce myself,’ said the captain. The corporal shook his head in disbelief. The others in the truck looked at each other and smiled wearily. Tobruk was a busy mess. The nearer the convoy got to the port, the more bomb damage there was. The town had ebbed and flowed from British to German hands and back again. Now, as Montgomery’s Eighth Army pushed Rommel’s Afrika Korps Westwards, it was alive with the organized chaos of a strategic port in wartime. As they pulled their vehicles into the leveled bomb site that served as their vehicle staging area, the LRDG men could see transport ships, hull doors gaping open, disgorging trucks and tanks, including brand-new Shermans from America. The blue sky swarmed with Hurricanes and Tomahawks. After three years of war, with no victories except the Battle of Britain – the epitome of last-ditch struggles – it was a stirring sight. Even the hard-as-brick corporal, standing and leaning on his beloved twin Vickers, felt moved to say: ‘Fucking ‘ell. Hitler’s had it.’ Before eating, washing or anything else the captain and the lieutenant, still holding his sniper rifle, trudged to a small building nearby to be debriefed. The others wandered off to get cleaned up or drunk or possibly both simultaneously. About twenty other LRDG troopers, NCOs and officers had gathered smiling around the trucks to welcome them. There was no saluting and the term ‘sir’ was not used. There were no military signs or sentries outside the building the two officers entered but, on pushing the glass doors open, they were immediately met by several armed Redcaps who seemed to be specially selected for both smartness of bearing and grimness of countenance. A few minutes later, sipping mugs of hot, sweet tea with fresh milk that tasted wonderful after a week of condensed stuff from tins, the captain and the lieutenant gave an account of the mixed fortunes of their mission. They had been sent four days before the main assault of what would be later known as the battle of El Alamein to find and destroy a German fighter airfield which was believed to have been set up fairly deep in the desert to harass Montgomery’s front lines. By this time the Allies were already beginning to establish air dominance in North Africa and the real threat was that German fighters might relay details of the build-up to the attack, rather than any damage they might do. Leaving Tobruk at night, loaded up with petrol, water, food and enough ammunition and explosives to start their own war, they had driven South, navigating by the stars, deep into the Libyan desert before making camp. The next day they drove even further South before heading due east to where the fighter airstrip was supposed to be. The intelligence had come from Bedouin spies, and all they really knew about the supposed airstrip was a set of map co-ordinates and the information that there might be as many as twelve aircraft already there. When they were within ten miles of the location they had camouflaged their vehicles under scrim nets in a wadi and marched through the night to reconnoiter. Approaching from the East they dug themselves in the hard, rocky soil and scanned the location – now less than a mile away – through binoculars. The Sun rose and in a few minutes the harsh landscape was revealed. There was no airfield or aircraft, but there was a radio-listening station consisting of two trucks, one containing radio equipment and operators, and an armored personnel carrier with a heavy machine gun. It was still a valuable target – the Germans were highly skilled at intercepting and interpreting British radio transmissions. Indeed, the British had only recently learned how valuable that kind of intelligence had been to Rommel, the vaunted ‘desert fox’ who had even been grudgingly praised by Winston Churchill. ‘The Boss’ – Captain Montague – and Lieutenant Hugh Swayne crept back to a large boulder and talked things through. Including themselves, they had a force of ten men who could attack the listening post, which was about four hundred yards away. They quickly decided against marching back to get their vehicles, since there wasn’t the time, and they both felt they could deal with some radio specialists and an armored car without heavy machine guns. Option one was to work their way forward, and rush the Germans with grenades and Tommy guns. It would probably work but the heavy machine gun was the fly in the ointment. If would only need one alert German to get behind that to cause serious problems.
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