Cauldron of Blood (11 page)

Petrified,
his ears full of that murderous wail, gaze fixed hypnotically on the black plane howling down directly towards him, the Butcher stood there open-mouthed until virtually the last moment; then the jumble of black eggs tumbling helter-skelter from the plane’s evil blue belly awoke him to his danger. As the stick of bombs straddled the town, he flung himself to the floor, which heaved and trembled beneath him like a crazy thing.

The
explosions seemed to go on for an eternity, as Stormovik after Stormovik dropped from the sky, hurtling down in an ear-splitting scream, to drop their lethal load on the helpless town below. Within minutes they had turned it into a crazed inferno, sending great buildings crashing into rubble and starting scarlet flames shooting for the sky. The Russian planes were carving a line of death and destruction in their course and leaving behind, as they winged their way eastwards once more, mission executed, a great evil-black mushroom of smoke which rose slowly into the unfeeling heavens. For what seemed an age, the three Wotan men sprawled there, while the drone of the departing planes grew ever fainter to be surmounted by the first shrill alarm whistles and the hoarse cries of the Spanish NCOs waking up to the new danger which was beginning to present itself.

Schulze
raised his big head and wiped away the grey dust, spitting and spluttering as he tried to rid his mouth of it. He saw the Butcher still sprawled there, hands over his ears like some frightened child trying to blot out the alarming cries of the night and the nightmare which had terrified him. He rose to his feet and planted a great angry kick in the Sergeant-Major’s ribs, while behind him Matz, alarmed by the whistles, rose to his knees and stared open-mouthed over the parapet.

  ‘
Raise your curly head, Sleeping-Beauty! The bogeyman has gone now.’ He levelled another kick at the prostrate man which made his ribs crack audibly. ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘Why aren’t you down there with the rest of the shit-shovellers, you slime-shitter?’

The
Butcher raised his head cautiously, as if it were worked by rusty springs, ‘Have... have they gone?’ he asked.

‘
What gives?’

‘
They pissing themselves. They want out,’ the Butcher quavered. ‘They think they’re gonna be trapped down there in the thunderbox.’

‘
What did you say?’ Schulze roared.

Meekly,
the Butcher, still lying on the debris-strewn floor told him once more.

Schulze
’s broad face flushed an angry crimson. ‘By the Great Whore of Buxtehude and all that is holy to me, I’ll have the eggs off ’n ’em with a blunt razor!’ he cursed. ‘If it’s the last thing I—’

‘
Don’t speak too soon, Schulze,’ Matz’s voice cut in drily.

Schulze
swung round, face burning, fists clenched. ‘How long have we herded pigs together, you little tin-legged bastard?’ he exploded at the interruption.

‘
Don ‘t piss yerself, Schulzi,’ Matz said unimpressed. ‘Range yer glassy orbs on that first!’

A
little bewildered, still stuttering with rage at the men down below, Schulze’s eyes followed the direction of Matz’s outstretched hand. Down on the floor the Butcher instinctively did the same. For a moment or two they waited for the smoke which hung over the burning buildings to clear again. Then it did and the Butcher gasped in horror.

Stretched
from north to south along the whole length of the horizon, there was a line of dark shapes crawling purposefully towards the burning town and it didn’t need the panic-stricken cries of the spaghetti-eaters running to their battle positions or the furious whistles and commands of their officers and NCOs, to tell Schulze to what army those sinister black steel monsters belonged. ‘Holy straw-sack,’ he breathed, ‘it looks like the whole of the Red Army is heading straight this way.’

Matz
nodded his head solemnly. ‘It does indeed, Schulzi. I think old lad, you’d better get the shit-shovellers up from the thunderbox. There’s not going to be any running away this particular day.’

As
if in a daze, the big Hamburger nodded his head in agreement. The little man was right. Now they were well and truly trapped in Fedorovka.

FOUR

Peiper
pressed his throatmike and gave his order. Instantly the driver halted behind the snowbank, going into the hull-down position, while the gunner swung the turret round, long hooded gun instantly fixed on the broad, grey crocodile shuffling slowly across the snow-bound steppe. Behind Peiper’s command tank, the remaining halftracks and tanks did the same without command. Worried as he was, Peiper was nevertheless pleased; in spite of the uncertainty, their exhaustion and hunger, his veteran crews were wide-awake and alert.

He
focused his glasses, his ears already taking in the soft hum, his nose wrinkling up at the stench that rose from the broad column which shuffled wearily across the snowfield. Instantly the details leapt up into the bright circles of calibrated glass: field-grey figures, lurching and stumbling, falling to their knees in the last stages of exhaustion, urged on by some last flicker of the will to live and staggering to their feet once more.

Peiper
bit his bottom lip, aware now of the curses and commands of the guards trotting at the side of the seemingly endless column on their shaggy Siberian ponies, and watched how one of the Red Army men beat a prisoner back into line with repeated blows of his knout. They were German all right. Obviously the first of the great catches the Russians must have now begun to make, as they broke into the Kessel and with their usual tactics started to split it up into isolated groups of bewildered, estranged captives.

‘
What are we going to do about them,
Obersturm
?’ the gunner’s query cut into his reverie, as Peiper watched their frightened, exhausted faces with the great burning eyes of starvation, through his binoculars.

‘
I don’t really know, Kurt,’ Peiper answered, his mind beginning to race.

Of
course there was no chance of his escorting such a great body of men back to their own lines. Air recce would soon spot them and they would be sitting ducks for the Russian dive-bombers. But could he just hide this way and let them march into captivity and possible death, for he had no illusions about the way the Popovs treat their prisoners? Just as they did themselves, the Popovs were in no way concerned about keeping their POWs alive; after all they were only useless, extra mouths to be fed. All the same, if he did attempt to free the prisoners, might this not compromise their own position? What was he going to do?

It
was the fate of the gaunt man with the burning eyes which made his decision for him. A lanky fellow, his head wrapped up in a blood-stained bandage, he stepped out of the column to pump ship. But just as he had opened his flies to do so, one of the guard’s whiplash curled about his skinny shoulders, forcing him to drench the prisoner at his side with the hot steaming urine.

The
gaunt man swung round on the guard who had struck him, his eyes burning with such hatred that the watching Peiper felt that the unknown German must be consumed by his own burning passion. The guard stepped back, hand dropping instinctively to his pistol holster. For one long moment, while the others shuffled by, the two of them faced each other thus, a still life in the middle of a snowy nowhere. Then, deliberately, as if making the ultimate challenge, the gaunt man hawked and spat carefully into the snow at the guard’s felt-clad feet.

Through
his binoculars, Peiper could see the Russian’s sallow face flush. Suddenly his pistol appeared as if by magic in his gloved hand. But if the Russian had expected the gaunt man to flinch and cower with fear he was mistaken. Instead, the German calmly crossed his arms across his chest and gazed down at the enraged Russian, as if daring him to make the final, overwhelming move in this strange little contest. The Russian hesitated for a fraction of a second. Suddenly Peiper jumped at the crack of the pistol. The gaunt man staggered back. For one long moment he remained upright, blood beginning to trickle from the side of his mouth, then his knees began to crumple beneath him.

The
Russian waited, but obviously the German was taking too long to die. Reaching down from the saddle of his pony to where the gaunt man now crouched on his knees in the snow, he placed the muzzle of his weapon against the back of the man’s bent head. Peiper was tempted to turn away his head, but he forced himself to watch, knowing what the inevitable outcome of this one-sided encounter had to be, yet telling himself that it was his duty as a German officer to continue to look — for this was the only way in which he could keep steeling himself to the daily task of killing his fellow men.

The
Russian’s jaw hardened. His finger curled round the trigger. Crouched on his knees, the gaunt man seemed oblivious to everything happening around him. The Russian pressed the trigger. The gaunt man’s skull seemed to erupt. The watching officer could quite clearly see the slurry of blood start up and drench the Russian’s hand which held the pistol and the brilliant white flakes of bone whirl, as the German’s skull disappeared under that tremendous impact like a soft-boiled egg struck by a too-heavy spoon.

Next
instant Peiper dropped the binoculars and pressed the throatmike. ‘To all,’ he barked, iron in his voice. ‘Fire star shells and bursts of m.g. over their heads! Stampede the Popovs.
Over
!’

‘
Shouldn’t we wait and see, sir?’ It was the familiar educated drawl of von Ribbentrop on the air.

‘
No,’ Peiper snapped harshly. ‘You know what wait-and-see did, you diplomatic dummy.
He
shat
himself
!’ Angrily he kicked the waiting driver. ‘
Advance
!’ he commanded.

Next
to Peiper, the gunner chuckled. ‘That’s the stuff to give ’em,
Obersturm
!’ he cried enthusiastically, hastily unloading the AP shell and shoving a star-shell into the breech, as the driver rammed home first gear and with a roar of his engines, burst from their cover.

‘
The Popovs’ll piss themselves when they see us!’

‘
Let’s just hope that they’re the only ones who do so,’ Peiper said sourly, his rage vanished now as quickly as it had come. Then the flying V of tanks and halftracks was rattling madly across the surface of the hard-packed snow, machine guns chattering, star-shells exploding to their front above the heads of the suddenly elated column in crazy profligacy....

*

‘God bless you, sir!’

‘
Thank
you
,
sir
!’

‘
Ein
Hoch
der
SS
’

‘
It’s
just
like
Christmas
!’

‘
I
knew
the
Fuhrer’d
save
us
!...’

Peiper
ignored the cries coming up from all sides, as the tanks and halftracks came to a halt, firing a last burst at the few surviving Popovs who were urging their Siberian ponies in a mad gallop across the steppe.

A
man jumped up and tried to kiss his hand, but the young colonel snatched it aside just in time, crying, ‘Now listen you lot. You’re not out of the wood yet... Do you hear,
you’re
still
in
trouble
!’

His
words had their effect and the hoarse cries of joy died away, while the gaunt-faced prisoners, many of them with snow-heavy rags tied around their feet in the place of the boots which their guards had stolen, stared at the speaker, suddenly sombre.

Peiper
pressed his throatmike. Von Ribbentrop, you’re our diplomat,’ he said sotto-voce. ‘Tell them the situation we’re in. Give them a rough course back to the three rivers, and make it clear to them we’re not in any way able to help them any further.’

‘
I will endeavour to do my best, sir,’ von Ribbentrop relied solemnly.

‘
Do that. But don’t let them piss on your striped pants,’ Peiper said with unusual coarseness for him, irritated as he was by the young lieutenant’s solemn tones. ‘Over and out!’

Hastily
he slipped out of the earphone and mike set and dropped neatly over the side, trying to avoid the score of hands wanting to pat him on the back. Quickly he cut his way through the milling crowd of ex-prisoners eyes darting to left and right, looking for the familiar green collar tags of the
Wehrmacht
reconnaissance outfit. If he were to get any reliable information about the current situation in the Kessel it might well be from a recce soldier.

It
took him some time to do so, running the gauntlet of questions and queries flung at him from all sides, dodging outstretched hands and importuning officers, knowing it would not be long before the surviving guards reported what had happened to the column and the enemy armour came looking for them. But in the end he did so, spotting the young officer, back to a snow-heavy fir, re-winding the foot-rags around frozen feet, from which the dull-pink flesh dripped in long skeins.

‘
Trench-foot?’ he asked softly, gently forcing the lieutenant to remain seated when he attempted to rise.

‘
Afraid so,
Obersturm
,’ the Lieutenant answered and winced as yet another strip of flesh came away with the dirty foot-rag. ‘First time I’ve been able to look at my feet for two weeks.’ He grinned ruefully, ‘and I must confess I don’t much like what I see. But forgive my lack of courtesy. Von Prittwitz, Lieutenant Baron von Prittwitz.’ Even as he sat there the blond youth with the pinched handsome face squared his shoulders in an attempt at traditional military courtesy.

Peiper
was struck by the accent at once. It was not the Polish-tinged German of West or East Prussia, yet it sounded strangely Slavic. ‘Are you from the Baltic?’ He guessed.

‘
Riga, or thereabouts,’ von Prittwitz answered smartly. ‘Family been there eight generations. Always military of course, either the Czar, Warsaw, or Berlin.’

Peiper
smiled, half-amused, half-admiringly at the young officer’s clipped speech. He was a typical member of the lower Baltic nobility who had served the Russians, Poles and the Prussians these four hundred years or more. ‘I see you are from the reconnaissance corps,’ he said.

‘
Attached to Foreign Armies East, though with a front-line assignment,
Obersturm
.’

Peiper
‘s grin vanished. He had found just the man he was looking for. ‘Listen,’ he said urgently and quickly explained their mission within the Kessel, before making his request for information.

The
baron listened intently, bandaging his feet but not taking his level blue-eyed gaze from the SS colonel’s wolfish face for one instant, then immediately Peiper had finished, told him what he knew. It was not much, but it was enough.

Just
as Peiper had guessed, the Ivans were now probing into the Kessel in strength, attempting, as they usually did in such situations, to break it down in a series of smaller
Kessels
which they could reduce at their leisure and without too many casualties.

‘
Any idea where these Kessels are, Prittwitz?’ Peiper rapped.

The
baron snapped a twig from the fir and swiftly sketched in a rough outline map of the Kessel, breaking it into several smaller circles with one large one roughly left of centre.

‘
What’s that one?’ Peiper queried.

‘
That’s Fedorovka,
Obersturm
. It’s commanded by a madman from the Spanish Blue Legion.’

‘
Do you know it?’

In
spite of the pain in his feet, the young baron smiled. ‘Do I? I was doing an intelligence mission there when the shit hit the fan and the Spaniards took over. I tried to reason with their commander, telling him that to attempt to defend the place was just what the Ivans wanted. It would be much better to attempt to fight them off while on the move, the way we usually do it.’

Peiper
nodded his understanding.

‘
But he wasn ‘t having
that
. He wanted to fight from a fixed position. There was no reasoning with him.’ The baron shrugged easily. ‘As Napoleon once said, “Europe ends where the Pyrenees begin”. Those spaghetti-eaters just have a completely different mentality to us.’

‘
Possibly,’ Peiper said thoughtfully, a plan slowly beginning to form in his mind.

The
men milling all around him were beaten; pathetic creatures that they were, it would be many months before hard training and severe discipline turned them into determined frontline soldiers once more. Now they were not much more use to the
Wehrmacht
, save perhaps as cannon-fodder. Yet such a great body of men might well attract the Ivans’ attention, while he drove deeper into the Kessel, not only now to find the missing Wotan men, but also to link up with the determined forces still holding the remote Russian town.