Cauldron of Blood (12 page)

He
had everything to gain and little, but his life, to lose. Fireball had cut off his retreat. All right then, he would help the spaghetti-eaters hold the place, build up one of those fortified hedgehogs beloved by the Fuhrer. Perhaps a little hint that the missing golden pheasant was also in the place and he could predict even now what the Fuhrer’s reaction would be — a direct order to the SS Corps to break through to Fedorovka.

Peiper
sucked his front teeth, while the baron watched him intently. He knew the plan had certain loopholes, but it seemed to him at that moment that it was the only one open to him. He could not go back; therefore the only alternative open to him was to go forward.

‘
Baron,’ he said suddenly.

‘
Yes?’

‘
How would you like to be a national hero?’

The
baron tugged the end of his dripping red nose. ‘Is it going to cost me my turnip?’

‘
Possibly. ‘

The
handsome intelligence officer pulled a face. ‘I rather like my turnip, I’ve had it a while, you see, and have grown accustomed to it.’

Peiper
returned the other man’s smile — he was obviously a man after his own heart. ‘I’ll do my best to see that you retain it a little while longer, Baron.’

‘
Oh, well, that’s all right then,’ the baron rose awkwardly to his feet. ‘I’m sick of hoofing it anyway.

He
picked up a pistol dropped by one of the surviving guards who had fled and thrust it into his belt. ‘Where are we heading for,
Obersturm
?’

Peiper
‘s smile broadened. ‘To that place where the Pyrenees end.’

The
baron’s mouth dropped open stupidly. ‘
The
shitting
spaghetti
-
eaters
!’ was all he was able to gasp.

Five
minutes later they were on their way, heading steadily eastwards, while behind them the long weary column once more began its march towards its final doom.

FIVE

The snow-covered hills all around the little town quaked with fire. Gun after gun cracked into action, filling the morning air with their hellish din.

Everywhere,
the men of the Blue Division hugged their foxholes, while the shrapnel hissed murderously overhead, cutting down everything in its path, until the very air shook under the impact of the constant shelling. White as sheets, fists pressed into their ears, mouths agape, they stared horrified at the trembling soil millimetres away from their pinched noses, wondering when this terrible bombardment that had been going on since dawn would finally end and release them from this endless misery.

Crouched
on the tower above the Citadel, Matz and Schulze peered over the parapet at regular intervals, knowing that in spite of the danger they had to do so. They knew the Popov tactics of old. The enemy artillery would attempt to make the defenders keep their heads down to the very last moment, when they would launch their tank-infantry attack. Their only chances of survival was to be able to spot that attack at the very outset.

The
two running-mates had abandoned their plan of escape for the time being, realizing that there was little chance of the Wotan men making it on foot through the massed Soviet tanks, which now lay somewhere beyond the horizon waiting for the signal to attack. For better or worse, they would have to go along with Little Napoleon and his defence strategies. As a result, they had agreed to his plan to fortify the Citadel and make it the centre of the little town’s resistance. But although the Wotan and the rest of the Germans held in the place were now in position below, waiting for the enemy bombardment to cease and the attack to commence, the two veterans were not happy with Little Napoleon’s plan for static defence.

Schulze
ducked as yet another fist-sized piece of whirling shrapnel dug a piece of masonry out of the parapet just above his head, and cried into Matz’s ear, ‘Won’t be long now, Matzi! Did you get a gander at those red signal flares?’

‘
Yeah,’ Matz roared back, hands cupped around his mouth trying to overcome that tremendous racket. ‘Usual Popov attack signal. Over there, the Russian shits will be knocking back the firewater by the bucket-full.’ He wiped the back of his frozen hand across parched lips. ‘Christ, I’d sell my ring for a drop of hard stuff at this moment.’

‘
Never fear, if any of them Siberian mare-suckers get this far, they’ll have yer ring for nothing —
and
without
vaseline
.’

Matz
shuddered dramatically. ‘Don’t say things like that, Schulzi!’ he protested, as yet another salvo of 105 mm shells straddled the area to the immediate front of the Citadel, making the whole building shudder alarmingly.

Schulze
wasn’t listening any more. His head was cocked to one side, as he tried to distinguish the new sound from that of the artillery. ‘Tanks,’ he concluded. ‘They’re warming up the engines. They’re coming in first with the tin cans.’

‘
Shit!’ he cursed and chanced a look below. The Spaniards dug in to their front had heard the new noise too. They were hurriedly wheeling out two 57 mm anti-tank cannon, shoving and pushing them across the smoking brick rubble towards the end of the street facing the white-covered steppe beyond.

‘
Pissing pea-shooters!’ Schulze commented scornfully, as the artillery barrage began to slow down and more and more rockets shot up along the length of the Soviet lines. ‘Couldn’t even frighten the Popovs with those things. The shells’ll bounce off the T-34s like ping-pong balls.’

‘Balls is the operative word,’ Matz agreed miserably. ‘But what are we gonna do, Schulzi?’

The
big Hamburger did not answer at once, as battery after battery hidden beyond the horizon ceased firing and the monstrous din slowly began to give way to an ominous echoing silence.

‘
Well?’ Matz prompted after a while and Schulze had still not replied to his question.

‘
Well,’ Schulze said, his brow creased in thought, ‘you know how the Popovs work their tanks because they don’t have any intercom radio like we have in the Wotan?’

Matz
nodded. ‘Yeah, they wiggle these little flags up and down at each other like a lot of wet-arsed kids waving at a parade. So?’

‘
So. Knock out the flag-wavers and they lose control. There’s no coordination and their attack goes to pot. You’ve seen it before often enough Matzi?’

‘
Yeah, so I have,’ Matz agreed. It was true. The Popovs led their attacks from a command tank in which the tank commander stood upright in the turret and directed the rest of his force by means of signal-flags. In the autumn of the previous year, when SS Assault Battalion Wotan had swept through Russia in the bold drive for Moscow, the knowledge had helped the Vulture to defeat superior enemy forces. ‘But what’s this got to do with us, you big barn-shitter?’

‘
This, you tin-legged toy soldier,’ Schulze rapped, trying to muster the old contempt he always tried to display when speaking to his running-mate, but failing lamentably in this instant. ‘Someone has got to knock those flag-wavers out.’ He looked significantly at the smaller man.

Matz
paled visibly. ‘You’ve got a little bird that goes peep-peep-peep, Schulzi!’ he declared.

‘
Yeah, and you’ve got a little yeller arse that goes drip-drip-drip!’ Schulze snarled and rising to his feet, ignoring the shrapnel that still howled frighteningly through the air, cried, ‘Come on, let’s go and see the head spaghetti-eater...’

*

‘I do not know — understand exactly,’ Little Napoleon said and swiftly popped the cork back in between his lips.

Schulze
flashed him a look that had been known, in the old days, to make new recruits feel decidedly wet about the nether regions, and repeated what he had just said.

‘
You’ve got to give me and the Wotan boys permission to go in front of your fellas and knock off their command tank commanders before they can really launch a concerted attack.’

Little
Napoleon, now dressed in his number one uniform, complete with decorations that covered the whole right side of his portly chest, flashed a suspicious look from one face to the other.

‘
But how do I know,’ he asked, taking out the cork again, ‘that you will not go?’ He gave an elegant Latin shrug, half-raising his hands as he did so. ‘Desert me?’

Matz
puckered up his lips and closing his eyes pressed his face forward closer to that of the Spaniard’s. ‘Kiss me, darling. How could I ever leave you — now?’

Schulze
nudged him violently in the ribs. ‘Knock it off, you asparagus Tarzan!’ he growled.

Matz
opened his eyes and grinned at him wickedly, while the Little Napoleon looked at the two of them in complete bewilderment. ‘Of course, I forgot, I’m now betrothed to my darling Gerda.’

Schulze
ignored him. Time was running out too fast now for Matz’s type of humour. ‘Well,’ he demanded, ‘what’s it gonna be? The Popovs’ll be coming over those heights any minute now.’

Little
Napoleon swallowed hard. ‘You promise... not to run away?’

‘
Of course I do!’ Schulze cried. ‘Where the shit do you think we’re gonna run to now, with the whole of the shitting Red Army out there?’

‘
Bueno
.
De
acuerdo
!’ the Little Napoleon snapped. ‘You may do so.’ He raised his hand in the falange salute and cried:
‘
Presente
!’ with such force that his upper jaw came tumbling down upon the lower. Thus they left the little man, rapidly flushing a convulsive crimson, as he twisted his jaw with both hands, trying to push it back into place, pelting down the corridor to rouse out the others....

*

Ears numbed by the roar and clatter of scores of tanks, the men crouched in a thin grey line among the mess of still-steaming fresh-brown shell-holes and gazed at the phalanx of steel monsters with eyes that were wide with terror.

Behind
them marched the Russian infantry, packed in earth brown ranks, coming on in a solid wall, as if they were crossing Moscow ‘s Red Square in some peacetime parade. There seemed no end to them, as more and more flares sailed into the air, obviously signalling to those Popovs beyond the horizon that the advance on the little town below seemed clear.

Schulze
looked to left and right and knew what his men were feeling at this moment. All the same, he had confidence in his veterans of the Wotan. Now they knew, as he did too, that there was no possible chance of retreat. It was either fight or die.

Now
he and the rest of the Wotan troopers started to seek out troop and company commanders, knowing that, because their rifles did not possess telescopic sights, they would have to let the tanks come within a range of one hundred and fifty metres before they could be sure they could kill the commanders.

The
air was full of the rattle of the tanks and the steady eerie tramp of the packed ranks of infantry behind them. The ground shook with their weight. Everywhere the waiting troopers felt their throats constrict and their hearts begin to beat rapidly. Time and time again they had to swallow hard to clear the tightness which threatened to choke them.

Four
hundred
metres
...
three
hundred
and
fifty
metres
...
three
hundred
.... Now Schulze, crouched behind a snow-covered boulder in front of a large shell-hole, could see the T-34s clearly, in spite of their whirling white wakes. His gaze, seemingly more acute than normal, swept the first line of tanks, searching for the best target. Then he had him: an exceedingly tall figure in a leather helmet, standing proud and high in his turret, waving his flags with both hands, a look of haughty scorn on his dark face, as if nothing could ever happen to
him
.

‘
Right, Soviet asshole,’ Schulze whispered to himself, ‘it’s you.’ Automatically, he tucked the butt of his rifle deeper into his right shoulder and waited.

Two
hundred
and
fifty
metres
...
two
hundred
.... Now there seemed nothing else in the whole wide world but these metal monsters and the infantry plodding on inexorably behind them, as if they could march for ever. Schulze swallowed hard, sensing his men must be feeling the same, as they waited there inactively for what well could be death under the flailing cruel tracks of those seemingly invulnerable monsters.

One
hundred
and
seventy
-
five
metres
... : Schulze swallowed hard, again. Almost as if he were watching some other person doing so, he sensed the brass butt of the rifle press almost painfully into his shoulder and a damp, sweaty finger curl around the trigger. First pressure. The tall Russian was waving his two flags frantically now. On both flanks the T-34s started to gather speed, while those in the centre kept their speed constant. They were coming in for the attack. The massed infantry started to run awkwardly after the tanks as they began to draw away.

One
hundred
and
fifty
metres
!

Schulze
’s finger eased back the trigger all the way. The rifle jumped at his shoulder. He started at the crack and resultant explosion. In the command tank, the tall Russian stopped waving his flags, with both of them absurdly poised in mid-air. Rifle still clenched to his shoulder, mesmerized, unable to eject the spent cartridge case, Schulze watched as the tank with its dying commander continued to rumble forward, as if nothing had happened. Slowly the Russian dropped one flag and then the other. Gently, very gently, almost as if he had become very tired, the Russian slumped down over the edge of the turret, his leather helmet rolling away on the deck to reveal long black curly hair. He was dead!

Abruptly
the centre group of tanks milled to a confused stop. It seemed to act as a signal. A wild volley of rifle fire erupted from the Wotan troopers’ pits. Commander after commander slammed into the back of his turret, clutching a wounded arm or chest, blood streaming through clenched fingers from a holed face, drooping over the front of the turret already dead, screaming piteously as everything disappeared into an agonizing blood-red mist and the man knew that he was blind, as the snipers worked their bolts back and forth furiously, firing with crazed energy, knowing that if they failed now they would disappear under the tanks’ flailing tracks.

Suddenly
the whole Soviet attack rumbled to a chaotic halt, with the leaderless tanks hopelessly mixed up among the massed infantry, leaving themselves wide-open to the counter-attack that the Little Napoleon had planned for this moment.

‘
Arriba
Espana
!...
Viva
Franco
!...
Muerto
los
Rojos
...!’