Peter Idone - Red Vengeance

“You don’t like to be singled out for praise or recognition, do you, corporal? Something I’ve noticed about you during your stay with the company thus far.”

No, I don’t like either , Angst thought, especially the latter . He preferred to do as he was ordered and made every effort to escape officers’ attention, both good and bad. He had learned his lesson, although now it was too late.

A peal of machine gun fire ripped through the lull and was accompanied by screams of terror. Lustig jumped to his feet and ran. The sound had originated from the platoon’s main dugout. Angst followed, expecting to take part in a skirmish with Red Army shock troops, fanatics, making a last-ditch attempt at incurring as many casualties as possible. Upon their arrival, they discovered it was something far different. Lustig shouldered his way through a knot of grenadiers, mostly those from the assault gun escort, Schroeder and Detwiler among them, their weapons smoking. The Russian prisoners taken in the counterattack lay strewn and bloody in a shell crater near the dugout. Minnesinger and Richter skulked about. Lustig was enraged by the slaughter.

“What is the meaning for this?” he bellowed. The tone in his voice was shattering.

“Getting rid of some dead weight,” Schroeder said, with a flippant air. He did not seem at all afraid of the NCO or his wrath. Detwiler looked down upon his handiwork with unabashed delight. He cradled the weighty MG42 in his muscular arms. The machine gunner had an obvious erection. The bulge in his trousers was shockingly pronounced. Angst had heard barracks gossip that arousal of this sort occurred with some men during and after combat, but he had never lent any credence to the stories. It had to do with some volatile mixture of blood lust and fear that a man had no control over. Nevertheless, Angst was revolted by the spectacle and took a profound loathing to the gunner.

“Did the assault gun commander order this?” Lustig seethed threateningly as he loomed over Schroeder.

“I don’t have to be ordered to do something so obviously necessary.”

“By whose standards is it obvious?” Lustig pressed.

“There are standing orders—” Schroeder began to explain but was silenced as Lustig angrily waved his arm.

“Nothing written down, of course, but passed around by word of mouth so thugs like you can carry out those orders all too willingly. Well, not in my company, and certainly not when I’m around!”

“You weren’t around,” Schroeder snarled. “Besides, they were all clamoring for food and water as if we owed it to them.”

“We haven’t enough to feed ourselves,” Detwiler offered.

“So you killed these men for the sake of a stale rusk and a mouthful of water. Look at these wretches.”

The escort grenadiers did not bother to look; rather, they stared with hostility at the sergeant. Angst looked. The barefooted, the underequipped, and the untrained. Soldiers who were never soldiers until only yesterday or the day before. Lustig brought the matter to the attention of the men in his own company.

“Did any of you participate in this?”

Minnesinger and Richter shook their heads animatedly and answered in unison, “No, Sergeant.”

“And you did nothing to try to stop it, did you?”

“It just sort of happened,” Richter said. “Not like it was planned. They all came up from the dugout, yelling for food. Demanding it, like the corporal said.”

Schroeder wore an expression of keen satisfaction. “I did it because they irritated me. These Bolshevik swine tore my platoon apart. Your company almost ceased to exist because of the likes of them, and you’re giving me grief?” Schroeder appeared genuinely astounded.

“I will inform regiment of this incident, corporal. I intend to pursue this.”

“Then be prepared, Sergeant. I’m going to get a medal for what I did here today” Schroeder said, and then spat in the bloody face of one of the dead. He spun around and walked away with his small gang of panzergrenadiers swaggering behind.

“Cold-blooded, arrogant bastard,” Lustig muttered.

“He’s right, you know; they’ll pin a medal on him,” Minnesinger said.

It was true, Lustig thought; the incident would be ignored and then conveniently forgotten. The best he could hope for was that the men under his command try and behave decently. He felt like a relic from some other time. Soldierly traditions such as honor and respect toward one’s enemy had no place in this wilderness. It never had. This was altogether different; something worse. The Fuehrer had proclaimed that the war in the east would be like none other in human history. Given what Lustig had witnessed so far, that statement had proven to be a brutal truth. And the men had all understood it to be true sooner than he. For a brief, imperceptible moment, Lustig wanted to rebel against something or someone. But he did not know how or, more importantly, against whom.

A signalman from the company command bunker jogged up the trench, made brief notice of the dead Russians, came to attention in front of the sergeant, and saluted.

“Captain Raeder has just arrived at company headquarters and wants you to report to him immediately.”

“Get this mess cleaned up,” Lustig said, and followed the signalman back down the trench.

Pieper lay on the outer hull of the assault gun and leaned against the sloped gun shielding that had been marred by numerous dents and small cracks in the armor. On the ground, Naumann and Kurowski struggled with oversized wrenches and spanners as they completed the repairs on the damaged track link assembly with a small reserve section. In the fighting compartment, Hofinger piped up a broadcast from the receiver. Transmissions from a spotter plane to brigade headquarters described the results of the air strike. In case the men could not hear, Pieper reiterated what he had just heard.

“The ravine has been scoured clean.”

“And the tanks,” Naumann asked.

“Kaput. Everything burns.”

The gunner grunted in satisfaction. “You pulled it off, Ulrich.”

The voice sounded distant and Pieper was too fatigued to answer. The morphine, a small dosage he allowed his gunner to administer, flowed through his veins rapidly and had begun to take effect. His thoughts had become muddled. There was something he wanted Schroeder to do, a detail that needed to be verified. He could not remember what it was, but he knew it was terribly important. All the tanks in the ravine had brewed up, and nothing remained on the steppe other than wrecks. That settles it, then , he thought; all the tanks are destroyed . All in all, it was a successful day, although there were moments when he had his doubts. The loader’s hatch opened, and Hofinger joined him on the hull. Hofinger smiled down at his two crewmates wrestling with the link section as he handed the gun commander a piece of paper, a decoded message from headquarters. Pieper read: Hold position until zero seventeen hundred hours… They had pulled back four kilometers from the battalion sector after the air strike. He continued to read:… fall back due west at best possible speed. All units are to maintain mobile defense . That would include the infantry as well, Pieper thought. “How far are we to fall back and where are we to link up?”

“That was the message in its entirety. Brigade will tell us once they know what the hell is going on,” Hofinger said.

Pieper crumpled the paper tightly in his hand. That clinches it; we’re on our own , he thought. The enemy breakthrough at Konstantinovka wasn’t under control. “Mobile defense” was command’s standard euphemism for retreat. Pull back as far and as fast as possible to shorten the line and thus, with any luck, close the breach. He dared not voice a negative opinion, so as not to affect the crew’s morale. Traveling by night, the area teeming with Russians and without a clear definition of a front line…not a task to look forward to.