Peter Idone - Red Vengeance

“I’ll tell Lustig the line’s too busted up,” Angst said.

“He already knows. I told him.” Imitating the sergeant’s polished baritone voice, Seidel continued, “‘All lines of communication are to be repaired and kept functioning at all costs,’ he tells me. And ‘cost’ has nothing to do with the amount of spare change in your pocket. It means your one and only life. God, how I have come to hate that turn of phrase.”

So did Angst. The desire to stop and rest, even to listen to Seidel’s woes, was tempting, but he had to keep moving. At all costs. There was more of the trench to negotiate, where many dead lay, German and Russian intertwined, the aftermath of butchery at close quarters with small arms, bayonets, shovels. The grisly scene made him nauseous, and as he stepped and crawled across the trench, the feeling grew as the bodies yielded under his weight. Several grenadiers stared hollowly out from the loopholes of their rifle pits, ignoring the carnage that lay around them. The trench widened considerably when he arrived at the company command bunker, dug deep and reinforced with a revetment of sand bags and timber. The only signs of life were the machine gun emplacement, as a gunner operated the MG42 on a continuous fire mounting, and the second gunner peered through a vertical scope and called out range adjustments. The gunner calibrated and fired short repeated bursts. A body lay before the narrow entrance of the bunker. Angst started to move the corpse aside when it suddenly came to life. Startled, Angst let go. “No room left at the inn,” a voice told him. It was Max Griener, usually known as “Old Max.” Dark, sunken eyes blinked from a lopsided face that was the color of flour paste. He lay there, immobile, like some dying animal feebly guarding the inhabitants of its den.

“Out of the way, Max. I have to make my report.”

The old grenadier would not budge. Unable to rouse the man out of his state of inertia, Angst jumped over the prostrate body and half-tumbled down the carved earthen steps that descended below ground. “Tanks,” he shouted as he landed unceremoniously at the bottom.

Sergeant Lustig held the field telephone receiver to his ear and motioned Angst to keep quiet with an upraised finger to his lips. The bunker was gloomy; a small candle burned on a table fashioned from wooden crates. There were four other men inside the bunker, one at the controls of the radio appropriated from the platoon and two more who sat against the dirt walls. All wore bandages, although their wounds did not require evacuation to the aid station. Angst recognized them as company men—all except one, Kessler, the top kick from the battalion CO’s staff. He sat on an empty wicker shell crate, legs drawn up, rocking back and forth ever so slightly. Once Angst’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he noticed the outline of a man lying on a camp bed at the opposite side of the bunker. A pair of boots, the black leather worn almost white at the toe and heel, stuck out from under a gray blanket.

“Lieutenant Bauer,” the top kick said. He gestured to Angst to sit down beside him.

“I heard the bunker was overrun…”

Kessler nodded. “These fellows, what’s left of them, managed to toss the Russians out. Took a lot of casualties. Unfortunately, the lieutenant could not be saved. Why are you here?”

“Tanks have been spotted—”

“Oh yes, that. A bad business,” the top kick commented dreamily. Angst nodded in the direction of Sergeant Lustig, who stood with telephone in hand, listening but saying little except for an occasional grunt while he traced an imaginary line with his finger on a map spread out on the improvised table.

“Is the sergeant in contact with battalion?” Angst asked.

“A Nebelwerfer battery has moved up to offer support when the occasion so dictates.”

“Artillery, finally,” Angst said, relieved. “I was beginning to wonder if all the big guns hadn’t packed up and gone home.”

Kessler looked around furtively. It seemed a conspiratorial gesture.

“A breakthrough has occurred to the north. We’re cut off from our neighbors, the First Panzer Army. Now do you understand why we have had next to no artillery support? Practically all guns point toward the gap on our left flank.”

“How big of a gap?”

“Thirty kilometers.”

Angst was ready to fold when he heard this news. Granted, going by the way he presented himself, Kessler was headed over the edge; everyone was forced to function well beyond his endurance, and the cracks were beginning to show all too plainly. As he was a fixture at battalion headquarters, Kessler’s information was bound to be founded more on fact than rumor.

“An entire mechanized corps has penetrated—”

“Sergeant Kessler!”

The top kick immediately shut his mouth. Lustig had just cradled the phone and was staring hard at him. It was difficult to determine if he regarded Kessler with anger or despair.

“Corporal Angst has sighted Russian tanks,” Kessler said, chastened.

Lustig nodded. “Packs of T-34s are probing all along the line to renew the impetus of their flagging infantry. Regiment has sent up an assault gun with a grenadier escort of platoon strength. We have little time before the Russians get organized. How are things on your end, Corporal?”

“We’re spread pretty thin.”

Lustig nodded. “Is there anything else?”

Hesitantly, Angst decided to broach a more controversial subject. “Sergeant Kessler mentioned something about a breakthrough—”

“You would be well advised to limit your interests only to what occurs directly in front of you, Corporal. Anything outside the realm of your gun pit or your rifle squad is my concern. Is that understood”?

“Yes, Sergeant.”

With a conciliatory gesture, Lustig had Angst join him by the table. He spoke quietly. “Listen carefully. Sergeant Kessler was sent over here because he can no longer assist the captain. He’s not been much good since the outpost was lost. It was a disaster. Kessler was in charge. No one could have done any better or worse under the circumstances, and personally, I considered the position indefensible. The sergeant has reached the end of his tether. Only for the moment, I should hope.”

Angst said that he understood; however, when he looked back at the top kick, he had serious doubts the man would ever regain the moment. The telephone rang. Lustig picked up, listened, and then said, “Keep me informed as to how those tanks are deployed. And spread the word an assault gun is on its way. That should lift all your spirits.” He hung up the phone and turned to Angst. “That was Wahl, checking in.”

It appeared Seidel had managed to fix the line after all, Angst thought. He would have to commend him for his efforts. But Lustig had more important matters to grapple with than listen to the praise of a grenadier who was only doing the job he was entrusted with.

“The platoon leader from the assault gun escort is on the way over,” Lustig said. “Apparently Captain Raeder could not convince him that the tank thrust will occur directly in our company sector. The ‘little snot-nosed corporal,’ as the Captain described him, wants to see for himself, so he can then inform the assault gun where to go. I don’t want this fellow getting lost on the way. Bring him to me, so I can satisfy his curiosity and waylay any doubts he might have.”

“Right away, Sergeant,” Angst replied. As he started to leave, Lustig caught him gently by the arm.

“It would serve no purpose to repeat anything you heard, regarding what Sergeant Kessler has said.”

“I can’t remember what the Sergeant was talking about,” Angst said, and hustled up the steps. Lustig sat down on an upturned crate and began to organize the company field reports and maps that were spread across the table. Some of the papers were horribly stained. Several items of personal equipment had belonged to Lieutenant Bauer: signal flare gun, compass, field glasses. Lustig had no qualms about incorporating them into his own possessions for the time being. He only wished he could have silenced Kessler sooner and hoped Angst would truly forget what he had heard. Soldiers expressed themselves in volumes on the little they knew, or believed they knew; but rumors, good or bad, based on facts or not, circulated and were discussed at length. And this was bad. Kessler might not have all the specifics, but he had heard enough from the battalion CO. Even Lieutenant Bauer had become overwhelmed by the alarming reports generating from regimental and battalion headquarters and had found it necessary to confide in the company sergeant. Before the attack on the bunker, the company receiver had picked up numerous en clair messages, and the lieutenant pieced it together. No sooner had they occupied the Tortoise Line than the situation started to deteriorate. In First Panzer Army sector, a Soviet Mechanized Corps punched its way through north of Konstantinovka. And last night something absolutely devastating had occurred—the Russian Twenty-Third Tank Corps steamrolled over the left end of their division that bordered First Panzer Army’s southernmost flank. What this armored armada had planned, or where it was headed, no one seemed to know at regiment—or division or corps, for that matter. Wave upon wave of Red infantry followed in the armor’s wake. The gap in the front line was estimated at over forty kilometers. We can’t hold out any longer , Lustig thought. He looked over at Kessler, who still rocked on his seat. This knowledge had not done the sergeant much good. The only rumor Lustig would hold onto was the inevitable retreat across the Dniepr River. And the river was over a hundred kilometers away.