Peter Idone - Red Vengeance

Voss lay down on one of the benches to take a short nap. He instructed Reinhardt to take over from Gottfried in two hours. “Don’t let me sleep too long,” he admonished. The resonant sound of the tapping key filled the silence and echoed weakly against the metal wall of the crew compartment. Voss passed out the moment he closed his eyes.

Voss was nudged awake. He bolted upright and tried to orientate himself in the dark. After his eyes became accustomed, he could see Gottfried lying asleep on the bench opposite. Sergeant Reinhardt hovered over him, holding the small writing pad.

“What is it?”

“The airwaves are clogged with coded and en clair messages. In between it all, I picked up this one message, in code, tapped out three times at intervals of fifteen minutes apart. Always the same and repeated three times.”

Voss was trying to follow what the sergeant was saying. He looked at his watch and was shocked at the time. Nearly zero four hundred. He’d been asleep for hours.

“It reads like a grocery list,” Reinhardt continued. “Sausage, bread, and fat…grams of each. Three times. What can it mean?”

“It is a grocery list.” Gottfried was awake and sat up. He removed a small booklet from the breast pocket of his field tunic. “Could you risk affording me some light, Lieutenant?”

Voss obliged him, shielding the flashlight lens with his hand and pointing it downward. Gottfried searched the small pages covered with minute writing in the diffuse pool of light. He stopped at a page in the middle of the booklet, having found what he was looking for. “ Sausage, bread, and fat…grams of each…and the response jam, coffee, cigarettes…allotment complete. It’s an old emergency code that we never needed to bother with. How long has it been since you first heard it?”

“Over the past forty-five minutes.”

Before Voss switched off the flashlight, he could see the signals officer was furious with himself. “I can’t believe it escaped me. This is what you were asking me earlier, Lieutenant Voss. How would the captain contact us? Well, here it is. He has most likely been trying to raise us for hours now. Totally reprehensible on my part.”

“Try to establish contact,” Voss told him.

Gottfried sat down at the radio and began to tap away on the key. Fifteen minutes passed, and the signals officer repeated the same procedure. Finally there was a response. Gottfried jotted down the dots and dashes and then decoded. It seemed so painstakingly long to Voss. His anxiety was almost painful.

Elated, Gottfried said, “It’s Sundial. Captain Falkenstein.”

“Ask if it is at all possible for him to rendezvous here at the kolkhoz.”

After the message was sent, Gottfried wrote down the response. Voss took the note pad and read aloud so Reinhardt could hear. “‘Rendezvous doubtful…Forty-five kilometers west southwest of village…Hostile forces in vicinity and plan to intercept by dawn.’ Explain who we are and give him our call sign, Dragonfly. Tell Falkenstein to attempt the village. We will meet him halfway. Make sure to inform him advance panzer units are expected by morning. Go ahead.”

The process was repeated again. After transcribing the message, Gottfried appeared dumbfounded.

“What does it say?” Voss asked.

Gottfried tore the page from the pad and handed it to Voss. “‘Leaving before first light…Mind own safety…’ What is this supposed to mean? Raise the captain again.”

Gottfried objected. “I wouldn’t advise it, Lieutenant. We run the risk of exposing Sundial’s position. And ours.”

Voss retrieved the stiff leather map case, opened it, and switched on the flashlight. He traced the course of the Samara River and estimated the forty-five kilometer distance. It didn’t look good for Falkenstein. He was roughly a few kilometers south of the main highway that ran directly to Pavlograd. At top cross-country speed, the captain’s armored car could easily reach the kolkhoz in about an hour without having to divert his course. But that was wishful thinking, Voss knew. The highway posed the greatest danger, as the Soviet mechanized detachments would be on this road. Falkenstein was boxed in, with the highway on one side and the river at his back. He had little alternative but to take a course east by northeast and run the gauntlet of any and all Soviet patrols. “Raise Blue Flower,” he said to Gottfried, who hesitated. “Do it, man!”

Gottfried switched on the transmitter and held the microphone close to his lips. “Dragonfly calling Blue Flower. Come in, over.”

“This is Blue Flower. We read you, Dragonfly.” The voice of the radio operator at the other end sounded clear and seductively close. Gottfried passed the microphone over to Voss. “Contact with Sundial established. Considering meeting for tomorrow’s breakfast, although invitation not warmly received. All depends on the neighbors, over.”

“Do make every effort to keep engagement, over.”

“How soon can I expect the relatives? Over.”

“Just as soon as you have set down at table, over.”

“I’ll be waving a red handkerchief. Don’t miss us. Dragonfly out.” After Blue flower signed off, Voss put up the microphone.

“The captain is a very determined man. And resourceful,” Gottfried commented.

Let’s hope he is lucky as well , Voss thought.

Hartmann lay on the ground outside the vehicle, wrapped in a section of tarpaulin. He was awakened from a dream about coffee. He wasn’t dreaming, as a steaming tin mug was being passed under his snoring nostrils. The sergeant had cooked up a strong batch on the primus stove and woke the driver up. “This will be the last time I serve you in bed,” Reinhardt said playfully. It was still dark as the crew grabbed a tin of whatever was handy from the field ration supply and ate quickly. After the loose gear was stowed away, Hartmann removed the fuel intake hatch plate from the deck floor and, with a wide funnel, emptied the gas can into it. Voss made sure the crates containing the panzerfausts and magnetic mines were within easy reach. There was more than a good chance the weapons would come into play. Everyone took up their assigned positions: Reinhardt at the bow machine gun, Voss close beside him with binoculars, and Junger manning the aft MG34. Gottfried settled down at the radio, resolute to help this crew—and thus the captain—as he had been unable to do for the men under his own command. Hartmann got behind the wheel, turned over the engine, and guided the bulky vehicle down the narrow lane of fruit trees. When he pulled out of the orchard, he turned left onto the dirt road and crossed over the bridge. As they passed through the village, the early half-light detailed the harsh treatment many of the houses had undergone during the previous battle. A number of peasants were about, trying to restore some semblance of order to their traumatized lives and homes. Some distance outside the kolkhoz, a mass grave had been dug, where Falkenstein’s Ost Truppen were being buried without ceremony. Recognizing the white head scarf, Voss realized that Raisa Grechko commanded this burial detail of men and boys.

In less than half an hour, the northern highway was crossed without incident. Voss ordered Hartmann to stop. He had spotted something moving. Lifting the binoculars, he saw a lone vehicle driving slowly across the open terrain. It was an old Ford truck of the type the Americans were providing the Soviets through the ‘lend lease’ agreement. A driver and passenger occupied the cab, but the bed appeared empty of troops, equipment, or weaponry. When Voss was satisfied no other traffic existed, and the truck was indeed alone, he told the driver to bring them in closer. He turned to Reinhart and said, “I want to take them alive if at all possible. Kill the truck if you have to.” As the Hanomag made to intercept, the truck continued on its sluggish northerly course. It soon became evident the Ford had come under fire; bullet holes riddled the thin metal skin, the windshield was shattered, and wisps of steam emanated from under the hood. The Hanomag pulled up alongside the truck, which had slowed down to a crawl and then stopped. The two men in the cab kept both hands in plain view and called out excitedly for the Germans not to shoot. Gottfried had stood up and smiled. “Hold your fire, Sergeant. I know these men—Josef and Andrei. They are the captain’s Hiwis.” As the two Russians greeted him with relief, he asked, “Have you seen Captain Falkenstein?”