Peter Idone - Red Vengeance

“I simply follow my orders, sir, for folk and fatherland.”

“As you should, Captain. As we all should. Now, indulge me for a moment in offering you some advice. Get yourself across the Dniepr. Join the rest of the fold in this arduous undertaking. Help prepare and sustain a viable defense of the eastern wall. It’s our last opportunity to stop the Russians. In due time, when conditions improve, you can organize a raiding party into enemy held territory and hunt your Red Vengeance.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t the time to pursue such a course of action at the leisurely pace you describe, Lieutenant Colonel. Red Vengeance has come out of the east like a mad wind of filth, death, and decay, from across the Volga, over the wasteland of the Kalmyk Steppe, crossing the Don, the Donets, and the Mius. It has to be stopped, here and now. Choked off at once, and for all time. Should it cross the Dniepr and establish a bridgehead, then watch the hordes follow across the river like rats carrying the plague. I will not allow it to cross another river. If that occurs, there will be no stopping it. Red Vengeance will cross them all. The Bug. The Vistula. The Oder. My God, even the Spree. All our efforts will amount to nothing, not only for the army but the whole of Germany.”

“Why imbue this tank with such omnipotence? It’s a machine, Captain, not some satanic instrument.”

“Satanic! When Red Vengeance lies in ruin by my hand, see if I don’t find the devil in the turret and his whelps at the controls.”

Silence followed. Nothing more could be said as von Helmansdorff studied his guest. Voss toyed with the pencil, as though it would help to unravel the knot in his stomach. He looked up from the map and saw the expression on the lieutenant colonels’ face, neither anger nor shock but more a look of sympathy. The captain truly believes every word he uttered, and von Helmansdorff knows this to be the case , he thought.

“Everything satisfactory, Lieutenant, with the map?” von Helmansdorff asked.

Falkenstein broke in. “Yes, Voss, let’s not take up the lieutenant colonels’ time or hospitality any longer than is necessary.” Rising from the bench, the captain limped stiffly to the front window. A mass of gray clouds hurtled across the sky. “This wind should firm up the ground somewhat, and then both sides will be prepared to make their move.”

There was no response. Voss made several more notations, folded the map, and stuffed it back into the leather folder. He mumbled his thanks for the tea and schnapps. Falkenstein left the house without a departing word or a salute. When he stood up and readied to leave, Voss said, “If our fuel reserves weren’t rationed, I could get your vehicle moving again, sir, but I will make every effort to contact army headquarters and inform them of your predicament.”

“We would appreciate the gesture, Lieutenant; thank you.”

Voss then saluted in such a perfect regulation manner, it was as though he was making up for the captain’s rude departure. A faint smile crossed von Helmansdorff’s lips; he did not need or expect it, but he understood the lieutenant’s need to perform the courtesy. He lifted his hand to his brow, slowly and casually, and returned the gesture. After Voss had left, von Helmansdorff got up from the table and turned to the window to watch. Kreutzer had remained close to the oven for warmth. “He was a strange one, that Falkenstein. Don’t you think, Colonel?”

“I don’t know, Kreutzer. Obsessed, surely. If it were up to me, I’d have the field police clap him in irons and put him away. And I don’t mean prison. The man belongs in a lunatic asylum, not a battlefield.”

“Is there a difference?”

Von Helmansdorff slapped his adjutant on the back and laughed heartily. “May the Lord watch over his crew and protect them, not so much from the Russians but from their captain. Now, that’s a prayer for you, eh, Kreutzer?”

As he crossed the farmyard, avoiding the deep puddles that lay between the house and the barn, Voss was in a quandary. After all that was said, he needed to reevaluate the motives of his commanding officer. Falkenstein stood outside the barn, waiting for him. “That man is a fool, Voss,” the captain said. “He won’t survive the retreat. He’ll perish and, unfortunately, take the rest of the regiment with him.”

“What brings you to that conclusion, sir?”

“You saw him for yourself. The lieutenant colonel is a headquarters paper shuffler, who, in a moment of inspiration, desires to accomplish more than the parameters of his experience allows. So he volunteers for what he believes to be an adventure, not without merit or purpose, but it rapidly turns into a foray designed with more traps than his small imagination can possibly cope. He does not lead men, Voss, he loses them.”

The armored personnel carrier backed out of the barn, and Khan, perched on the armored siding like some bird of prey, unlatched the crew compartment doors. He took the captain’s arm and helped him onto the deck. The vehicle idled as Voss stood, indecisive. He entered the barn, where the troops languished more comfortably now, pleased to be rid of the vehicle.

“All you men are to form a detail at once!” Voss shouted roughly. They all turned, faces numbed with fatigue. “Get up! The lot of you! That’s an order.”

They shambled listlessly to their feet like draft animals done in from exhaustion.

“There is a break in the telephone line,” Voss continued. “The colonel is without communication to the forward position. You,” he pointed to two men,” are to find that break and make repairs.” He singled out two more and said, “The two of you will remain here and guard the colonel’s headquarters, and I don’t mean from inside this barn. Stay alert. Now, as for the rest of you, form a patrol. The Russians could be infiltrating throughout the rear. They could be digging in behind your lines, ready to start havoc. Get on with it, all of you.”

The group picked up their weapons and equipment, filed out of the barn, and began their long slog through the mud. They were obviously worn out, apathetic, some ill with fever, but it could not be helped. They can think me a real shit for making them do this , Voss thought, but their survival depends on the actions they now take .

Falkenstein looked down upon the proceedings with Khan at his side. “Noble effort, but I doubt if it will change a thing. When frustrated, our young lieutenant likes to bark out orders. Like all officers, eh, Khan? Let him remain anxious and irate—only make sure, Lieutenant, the orders you snap, the crucial ones, are derived from me.”

It was doubtful how much was understood by the Siberian as the captain spoke in German, but Reinhardt, still at the bow machine gun, overheard. Voss boarded the vehicle, and it wheeled around, pointed in the direction from which it had just come. Falkenstein took a seat. Someone had tidied up. The clumps of mud had been wiped off the seating, and the deck plating was reasonably clean. “Show me that map, Voss.”

Voss sat down beside the captain, removed the creased map from the folder, and opened it. Both officers held on to either end to keep it from fluttering away. “After we rendezvous with the scout car and retrieve the crew, we will strike out for here,” Falkenstein said, pointing to a town on the Zaporozhye-Dnepropetrovsk rail line. “Veranovka. The Reichsbahn had established a repair depot. Not a terribly large operation. I don’t know what condition the place will be in, as it falls on the very border of the sterilization zone, but no matter. It will become our base of operations.”

Voss looked closely at the map. The town lay twelve kilometers northeast of the Zaporozhye salient. The Greyhounds, Voss’s division and the captain’s former one, would have assembled near the reservoir by now. We could radio for assistance, if our situation deteriorates , Voss thought. The reconnaissance battalion will have advance patrols . And the river was twenty kilometers due west of the town. Suddenly there was good reason to have hope. “It’s a sound plan, Captain. Should things get too hot for us, we have the salient as a fallback position,” Voss said.