Peter Idone - Red Vengeance

Voss entered the house and found Vogel standing helplessly by the bar in the parlor. The door to the storage room was open, and they could hear Falkenstein continue to groan. Inside, the wool blanket lay on the floor, twisted into a knot. Drenched in sweat, Falkenstein sat upright on the cot as Khan, an arm around his shoulders, supported him and spoke his arcane language soothingly. The captain’s eyes fluttered and his mouth attempted to form words between stifled breaths. “Flask…coat…” The rubberized riding coat lay draped over a stool in the parlor. Voss searched the pockets and found a small silver flask. He brought it back to the storage room and unscrewed the thimble-sized cap. Hands shaking, Falkenstein took the flask and drank deeply. A minute or two passed, and then, having regained his strength, he was able to speak. “Horrible, such horrible dreams.”

Good, this might be the break in the man’s fevered brain , Voss thought. He was almost enjoying the suffering. “Is the captain in need of medical attention?”

The Mongol assisted as Falkenstein swung his legs down and placed his feet on the floor, but he was still too weak and overcome to stand. “Terrible, loathsome dreams. I have not rested. Instead, I awaken more exhausted than before.” He drained the flask.

Voss spoke coldly. “The captain has much on his mind.”

“These were no ordinary dreams…no, they were visions. Visions of what will come to pass should we fail.”

“The Wehrmacht is doing its utmost under trying circumstances, sir.”

Falkenstein tossed the flask aside. “No, Voss! I mean should we ourselves fail in this endeavor, this mission with which we have been entrusted and have a sacred duty to perform. We cannot fail. There will be no hope for us or anyone if we fail. We few men, our lives lost, that is to be expected. As soldiers we accept whatever the fates decide. But for Germany, our homeland… Berlin…I remember dreaming I was in Berlin, but nothing was familiar because the city lay in utter ruin and devastation. Building upon building reduced to rubble. Indescribable fires burning everywhere. I couldn’t recognize what part of the city I was in. I crawled amid the ruins and hid from the Russian troops that swelled over the piles of brick and crushed masonry. I remember feeling like a hunted animal. So many lay dead, coated in dust and ash. Mothers and children, old men and women. But then I watched as the Russians marched triumphant down the broken paving stones of Unter den Linden. The Red Star was raised over the shell-pocked city. Then I heard it, long before it materialized from out of the columns of smoke, I heard the cogs squealing like a million skewered pigs…Red Vengeance…plowing over the rubble and the dead. It came to a stop at the foot of the Brandenburg Gate. I watched as the Russian troops draped the beast with garlands of sickly bright flowers, and brash music drowned out the death rattle of our vanquished nation…”

The field telephone rang. The sound severed the hold that the nightmare had taken on the captain. Mueller appeared at the door. “Corporal Schroeder is on the line, Lieutenant.” Voss went to the parlor and picked up the phone. “In which direction? Very well. Maintain your position, Corporal. I’ll deal with it at this end.” He hung up the phone and turned to Vogel, who had been rooted to the storeroom doorway, listening with concern and some confusion. “Return to the command vehicle, Sergeant. Wilms must surely be trying to raise you on the radio.” Taking possession of himself, Vogel fled the house. Voss returned to the storeroom. The captain was pulling on his boots. “Sir, I have just been informed that a motorcycle from the SS column has returned. The rider appears wounded.”

The distinctive throaty purr of a BMW motorcycle engine had caught Wilms’s attention. He watched with binoculars as the motorcycle weaved and bobbed over the muddy steppe, heading directly from out of the north. Single rider . The sidecar, with a white skull and crossbones emblazoned on the hood, was empty. The motorcycle continued across the road, east of the workers’ settlement, and followed an erratic course past the warehouse and below the water tower. The rider leaned over the handlebars unnaturally, his hand gripping the throttle limply. The machine did not travel at an appreciable rate of speed as it swerved and skidded down the rutted alley between the maintenance depot and workshops. Immediately on the radio, Wilms tried to raise the command vehicle, but there was no answer. He watched as Braun and Angst ran out from the repair garage at the south end of the depot in an attempt to intercept the BMW, but the machine abruptly detoured down a side pathway that led into the equipment dump. Once past the dump, it made several large circles, around and around, engine spluttering, until it jerked to a stop. The rider was thrown from the seat and lay sprawled in the mud. By the time Braun and Angst reached the wounded man, Wilms had finally made contact on the radio.

Braun knelt beside the SS trooper, his tunic torn and bloodied, and tried to make sense of the words garbled through a mouthful of reddish foam. The scout car hurtled toward them, and the Hanomag followed close behind. “He’s dead,” Braun announced, as the command vehicle pulled up. Falkenstein leaned out of the turret with Khan at his side. “Did he manage to speak?”

“Nothing that made any sense,” Braun replied.

“Repeat it for me.”

“He said something about an ambush that came from out of the river. Moloch devours us. Moloch? What does it mean, Captain?”

“Moloch, the malevolent god of sacrifice from the Old Testament. But he meant Red Vengeance.”

The Hanomag came to a stop beside the command vehicle. Voss and Reinhardt contemplated the dead motorcyclist. “The Einsatzgruppen have been attacked,” Falkenstein informed them. “We’re going to the river to see what exactly has occurred.”

“It could be a trap, sir. We might encounter a sizeable force,” Voss cautioned him.

“Sizeable indeed, Lieutenant. Great and powerful. My dream came at an auspicious time. The beast is out in the open. Red Vengeance baits me.” The scout car swung about and headed west on River Road. Voss snapped his fingers. “Corporal Angst! You too, Braun. You’re coming with us.” Hartmann had the motor fired up and the vehicle moving as the two grenadiers climbed onboard. Voss raised Wilms on the radio. “Contact Schroeder and inform him he is to remain in charge until our return. Have him pull back anyone occupying a forward position. No one is to be left out in the open. And whatever you do, don’t leave that tower. Voss out.” He disengaged from the headphones, left the co-driver’s seat, and joined Angst and Braun in the crew compartment. The grenadiers had lifted the bench seats where the panzerfausts were stored. The lids to the cases were unlatched but not removed, so the weapons could remain secure from the shake and rattle of the speeding vehicle. As he crouched down on the deck, Angst said, “Maybe this is it, Lieutenant. We might be done with this business once and for all.”

“I pray you are right, Corporal.”

The din and vibration was deafening as Hartmann wrestled as much speed as was possible from the heavy Maybach engine. When they had traveled ten kilometers, the road began to decline subtly into the river valley. The further west the vehicle and crew traveled, the stronger the smell of the river became. Water, vast and fragrant, intoxicating in significance. When the Dniepr finally loomed into view, there was a gasp. “Look at it,” Braun shouted. The slate-blue water flowed placidly at a width of nearly six hundred meters. The River Road had come to an end at a muddy track that ran parallel to the riverbank. Hartmann turned right, as he had seen the command vehicle do several minutes earlier. Pale brown reeds stood tall in the gray sand at the river’s edge. To be this close, the end goal of the retreat for their comrades-in-arms, and not be allowed to cross to safety was torturous for the crew. Using binoculars, Voss and Angst concentrated on the surroundings. There were trees, interspersed singly and in small clusters, and small hamlets that had been laid waste, all with the potential of concealing danger. Two kilometers had passed since making the turn when Hartmann decelerated. The scout car had stopped before a thin column of black smoke that curled into the overcast sky from an epicenter of chaos. “Stay alert, men,” Voss stammered, agitatedly. “Heinz, pull over.”