Peter Idone: Red Vengeance

His eyes weary from continued scrutiny of the monotonous landscape, Johann Angst looked again through his binoculars and believed he was minutes away from the worst day of his life. More realistically, he thought this could well be the very last day of his life. The steppe grass had dried to gray-brown from the long, relentless summer. Scores of olive drab mounds—dead Russians—littered the desolate ground. The sun was still low, a white plate in a pale sky, and this day was proving to be as unbearably hot as they all had been since his arrival to the eastern front a little over a month earlier. He centered his attention on the balka , or ravine, that lay approximately eight hundred meters away. A natural feature that predominated throughout the region of the southern Ukraine, the balka meandered for several kilometers parallel to the network of the German defensive trench lines, which Army Group South called the Tortoise Line.

Several hours into the new morning, the enemy assaults had become disjointed and confused and finally ended altogether, but the battalion sector still had to endure intermittent mortar fire. Kept awake by periodic doses of Pervitin, Angst was conscious but exhausted. He would succumb to intense jags of crying that would abruptly stop. He wiped his runny nose on the sleeve of his field tunic. Curiously, the tears would refresh him, if only for a short while. He could not remember when he last had a solid chunk of uninterrupted sleep, instead of the short nods that lasted ten or fifteen minutes—or a half hour, if he was lucky. No one was getting any sleep lately.

Due to the combined offensives of the Red Army’s Southwest and South Fronts, the Sixth Army, which Angst’s division was part of, had withdrawn from the Mius River. Fighting by day and force-marching by night, the division, already weakened and spent, covered over sixty kilometers in two days as the Russian infantry hounded close at their heels. They had barely settled into their new position when the Russians attacked. The Tortoise Line had been hastily constructed by Todt Organization workers and was primarily established to defend the industrial center of Stalino. Adequate at best, Tortoise extended from Mariupol, by the Sea of Azov in the south, to as far north as Konstantinovka and beyond, in the combat sector of the First Panzer Army. Several factors had determined why the main line of resistance in Angst’s battalion sector had not been constructed well forward of the balka, thus utilizing the topographical feature as a tank trap. Shallow and not terribly steep-sided, the balka had numerous points for entry and exit, which the Soviets could make use of. This being the case, some brilliant strategist at either division or corps had decided the balka would best serve as an outpost position. Engineers had seeded the sides and floor of the balka with antitank and personnel mines; and squads from all the companies, supported by heavy mortars and machine guns, were sent in to occupy it. The routes to the outpost position and back to the main line were narrow and few. Ever since Angst’s division entered the line early the day before, all throughout the night, under the glare of star shells and signal flares, units of heavily armed Russian shock troops struck repeatedly. The German grenadiers sustained heavy casualties and were eventually forced out. With the outpost position in enemy hands, the main line had come under attack. Russian assault teams managed to penetrate the company strong points, and episodes of brutal hand-to-hand fighting ensued.

Earth and smoke erupted from the balka. Ever since they gained a foothold, the Russians had embarked on a project to clear the balka of mines. Probably with the use of a penal battalion , Angst thought. Just line the poor bastards up, shoulder to shoulder, and make them walk . The work progressed steadily, if not safely, judging by the number of mines that were tripped. Once clear, artillery observers and more troops would be brought in, and the balka would be used as a jumping-off point for an attack more spectacular and deadly than the battalion had yet experienced.

Something caught Angst’s attention on the horizon. He refocused the binoculars and observed a long curtain of dust. He found it difficult to judge distances in this wide open, redundant space. Five, perhaps six kilometers away? His eyes strained at the lenses as he tried to identify and count the vehicles through the dust clouds that approached from the east and headed in a northwesterly direction. Then he saw the dark steel carapaces of Soviet tanks.

Angst dropped the binoculars to hang freely by the strap around his neck, grabbed his carbine, and hurtled down the trench. In the neighboring rifle pit, his friend Schmidt stared down the sights of his own weapon. Tired, sweating, but alert, he heard the clatter of gear and got Angst’s attention as he passed.

“Going to the dug-out?”

Angst nodded. Even without the aid of binoculars, Schmidt had seen the dust and understood the significance.

“How many?”

Angst shrugged. “A battery at least.” He kept going, down another twenty meters, past the machine gun emplacement, until he finally reached the signals dugout.

Private Wahl sat on an empty cable spool just inside the entrance, a field telephone at his feet.

“Tanks are coming. Call it in,” Angst told him.

“Oh, shit,” Wahl blurted. “How many?”

“Ten, maybe more, and bearing right down on us.”

“Terrific!” Wahl shouted. “Now Ivan will grow himself a new set of balls and start attacking in earnest, now that armor has arrived.”

So far the Russians had fought without tank support, using only infantry—which, for the most part, was poorly trained and tactically uncoordinated. When they lacked the armor necessary to bolster their resolve, the Red infantry assaults had a tendency to fizzle out rather quickly. What they did have in their favor was sheer weight in numbers.

“Put a call through to the company command bunker and inform…” Angst began.

“Can’t. Line’s down. Seidel’s out there now trying to restore it. The lieutenant’s dead.”

Angst was shocked at hearing the news and conveyed as much to the signal operator.

“The command bunker was overrun during the last attack,” Wahl explained. “Lieutenant Bauer was already dead by the time it was secured. Sergeant Lustig has taken command.”

“I didn’t know,” Angst said. and started to leave. “I’ll use the platoon radio.”

“Lustig took it with him. Company radio got shot up in the fight.”

Then I’ll have to go there myself , Angst thought, but he only said, “As soon as a connection is reestablished, notify the sergeant. Just in case.”

He gripped the Mauser carbine firmly and started down the zigzagged trench. The company command bunker was situated further to the rear in the third platoon’s strongpoint. As he sought out the communication trench, Angst discovered the network had caved in due to the enemy artillery barrages. He had to crawl, hop, and jump from one gun pit, dugout, and machine gun emplacement to the next without the benefit of cover in some places. He tried not to get entangled in the concertina wire mixed in with the churned up earth. In a shell crater, he found Seidel frantically splicing lengths of salvaged telephone cable together. Upon seeing Angst, he held up two frayed ends, his eyes staring wildly. Dirt filled the creases of his face.

“Too fucking short by half,” he cursed. “I’ll be damned if I want to go out there and keep scrounging.”

Aside from the occasional 120 mm mortar round that sailed in, there were snipers eager to pick off anything that moved. Angst could have sworn he felt a bullet whistle past his face on the way over.