Blitzfreeze (6 page)

A second later we are on the receiving end of a direct hit on our forward shielding. The screaming clang of the explosion is so loud that we are totally deaf for several
minutes. An oil lead bursts and drowns the cabin with heavy oil. If we had not reinforced the front shield ourselves with sections of track the shell would have penetrated it and blown us to pieces. It would have gone straight through Porta and struck the ammunition rack behind me.

Shortly after, the Legionnaire reports hits in the under-belly and damage to his gun. He too must go back to workshops. Three of No. 4 Section’s wagons are on fire. They explode before any of the crew can get out.

A new hit shatters the gear-box and we can no longer manoeuvre. This is the worst thing that can happen to a tank. When it loses its mobility it becomes a sitting duck for a PAK.

Porta jogs us slowly into cover behind a hill. We get to work on the gear-box with our emergency tools. We bang away with the sweat pouring off us. We have to change three links in the tracks as well. A hell of a job. Luckily a workshop truck turns up with special tools and a crane, and things go more quickly. In half an hour we are back in position and helping in the attack on the Russian PAK. But in short order seven of our tanks are reduced to wreckage.

Grey beetles creep forward in line from the edge of the woods. Momentarily we believe them to be self-propelled anti-tank guns. We are undeceived when No. 3 Section swings round to take them on. They are far more dangerous opponents. Five T-34s and ten T-60s. At 800 metres the leading T-60s go up in blue flames. Like factory chimneys they send black oily smoke up into the sky.

We twist madly to avoid the well-aimed shells from the T-34s. This tank is the most dangerous of all; the Red Army’s finest weapon. Three of our P-IVs are in flames. Two others withdraw seriously damaged. A P-III is hit by two shells simultaneously. An 88 mm FLAK battery comes to our aid. In the course of a few minutes the enemy armour is destroyed. These heavy anti-aircraft guns are wonderful anti-tank weapons. The new shells they are using are highly penetrative.

The 27th Panzer Regiment attacks in full force and in a
short time the enemy anti-tank guns are overcome. The regiment rolls over them.

Our vehicle has to go into field workshops. The turret is jammed and must be lifted off for new rings to be mounted. The rollers on one side need complete replacement.

‘Attack, attack!’ comes continually from Division. The enemy must under no circumstances be allowed to regroup. Keep him constantly on the move.

We are ready to drop from fatigue; nervous blotches break out all over our bodies; we stagger like drunkards; answer wildly when spoken to.

Every town we pass through is a smoking heap of ruins; on both sides of the track countless wrecks of tanks and stacks of bodies. Skinny dogs chew at the flesh of the dead and hens squabble over the entrails. We used to shoot at them. No more.

Telephone-poles crash to the ground. Copper wire tangles in our tracks. Houses are ploughed down in whole rows, and the fleeing inhabitants pulped under the advancing tanks.

‘Move, moujiks, the Liberators are bringing you the new age! You’re to become Germans! Which is a great advantage! Or so they say in Berlin!’

Infantrymen run panting alongside the vehicles, the tracks spattering them with mud. Automatic weapons send tracers tracking light across the terrain. Incendiary shells turn enemy nests of resistance to seas of flame.

We pause briefly and carry out service tasks on the vehicle: change oil, clean ventilators and filters, tighten tracks. No time for sleep. The order comes as soon as our tasks are completed: ‘Panzer march!’ comes through the loud-speaker.

A few hundred yards on a swarm of Jabos attack us. Their rockets skip over the fields. No. 1 Company is wiped out in the first minutes of the attack. Every tank is affire. The Panzer infantry flees in panic as a wave of Russian soldiers rises from the clover-fields.

‘
Uhraeh Stalino, uhraeh Stalino!
’

Young GPU troops with the green cross on their caps, political fanatics, storm forward with bayonets at the ready.

‘300 metres, straight in front, enemy firing line!’ comes from the speaker. ‘Explosive shells and all automatic weapons! Fire!’

Two hundred machine-guns and a hundred cannon thunder. All sixteen of the regiment’s companies have moved into line. The first row of young khaki-clad soldiers drops, but new ones take their place, as if rising from the earth, form up and advance.

Artillery behind us gets the range. The attacking Guards disappear in fire and screaming steel. The sky itself seems to blaze. Every living thing is killed under the tracks. Some dive into foxholes. When we see them we stop over the hole and see-saw the wagon until the screaming soldier in it is crushed. This short, bloody, engagement will not even be mentioned in the daily report, so unimportant is it, even though it has cost several thousand humans their lives. No, sorry, not humans, merely soldiers. They’ve no connection with humanity.

We are now moving directly north-east and reach the Smolensk-Moscow motor road. Straight as a string it runs, through swamp and forest, over rivers, swinging in smooth curves as it by-passes towns. On the way we overtake endless columns of marching infantry and horse-drawn artillery. The motorized units are further on. You can tell by the wrecked vehicles lying at the sides of the road. We pass a spot where an entire regiment has been killed with one strike. ‘Blast bombs,’ says the Old Man quietly. These wicked things, which are shot from emplaced heavy mortars, literally tear the lungs out of their victims. The regiment lies there in good order. In companies and platoons. It’s as if they’ve been given the order:

‘Fall out dead!’

A single tree with naked branches remains standing in the wood. A dead horse hangs high up in it.

‘I hope this war ends soon,’ says Barcelona. ‘There’s no
end to the hellish weapons they’ll discover if it goes on much longer.’

‘Might even last that long we’ll ’ave nothin’ left to shoot
with
an’ll ’ave to go at it with clubs,’ surmises Tiny. ‘Glad I ain’t one o’ them Tiny Tims!’

Tired, sour fog comes down over everything in a heavy shroud, reminding us of death. The infantry marches in single file down the motor road. They sleep as they march. The old sweats are masters at it. The fog comes from the marshes, and is a real pea-souper. Visibility three feet, no more. The torsoes of the marching column are all that can be seen of them. Where the road dips they disappear entirely and suddenly pop up again on the other side. We drive along with hatches open. The drivers can see nothing and have to be directed by wireless. To an advancing army nothing is worse than fog. Continually we expect to meet the other side. They could attack and butcher us with pocket-knives before we knew they’d even arrived.

In front of us three tanks crash into one another. One turns over on its side, and immediately the cry goes up:

‘Sabotage! Court-martial!’

Confusion spreads past us and far behind.

Two soldiers have been crushed under the overturned tank. A Luftwaffe lorry coming from the opposite direction, brakes, skids and sweeps an entire company of infantry off the road. A Jaeger officer and a Luftwaffe Leutnant quarrel wildly. ‘This’ll cost you your head,’ screams the flier hysterically. ‘The Luftwaffe won’t stand for it any more. The Army has been blackening our name since the days of St Wenceslas. Telegraphist here!’ He shouts to his men who are standing forlornly around the wrecked lorry. ‘Call the Reichmarschall’s Chief-of-Staff!’ he commands.

‘Sir, the wireless is out of commission,’ the Obergefreiter lisps in a pleased tone.

‘Sabotage!’ screams the Leutnant into the fog.

‘Yes, sir, sabotage, sir!’ echoes the Obergefreiter with complete indifference.

‘I command you to call the Reichmarschall,’ screams the Leutnant, his voice cracking. ‘If your instrument has been sabotaged, then shout man! Or march to Berlin! My order must be carried out!’

‘Yes sir,’ the telegraphist replies unexcitedly. He turns smartly on his heel and begins to march towards the west. He pauses alongside our wagon. Porta is lying, languidly resting across one of the tracks, chewing on a quivering chunk of brawn. He follows Churchill’s motto:

‘Don’t stand up if you can sit down! Don’t sit down if you can lie down!’

‘D’you know the way to Berlin, chum?’

‘Y-e-e-ep!’ replies Porta forcing a large piece of brawn into his mouth. ‘Is the Obergefreiter on his way to Berlin?’

‘Your parents must have been fortune-tellers,’ grins the Luftwaffe Obergefreiter.

‘It’ll take some time if you intend to go on foot,’ smiles Porta. ‘Come with us to Moscow. It’s not a hundred miles. You could probably get the use of a telephone there!’

‘That sounds sensible,’ replies the Luftwaffe Obergefreiter, ‘but my boss has ordered me to march to Berlin and tell the Reichsmarschall that he wants to speak to him.’

‘Well, I suppose then you must go to Berlin,’ decides Porta. ‘An order’s an order. We Germans learn that right from the cradle. March straight down the motor road until you reach Smolensk. Follow the signposts to Minsk, but don’t over night in Tolsjeski. Those pigs will put the authorities on to you, and that will delay you at least two days. The military mind thinks slowly. When you reach Minsk look for the fountain: “The Pissing Lady”. Everybody knows where that is. Across from the statue is the cabaret called “Ludmilla’s Smile.” Contact Alexandrovna who owns it. She’ll fix you up with vodka. You can get a bed from the dealer in flour, Ivan Domasliki, an outcast Czech who lives at 9 Romaschka Street. Don’t forget to have a look at Minsk while you’re there. It’s an historically interesting town, where a great many different armies have been bashed about through the centuries. But
watch your socks! The bastards who live there consider it their
duty
to steal from strangers. Never give them the impression that you own anything at all. Let them think you own nothing but your personal skin and bones. If you don’t you can count on getting sold either to the “Watch-dogs” or to the partisans. Whichever of them pays most’ll get you. 50 to 100 marks. For an Obergefreiter from the Luftwaffe I’d think the partisans would pay top-price. Army boys like us are only worth 50 marks. SS-men they just won’t accept. They only cause trouble.’

‘You don’t really mean to say that we airmen are worth all that much?’ asks the Obergefreiter with assumed pride.

‘Of course,’ Porta grins across a mouthful of brawn. ‘You’re a rarity out here in the war. We only see you lot when decorations or supplies are being dished out.’

‘I know,’ replies the Obergefreiter honestly.

‘When you get tired of Minsk,’ Porta goes on, ‘there’s three roads you can choose between. Through Brest-Litovsk is the quickest but I wouldn’t take it myself. You’re bound to run into trouble. Better to nip through Brohobitz near Lemberg. If we’d taken Charkov you could’ve gone that way and carried on along the Black Sea through Bulgaria and Rumania. Might’ve got a lift on one of the Danube boats right through to Vienna. From there there’s the autobahn to Berlin via Munich and Plon. Plenty of nice rest-stations along the road. You
can
go north along the Baltic, but that’d mean going through Reval where the SS and the Jews annoy one another. I wouldn’t recommend it. As a member of the Luftwaffe you wouldn’t be made welcome by either lot. It’d be all up with you. Neither the hooks nor the SS are sympathetic towards your Reichmarschall.’

‘It’s a dangerous world we live in,’ says the Luftwaffe Obergefreiter worried.

‘You couldn’t be more right,’ replies Porta. ‘Take old Herr Niebelspang who used to deal in used bottles in Berlin-Moabitt. He once had to travel to Bielefeld, on account of the
death of an aunt and a letter about it from an attorney. The letter read like this:

Dear Herr Niebelspang,

Your aunt, Frau Leopoldine Schluckebier has departed this life by fastening her neighbour’s clothesline around her neck and thereafter attempting to step down from a blue kitchen-chair.

As sole heir you must inform me immediately whether or not you accept the inheritance with the assets and liabilities of the deceased. In this connection I can inform you that the neighbour has demanded replacement of the clothes-line.

‘“Hurra!” shouted the bottle-dealer from Moabitt in undisguised glee over the old lady’s departure by way of the clothes-line. All he thought of was the inheritance until his friend Fuppermann, who was a “No. 7”
⁸
in an upper-class district of the town, drew his attention to the innocent little word “liabilities”.

‘“Yes, but she was such a nice old lady who lived quietly behind drawn curtains,” explained the happy heir.

‘“There y’are,” grinned the No. 7 “Drawn curtains! What was they drawn
for
, I asks? For that the nice people
out
side shouldn’t see what was goin’ on
in
side! Don’t be the least bit surprised if it turns out your nice old auntie was just an old drunk as pissed persistently on the parson’s prize pelargonias. You’d never believe the wicked things that come out after a sudden death like that.”

‘But Herr Niebelspang wouldn’t listen to the No. 7’s words of wisdom. He took the Berlin-Bielefeld passenger train, changing at Kassel, and arrived at Bielefeld on a dark night, snowing something cruel. It was a Wednesday and he had to be back in Berlin-Moabitt on the Friday to take delivery of a consignment of bottles he was expecting from Leipzig. So that he steamed straight over to the attorney’s place without
thinking of how late it was and rang the bell. There was a sign that said: Ring and wait! Open the door when the buzzer sounds! But the door didn’t buzz. Instead a coarse, irritable voice said: