Crack of Doom (24 page)

He turned to Kreisel: "How many Russian divisions, do you think?"

"Three or four. Rut there may be at least twice as many. What do you think about the artillery fire?"

"It's increased," said Stiller, watching the heavy shells exploding in the street and above at the edge of the wood.

"I didn't mean up there, sir, but further left. That must be where Scheper is."

"Indeed?" said Stiller in dismay. He could distinctly hear the fierce rumbling in the north.

"If it is in Scheper's sector," Kreisel added, "I don't think much of his chances."

"He should have been here by now," remarked Stiller with an anxious look at his watch. He listened again to the artillery fire, which was getting worse and worse; he thought he could hear fire from multi-barrelled mortars. "We must get back to your HQ," he said abruptly. "Perhaps there'll be something in from corps."

On the way to Kreisel's headquarters they almost ran into a mortar salvo. It came so silently they had no time to hurl themselves into the snow until the splinters were actually whining through the air.

"You might think they were aiming right at us," observed Stiller as he got up. He had a horrible feeling at the pit of his stomach.

Kreisel beat the snow off his camouflage coat. "Perhaps they
were.
I'd give one of the two assault guns up there to know from where we're being observed."

They raced on, and Stiller breathed a sigh of relief on reaching the headquarters. The interior of the house consisted of two rooms, the larger of which was crammed with soldiers to the last corner.

"My staff," said Kreisel, making for the other room, where there were two officers and two signal teams. They jumped up when Kreisel and the general entered. Schleippen came running over to Stiller. "We haven't got any contact, sir. Colonel Hopper's signals aren't coming through, nor is corps."

"But that's impossible," gasped Stiller. "Corps must still be in Dobsina."

"Our sets don't reach as far as Dobsina," Schleippen explained. "We were only connected with corps through division. The signals office in Kosice must have left."

"I see." Stiller lowered his head. His voice sounded suddenly weary. "Probably the Russians are already there." He glanced at the officers' pale faces. Then he stared at Giesinger, whom he had discovered among them. "You've made military history. When the historians one day describe how Kosice was lost, they won't forget your name." He turned to Kreisel. "Send off a few of your men to make contact with Scheper, and bring him here. We'll wait another half hour for him, and if he's not turned up by then, we'll leave at once. We must leave here before the Russians have left Durkov. Your two companies there will be thrown out of their positions at the first attack."

"Then you're no longer counting on Hopper, sir?"

"No." Stiller lit a cigarette, found he did not like its taste, and stubbed it out. "Got any food here?" he asked. "I haven't had a thing to eat since last night."

"I'll have something sent up for you, sir." Kreisel left. When he returned, he had two men with him, bringing reports from the battalions which had moved into their new positions. "We're spread all along the edge of the wood now," he told Stiller.

"To the south as well?"

Kreisel dismissed the men and answered: "Yes, to the south as well. I've kept Scheper's battalion in the village as reserve. It's up by the last houses."

"Reinforce it with Hepp's reserve. I doubt if we've anything more to fear from the west, but if things start up above, we'll need every man."

He sat down at the table, and for the next few minutes concentrated on the sandwiches which a man had brought in. The officers watched him eat. They were on edge and listened uneasily to the Russian artillery fire. Only Giesinger sat calmly in his corner on an empty ammunition chest, apparently indifferent to what was going on.

Kreisel picked up the telephone, and the report from his second battalion, which was up on the road, confirmed his worst fears. The Russians were hammering at the company positions almost continuously with mortars and artillery fire. The soil in the wood was frozen hard, so that the men could not dig in; they were suffering heavy losses.

"You must hold on for another half hour," Kreisel told him. "Can you hear the fire to the left of you?" When the captain said he could, Kreisel went on: "There should be one of our regiments coming from that direction. Tell your companies to keep their eyes open and not shoot in case they're some of our own men." He hung up, and said to Stiller: "You're right, sir. We dare not wait more than half an hour. I only hope Scheper arrives in time."

Before Stiller had time to answer, a man came rushing into the room. He looked around till he discovered the general, when he announced excitedly: "I've come from Durkov, sir. Lieutenant Stolzenthal sent me."

"Who's that?"

"The commander of one of the two companies you left in Durkov, sir," Kreisel answered for the man.

Stiller looked at the messenger. "How did you get here?"

"With an ambulance, sir. The lieutenant says he can't hold the position much longer."

"Are the Russians already attacking?"

"They certainly are, sir, from three sides. Lieutenant Stolzenthal. . . ."

"Wait outside," Stiller interrupted. Getting up, he remarked to Kreisel: "One more reason for not waiting any longer. I reckon the Russians will take at least an hour to reach Durkov from here."

"They'll get to the road fork in half an hour, though," Kreisel observed.

"I know. It's not going to be any picnic even now."

"It certainly isn't. Won't you send for the two companies, sir?"

Stiller's thoughts were already elsewhere. He answered distractedly: "It's too late for that. You heard what the man said. If the Russians were attacking from three sides when he left Durkov, they'll be at the crossroads now."

"Then we can write the two companies off, sir."

"I wrote them off when I told them to stay at the crossroads."

The telephone rang. Kreisel picked up the receiver. After a few words he looked at Stiller and said in an unnaturally quiet voice: "Russian tanks, sir."

"On the road?"

"On both sides of the road. The wood is thin up there, only pines. The Russians are rolling right through it."

His words caused a stir among the officers present. They watched the general, who put on his cap and looked toward the window. "Take everything here along," he ordered. When he got outside the door, he stopped for a moment and listened to the battle. The sharp claps of tank guns could be picked out distinctly from the crashing explosions of the artillery. There was a constant whining, howling and whistling in the air which mingled with the thousand-fold echo from the mountains to form a monstrous pandemonium. So far as Stiller could judge, the fire was landing on the village and further up in the wood. Only single shells were coming down near the headquarters.

Glancing across to his car, Stiller saw the driver who stood between the trees gesticulating to three other men. Stiller called him over: "Drive to the pass road, and wait for me there."

He turned to Kreisel and gave orders that all the vehicles should assemble on the road. "If there were more of them," he declared, "I'd say they should carry the whole regiment." -

"There aren't even enough for a battalion," Kreisel answered. "By the time we've got the wounded on they'll be full." He passed the order to one of his officers, and then accompanied Stiller, his staff trudging behind him in a long file, to the shacks on the edge of the wood. There Kreisel distributed his men among the few houses and sent one man to the dressing station to arrange for loading the wounded on to the empty ammunition trucks.

Meanwhile Stiller had gone ahead into a house near the bridge together with the officers and signals men. Standing at the window, he scanned the street through binoculars. At present there was not much to be seen. Some houses were burning at the center of the village. The fire of the tank guns was now booming continuously, and Stiller expected the tanks to come out of the wood any minute. He looked over to the next house, where the two heavy field howitzers stood. The men were sitting on the gun carriages, staring up the street. Behind him he heard Kreisel talking to his officers. A specially loud explosion made him return his attention to the road. Right above, in the wood, a cloud of bluish-black smoke was rising almost straight towards the sky.

"Direct hit on a tank," said Kreisel.

Stiller put down his binoculars. "Or else one of your assault guns. That must be right on the road."

"Looks like it," Kreisel answered grimly. The smoke cloud up above grew thicker, spreading like a mushroom and moving slowly over the wood, where it merged into the snowy sky.

"Have we still got telephone contact?" Stiller asked.

Kreisel looked at the door. "I've had the wires laid to here. The men should come any minute."

"Send a messenger off for safety's sake. I must know. . . ." He broke off. While studying the country through his binoculars, he happened to look north, and there saw a dark mass of men pouring out of the wood on to the snowfield. the mass spread like an avalanche until in a minute it was covering the whole expanse. Stiller's heart almost stopped beating. He caught Kreisel by the shoulder. "What's that?

Kreisel raised his binoculars, looked and then said: "They're our men. Either my third battalion or. . . ."

"Or?"

"Colonel Scheper and his regiment," said Kreisel. "We'll know in ten minutes." He turned to his officers. "Send off runners."

"To the other battalions as well," said Stiller. "They're to assemble in the wood behind the bridge in fifteen minutes. Not forgetting assault guns and artillery."

Two officers ran off. Stiller watched the movements of the approaching mass of men. It must be Scheper, he thought in agitation; if they were men from the assault regiment, the Russians would be at the bridge in ten minutes. He looked tensely through the binoculars, and suddenly saw that the Russian artillery had shifted its fire from the edge of the wood to the open space. Mushrooms of smoke shot up from the hollow all the way up to where the men were emerging from the wood. Despite the distance he could see the running men stop, hurl themselves to the ground, get up, run a few yards further, and then drop again. There were so many, and they were packed so tight that every one of the bursting shells must tear to pieces several of them.

Stiller took the binoculars from his eyes and glanced at Kreisel, who stood by him mute and still, his face deadly pale, staring straight ahead. Following his stare with a sense of grim foreboding, Stiller saw the Russian tanks. It took him some time to count them. Six were on the road, approaching the first houses, now occupied by the battalion from Scheper's regiment and the reserve unit; further to the left there were no less than ten tanks rolling down the snowfield; and still more appeared above from the wood.

Stiller watched as if hypnotized. He saw the two field howitzers, whose crews had just turned their guns and were aiming them at the advancing tanks. Now they fired, first one and then the other. The shells landed in the snow ten yards in front of the first tank, which rolled on unswervingly until it suddenly vanished in a cloud of fiery smoke. The crash drowned out even the artillery fire. The men at the guns waved their arms in the air and yelled. Stiller dug his nails into the palms of his hands in a frenzy; a sort of intoxication came over him. He paid no more attention to Kreisel, he took no notice of the officers who shouted encouragements to the men at the guns or rushed senselessly to and fro; his whole attention was absorbed by the gunners, who now fired one shell after another, hitting a second and then a third tank.

The other tanks suddenly swerved north and rolled straight on towards the men who might be Scheper's regiment or part of Kreisel's. The men had meanwhile come within about two hundred yards of the village. When they saw the tanks they tried to escape into the hollow. Five or six hundred men, Stiller thought: they
must
be Scheper's regiment and he couldn't do anything to help them.

No one could help them, not even the howitzer crews, because there were now houses between them and the tanks, and because more and more tanks came rolling down the slope, and because, as if the wood had spewn them forth, there were suddenly running men everywhere. Between the tanks, in front of and behind them. Everywhere Stiller looked, men were running. The whole assault regiment fled down the hill, from all the houses, from behind every tree, running, stumbling, hurtling towards the bridge; while over to the left three tanks had edged in between Scheper's regiment and the hollow, and four others were already careening among the men, shooting and mashing down everything in their way.

The general watched his division dying. He watched their death with the impotent rage of a man who has to watch his house burning down. He saw the tanks come nearer and the Russian infantry rolling behind like an avalanche. He saw the men at the howitzers swinging their barrels to left and then to right and then left again; and then the men burst apart as if the earth had exploded beneath them, and the guns stretched their dark muzzles toward the sky and were silent.

He did not notice a hand gripping his arm. A T-34 rumbled past the dead gunners, and beside it ran Russian infantry. Russian infantry were running everywhere, as if they had dropped from the sky. The German officers, Stiller with them, rushed to the door. They ran straight into a crowd of Russians, who were just coming up the few steps and had no time to shoot because the officers fell upon them with a single cry. The officers did not even reach for their pistols, they all acted on impulse, including Stiller, who kicked a Russian in the chest so that the man fell back down the steps. He clawed his fingers into the face of the next man until he felt a glutinous substance under his nails—which revolted him so much that he lost control and yelled. He let go of the Russian's face, stumbled over the head of another, dug the heels of his boots into yielding flesh, and raced for the wood, still yelling. And while the last men of his division were being mashed to pulp by the Russian tanks and mown down by the Russian infantry, he reached his car, together with Kreisel and a few other officers. Shaken with terror and revulsion, he threw himself onto the seat and began to wipe his hands like a madman on the upholstery. Not until the car was speeding along the road amid the whine of tank shells, the crashes of the explosions and the rattle of Russian machine guns did his hands come to rest.