Authors: Sven Hassel
The German gun crew is morally defeated. All eleven feel themselves doomed and only await the stroke of death. They are beasts pushed into the arena to be slaughtered and the toreador is the T-34.
Ammunition bearer nr. 2 is the first to panic. He breaks desperately for the woods. A line of tracer spits from the T-34s turret and ends in the running figure. The four men in the tank laugh aloud. This is revenge for Brest-Litovsky where their BT class tanks were crushed like eggshells.
‘Why doesn’t he move forward and make an end of it?’ asks the gun commander.
‘He’s enjoying himself,’ answers the loader, and Obergefreiter who has been in the service since ’39.
The turret of the T-34 turns slowly. The long 76.5 mm gun sinks.
A fiery howl, a flaming burst at the edge of the wood, and a German machine-gun group is wiped out of existence. Again the gun thunders and a mortar group is blasted to bits.
The diesels rattle. Tongues of flame shoot from the gaping exhausts. A stench of burnt diesel oil blows, like a charnel breath of death, over the anti-tank crew at the road block.
The loader lights a cigarette from a burning fir-twig, sits down on an ammunition box, looks thoughtfully up at the
grey clouds driving overhead and sucks the smoke deep into his lungs. With a sketchy smile he inspects the T-34 then jabs a thumb between the gun commander’s ribs.
‘Lenau, you’ve lost your war! Before long you’ll be manuring the Russian sunflower fields, and next summer the women street sweepers of Moscow will eat you in the form of Stalin Chocolate. The Herrenvolk’s bravest soldiers eaten by the
untermensch!
’
He hands his water-bottle to his comrade. ‘Take a swig! If you’re drunk enough maybe you won’t feel the kiss of death.’
‘Do you think dying is painful?’ asks the gun commander staring fearfully at the T-34 which is sending a finger of light from its turret projector, searching to the left of the group.
‘I’ve never tried it,’ laughs the loader carelessly. ‘But I’ve seen a few go off. Some of them just gulped and died. Others howled something fierce. If our friend in the steel coffin hits us clean with the tracks we won’t even know we’re dead, but if he just nips our legs off, it won’t be so pleasant.’
‘I’m going to finish it myself,’ says the gun commander releasing the catch of his P-38.
‘Adolf certainly won’t like that,’ sneers the loader. ‘Two years ago you were the battalion hero, named in orders, and now you’re about to blow your brains out for fear of an
untermensch!
What
are
you thinking about, man? You’ll bring shame on the Fatherland!’
‘Shut the hell up with that goddam Nazi shit!’ curses the commander. ‘Those Soviet pigs are going to massacre us in a minute.’
‘Did you expect anything else?’ grins the loader. ‘Were you one of those who thought the other side didn’t use bullets and gave in as soon as they saw a German steel-helmet?’
‘Your goddam cynicism gets on my nerves,’ says the gun commander in a shaking voice. ‘Aren’t you afraid of dying?’
‘Yes. It’s a sod dying only 150 miles from Moscow and victory.’
‘You believe, then, we’re going to win the war?’
‘What I believe? Winning’s saying a lot, but it won’t be pleasant for us if we do lose. Being a German won’t be good. What about sticking up our hands and waiting for the final victory in one of their prison camps?’
‘The Bolshies’d liquidate us,’ says Lenau darkly.
‘Balls, Ivan isn’t so bad at bottom. My father was a prisoner eight years in the last war, so I know all about that. He even became a Communist because of it.’
‘What’d Adolf’s boys have to say to that?’ asks Lenau interestedly.
‘They sent the old fellow to Fuhlsbüttel.
5
He crossed the white line one day and SS-Oberscharführer Zach set his man-eating alsatian on him. I’ll get Zach for that some day!’
‘Ididn’t think alsatians ate people,’ inserts Lenau wonderingly.
‘Believe you me! You can train them to do anything. They were the only dogs we could teach to run with mines at the anti-tank school. We started with English dogs but they just sniffed at the mines and went home with their tails between their legs. They weren’t going for it. But our German police-dogs only needed a little speech about the Fatherland and the Führer, a couple of cracks across the neck and a kick in the arse and off they went with the mines. They’re the only dogs in the world you can teach to march. Have you ever seen how the dog companies train them? The first dog dashes forward and barks twice. This means: Centre here! All the other German dogs place themselves accordingly.’
The T-34 is now only a few yards from the road block. It stops for a second. Both machine-guns chatter and an infantry patrol is wiped out. Like a steel mountain the colossus rises above the anti-tank gun. Hot oil fumes beat down on the terrified gun crew. Steel and wood crackle under the broad tracks. Slowly the tank tilts forward but the tracks cannot get a proper purchase.
The gun commander throws a hand grenade but it does no damage. With a crash the T-34 tips forward and down.
The PAK-gun is crushed to scrap. Water, blood, dirt and earth mixed to a gruel. The loader rolls away, the only survivor. Cold-bloodedly he ties three hand-grenades round a petrol bottle and runs after the T-34 which is engaged in the massacre of a machine-gun group. He slips and falls in blood and shredded flesh, comes to his feet wiping blood and slime from his face. He is alongside the monster. He has only one thought. To avenge the gun commander, his friend. The rest of the crew mean nothing to him. They are newcomers, arrived just before the attack on Russia. He grasps the tank’s infantry-grip but stumbles and is dragged alongside it. He rips out the arming string with his teeth, throws the bomb and drops flat. Rolls to cover, and watches from behind the wreck of something which was once a lorry.
There is a hollow explosion and two rollers fly through the air together with a piece of track.
The T-34 stops. The motor races but the monster only scuttles round on the same spot like an insect with its legs torn off.
The loader takes cover behind a corpse with his Mpi at the ready. The turret hatches are thrown open. Three leatherclad figures jump out and commence making repairs. Only the driver remains in the tank.
The loader opens fire. All three fall together. Only the commander is still alive when he reaches the tank.
Carefully he plants a foot between the Russian’s eyes. Blood and brains spurt out over the heavy army boot. This is what it was designed for. The tracks of the Prussian boot are lined with corpses and slaves! Long live the Kaiser! Sieg Heil! From behind the horizon rises the German sun! Look out, enemy! We’ll be back!
The loader withdraws a hand-grenade from his boot and unscrews the cap. With his eyes on the driver’s hatch he lights a cigarette he has found on a body. He has almost finished it before the hatch goes back and the driver appears to look for his comrades.
‘
Dassvidánja tovaritsch
,’
6
the loader says with a grin and throws the grenade through the hatch.
‘
Njet!
’ cries the driver in terror before a column of fire throws him out of the hatch opening. The loader wanders dazedly towards the wood. He doesn’t even see the German P-IV, which crashes through the underbrush, until it is on top of him crushing him under its tracks. All that is left of him is a messy pool and a flattened steel-helmet.
‘Hurra!’ roar the grenadiers following in the wake of the tanks. According to regulations they are supposed to shout ‘Hurra’ when advancing. But they do it to keep up their courage as well. Now they die cheering. What they should be shouting is: ‘Hurra, we’re going to die! We’re going to die, hurra!’
Rank after rank falls to the Russian waist-high machine-gun fire. the forward positions are overrun; the fighting is merciless; with knives, bayonets and entrenching tools. He who stabs first lives longest.
The flame-thrower operators move forward to relieve them. Jets of flame hiss along the ground. The stink of burnt flesh nauseates us. A 20 mm gun barks angrily, spouting tracer at us. A Maxim hammers from the steps of a cellar.
Under cover of our two MGs the grenadiers storm the burning Party HQ. A group emerges from it with hands above their heads. We mow them down without mercy. We are no longer human beings but blood-crazed monsters who want to kill, kill, kill!
The tanks rumble through burning ruins crushing everything under their tracks. A company presses itself up against a wall. Both machine-guns stammer together.
‘Say your prayers,
moujik!
’ cheers Heide fanatically. ‘We’ve no room for you in the new age!’ He empties the whole belt into the company.
‘They’re our own men you’re flattening you slavering Nazi idiot!’ rates Porta. ‘Can’t you tell field-grey from khaki any more?’
‘Jesus!’ gasps Heide in a strangled voice.
‘Your Leader wouldn’t approve of your calling on a Jew for aid,’ smiles Porta sociably.
‘Jesus wasn’t a Jew,’ protests Heide. ‘Alfred Rosenberg spoke to us on that subject at the Nazi youth school. Jesus was a German. His family came from Bielefeld, the German Bethlehem.’
‘That’s a bloody new ‘un,’ shouts the Old Man from the turret doubling up with laughter.
‘Do you really believe that yourself, Heide?’
‘Of course,’ replies Heide with conviction. ‘If you read the Bible properly you’ll see how much it resembles “Mein Kampf”. Jesus was the first National Socialist but he didn’t clearly understand the Jewish peril threatening from Moscow.’
‘You’re nutty as a fuckin’ woodpecker!’ shouts Tiny bringing a water-bottle down on Heide’s head. ‘They shoulda ’ung you up on one side o’ Jesus the bleedin’ partisan, ’stead o’ the bleedin’ prophet Elias.’
Tiny’s always a bit uncertain on the story of the Bible but we know the man he means.
‘You’re insulting the Aryan race!’ screams Heide hysterically. A thunderous crash stops the conversation. The tank lifts from the road and almost topples. A feed-pipe has broken and petrol spurts all over the combat cabin.
‘Wrecked left track,’ reports Porta calmly. ‘Vehicle immovable!’ He stops his motor, drops the back of his seat and takes a long pull at the vodka bottle which hangs by the fire extinguisher. The Old Man opens the hatch cautiously. Alongside us two other P-IVs are on fire giving off billows of black nauseating smoke. The charred bodies of their crews are hanging out of the hatches. By the village well lie a group of dead grenadiers. They look as if they are sleeping. Just a little blood around the mouths of a couple of them. Killed by the blast bombs which have only recently been taken into use.
Porta takes another swig at the vodka bottle, scratches at
his red mop of hair, and screws his cracked monocle into his eye.
‘So it’s forward again to honours and distinctions in battle for the Fatherland,’ he drawls arrogantly. ‘Comrades, children in schools everywhere will read of your deeds. Thank God for the good fortune that allowed you to take a part in all this.’
‘Good day for suicide,’ mumbles Stege dejectedly.
‘Turn off them negative waves,’ orders Tiny, sourly.
Oberst Hinka sits in his open turret with his grey-painted field glasses directed towards the T-34s, which are opening out for attack.
It is the first time we have seen T-34s in closed formation. Up to now we have only seen them used in sections as infantry support.
Oberst Hinka reaches for his microphone and sends to all vehicles: ‘Hear me,’ says the quiet voice. ‘Our only chance of taking those T-34s lies in movement. Don’t lose your heads! Go forward with all the speed you’re capable of! We’ve got to get inside 400 metres. Then swing round and put your shots up their backside! The T-34s weak points are the turret rings and the tracks! But movement, above all movement! Don’t stop even to fire. Shoot on the run!’
We pass a demolished roadblock and our section is the first to meet the leading T-34s. They roll forward in a V-formation which they have learnt from us. In June we were attacking confused novices but now in September we are meeting experienced specialists.
No. 2 Section’s tanks roll forward at top speed straight through houses and blockades. Water and mud spurt up behind us from the tracks.
‘Faster, faster!’ comes from the company commander, Oberleutnant Moser.
The Russian tank commanders in the T-34s turrets cheer triumphantly as they see the German tanks press forward to get within range. Captain Gorelik feels himself already a conquering hero in his new T-34 which for some years will be
the world’s finest tank, purely because of its amazingly farsighted design. The engineers must have had the Silurian period in mind when they created this deadly monster. Its tracks were so broad that at first sight they seemed almost comical, but the idea behind the construction was soon taken up by foreign manufacturers.
It was flat without sharp angles like a tortoise, and its 76.5 mm gun with its long oversized barrel was a wonder. A mile from the T-34s waiting position the German tanks stick fast in the mud. They back and swing desperately but the more they struggle the deeper they bore themselves into the ooze. The Russian artillery lays down a worrying fire but for every pioneer who falls it seems a dozen others come from the woods to take up the work of the dead. Felled trees tied in bundles are rolled forward under the tracks of the tanks.