“Have you seen the leutnant?” Wolff asked him as he approached.
“Nein.” Steiner smiled as he hoisted his beloved MG. “When I do a bird call, you’re supposed to answer.”
“You bring a friend?”
The men raised their weapons again as another figure thrashed through the hedgerow and walked up to them.
“Friend,” the thing rasped.
Animal torched it with a burst from his flamethrower. The creature kept on advancing without breaking its stride. Then it pitched forward into the snow with a high-pitched squeal that went on for an unnerving amount of time.
“Scheisse,” Beck said. “Scheisse, scheisse, scheisse.”
“Gefreiter Schneider,” said Wolff, “conserve your fuel. Your weapon is our last resort.”
“Verstanden, Herr Oberfeldwebel.” Understood, Master Sergeant.
The sergeant said, “We’re kilometers from the drop zone. We can’t wait for the others. We have to get to the assembly point.”
The paratroopers continued to load up on as much ammo as they could carry, mostly linked ammo belts for the MG42. Weber hauled out the skis and poles, which would get them through the snow much faster until they reached the city.
Wolff checked his compass and pointed. “Berlin, east. We’ll go in that direction and keep looking for landmarks. If we run into Spandau, we know we have to head south. If we run into the Havel, we wait for the rest of the regiment. Is that clear, Fallschirmjäger?”
“Clear, Herr Oberfeldwebel,” they murmured.
“Contact!” Beck raised his bolt-action rifle and fired a round, which triggered the entire squad to shoot wildly into the dark.
“Cease fire!” Wolff roared. “Is the target down?”
“Fucking idiots!” a voice yelled from the darkness.
“Oh,” Steiner said. “That’s Schulte.”
The sniper walked toward them dusting snow from his sleeves. “I’m glad your aim is no better than your judgment, Wolfgang.”
“His judgment ain’t bad,” Animal said. “You have to know by now we’re all dying to shoot you, Erich.”
Schulte retrieved his scoped K98 rifle and loaded a clip of five cartridges into the internal magazine. “I’m in the company of true heroes.”
Oberfeldwebel Wolff shook his head. “Let’s go then, heroes.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ASSEMBLY
Oberfeldwebel Wolff led his men on an eastward ski trek until the sun began to burn off night’s edge.
“Halt,” a voice called from a line of trees ahead.
“Second Platoon,” Wolff called out.
“Come in.”
He looked back at his squad, who leaned panting on their poles by the twisted bodies of two dead draugr. “This should be the assembly area.”
The men nodded, no doubt thinking about brewing up hot American coffee. Animal dragged the tied-up rafts behind him in the snow.
A makeshift camp occupied the assembly area along the banks of the Havel River. Fallschirmjäger heated rations and boiled water on their Esbit stoves. Dropped on gliders, motorcycles with sidecars zipped in an out of the camp, ferrying wounded to the aid station. Despite the difficulties of the landing, the men seemed to be in good spirits. They again stood on German soil.
Wolff assigned his men to a patch of ground under a copse of trees and roamed the camp searching for Leutnant Reiser and Jäger Muller.
Instead, he discovered Eagle Company’s headquarters, where Hauptfeldwebel Vogel, Hauptmann Werner’s staff sergeant, was ordering his men to dig in.
“Herr Hauptfeldwebel,” he hailed.
The grizzled sergeant major smiled. “Jurgen. How goes it?”
“My squad is accounted for except for one. Leutnant Reiser is also missing.”
“We’re missing over eighty men,” Vogel said. “Which isn’t too bad considering a night jump and losses in the air. Any of your men wounded?”
“Nein, Herr Hauptfeldwebel.”
“That is good. We suffered fifteen percent casualties just from the jump. Twisted ankles and ghouls. Get your men some hot food and a little rest. We’re moving out in an hour to stay on schedule.”
“Verstanden.”
“The river’s frozen over, so we’ll be leaving the rafts.”
“Good. That’ll help us make up some lost time as well.”
Vogel didn’t answer, distracted by a messenger. Wolff saluted and watched the men dig in while medics treated the drop casualties. He returned to his squad shaking his head. The Fallschirmjäger were elite troops, suicidally brave and good at killing, but they were fighting a new war with old doctrine. Vogel had ordered his men to dig in because that’s what you did. The draugr, however, weren’t about to come at them shooting, making it a waste of energy.
He found his men huddled around their stoves, boiling coffee. Wolff sat on a log and produced a box labeled, US ARMY FIELD RATION K, BREAKFAST.
Chopped ham and eggs in a can, biscuits, malted milk tablets, dried fruit bar, Wrigley’s gum, toilet paper, and Halazone water purification tablets. He devoured the food, grateful for the calories, and pocketed the rest. Then he drank his coffee.
Steiner held up his pack of Wrigley’s to inspect in the early light. “They’re trying to turn us into gum-chewing Amis.”
Weber laughed. “It is the source of their kampfgeist.” Fighting spirit.
Wolff thought that wasn’t far from the truth. The gum aided digestion, gave the soldier sugar, and released tension. Good rations won wars. In the German ranks, a deteriorating diet had led to scurvy, dysentery, even typhus.
“Ugh,” said Steiner. “Cinnamon flavor.”
Beck held out his pack. “What flavor is this? I will trade you.”
“Wintergreen. Sure, I’ll trade.”
Gunshots echoed across the snow at random intervals, though nobody seemed to care. Wolff did. It gave him an idea.
“Squad, gather weapons and follow me,” he said.
He led them onto the snowy field past the pickets and raised his binoculars. Attracted by the gunfire, draugr lurched across the snow toward him. Two more poor souls from the Reserve Army, wearing steel helmets and field-gray greatcoats.
“Everything you know is wrong,” he told his men. “Consider yourselves raw recruits again.”
“What do you mean, Herr Oberfeldwebel?” Beck asked him.
“Suppressing fire means nothing against these ghouls. Covering fire. Cover itself. Even concealment, unless you’re actually hiding from them.”
The men had learned fire and maneuver as the two pillars of light infantry tactics. Lay down as much lead as you could to establish fire superiority and suppress, and then flank on one or both sides to destroy the enemy.
None of that mattered to the draugr.
Wolff said, “You keep fighting like the war is still going on. You have to unlearn everything and start fresh. Watch.”
He lay prone on the ground and extended his FG42’s bipod from the barrel collar to give him a firing platform. He loved the automatic weapon, which had been designed specifically for paratrooper use. It delivered the size and weight of a standard infantry rifle but with the firepower of a light machine-gun. Normally, he selected automatic fire to punch the enemy with short, lethal bursts. From now on, he’d favor single shot, as the enemy had changed.