At long last they reached the dried-out river bed. Not much of a river, little more than a brook, whose banks overgrown with dense thickets of shrubs. They got down into the culvert and rested. Six men with their nerves on edge. In addition to the leaders, Arno and Karnow, it was Wagner, Gans, Hackel and Lenoir.
Arno told the crew to wait while he and Lenoir left the stream bed and crawled up the bank just short of the crest. Here the slope overhang obscured the view of the sentry. Arno lay on his back, wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at the way they had come: the slope, the woods with their dark conifers and the road that disappeared like a tunnel between them.
The enemy, that is, the sentry, was now no more than a few steps away from Arno and Lenoir. The slightest noise would reveal themselves where they lay – a sneeze, a broken twig.
Arno and Lenoir were on the road’s left side. Arno sought eye contact with the other man. He raised his head and made the “all well” sign.
Somewhere out on the left flank, a few hundred metres away, the second half of the Platoon under Bauer moved along in order to penetrate to the rear. Their route was hidden from the guard by the trees.
Karnow crouched in the culvert with his men. And on the top of the hill, Deschner and the MG Team waited.
Time was running out. The clock counted down the last minute before H Hour.
On a hand movement from his Sergeant Lenoir produced his melee knife, his arms moving in strained movements on the snowy ground. The handgrips mustn’t be heard.
Ten seconds left. And so, nine, eight seven…
Arno raised his hand, looking at the pointer of his wristwatch edging its last bit up to “12” – and struck down with his hand when the thin needle stood straight up with a tremor. Lenoir rushed up the slope, into the MG pit.
8
The Forest
Three quarters of an hour later. German Army Feldwebel Arno Greif sat on a log with his carbine in his lap. The place was Point X, the enemy bivouac inside the wood’s edge, stormed and taken by the deputy Bauer. About ten Russians had been stationed here. Now all were dead. The MG sentry post was likewise obliterated, Lenoir having single-handedly silenced the sentry. He had killed him with his melee knife. Between the trees Arno could see the MG pit from the place he now found himself at, some 150 metres away in the strongpoint proper.
It was still dark, or rather twilight. Still the the whole area basked in the strange light from the flood-lit clouds. And still it snowed.
Arno sat in the woods in the middle of a defensive ring, comprised of the whole of the Platoon grouped into a 360-degree defense, the “hedgehog defense”: all the spines pointing outward, every direction covered. The Platoon was reassembled, again unified in one place. The ring, for its part, had a diameter of 100m, so Arno couldn’t see the men where they lay behind logs and stones in the pine forest.
Overall, Arno was relatively satisfied. They had managed to surprise the outpost and wipe it out, down to the last man. As a stoic fighter he understood that now he had to calm down and settle himself for the next task. You must always restrain yourself, both in success and in adversity. Indifferent to victory and defeat, as the Bhagavad-Gîtâ has it. That said Arno wasn’t some robot, some indifferent nihilist. He was a predominantly positive actor. And the situation seemed relatively good and he quietly rejoiced in it.
Ten metres away, into the wood, four Russian corpses lay face down in the snow. Miscellaneous equipment was thrown to the side. These were some of the soldiers who had manned Point X, fallen in the battle just fought.
Firing was heard now and then. It came from the north. The road Arno’s Platoon was advancing along was the southernmost of the four roads the Battalion would clear. The alarm came from other units in Battalion Wolf attacking their goals. As long as no request for support came 3rd Platoon would solve its own tasks, that is, slugging along this road and clearing out any resistance encountered.
The storming operation had lasted three quarters of an hour. Now they would have five minutes’ rest. During the 45 minutes from H Hour they had fought and cleaned up, supporting Bauer in the fight for the bivouac grouping, reloaded and grouped for defence. Their unit had sustained no losses.
Where Arno sat he could see the road – the road that went across the clearing and continued into the forest and so on to the main line, the route to advance along and clear of outposts. You must be prepared for everything. The enemy could of course send forth reserves and launch a counterattack, perhaps some T-34’s with infantry on the back. Then you would be in hot water. There were hardly any anti-armour weapons in the platoon, only two one-shot Panzerfausts. Anything could happen, Arno told himself; this must be remembered, even when you’ve won a victory. Even after a victory like taking Point X you must think: readjust your helmet and keep your finger on the trigger. This was a mainstay of Arno’s soldier philosophy.
Sergeant Bauer appeared between the trees and went towards Arno. Bauer reported that he had deployed the men. Arno said “good”. Then he asked about the flanking movement. Bauer said that it had gone well, the enemy not having noticed anything. But he had been a little worried just as they were approaching the bivouac proper.
“Otherwise, it wasn’t that hard. Just quietly approaching the camp, then straight in, throwing hand grenades into the tent and so on.”
“Well, well,” Arno said. His comment was laconic but nothing more was needed. He liked to have Bauer as a deputy. They were like-minded warrior natures. Bauer was a soldier who could stand what Arno could stand.
Bauer was quite tall and round-faced. He was a light-hearted, spirited fellow with a sunny temperament. But when the going got tough he could quickly revert to a state of action readiness. One moment a happy child, the other an efficient combat soldier: such was Hansi Bauer, Arno’s second-in-command.
It was now early morning, everything still being lit by the ersatz moonlight. This limelight had its charm, this Arno willingly admitted. It was like living in a dream, a bizarrely illuminated never-never land.
The advance along the road continued. Four soldiers under Emostas had been assigned to hold Point X. The rest of the platoon was divided into two columns with six soldiers in each plus an MG Team. They would advance on either side of the road. You couldn’t walk on the roadway itself. There you could quickly become the victim of a counter attack or an ambush, an automatic salvo wiping out half the unit in a flash.
The unit was advancing in two files on either side of the road, Arno leading one, Bauer the other. The terrain was covered with shrubs and trees, saplings and undergrowth of an indefinable kind: a mixed forest with spruce and birch, aspen and willow and everything in between. You didn’t have to carve your way through, but it wasn’t far from it.
Thin snow covered the ground. The snowfall had ceased. Battle noise was heard in the distance, but no request for support came. Arno did a radio check, calling the Company HQ and got an all clear from the signaler, acknowledging that the communication was up and running. Over and out.
It was 0540. One outpost remained to take along this road. They walked tirelessly along both sides of the road. Nothing happened. Wouldn’t the Russians arrive with their reserves sometime? Launch a counterattack?
But nothing came: no reserves and no counter-attacks, no lovely little armoured patrol with T-34s and accompanying infantry. No attacks by Sturmoviks.