Gritting his teeth, he took aim at his target. “Fire!”
There was a ragged burst of firing. Four stormtroopers fell; the remainder, their skills sharpened by constant combat, dropped to the ground and started to crawl for cover. A handful fired back, but their shots went wide. Loeb tapped his radio, calling in a mortar strike, as the soldiers kept firing, trying to hit the stormtroopers as they hid. For a second, the advance seemed to come to an end…
…And then the stormtroopers resumed their crawl, pushing forward with icy determination.
Assholes, Kurt thought. He picked off another stormtrooper, then ducked hurriedly as a bullet cracked through the air alarmingly close to him. Two of his men were dead, a third badly wounded. You’ll just keep coming until we stop you.
The mortar shells crashed down, shaking the ground and stopping the advance for a few brief seconds. Kurt rose, blew the whistle as hard as he could and then followed his men down the path they’d planned for their retreat. Another explosion, a smaller one, told him that one of his men had stumbled over a mine; he glanced left and swallowed, feeling his stomach heave, as he saw the victim lying on the ground, his legs completely missing. Blood was pouring from his thighs… Kurt didn’t want to think about what had happened to his manhood. Even if he could be saved – and Nazi Germany led the way in transplants – there was no way he’d ever be complete again.
Loeb scooped the man up, blood pouring down and staining his uniform. “Run,” he snapped, loudly. Behind them, shots echoed in the distance. “Move it!”
Kurt nodded and ran. More mortar shells crashed down, concealing their escape until they reached the next set of trenches. A machine gun opened fire, riddling a pair of stormtroopers who had pushed too close to the defences. Kurt jumped down into the trench, then turned to help Loeb. But the Oberfeldwebel was staring down at his charge with a bitter expression.
“He’s dead, Herr Hauptmann,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“We can keep fighting,” Kurt snarled. He’d never hated anyone quite as much as he’d hated the SS, not now. A man had died in screaming agony because he’d put his foot on a tiny little mine, then been carried to a nearby trench. He hadn’t deserved to die. And the hell of it was that Kurt couldn’t even remember the man’s name. “That’s all we can do.”
He thought bitterly of Marie, the girl he’d met at the brothel. She’d been sweet, warm and loving… and though part of him knew it was an act, he would have preferred to be with her than on the battlefield. He watched grimly as Loeb placed the body to one side, his expression making it very clear that the poor bastard would probably never have a proper burial. It was unlikely they’d be able to hold the trench long enough to get the body to the nearest graveyard.
Poor bastard, he thought. But at least he’s at peace.
Turning, he took up position and watched as the enemy readied themselves for another thrust.
Hauptsturmfuehrer Hennecke Schwerk kept his head down as he crawled slowly towards the enemy position, the position he knew had to be directly ahead of his squad. The shellfire had made a mess of the ground – they’d already overrun one trench that looked to have been dug in a hurry – but that actually worked in their favour. They’d assumed that their enemies would have an intimate knowledge of their own territory, yet the shellfire had torn it up so badly that their knowledge was almost worthless.
Bastards, he thought, as he heard the crash of incoming mortar fire. They have all the trenches zeroed in.
He clung to the ground as the shells exploded, one by one, then took the risk of lifting his head and peering ahead of him. The enemy had converted a large blockhouse-like building into a strongpoint, ringing it with barbed fire and placing a number of machine guns in position to cover all the approaches. It looked tough enough to shrug off shellfire, but he could see a problem with the design. There were no protective grills over the murder holes.
“Get one of the antitank rockets up here,” he ordered, as he deployed his men to snipe at the enemy and keep them from mounting a counterattack. “I want to put a rocket right into that blockhouse.”
“Jawohl,” the Strumscharfuehrer said.
Hennecke smirked, then fired a handful of shots towards the enemy. If they were smart, they’d already be calling in more mortar fire to catch his squad on the hop, but it was just possible they didn’t have the ammunition to open fire. Or that their mortars were being redeployed to provide fire support to another strongpoint. Either way, no shells crashed down on them as the Strumscharfuehrer reappeared, carrying a basic antitank missile launcher in one hand. Hennecke had used them before, in Germany East, to clear strongpoints. The Berlin Guard, lacking real experience, might not have anticipated such an attack.
It’s in the manuals, he reminded himself, sharply. Even if they never took part in counterinsurgency operations, they will have read the damned manuals.
The Strumscharfuehrer fired. The wire-guided missile roared forward and crashed right through the murder hole, detonating inside the strongpoint. There was an entire series of secondary explosions, the final one shattering the building beyond repair as it crashed down into a pile of rubble. Hennecke shouted a command to his men, then rose and led the charge towards the debris. A handful of shocked defenders had no time to run before they were shot down, one by one. Moments later – far too late – mortar shells slammed down on where Hennecke had been, leaving his men unscathed.
“Herr Hauptsturmfuehrer,” one of his men shouted. “Two of them are alive!”
Hennecke blinked in shock, then turned to walk over to where the two prisoners were standing. One of them was an older man, probably a reservist who had been called back to the colours, while the other was young enough to be barely out of basic training. He was shaking with fear, blood pouring down from a cut on his forehead and staining his uniform, while his older comrade was merely staring at the stormtroopers with a cold expression that sent shivers down Hennecke’s spine. The man didn’t expect to survive the coming hours.
His orders were clear, but contradictory. On one hand, he was to continue advancing forward until he found something that forced him to stop; on the other, he was to send all prisoners back to the intelligence staff to be interrogated. And yet, he didn’t have the manpower to do both. If he detached a couple of men to escort the prisoners, he wouldn’t be able to push so far into the defences…
He shrugged as he drew his pistol and pointed it at the younger man’s head. It wasn’t as if either of the prisoners was going to survive the winter in any case. He’d heard rumours about what lay in wait for the prisoners – and he knew that medical treatment wasn’t going to be provided. Really, he was doing them a favour.
The older man glared at him, but said nothing as Hennecke pulled the trigger. Hennecke felt an odd chill running down the back of his neck at such silent hatred, even though it was useless. The man wouldn’t survive more than a handful of seconds. And yet, he’d seen such hatred before, on the faces of Russians forced to dig a mass grave before the firing squads put them in it. He’d seen their faces in his nightmares until he’d finally reminded himself – and believed it – that they were Untermenschen. Their opinions and feeling didn’t matter.