There was little left of the city of Kharkov except a smoldering mass of rubble. The flames could be seen for fifty miles in any direction. Kharkov had been the third largest city in Russia. Behind them the retreating Germans did leave one thing— 133,000 men had been lost. Kharkov, the old-timers knew, was the beginning of the end.
Langer's Tiger moved with the rest of a long line of hundreds of armored vehicles and trucks, passing horse-drawn wagons filled with supplies and the wounded. They moved back. Heidemann, his tank and the two others were all that remained. The strain was on every face, thin, drawn and exhausted. The weariness reached into the bones and men marched while asleep, stumbling caricatures of
their former glory—ragged and tired they marched with the steps of men old before their time, trying to keep the blind fear of panic from their minds. They would stop at the Dnieper two hundred kilometers to the west. There they would stand and fight again on what was called the Wotan Line. Wotan, the ancient German god of war.
Langer slept in his seat. The others curled up where they could. The outside of the tank was covered with infantrymen and the survivors of a Luftwaffe antiaircraft crew that had been overrun. Everyone was heading west, a line of men and machines one hundred kilometers long. The air force did its best to provide air cover and keep the Yaks, MIGs and Shtormoviks off them, but every day the burning hulks of tanks and trucks marked the way to the river. Several times they had to stop and fight a rear-guard action to keep Ivan from rolling them up. When at last they reached the crossing at Dniepropetrovsk and passed over the muddy waters, they collapsed and slept where they fell.
CHAPTER NINE
In the wake of the retreating German forces came the others, civilians, cattle, goats and herds of sheep and horses; everything that could move under its own power walked. The industrial machinery of the region was loaded onto trains and hauled back, everything from threshing machines to damaged tractors and tanks, anything that could be put into service of the Reich later, and at the same time deny the Bolsheviks the use of them.
As they withdrew, many divisions took Hitler's orders literally, "Scorched earth—leave nothing for the enemy!" The men evacuated were the technicians and those of gun-bearing age. For the Russians, that meant anyone from fourteen to sixty that could walk. Old men were especially useful in the first waves of assault for locating minefields. . . .
Escorting this menagerie of animals and humanity were many of the Freiwillegen (volunteer) units, Turkomen from Asian Russia and mounted detachments of Cossack cavalry from the Caucasus. Ukrainian police along with the members of the Red Cross from Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia were mixed into the fleeing masses all looking to one thing, the river. There they would find safety from the pursuing Russian horses trying to cut them off.
First priority went to the hundred thousand wounded soldiers of the Reich. These were evacuated in the rail cars and trucks; none were left behind. After all, they would be needed later when they could fight again. The others would have to take their chances.
The command was given by the Ober Kommand Des Wehrmacht that everything in front of the river for a distance of twelve to twenty-five miles was to be destroyed down to the last house and barn. Forests were to be burned, and bridges blown, as the last of the retreating forces withdrew across them.
For the survival of those left behind, the German Force left one-fifth of the foodstuffs, though this did the civilians little good, as these stores were immediately confiscated for the use of the Red Army. Of the forty-three tanks of Heidemann's company, only seven survived the maelstrom of Kursk and Kharkov, only forty-two men and junior officers answered the roll call. The rest were dead or on their way to slave labor camps beyond the Urals. Heidemann was the senior officer and his remnants were assigned as an ad hoc reserve force as they no longer existed as a regiment or even a company.
A smile broke through the dust caking Heidemann's face and dimmed eyes when he saw the scarred face of Langer sticking up from the hatch of his Tiger I. They had lost contact since the evacuation of Kharkov, and personally he was glad to see the last of the burning refuse pile they had left behind. Three times now he had fought his way in and out of the city and had lost too many good men in the process. Perhaps this would be the last of it, Kharkov was a curse for armor. Tanks belonged where they could use their mobility to lunge deep behind the enemy rear and strike, like the horse cavalry of old, in daring penetrations that could spread panic all out of proportion to the actual threat. Just the thought of an enemy to your rear was terrifying. More than once a couple of lost German tanks had blundered unwittingly into a Russian headquarters area. The resulting confusion of the wildly firing tanks trying only to get out of there had been enough to start a frantic retreat, as whole divisions withdrew from the front lines in panic when they heard that their HQ was being attacked by Panzers.
Heidemann tossed Langer a sack of army bread only four days old and two large cheeses that had seen better days. "Sorry, this is all there is. supplies will take a while to straighten out. After all, they have to have the proper requisition forms, you know. Hunger is not reason enough for the machinery of the German army to grant one something to eat."
Langer yelled something unintelligible down to Gus, who stuck his head up through the driver's hatch mumbling. He climbed out and then leaned back in grunting, his pants showing a large plaid patch on the ass. He hauled up a couple of sacks and tossed them down to the feet of Heidemann. Jumping down to stand in front of him he clicked his heels, brought his arm up in the Hitler-style salute, bellowing at the top of his lungs. "Sir, Obergefreiter Gustav Beidemann begs to report that he has, using the initiative ordained in the book of Holy German Army regulations, section 23-2 sub paragraph 765-b, prevented certain items from falling into the hands of the godless subhuman Bolsheviks, which I present to Herr Hauptmann as regulations require for his disposal of. Sir!" With a moué of distaste, Heidemann returned the salute in the army manner and kicked the sacks.
"You know Gus," Carl said. "When Kharkov was burning we came across a supply truck loaded with all the necessities of life for the general officers' mess. It had a busted axle so Gus shoved it out of the way with the Tiger, and in exchange for giving the driver a ride out of the town, we loaded up with enough general-type food and booze to last for a couple of weeks."
Heidemann gave Gus a dirty look. "What happened to the truck? You know the penalty that will come down when the brass finds their chow is gone!"
Gus smirked. "No problem, Herr Haputmann. Teacher put a round from the eighty-eight into the truck and it became just one more casualty of the greater war against Bolshevism."
In spite of himself, Captain Heidemann couldn't repress a grin. "All right, Langer, you take your animals and get to a place you can cover the bridge from." Picking up the sacks he looked at Gus still standing at rigid attention. "Beidemann, you are without a doubt the most obnoxious, ill-disciplined and insubordinate bastard I have ever met in my life." His bags clanked as he slung them over his shoulder.