Schmitt knocked on the door and received permission to send Langer and the others in.
When they presented themselves, Yuri stayed slightly to the rear. He had never liked officers of any kind. Russian or German made no difference, they only meant one thing to him: trouble.
Colonel von Mancken peered at Langer and then Teacher. Pointing a manicured finger at Yuri, he inquired, "What, may I ask, is that?"
"A volunteer, sir, one who has fought well for us," he added. Von Mancken raised an eyebrow. "I did not ask for a list of his merits. Sergeant. I asked what is he?"
"A Tatar, Sir."
Von Mancken viewed the Asiatic with distaste, shaking his head. "What is the Reich coming to when it uses the likes of a patently subhuman type to fight battles that should be won by the glorious feats of arms of Germany's Aryan youth? Indeed a sad state of affairs." He dismissed the Tatar from his mind as he would have a dog or any beast.
"Sergeant Langer, I have made some inquiries." He held Langer's and the others' paybooks and papers in front of him. A trace of envy touched him when he eyed the Knight's Cross and he promised himself to get one before much longer, and one with the oak leaves to it. It would certainly add greatly to his career.
"I have communicated with the commander of your former division and he referred me to the headquarters of Field Marshal von Manstein, who it appears awarded your decoration. It is his desire that you and your companions be given transport to a rest area. That includes your savage also."
The colonel omitted the fact that he had been informed by the field marshal's aide de camp that the Herr Field Marshal did not like for anyone to cast doubts on the valor of anyone he had personally decorated, especially when such a person had been not in combat himself. It would most certainly not be pleasing to the Herr Field Marshal and could have unhappy results for anyone so shortsighted as to commit such an offense. Did the Herr Colonel understand? Or was he addressing a major? Ranks changed so rapidly at the front it was often quite difficult to keep track of all the demotions, they happened so rapidly.
Von Mancken returned his attention to the men in front of him. He was careful to keep control; one must not give vent to displays of emotion in front of the enlisted men. "It will take a few days for orders to be prepared. Until that time you will have no duties here; just don't start any trouble. Schmitt will see to your quarter assignments. You're dismissed."
Langer and Teacher clicked heels, saluted and left followed by a scowling Yuri. The Tatar could smell the envy and hate in the colonel. Well, maybe he would have to start a new collection of ears.
For Langer and his men, the next days were ones like they had not known for years. All the food they could eat and more. Gus ate like a barbarian king. His threats against the medical orderlies' private parts kept them in a state of constant fear and attendance. He gorged on sausage and cabbage, swilling it down with huge amounts of whatever was to be had, from Czech beer to medical alcohol cut with water and flavored with just a touch of iodine. He swore it tasted exactly like good Scotch whiskey.
Every time Yuri saw Stabswachtmeister Schmitt he would just smile and tug at his ear lobe. Schmitt kept as much space between himself and the little brown man from the steppes as possible.
The New Year was celebrated by a small party. The Blitzmädel decided to try the scar-faced tanker on for size. When they left the privacy of the storeroom they had used for their meeting, she could barely walk. Never had she experienced anything like that night. The Panzerman had put her through movements that she had only seen in school when they had studied the art of India. And she had snuck a forbidden look at a copy of the Kama Sutra one of her classmates had ordered from a pornography house in Bremen. The sergeant could have, in her opinion, written the damned thing.
Gus had managed to acquire enough chits for a visit to a field whorehouse a few kilometers to the rear by cheating the orderlies at cards, dice or anything else he could force them into betting on. The fact that they knew he was cheating was of no consequence. He wouldn't take no for an answer and when he, as he said, had to gently shake one of them, a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound supply sergeant, the rest decided it would be wiser not to irritate the madman any more than necessary. The supply sergeant was now in traction.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Yuri never got his wish to begin a new ear collection. Langer received his transit orders and they were moved out to a training regiment at Vilnyus in Lithuania. Two days after they arrived, Hitler relieved von Manstein of command of the sector they had just left and replaced him with Field Marshal Model, the one they called The Fireman. The wiry, thin-faced field marshal was known for his brilliance in handling crisis situations, and had time and again foiled Russian plans to annihilate German forces they had bottled up. Model was a master of fighting withdrawals, stretching the pursuing enemy out to the limits of supply and knowing just when to turn and fight.
For the most part German forces tried to straighten their lines and set up barriers to slow down the Russian winter offensive. Leningrad finally had to be evacuated after three years of siege.
The Russians still managed to advance to the Bug and Dniester rivers despite brilliant counterattacks by Manstein. The trapped 1st Panzer Army at Tarnopol managed to fight its way out almost intact with the aid of the Luftwaffe, which air dropped all of its supplies. The old reliable Junker 52 workhorse tri-motor was the back bone of a massive air resupply. Langer and Teacher spent the remainder of the winter trying to cram as much training as they could onto the replacements being sent up. It was woefully short many times. The boys they sent up had less than ten days' familiarization with their weapons. Gus was disappointed in his hopes to be sent back and discharged. Instead he was returned to Langer in May, busted down to private. Ivan had a habit of treating prisoners according to their rank; the higher you were, the worse they gave you. A private could always claim he was forced into the war and was really a Communist at heart.
The spring campaigns opened when the ground was firm enough to handle the weight of the armored vehicles. Langer wasn't worried about going up to the front. He knew that the front would soon come to them. It was just a matter of time. In the meantime, he did the best he could to teach the replacements how to survive, not that it did much good. Already, most of the replacements were no more than seventeen, but the Russians, too, were showing some of the strain of replacing troops. They had lost millions and were now fleshing out their ranks with boys of fifteen and old men of sixty. Anyone capable of carrying a weapon was called into service. There was no medical excuse that could save one from the army, unless he was an amputee or cripple.
On 6 March, Colonel von Mancken did his best to win the Knight's Cross and was promptly ground into jelly by the tracks of one of the new JS-I (Joseph Stalin) heavy tanks. Stabswachmeister Schmitt managed to steal the colonel's car and drive fifteen kilometers to the rear, where he tried to bribe a couple of hard-nosed members of the field gendarmerie, who promptly hung him by the neck from a telegraph pole and divided up his bribe among themselves anyway.
By mid-April the Russians had advanced to striking range of the frontier of Poland and were facing the Carpathian mountains to the south. The Crimea had fallen, the 17th Army fought without support until it could hold out no longer. Some units were rescued in a German version of Dunkirk but not all. Thousands of horses were driven off the cliffs to drown in the Black Sea, the German defenders' last act. Destroy anything that might be of use to the Russians. By the end of July Langer's prediction that the front would come to them came true. They were pushed out of Vilnyus to form a hedgehog northwest of the city, surrounded and cut off.