Yuri motioned to Gus to come and take a look. Gus raised his head up far enough to get a good look at a T-34 sitting just a block away beside a burned-out bakery on the outskirts of Vilnyus. The crew was taking a break to enjoy their lunch. They had already strung up, and were butchering a pig for their lunch.
Gus whispered to Langer, who was talking to Teacher. "Hey Sarge, chow time. There's only four of them."
Langer took a look, not at the pig, but the tank. "You're right, Gus, and there's our way out of here."
Gus looked at the sitting T-34 and smiled. "I'll make you a deal. You get the tank and I'll get the pig"
"Good enough, but let's keep it quiet; no shooting unless we have to. Let's not let their cousins know we're here if we can help it. Teacher, you take the Mauser and cover us. Yuri, you come at them from around the rear of the bakery and wait until Gus and I move before you hit them. Gus and I will handle the three with the pig. You take out the one by the tank. Got it?" Yuri grinned his sparkling gold smile.
"All right, then let's be at it."
Gus took his entrenching tool from its case. He had, as usual, honed the edge down fine enough to cut silk with. Yuri had his butcher knife and Langer the long M-98 bayonet. They didn't have much doubt that they would be able to get close enough to use their blades. The Ivans were totally involved with gutting the pig and building a cook fire.
Bellies to the ground, they slid out through the brush and grass slithering like snakes. Before Vilnyus had fallen they had been issued new uniforms and the summer camouflage of light and dark brown splinter patterns blended beautifully with the cover they used.
They moved slowly, the smell of the grass in their nostrils. The heat of the sun beat down their backs and small rivers of sweat ran down the hollow of their spines.
Teacher watched from the cellar window. It seemed to take forever for them to cover the short distance to the bakery wall. Langer raised his head for a quick look.
One of the Ivans was showing off to the others, making swipes with a saber through the air, obviously showing them how it was done when he was still in the mounted calvary. Langer focused on him. That could be dangerous. The swordsman wore the collar tabs of a major. He looked to be about thirty-five. Lean, with high Slavic cheekbones and deep-set eyes that were always in a shadow. He moved through some quick ghost parrying-and-lunging techniques to the delight of his comrades, and with a whirling sweep severed the head from the pig.
Langer grunted mentally. Not bad. It's hard to cut through a neck like that, especially one as thick as a pig's. You have to hit at just the right spot between the vertebra or you can't do it. But it still takes a lot of strength just to cut through the muscle. The Order of Suvarov and the badge of a Hero of the Soviet Union were easily visible.
They reached the wall, their hearts pounding but with the calmness that comes before action. Yuri moved around the building, keeping close to the wall. He had until the time it took him to count his fingers and toes twice slowly, then Langer and Gus would move.
Gus pointed out one of the Ivans. A big man almost as large as himself, bending over slicing up the pig's hindquarters. Whispering, "That's my meat."
Langer nodded he'd take out the major first, and then the little Armenian-looking one by the tank would go to whoever was closest. Yuri would get the one closest to him, a youngster who looked more German than Russian, probably from the Caucasus.
It was time. Langer touched Gus on the shoulder and nodded, took a deep breath, and moved straight at the major. Gus followed, his entrenching tool held like a barbarian axe from the days of the Vikings.
Gus lurched out in front of Langer, the entrenching tool above his head, aiming to slice through the neck of the big Russian who was involved in pulling the intestines out of the slaughtered pig. He was almost on him when his feet hit a slick pile of pig guts, and he went ass over end in a heap under the knife of the big Slav.
Langer rushed in behind before the Slav could react and slice up the new piece of bacon lying helpless at his feet. He yelled, the Slav turned, a slightly surprised look on his face; what had happened hadn't really registered. The look of blankness stayed there until Langer's bayonet made a whisshing sound and gave the big man another mouth, gaping and spouting.
Yuri came out at the same time, his butcher knife held low; he raced at half crouch up to the young boy, and whipped him around by the shoulder, aiming for the gut. The youngster twisted as Yuri struck, and the blade slid between the ribs on his left side. The point of the knife reached the heart, but the spasms of muscles, combined with the natural adhesion of the rib cage, made it impossible for Yuri to draw the blade back out. He set a foot on the youngster's head to hold him and began frantically to twist the blade, trying to break it free, only to feel it snap at the handle. Spinning around, he had just enough time to see the look of pleasure on the Cossack's face, before the saber half-severed his head from the body at the neck. Another flick of the wrist and the saber flashed again; the head fell to the ground before the body knew it was dead. Yuri's head fell to rest beside the tracks of the T-34, the face looking up, eyes open, the mouth wide in his familiar gold-toothed smile.
The Armenian was shocked at first, then started to scramble up the side of the tank to get inside and batten down. He had rolled out from under Langer, and out of the pig guts, some still hanging to his face and chest. Growling, Gus struck at him with the edge of his shovel. There was a "thunk," then a wet sucking sound, as it pulled out of the Armenian's spine. Gus had hit him right at the junction between the shoulder blades with a straight thrust that sank the sharpened sides in to a depth of five inches. Gus caught a look at Yuri's head lying on the ground by the tracks, and screamed like a berserker of old. He lunged forward, swinging his tool like a meat cleaver, only to feel his hand go numb, and find he was holding only the wooden handle. The head of the entrenching tool had been severed with a clean quarter wrist sweep of the major's saber hand.
The Cossack paused, noting that the Germans were carrying no guns; he decided to enjoy himself a little. He fended off Gus's attempt to brain him with the shovel handle with a series of light taps and touches, leaving the big German's face pricked and cut in half a dozen places, in less than ten seconds. Gus couldn't get through the flashing blade, and backed away, a wounded animal, his eyes shrunk to tiny pinpoints, blood running freely down his face. The major moved in the classic flèche, the long, smooth, almost running lunge to the heart; Gus was backed up to the tank with nowhere to run. The saber blade moved off center to ring off the hull of the T-34. The Cossack recovered.
Langer stood between them, his bayonet held to the front. The major smiled and spoke in perfect German, with a slightly British accent, "Well, well, what have we here, a sergeant who thinks he understands the saber. Too bad you're not an officer at least, then I might have the confidence that you would have at least had some rudimentary training. But perhaps you can provide me with enough entertainment to make up for the loss of my men." He looked closely at the thick-set body of the man confronting him. "You are a tough-looking swine at any rate." He pointed the saber blade at Langer's face, at the scarred side. "Schlager mensur, perhaps?" his voice hopeful as he referred to the German dueling scar students of the universities loved to inflict on each other as badges of courage. "Perhaps you have had some experience after all."