A whining hum followed by the crack of a rifle shot made them slap the sides of the gully automatically. Langer spit the mangled butt out of his mouth where he had snuffed it out by pushing his face into the ground. Taking a bit of tobacco off his tongue with a dirty hand he said, "Sounds like a Tokarev. Probably a sniper with a scope. Do you have anyone here to take him out?"
Kruger shook his head. "No, but I'll send a couple of boys out to get him when it gets dark. He's been taking pot shots for the last hour; hasn't hit anyone but it can ruin a man's digestion when he gets too close."
Two Sanitätsmen carrying a stretcher with a wounded stabsfeldwebel on it passed, bent low. The man on the stretcher moaned, his hands holding his stomach. A battle dressing covered a hole in his gut.
Kruger shook his head. "A good man. Shrapnel from a T-34 burst. . . ." Langer looked closely at the wounded man's face as he passed. He had seen the look too many times before, that distant expression that even pain could not hide. A certain look to the eyes that meant he was dying.
"He's a goner."
Kruger nodded agreement. "All right. Sergeant, enough of this bullshit. Get back to your people and take care of them. If I can do anything for you, let me know." Kruger turned his back and moved off down the gully, talking to a man here and there, giving a pat on the back or kick in the ass as was needed.
Approvingly Langer watched him. Good man. A spinning ricochet said their sniper was still out there—trying his best but to little avail.
Gus joined him on the way back to the Panther, carrying five loaves of bread and an armful of ersatz sausage which everyone swore was made from the cadavers of diseased hyenas. Only Gus seemed to like them, but then he liked everything. He was a walking septic tank. Langer watched in amazement as a long link of sausages disappeared into the gaping orifice that served as a mouth for Gus. "A walking septic tank, that's what he is."
CHAPTER FOUR
Ilye Shimilov scanned the German positions through an artillery periscope. Holding the rank of captain, he still had the final authority over the commander of the guards battalion that would attack this night. He had proved his fitness time and. again, and more than once he had personally shot laggards or those who failed to show the proper revolutionary spirit in the back of the neck with his Nagant revolver. He preferred it over the newer automatic Tokarev pistols. Revolvers were old-fashioned, but they seldom jammed. He was satisfied with what he saw. From the outposts he had received the strength and disposition of the Germans facing him.
Two self-propelled guns and a single Panther, all told about eighty men in the gully which sat on a small rise. He had at his disposal seven T-34s and two KV-Is. That and the assault battalion of the 199th Guards would be more than enough to wipe out this small pocket of Fascists.
There was about a half-hour of light left. Langer put his rations in the turret and strapped on a couple of extra pouches of magazines for the MP-40 submachine gun he took out of the tank. Stuffing his long Kar-98 bayonet into his belt, he tapped Teacher on the shoulder and said, "I'm going out for a look see." One thing he had learned over the years was to get a look at his position from the enemy's point of view, to see where the most likely spot was for them to come from and check for low points in which troops could mass unseen.
Teacher nodded. "Be careful, my friend. We need you here. Don't let Ivan talk you into going to one of the rest camps beyond the Urals."
Carl smiled, put a couple of egg grenades into his jacket pocket and slipped over the top of the gully and into the brush. His splinter camouflage blended well into the bushes. He crawled slowly and easily, instinctively staying in the lowest ground possible. No dip was too small not to serve as he worked his way out, crawling until his knees and elbows felt as if they were working their way through the canvaslike fabric of his jacket and trousers. Going out about three hundred meters, he hunched in a shell hole with the remains of an unidentifiable corpse. Not even a shred of uniform was left to show if he was German or Russian. Taking out his notebook, he quickly drew a sketch of the German positions from this viewpoint, making special notes of the small dips in which Ivan could rush them from no more than fifty meters. That distance in the dark could be covered in seconds.
Crawling on, he heard a rustle in the high grass to his left. He froze. The sky was getting dark and shadows were long on the ground. Straining, he waited. Another rustling of bushes. Whoever it was, was near and coming his way. Slowly he took the bayonet out of his belt and held it near his face.
Squirming slightly to face the sounds, he tensed, gathering his legs under him, ready to leap or run if there were too many. A shadow showed itself lengthwise to him between some brush and a patch of high grass. Drawing a long slow breath, he held it in a moment and then lunged, belly low to the ground, his blade ready to strike into the body of the intruder.
The intruder turned just in time for Langer to see his face. He turned his blade away but still landed on the man with a thump.
Major Kruger heaved a sigh of relief. "What the hell are you doing out here?"
"The same thing you are, I imagine." He noted the small hand-drawn map in the major's hand.
Somewhat testily Kruger reprimanded Langer. "Next time. Sergeant, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you kindly inform me of your plans before you cut my throat. And put that damned ugly blade away. It gives me the chills just thinking how close you came."
The two conferred for a moment on what they had seen and made their way back separately to the ravine. Slithering on his belly, Langer slid down to the bottom as his crew gathered around.
Gus was still stuffing food into his mouth between swallows of vodka, making the most atrocious feeding sounds he had ever heard, gulping, choking, grunting and farting—all at the same time. Unbelievable.
"Where's those grenadiers the major said we could have?"
Teacher gave a low whistle and an Obergefreiter joined them from the shadows. He was a dark wiry man, his belt stuffed with stick grenades and an MP on his chest. "Koch, Wather. I guess we're to work together tonight."
Langer nodded. "Good enough. What do you have with you?"
Koch pointed to the shadows in niches of the gully. "Seeing as how you're on the far end of this ditch, the major sent me with two MG-34s and ten riflemen. Where do you want us?"
Moving to the side of the tank. Teacher handed them a flashlight; covering the glow, they went over the small notebook map Carl had made.
"From out there, I could see two approaches they could take, one just to our left is low enough for infantry to get close enough without being seen; the other is a trench farther out. They could get to us from that and come down the ravine. We'll take care of the tank ourselves. I want you to place half your men and one MG on the ridge. Put the others and your remaining MG about forty meters down the gully from us. Place them on the far side. That way, if Ivan comes down, you let them get past you and we'll have them between your MG and the Panther's hull gun. I'll give you one minute after the first firing starts to get your men out of the way.