The colonel, an older man of almost thirty, nodded to him. “Good to see you made it.”
“Thank you, comrade Colonel. It’s good to see you as well.” He meant the comment. The colonel was a good man who tried to care for his troops, even the new ones when he could. Suslov was shocked at the lines of fatigue on the other man’s face. He wondered if that was how he looked to Latsis and the rest of his crew.
“Your captain’s dead. You will take over for him. And by the way, we have a new political officer. He likes to be called Comrade Boris.” The colonel rolled his eyes. That communicated enough. Comrade Boris was an asshole.
“Yes, sir. Thank you.” Suslov wheeled and returned to his vehicle. Shit, he thought, ten minutes ago all I had to worry about was one tank. Now I have five tanks to watch out for and we don’t have any reserve fuel. Worse, two of the crews are raw trainees. Latsis had laughed at them yesterday and said they didn’t even know how to wipe their asses without hurting themselves or getting shit on their feet. He had to admit that Latsis, crazy or not, was again correct and had a way with words.
Perhaps he would let Latsis help out with the training of the new crews. Maybe they would even get some more replacements, although he would rather have some fuel. A T34 had a supposed range of 250 miles, but reality pushed that down considerably. Every second with the engine idling, or every time a tank had to backtrack or maneuver, ate into the distances they could cover. He also wondered when they would start to get some of the improved T34s or the Josef Stalin monsters. He would settle for a new T34, the improved version of which had an 85 mm gun instead of a 76. It also had an additional crewman, and he was curious as to how another human being would fit into the already cramped, hot, and stinking quarters. Maybe he would get Comrade Boris and find out?
Well, rumor had it that the Yanks would now pull back to the Weser and concede this last move to the defensive line they’d been working on for two months. If true, that would give him some time to whip his litter of young pups into shape. When the time came to cross the Weser, only the fit and cruel would survive.
Is this what I’ve become? he suddenly thought. Cruel? Well, he had survived, hadn’t he? All the way from Stalingrad to this dirty little river in the middle of Germany. If it was necessary to be cruel to survive, then he could live with that. Perhaps he could someday change into the human being he had been so many years ago. At least his cruelty was not the same insane variety as Latsis’s was. Suslov recalled that Latsis had not always been that way.
“The war has made us all monsters,” he said.
Latsis stuck his head out of the tank and grinned cheekily. “All hail comrade tank commander, captain and leader.”
Suslov shook his head. He would gather his chicklings and get to work. Lives were at stake, and one of them was his own.
CHAPTER 22
Wolfgang von Schumann eyed the scruffy-looking group of American GIs carrying supplies from the depot up to their units. More and more, he thought, the Yanks were beginning to look like nothing more than a bunch of pirates. Perhaps it was the beards, which were totally out of character. Americans were supposed to be clean-shaven and boyish. These men looked like genial thugs. Then there was the question of their uniforms. Despite the fact that resupply efforts had picked up, many were in rags and tatters, and sometimes wore a miscellany of civilian clothing and liberated German uniforms when necessary or simply convenient. Uniforms in June had a lower shipping priority than food, medicine, and weapons.
Even when there was a choice, the young Americans had shown a marked preference for German equipment to replace theirs that had worn out or to enhance what they already had. While they had not started wearing German helmets, they had no qualms about using German submachine guns, machine guns, pistols, and antitank weapons. The discovery of the Nazi weapons cache in Potsdam had given the American warriors a chance to shop and they had taken advantage of it. Antitank panzerfausts were now a part of every unit’s arsenal, and the enlisted American infantry had started carrying sidearms along with the officers. Von Schumann had never been able to see the reason behind the rule that prohibited enlisted men from carrying pistols. Give them every advantage they could, he thought, even if it was only psychological, as he thought pistols were relatively useless in modern warfare.
The advantages of the German antitank weapons were far more than psychological. The American tank-killer weapons were deplorable. Neither the bazookas nor the towed antitank guns could penetrate the armor of a T34. Thank God he had convinced General Miller to use the Nazi 88 mm antiaircraft guns, which could double as extremely effective antitank weapons. Rommel had figured that out in North Africa and nearly destroyed the British armor in the process.
Having come late to the ground war, the Yanks had not had to face the wrath of either the German Panthers or the Luftwaffe when they were at full strength. Now they had to deal with the Russians, who had largely destroyed both the Panzers and the Luftwaffe. It was not a healthy situation, and the Americans were paying for it with the blood of their young men.
Von Schumann snapped to attention as General Miller emerged from his command bunker with Captain Leland. The look in Leland’s eyes told von Schumann that he was still having a hard time getting used to Germans being on his side. Did he think von Schumann felt all that comfortable saluting an American?
“Herr General, good morning,” he said to Miller, and he nodded to Leland, who nodded back. “May I talk to you about supplies for a moment?”
“Let me guess,” said Miller, “you’d like some more for your people.”
“If it is possible, yes. Even though most of the population of Potsdam fled before your arrival, there are still several thousand civilians in the perimeter and, while we are grateful for your generosity, many are still hungry.”
Leland responded. “Thanks to the brave men of the Eighth Air Force, Oberst, we are only now beginning to reach what we consider minimum food standards. I think it is premature to increase rations, particularly for civilians, until we have a reserve to fall back on in case the Russians sever that lifeline again.”
Von Schumann agreed with Leland and took Miller’s silence to indicate that he agreed as well. It was what he had expected, but he felt he had to ask. As yet there was no real hunger problem among the civilians, but they were very definitely on the edge of it. The two Americans started to walk away and von Schumann fell in step with them.
The reintroduction of the airlift had come as a surprise to the men, although Miller had been informed that something of the sort would be attempted. Someone at Bradley’s HQ had brilliantly decided that a B-17 could carry several tons of supplies instead of bombs and had reconfigured a number of them for that purpose. For a couple of weeks now, thirty or forty of the Flying Fortresses would fly overhead and hundreds of packages of supplies would be parachuted down. The bombers were protected by hordes of fighters as well as their own guns, and the Red air forces nearby had apparently decided they had better things to do than attack bombers that weren’t bombing anything. The flights were also erratically timed to keep the Reds from setting up an ambush.
Along with rations, medical equipment, ammunition, and replacement weapons, they had also dropped mail and other items of a personal nature to the besieged army. The result had been a surge in morale as the soldiers realized that they were not forgotten and alone. Everyone knew that any major Russian effort could stop the supplies, or the American armies could be pushed too far west for the effort to take place, but for now they were a godsend.
Miller paused and turned. “By the way, I caught hell when Simpson and Bradley told Ike I was using your men.”