“It’s the end of the world,” Schmidt said.
Above the sound of artillery, they could hear the diesel engine start and the slow clatter of cogs and linked ribbed tracks. It would be suicide to remain along the rim of the balka, exposed by so much illumination. Angst nudged Schmidt, and they descended back down the slope. While Angst continued to listen for the tank as they groped through the gathering dusk, an echo of his friend’s words still rang in his ears and chilled him to the bone.
VOSS
10
The road was little more than a wide path with the consistency of talc, littered with the scorched hulls of Soviet T-34s and an assortment of trucks and armored vehicles. First Lieutenant Erich Rainer Voss walked among the dead that lay on both sides of the road. The majority of dead that lay baking in the sun were Russian, but he stopped at every corpse that wore a German uniform. He wanted to see if he recognized anyone from his company. He couldn’t tell. The faces were set in that look of painfully abrupt bewilderment that made all the dead appear the same to him now, and would remain so until the last shovelful of earth covered their graves.
The Combat Group of the Sixteenth Panzergrenadiers, with whom Voss served, made a desperate thrust to intercept the enemy armored breakthrough. For two days the Combat Group, with elements of the Twenty-Third Panzer Division, punched their way out from the Konstantinovka area and bore the brunt of heavy fighting as they attempted to seal the gap. The Soviet Twenty-Third Tank Corp had since linked up with the First Guards Mechanized Corp, which initiated the breakthrough and their dash to the west. The thirty kilometers that separated the Sixth and First Panzer Armies had begun to narrow, marginally, but the cost was proving to be terribly high.
Voss looked to the southwest where, several kilometers away, the fighting continued. A detachment of Russian armor attempted to regroup, but a battery of self-propelled assault guns, reinforced with panzer Mark IVs, was making that task difficult to achieve. Black, mushroom-shaped plumes of smoke sprouted from the steppe. Using binoculars, Voss observed small assault parties of grenadiers armed with Teller mines and panzerfausts carrying out mop-up operations on stricken but potentially operational T-34s. The grenadiers looked like ants, feeding on the carcass of a large insect. Voss returned to his vehicle. The men were administering emergency first aid to the wounded. Seven of the ten men who made up his crew were either dead or wounded. The rest of the three armored personnel carriers and forty-man company under his direct command had fared no better. He sought out his staff sergeant, Dieter Reinhardt, and found him kneeling beside one of the casualties.
“Load as many of the wounded as possible aboard the Hanomag,” Voss said, referring to the Sonderkraftfahrzeug 251, or Sd.Kfz, the armored personnel carrier. “We’re taking them to the nearest dressing station.”
Reinhardt ceased applying pressure to the bandage covering the wounded grenadier’s chest. He had already expired. “The ambulance lorries should be here any minute, Lieutenant.”
“The subject is academic. I don’t want to lose another man if I can help it. Besides, we can save valuable time and needed space when the ambulances do arrive.”
Reinhardt knew that no such order or request had been issued and that the lieutenant was acting of his own accord. He was too loyal to remind Voss of this fact. “Right away, Lieutenant.”
The battalion commander’s armored personnel carrier approached and pulled up alongside Voss. Captain Griem removed his goggles; their lenses coated with a film of oily soot and dust. He eyed Voss curiously from the superstructure. “What’s your status, Lieutenant?” he asked.
“My company has sustained heavy casualties, sir. At least forty percent.”
“As I feared. Nevertheless, we will press on. You, on the other hand, and your vehicle and crew are to return to Combat Group mobile headquarters and report to Colonel Hahn.”
Caught off guard, Voss asked, “Did the colonel give any indication as to why?”
“No. He did say it was urgent and asked for you, specifically, by name.” Griem watched with interest as the wounded were carried onto the armored personnel carrier. It was crowded with more men than the vehicle normally held; some were literally dying on their feet.
“I’m taking them to the dressing station, Captain.”
Griem nodded. He was keenly aware of what Voss and his men had been through. The lieutenant’s section had been at the forefront of this recent action, paving the way alongside the assault guns. “Very well, Lieutenant, only don’t make the colonel wait too long.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Griem tapped on the narrow bulkhead of the driver’s cabin, and the command vehicle drove off.
“We’re all set to go, Lieutenant,” Reinhardt shouted. The sergeant stood on the mudguard with several of the less serious cases, clinging to the armored siding of the crew compartment. A junior officer from another company section occupied the co-driver’s seat, so Voss climbed up the side of the vehicle and squeezed in behind the bow machine gun. A grenadier lay across the hood of the engine compartment and assured everyone he could hang on for the duration of the short trip.
“Get moving, Heinz,” Voss ordered the driver. Heinz Hartmann fired up the engine and shifted into gear. The Hanomag was somewhat under-powered and notoriously difficult to maneuver under the best of conditions. The engine groaned under the added weight of eighteen men. The grenadier wedged next to Voss started to sway back and forth, bouncing against the armored shield of the machine gun and back again. Eyes closed, he whimpered breathlessly. He was terribly young, no more than nineteen. Voss placed an arm about the fellow’s waist to keep him from falling into the other men, who sat crowded on the benches or stood packed in the narrow aisle of the deck. The grenadier was bleeding heavily and now bled over Voss as well.
“Easy,” Voss consoled. “The doctors will fix you up in record time, and then you will be on a hospital train back to Germany. Just think, you’ll be home.”
“Home,” murmured the semiconscious grenadier.
Voss could feel the life ebbing from the youth and knew he wouldn’t last the trip. All I’m doing is leaving the boy with small hope, he thought, ultimately unfulfilled, and clouded by pain, disorientation, and blood. The blood! My God it’s everywhere. Oozing from a multitude of wounds, soaking through bandages and clothing, running down the siding, the stowage lockers, and the bench cushions, the blood collected into pools on the deck and began to coagulate. I am no more than a purveyor, ferrying livestock to the slaughter, only to return with offal for the refuse dump. The rough analogy was how Voss had come to define himself over the past number of weeks for his complicity in the agonies of his men.