A low-key ‘uh-huh’ confirmed her NCO’s agreement.
“Pick two and move up to the right, there,” Sverova indicated a denser patch of undergrowth, “Send me two, and I will work my way round to the tree,” she had no need to say which one.
Checking around the position they were concealed in, it seemed fit for purpose.
“Get the rest of them lined up here. Put Astafieva in charge, with orders to cover us”
Sverova paused, looking around her.
“But leave two on each of the flanks for security.”
This time Ponichenkarova managed a grunt by way of agreement, and the solid framed NCO was off, harrying the group behind into some sort of order.
Quickly, the women sorted themselves out. Astafieva, quietly efficient, organised her covering force and set the pairs on each side in position.
The two small flank groups moved off.
Ponichenkarova was first to her appointed spot, carefully examining the scene in front of her, the evidence of quiet massacre all too plain to her eyes.
Beyond the clearing, the horrified NCO could see the officer and her two soldiers moving up, approaching that unspeakably bloody something hanging from the tree directly opposite them.
Sverova nodded, a silent message across the divide, and both parties moved up and into the camp, picking their way over the horrors.
Both NCO and officer silently extended arms, directing their soldiers to move further apart.
The two met in the middle of the clearing, not even the tweet of a bird to break the tension.
“Killed while they slept, Dina, all except that one.”
As if by common assent, they both turned to face the body that had been pinned to the tree with knives, the bloody swastika carved into the torso appearing the least of the apparent horrors.
“Werewolves.”
Not a question, just a statement.
Sverova slipped her Tokarev pistol back into her holster.
An agreed hand signal summoned Astafieva’s group.
“Check their lorry over. If it’s fine, we will load the bodies aboard and take them to the nearest checkpoint.”
The NCO moved off to inspect the lorry, the cover force emerging from the woods to start the grisly task of recovering the dead.
It took Ponichenkarova a few seconds to find the grenade booby-traps on the vehicle, and less than a minute to make them safe. She warned her soldiers to be vigilant, something that Sverova was also doing back at the clearing.
“Be careful, Comrades. Who knows what the SS bastards have left behind?”
Sverova and two of the older women removed the tortured man from the tree, placing him gently upon a blanket and rolling him up, as they would swaddle a baby.
The three of them carried the burden, moving gingerly across the clearing as others, similarly wrapped, started their own journey to the waiting Studebaker.
Most of the weapons had been damaged, the rifles and sub-machine guns bent, probably by smashing the metal against a tree trunk.
One PPSh sat propped against a pack, inviting attention.
“No, Olga!”
The female soldier who had been looking carefully at the vignette, nodded without moving her body, responding instantly to the voice of command, but keeping her eyes focussed on the threat.
Sverova knelt down gingerly and swept away the leaves with care, seeking the telltale signs of interference and hidden death.
There were none.
Both she and the soldier, Olga Matalinova, breathed out with relief.
The unit’s youngest soldier was crying openly, her ginger hair matted with blood, saying a forbidden prayer over the men she was tending.
Her eyes fell on the German helmet and she snapped, a wail of anger escaping her lips.
Sverova screamed.
“NO!”
She lashed out viciously with her boot, sending the object of her hatred flying.
The moment the helmet moved, it activated a simple tilt switch, igniting a detonator.
Two-thirds of a second later the zinc-encased charge exploded.
A loud bang mixed with the high-pitched screams of the horribly injured.
Ponichenkarova rushed back to the clearing.
The pretty ginger girl was no longer intact, the pieces of her svelte body now spread around the clearing.
Other women soldiers were also amongst the dead, many dismembered and spread to the four corners of the open ground, the odd portion hanging from a branch like a macabre Christmas decoration. There were a handful of survivors, some hideously injured and yet still clinging to life.
Additional horrors had been wrought on the already dead bodies of the NKVD soldiers.
Sverova was propped against the torso of an NKVD soldier, looking across the clearing, the smoke of the explosion stinging her eyes and robbing her of her final clear memories.
She was silent, unable to speak, her lower body torn away from the hips down, her upper body naked and unblemished, save for some splashes of blood and other fluids from the unfortunate Matalinova.
The horrified NCO made it to her side in five huge steps. Sverova’s destroyed body failed her before the third step was complete.
SS Werewolf Kommando Lenz had ‘dressed’ the site with a standard three-kilo explosive charge, and it had done its work well, twelve of the women soldiers joining their NKVD comrades in the after-life.
The periscope hissed as it slid back up, breaking the surface above for the final time before the orders were given.
“Fire one.”
A stopwatch clicked, four seconds passed.
“Fire two.”
Both releases accompanied by the sounds of torpedoes in the water.
“Starboard twenty, both engines make revolutions for six knots.”
The Elektroboote, B27, had found a fast mover, a single merchant vessel intent on crossing the Atlantic alone, relying on her speed to keep her safe.
The rumble of an explosion through the water, followed shortly by another, marked the folly of the attempt for the American steamship.
Manoeuvring to get away from the firing position, B27 relocated to the east of the sinking, the submarine’s detection apparatus indicating that no allied vessels were in the vicinity.
The Captain raised the scope once more, focussing in the area the vessel went down, its bulkheads noisily surrendering to the inrush of water, tasting its final gasp of air just six minutes after being struck by the last torpedo.
As the commander quickly swivelled his periscope, he saw the lifeboats, two of them filled to the brim with survivors.
The flash of gold braid caught his eye, and he upped the lens setting immediately.
“What have we here, Comrades? Senior military personnel on the lifeboat ahead of us.”
A moment’s thought.
The First officer waited expectantly.
“Threats?”
Confirming with the sonar crew, he turned back to the commander.
“None detected, Comrade Kapitan.”
As was his habit in times of deep thought, the Captain pinched at his nose, squeezing it to stimulate the process of decision-making.
“We will surface, and quickly, Gun crews on deck as soon as we are in air. Deck party armed. I intend to offer assistance to the senior military survivors.”
A questioning look from the second in command was understood, and his concerns addressed.
“We will be up and gone before they have a chance to organise a search, even if she did get off a signal. Now, let us be quick, Leytenant.”
The First Officer turned to organise the crew.
“Chief, I want you in your diving kit, just in case they lose something overboard, like a briefcase.”
The ship’s senior rating understood, acknowledged the order, and moved away quickly to get ready.