“Sorry commander” answered the sniper distractedly. “There is an enemy halftrack festooned with antennae—just moved into my line of sight, about 600 meters.”
“Beseder. Keep an eye on it. And tell Sobel and his men to come to me.”
Across the valley from Ilan a trio of SS privates from the wrecked German armored attack, also saw the German command halftrack and started toward it. They weaved their way unnoticed across the still smoking valley, past the burning wrecks of the recon platoon, the Stug III and their own blasted halftrack. The highest ranking of the three, a veteran Sturmmann named Siegling, carried a prize—the Galil assault rifle which Ido had abandoned after it had run of bullets and rockets. The Germans had sheltered in the lee of the main ridgeline after their failed attack, but enterprisingly approached Ido’s position once it appeared he had departed. Siegling took the unusual looking weapon. It was Siegling Yatom had seen the mortarmen shoot at. An enterprising soldier, Siegling figured his commanders would want this prize.
Meanwhile, in his command halftrack on the Lubin road, Kumm approached the hillock Hoehe 28. Up to this point he had been careful not to venture too near the enemy position. Now he took the risk, hopeful that he could recover the deteriorating situation. It was one thing to hear fragmented reports from subordinates, and to follow the flow of the fight by the smoke of wrecked machines. It was another to observe the battlefield in detail. As Kumm approached the hillock he got a good view of the larger ridge, Hoehe 31 on his left, and clearly saw the knocked out Stug and halftracks in the saddle between the two hills. This area was now quiet, but the sound of vicious fighting echoed from the little ridge to the northeast, Hoehe 19 where Stadler had thrown in his last reserve. Across the valley he made out three SS men running back toward his line, refugees from the armored attack.
Kumm was brave but not reckless. As his command track neared the enemy position he fastened his helmet and slunk down in the armored bay, keeping only his shoulders and head above the parapet He ordered his driver to steer toward a trail that appeared to enter the wood near the Company 2 command post. From there Kumm could call in artillery on the Hoehe 28, and push the demoralized men of Vogel’s company into a final assault.
The enemy held hill, quiet but menacing, loomed half-a-kilometer away in the distance. Kumm’s driver turned the halftrack and drove for the trail and the cover of a stand of linden trees.
The halftrack’s sudden turn threw off Ilan’s aim, but the sniper quickly reacquired the target in his sight, a figure hunched at the forward end of the open truck’s bay. it was a difficult shot at five hundred meters, against a moving target heading for cover. There was only time for a single shot. Ilan made an automatic calculation of the the target’s motion, his position on the height, and the drop of the bullet. He waited a moment for the halftrack driver carry the German leader into the shot—and squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit dead center of the helmeted figure in the halftrack, who collapsed in a spray of blood and rended steel. Ilan watched the halftrack stop, back up and drive away.
On the little ridge that the Germans called Hoehe 19 the murderous fighting raged on desperately and at close range. Fliegel feared that he’d lose the ridge in the first violent German rush, but although a few positions had fallen and a dozen of so of his men gave up, the line stiffened as the Germans clawed their way up the hill, slipping and sliding on the difficult ground. The extra twenty men Perchansky delivered, along with their two Russian machineguns, went straight into the line, and helped to stabilize his shaken force. Now the two sides were merely blasting away at one another, with Fliegel’s men, ensconced in trenches and bunkers, getting the best of it Fliegel reckoned he’d lost thirty or forty men, but the lower slopes were covered with German dead and screaming wounded. His surviving fighters knew that surrendered Jews were as good as dead, and understood that they would have to hold or die.
From his command halftrack Stadler tried to make sense of the savage battle for the Hoehe 19, while his sergeant major tried to assemble scattered and separated SS trooper into an ad hoc group that could retake the forester’s settlement. That place had somehow had swallowed an entire platoon of men, and reverted to a no-man’s land of weeds and corpses. His men had brought prisoners back from both the forester’s settlement and Hoehe 19 which was some good news. Stadler ordered that the captured partisans be treated according to the Geneva Conventions—for the time being—until Mueller could examine them, per Globocnik’s order.
On Stadler’s left his telephone operator gently shook his arm to get his attention: Friedhelm, the commander of 1st Company—attacking Hoehe 19—with a report. The man who had confidently gone up the hill some minutes before now sounded almost hysterical. The first line of enemy positions was in German hands, prisoners taken, but he’d lost almost half his men. His platoon leaders were all dead or wounded. The enemy had been reinforced. Should he press on?
Stadler was about to order the cracking lieutenant to do just that, when on his right his radioman interrupted him. The German signalers had largely managed to work around the enemy jamming, though the transmission was still full of static. It was Holzer. Holzer told Stadler that Kumm was dead. Stadler was now in command. What did he want to do?
Stadler had fought in France and survived six months in Russia, but the death of Kumm crushed him. He’d loved the regimental commander, with the fanatic, fanciful, school-boy kind of crush that wielded so much of the SS officer corps together. Stadler tried to collect himself. Holzer insisted that Stadler come and immediately take command of the Kampfgruppe. The telephone operator nudged Stadler again—the 1st Company commander was screaming into the signalman’s ear.
It didn’t seem to Stadler that he had a choice, either emotionally or professionally. He bit down on his grief. The Kampfgruppe, bereft of its beloved commander, and most of its line officers, could do no more. Stadler picked up the phone to Friedhelm and told the 1st Company commander to withdraw. The lieutenant acknowledged the order like he’d received a death sentence reprieve. Stadler retook the radio handset and told Holzer he was pulling back to take command of the battle-group—and oversee its withdrawal. The battle of Biali was over.
Chapter 40
Yatom joined Roi in the bunker atop the main ridge and watched the Germans retreat. Relief washed over him, like he’d never quite experienced in a long military career. He remembered something from staff college about the Duke of Wellington commenting on the Battle of Waterloo—a close run thing. That had certainly been the case today.
Roi, like almost every member of the sayeret, had been wounded in the fight. He was peppered with bullet fragments and shrapnel and his head ached from repeated mortar blasts. Yatom and Mofaz each had bruised or broken ribs from the shots they’d taken into their protective vests—Bolander too, in his own counter-charge during the SS attack on the hillock. Roskovsky was dead, Rafi dying. Ido had taken a bit of shrapnel during his stint in defense of the ridge, but had yet to treat himself or allow the doctors at the aid station to assist him. body armor was also peppered with shrapnel, as was a good portion of his face. Only Ilan, ensconced in his sniper’s liar throughout the fight had escaped injury.