As the sun’s first rays spread over the battleground, gunners on both sides of the river took the opportunity to at least pretend to aim. The firing started again, and gradually died down. Maurice knew then that they were still out of sight of the German gunners, but at the same time, they couldn’t go back, for moving away from the sloping bank brought them into the gunner’s field of vision.
The four men waited, shivering against the banks of the river. By mid-morning, Maurice realized he felt emptiness in his belly and pressure on his bladder. By noon, shivering under a weak November sun behind grey clouds, all four had wet themselves.
In mid-afternoon, Maurice reached carefully into his jacket pocket and brought out the only rations he had: a small bar of chocolate, courtesy of the Americans. Careful not to raise his head, he unwrapped one end of the Hershey bar and took a small bite. It did absolutely nothing to satisfy his hunger, so he tried his best to eat only a few bites at a time. All too soon, the whole bar was gone.
When the sun finally set, the men were shivering uncontrollably. Sergeant Nikolaev squirmed around until he was facing across the river toward the Soviet-held side. He waited longer, until the sky was completely black. The clouds covered the moon; there was almost absolute darkness. Nikolayev reached out and touched the other three on the shoulders and nodded toward the boat.
This time, they were especially careful not to make a sound. Expecting to feel bullets ripping through him any second, Maurice did not hear even a drop of water fall into the river as he raised his soaking boots over the gunwale. He put his feet down so slowly they made no sound, then sat silently.
It seemed to take hours for each man to climb aboard without making noise, but they did it. The boatman rowed, silently again, and the other four crouched low. Finally, they reached the north bank. Maurice felt both relief and misgiving. We didn’t see the German side. We failed to bring in the intelligence. The major won’t be happy. He could hear the Commissar screaming at them for treasonous incompetence.
But the major seemed genuinely happy and relieved when the Sergeant Nikolaev, still in his wet, muddy German uniform, saluted smartly. “All here, all accounted for, tovarisch Major.”
“Change into dry clothes and reassemble in ten minutes, Sergeant,” the Major replied.
This is it, Maurice thought. We’re going to be shot.
Instead, the Major had a handful of medals. “For bravery,” he said as he pinned the medals to each of the five soldiers’ chests and then kissed each one on both cheeks. “I know you don’t think that you achieved your objective, but the fire you drew showed our gunners where their guns are. We’re re-aiming for the big push tomorrow morning.”
Even though it was already late, the Major sent them to the mess tent for a special meal, with extra meat and bread and a bottle of Russian brandy. The celebration did not last long, but the five of them savoured it.
The next morning, Maurice was back in his trench, looking down his rifle’s barrel and waiting for the order to charge across the river.
Germany
October 1944
After Operation Bagration drove the Germans out of Belorussia, Lithuania and much of Poland by the autumn of 1944, the Germans launched two counter-operations in Lithuania. Doppelkopf and Casar managed to hold the Soviets back and preserve a link between the two major German forces, Army Group North and Army Group Centre along the Baltic Coast.
On October 5, Soviet General Bagramyan launched the Memel Offensive, again employing the Soviet deep penetration strategy. Attacking along a 100-kilometre front, the Red Army broke through on the first day and drove 16 kilometres northwest toward the Baltic coast. The entire 5th Guards Tank Army drove into the breach. In two days, the Reds reached the sea, severing the two Germany army groups.
Nearly 200,000 German troops, 33 divisions, withdrew to the Courland Pocket, an area around the Baltic city of Memel, now the Lithuanian city of Klaipeda. The city is on a body of water called the Curonian Lagoon, which is separated from the Baltic Sea by a narrow spit of land that extends from the East Prussian territory of Koenigsberg northeast toward Memel.
Meanwhile, in August, the people of Warsaw rose up against the German occupation, counting on the support of the Red Army which was less than twenty miles away. But Stalin ordered the army not to help the Poles. Instead, the USSR let the Germans consume precious resources putting down the Warsaw Uprising, counting on the two sides to weaken each other.
The Courland Pocket held out against the Soviets until the end of the war, not surrendering until two days after Hitler’s death. The Soviets attacked the Pocket again and again, losing thousands of men, aircraft and tanks and gaining only a few kilometres of territory.
Courland was a valiant but futile effort. In January 1945, with Army Group Courland effectively pinned down, the Red Army built up a five-to-one superiority in men and materiél over the Germans. They bypassed Courland and Memel, driving hundreds of kilometres west in just two weeks.
After months of inaction on the banks of the Niemen, Maurice and the others in his odalenye were shocked to realize one morning that the enemy had withdrawn.
The orders came down from the commissars to the officers, and then to the men: they were about to cross the Niemen.
Into Königsberg. East Prussia.
Germany.
The shock troops using the deep operations strategy had done their work, pouring across East Prussia, sweeping the German army through the snow of early 1945. German civilians went with them, except for a few, stubborn or unlucky enough to face the Reds.
Maurice’s company entered a small town in Koenigsburg, remarkably intact for a city in a war zone. Maurice and his odalenye walked along a road, three men pulling the Maxim gun, the rest holding their rifles across their chests, ready to fire.
Commissar Sorkin came up, his uniform perfectly clean and pressed. How the hell did he manage that in the snow and mud? Sorkin called the men together. “Remember this, comrades: we’re now in enemy territory. We are no longer liberating occupied countries. Every civilian you see is your enemy. Never forget that, and never let your guard down. Remember how the Germans starved our brothers in Leningrad. Remember how they burned down our homes, destroyed our cities, enslaved our people, raped our women.” He paused and looked each man in the eyes. “No mercy.”
After four years of occupation, of looting and enslavement, of the rape of their mothers, sisters and daughters, the murder of their fathers and brothers, the men of the USSR took out their revenge on the women and elderly left behind by the Germans.
One unusually warm winter day, as Soviet planes buzzed in a clear blue sky, Maurice’s unit followed a group of tanks across the Polish plain. A warm wind and the sunshine turned the snow into soft, almost welcoming cover on the ground, but a black mess behind the tanks’ treads.
Maurice’s odalenye and several more followed the wake of shock troops that had driven deep into Germany. They passed dead horses and the burning hulks of Panzers. They could see the SS insignia on the collars of the dead men on the fields and in the trenches. The SS, the fanatics who will never surrender to their last bullet.
“I heard that Fritz is rushing to surrender to the Americans and the English because they don’t want to surrender to us,” said Old Stepan, leading the horse that hauled the ammunition wagon.
“I’m not going to take any prisoners,” said Serhiy Koval. “Not after they killed Young Olesh. I’m going to kill every fucking German I see.”