Eye of the Storm

CHAPTER NINE

“Schutze Goldschmidt reporting to the commander as ordered,” Hagai said, saluting. Schutze, guard, was the Freilander equivalent of a private.

Hagai was sweating. Very, very rarely were recruits called in to see the commander of Two Company. Two Company was a line company but acted as the training company for the battalion as well. All new recruits and officer candidates served in Two Company. By the same token, all the other officers and men were very senior within their rank. Command of Two Company was a necessary step to becoming a major and eventually a battalion commander. Captain Itzowitz had previously commanded Four Company in the battalion and One Company, the headquarters and support company. This was his third company command.

So to be standing before the grizzled commander Hagai had to have really screwed up. There were Feldwebel and Oberfeldwebel to handle anything less. The problem was, he couldn’t think of anything he’d done, lately, that would get him in enough trouble to be staring over the CO’s head.

The CO returned his salute politely then looked him up and down.

“I’m going to be sorry to lose you, Hagai.” Itzowitz was Sephardic in extraction rather than Ashkenazi and showed it in being nearly as tall as Frederick and more heavily boned. He also was Reform and was reputed to not even keep kosher which was almost unheard of among the Maccabeans.

Hagai didn’t know what to say to that so he kept quiet. He’d learned that early on.

“You are probably unaware of it but the Maccabeus is slightly overstrength,” Hauptmann Itzowitz continued. “As such, we are being drawn upon to fill out some other units. You will remain a member of the Bruederschaft but you will be transferring to Florian Geyer for the foreseeable future.”

“Florian Geyer, sir?” Hagai said, stunned. He was being thrown out of the unit?

“It’s not the end of the world,” the Hauptmann said, smiling. “At Ease, Hagai. Sit, even.”

“Yes, sir,” Hagai said, sitting down at attention.

“I said at ease,” the Hauptmann said, somewhat more sharply. “Look, we have too many good Jews here in the Maccabeus. You’re not being thrown out because you are our worst. If we send people to another unit, they are our ambassadors. We don’t send our very best but we send people that are not going to embarrass us, yes? We were levied for five Schutze from the battalion. You are the only one in Two Company that I felt good enough to be sent to Florian Geyer. You have been trained as a grenadier. Florian Geyer is an panzerjaeger unit. You will have to learn your duties very quickly. I think you have the skills to do so. That is why you are going.”

“Thank you, sir,” Hagai said, unsure whether it was really a compliment or not. He was being thrown out of the Maccabeans?

“I see I have not convinced you,” the CO said, sighing. “There are other Brothers who are not in the Maccabeus. Many in the intelligence sections, yes? A few scattered in Wiking. This is the same. You will need to see the Rabbi before you leave, though.”

“Sir?” Hagai asked.

“The Florian Geyer does not keep kosher,” the CO said. “To fit in in the unit, you are going to have to be… flexible. Major Hertzberg is a good Orthodox rabbi. He will explain to you the necessity. And you need to get your best uniform prepared. You have an interview with the battalion commander this afternoon. He will say much the same thing I said. Just in more definite terms.”

“Nein! Nein! Ox you are a dumkopf! Your other left!”

There were no simulators for the Leopards. Fortunately, there was a seemingly unending stream of diesel, ammo and parts.

Since getting their first shipment of panzers, the Michael Wittmann had been in the field training nearly constantly. Not only on maneuver and combat but on field maintenance which was equally as important. The Leopard Vs were immensely complex machines from the track system to the electro-drive for the new guns. Some of it the ancient veterans knew and half-remembered. Much of it could only come from books. As to the training on maneuvering…

“My apologies, Feldwebel,” Frederick said, getting the tank straightened out again. He had been negotiating an erzatz obstacle course and part of the problem was that some of the ‘obstacles’ were imaginary mines obscured from the driver. He had to take direction from Harz who was not the most patient of teachers.

“I think you just got us graded as destroyed,” Harz growled. “In combat we would be dead! Quit thinking about your fucking girlfriend and listen to my orders… More speed now… Faster… ”

“Crank it, Schutze!” Gefreiter Joachim Aderholt shouted. “Into the sun, into the wind!”

The gunner of Three Track, Second Platoon, 2 Company, Panzer Battalion Michael Wittmann was a new addition. The Leopard V had an autoloading system for the main gun and, thus, no loader. But it still required a gunner. Aderholt was as new and just about as clumsy at his job as Frederick. But he was still a Gefreiter, a lance corporal, and thus much above a lowly Schutze.

Frederick looked at the next obstacle and gulped. It was an incline ramp and he couldn’t see what was on the other side.

“Feldwebel… ” he muttered.

“Faster, damnit!” Harz shouted. “Push the stick to the stops, you little shit! Drive like a panzer driver should!”

The Leopard weighed right at seventy tons but its Indowy rebuilt engines could accelerate it if not like a sport’s car then like a sporty sedan. The massive engine of war had nearly a football field to speed up before it hit the ramp. At which point it went airborne.

“Ob’s stürmt oder schneit!” Harz shouted as the tank dropped into the water obstacle on the far side in a welter of spray. “Ob die Sonne uns lacht! Sing, damn you!”

Frederick grinned and sang along, wondering in the feel of power driving the tank gave him.

“Welcome to Florian Geyer,” the Oberfeldwebel said, sourly, looking the Maccabeans up and down.

Florian Geyer had always been a bit of an odd duck among Das Volk. During the War the battalion had specialized at first in armored reconnaissance, then in anti-lander systems. Most of them were less effective than the Tiger IIIs but they had been critical in a few cases when Tigers were unavailable.

As the Bruderschaft survived the first few years and began to specialize, Florian Geyer had for some reason chosen quarrying and masonry. Where the Reich and Jugend had concentrated on farming and Michael Wittmann on industry, the Florian Geyers were out breaking rocks. Admittedly, many of the finer buildings in Freiland were the work of Florian Geyer and their headquarters proved that, being a solidly constructed building of granite block. But it still set them apart almost as much as the Maccabeans with their kosher and Sabat rituals.

The Oberfeldwebel had the look of a mason in blocky arms and shoulders. He wasn’t much taller than Hagai but the private was sure that the sergeant could break him in half.

“I am Oberfeldwebel Ginsberg. Yes, it is a Jewish name. As far as I know, I’m not Jewish. But I was chosen to introduce you to the company because it might make you more comfortable.” The Oberfeldwebel hawked and spat. “I don’t believe in making recruits comfortable. I believe in making them uncomfortable. But the Hauptmann said make you comfortable. Are you comfortable yellow-shits?”

“Ja, Herr Oberfeldwebel,” Hagai chorused along with the other Maccabeans.

“Liars all,” Ginsberg said. “That is not a slur on your race, Jews, just the truth. This is not the Maccabeus. This is the Florian Geyer. We do not pansy around as infantry, we are the destroyers of very big systems. We have just received our new combat systems, the Nasshorn, and the purpose to which we will put it. Come with me.”

The Oberfeldwebel led them around the headquarters building to a field beyond. Vehicles were assembled in meticulous lines, most of the vehicles decidedly odd in appearance. Not to mention reflective.

“These are Nasshorn,” Ginsberg said, gesturing to the shiny “tanks.” The new camouflage system had already been explained and discussed so Hagai knew they may be shiny now, but… “They are designed to stop our enemy’s most fearsome weapon. Schutze… Goldschmidt, what would that be?”

Hagai momentarily froze then blanched.

“The Hedren CSUs?” he asked, apalled. “The Juggernauts?”

“Ja, yellow-shit,” the NCO said, grinning. “These little toys are what we are going to ride into battle. And we are going to be taking on tanks larger faster and more powerful than Tiger IIIs. Tanks as heavily armored as space cruisers and bigger than American SheVas. Now, yellow-shits, have I made you comfortable?”

Hagai looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“You’ve been thinking,” Feldwebel Ginsburg accused.

The Macabee admitted to the charge.

“That’s a dangerous pastime,” said the senior non-com.

“I know.”

“Out with it, yellow-shit. Don’t be shy; what’s bothering you?”

The Jew gulped. “Feldwebel, I can accept — at an intellectual level, anyway; it’s hard to actually believe — that the main gun of a Nasshorn can take out a CSU. What I can’t see is how we’re — I mean any of us — expected to survive the experience. We get one, sure, but they are many more than just one. And those others? They kill us.”

“Ohhh, that. Did someone guarantee that you would survive the experience? Give me his name, so I can denounce him properly.”

Hagai looked up and saw that the sergeant was joking. This was not an everyday occurance, of course. As a matter of fact, Hagai couldn’t remember it ever having happened before.

“I’m serious, Herr Feldwebel,” the Jew insisted. “And, no, I know I won’t necessarily survive the war… or even our first fight. I’m… well, ‘comfortable’ isn’t the word, but I understand it. But these machines are all we have to deal with the Hedren CSUs. If we exchange at one for one — if we’re even that lucky — once we’re gone then who or what protects the rest of the division?”

Ginsburg seemed to consider this for a minute or so. When he answered, it was to ask, “What makes you think we’ll be taking them on outnumbered?”

The Jew opened his mouth to answer, but got no further than, “I… ”

“Sure, they may well have equal numbers, even superior numbers. But we’ve got some advantages, too. Think about those, yellow-shit.”

Hagai chewed at his lower lip. “You think we’ll be faster, Herr Feldwebel?”

“Yes, that. Also, smaller has it’s own virtues. We can hide. We can move under cover on routes and into places a CSU would never fit. We’ve also got one other advantage, and it’s decisive, Jew.”

“What’s that, Herr Feldwebel?”

Again, Ginsburg grinned. “In all that vast swarm of Hedren slaves, there’s not going to be a one named Hagai.”

“Yellow-shit, do you even know who Florian Geyer is?”

Hagai was under the Panzerjaeger scraping bits of dirt out of the tracks. Tanks picked up a lot of dirt and there were about a billion places for it to stick. Fortunately, the Kobolds had recently set up a modern wash-point; basically a building filled with fire-hoses that sprayed half the Rhine under high pressure at the tanks. It tended to get most of the dirt off.

But some still remained. And a clean tank was next to Godliness according to that bastard Ginsburg.

The rest of the transfers, being past the initial training phase and with all of the Florian Geyer effectively being in ‘training’ with the new Panzerjaegers, had been farmed out to 3 and 4 companies to fill empty slots. Hagai, however, was still a ‘yellow-shit’, a baby’s shit, and thus stayed in 2 Company. And, for his sins which must have included at some point unknowingly breaking kosher, he had Ginsburg for a track commander.

“Nein, Herr Feldwebel,” Hagai replied, spitting dirt out of his mouth. “It was not covered in my training documents.”

“Herr Florian Geyer was a nobleman who led the Black Company and took the side of the peasants in an uprising,” Ginsburg said. He was on top of the Panzerjaeger and as far as Hagai could tell he was sitting on his fat ass. “That was the time of the Protestant Revolution when the peasants rose up against the Catholic Church and the nobles that supported it. They lost, of course, and he was killed. But his spirit lived on. We carry that spirit of battle against tyranny into the future, the small Panzerjaeger against the unstoppable Juggernaut.”

“Jawohl, Herr Feldwebel,” Hagai said, shaking his head to get mud out of his eye. Then he thought about the Feldwebel’s words and took a chance. “So, what you’re saying, Herr Feldwebel, is that our history is to always be outnumbered, outgunned and generally getting the shitty end of the stick. And I thought this unit had no Jewish traditions at all.”

“Very funny, Schutze,” the Feldwebel replied.