Ragnarok

Chapter Sixteen

Front Lines, Germany Prime

3 November 1985

“Incoming!”

Hennecke Schwerk dived into the foxhole, praying silently that he would be one of the lucky ones as shells crashed down on the position. The rebels seemed to have an unlimited amount of ammunition and, judging where some of the shells were landing, an excellent idea of where the Waffen-SS had taken up position. Loud explosions shook the ground, sending pieces of dirt falling into the foxhole; he told himself, firmly, that unless a shell actually landed on top of him there was little chance of being killed. But as the bombardment grew louder, he couldn’t help feeling that the earth would cave in on him at any moment.

He risked a glance out of the foxhole as the bombardment lessened, the shells flying over their heads and striking targets further to the east. The town — he’d never learned the place’s name — was in ruins, every building that had survived the SS’s advance westwards smashed flat by the rebel bombardment as they prepared to move east. He had no idea what had happened to the population, but as their homes burned or collapsed into rubble he found himself hoping that they’d made it out of the danger zone in time.

They’ll be coming soon, he thought, grimly. The enemy would be advancing already, relying on the bombardment to force the defenders to keep their heads down. And we’re out here to greet them.

He scooped up the antitank rocket launcher and scowled as he took up position in the foxhole, peering west. The irony was going to kill him, perhaps literally. He’d battled his way through countless enemy positions where the enemy soldiers had fired a shot or two at him and then fled, only to be landed in the same position himself. But there was a difference; the rebels had had friends and comrades to cover their retreat, while the penal battalion had none. Chances were they’d be shot in the back if they didn’t make it back to friendly lines under their own steam.

“Hold position,” Kuhn bellowed. “Watch for the advance!”

At least he’s not a coward, Hennecke conceded, ruefully. Two of the company’s newest members had been shot for attempted desertion, after they’d been caught trying to sneak out of the camp. But that means he’ll just keep us here until it’s too late.

He shook his head in frustration. They’d been issued with antitank weapons, but no pistols or rifles. Kuhn was the only man in the squad with a personal weapon. Hennecke could see the logic — it wasn’t as if the squad was particularly motivated to fight if they had a choice — but it was frustrating. Standard doctrine called for infantry to move up beside the panzers, covering them from enemy infantry who were doing… well, precisely what Hennecke and his unwilling comrades were doing. And if they did see enemy infantry, they’d have no choice, but to retreat at once.

Which wouldn’t be bad, Hennecke thought, if it didn’t run the risk of us being branded cowards.

He’d been lucky, he knew. The deserters hadn’t been the only men to be shot as the officers reasserted control. Being sent to the penal battalion was bad, but a number of other men had been shot — or hanged — just to make it clear that the officers were still in command. They’d pulled the different divisions back together at a very high cost. Hennecke wouldn’t have been too surprised if they’d killed one in ten men just to make the point.

They would, if they weren’t so short of manpower, he thought. The shells were falling further and further eastwards, hammering the lines drawn up near Warsaw. They’re stuck with us for the moment.

He flinched as a trio of aircraft roared overhead, heading east. It was hard to be sure, but they looked like jet fighters rather than ground-attack aircraft, probably trying to smash the remaining aircraft defending Warsaw. No bombs fell as they vanished into the distance; he saw a pair of missiles rise up from a position further east, only to fall back to the ground as they lost their targets. They simply weren’t good enough to catch modern aircraft.

“Here they come,” Kuhn snapped. “Choose your targets, but I’ll have the head of any man who fires without my permission.”

Hennecke sucked in his breath. Panzers — five of them — were advancing up the road towards the town, their weapons sweeping from side to side as they looked for targets. A handful of mounted infantry followed them, riding in armoured vehicles that would have been safe enough, off a modern battlefield. But he knew from bitter experience that an antitank missile would make short work of them. He wondered, absently, if he should be shooting at the transports rather than the panzers, but Kuhn would strangle him — personally — if he disobeyed orders. The panzers were priority targets.

Doesn’t take an idiot to know we’re short on panzers, Hennecke thought, as he took careful aim. They probably want to waste as many enemy panzers as they can before they crash into our panzers.

He gritted his teeth as he waited for the order to fire. Kuhn might think they had a good chance of landing a blow and getting out, but Hennecke wasn’t so sure. They hadn’t had time to set up escape trenches, let alone pre-position vehicles to allow them to make a rapid escape. Hell, their sole objective — as far as Hennecke could tell — was to bleed the enemy a little before they got brutally crushed. And there was no way they could kill everyone coming at them without more weapons…

“Fire,” Kuhn bellowed.

Hennecke pulled the trigger. The missile leapt from its launcher — Hennecke rapidly discarded the remainder of the device — and slammed into the nearest panzer, which staggered to a halt. Two more went up in fireballs, a third taking the missile on its armour plating and continuing, apparently undamaged. Hennecke scrambled up out of the foxhole and crawled for his life as the enemy opened fire, bullets snapping through the air bare millimetres above his head. Kuhn was barking orders as they ran, but Hennecke couldn’t make out any of the words. All he could do was crawl until he reached cover, no matter how puny it was, then run as hard as he could.

He glanced behind him as the sound of shooting grew louder. The enemy panzers were smashing through the foxholes, crunching their way into the town. He couldn’t tell if any of the squad had been killed or captured, although he wouldn’t bet against it. They had just been far too exposed for comfort.

Kuhn slapped his back as he ran past. “Run!”

Hennecke nodded. Someone was dropping shells on the town… it struck him, suddenly, that there had been a plan after all. The higher-ups had plotted out the town as a target, preparing their mortars to ensure they gave the enemy a hot reception. And his squad had been put in place to delay the enemy long enough to let the mortar crews open fire.

And it worked, he thought, sourly. But how many of us did it kill?

“We’re meeting resistance,” the dispatcher said.

“Understood,” Field Marshal Gunter Voss growled. He hadn’t expected an unopposed march to Warsaw, even if the Waffen-SS was smart enough to realise that they needed to play for time. “Heavy resistance?”

“Just small ambushes,” the dispatched reported. “But they’re causing considerable delays.”

“Of course,” Gunter said.

He studied the map, wishing — just for a moment — that he had a tactical interface like his American counterparts. He’d mocked the concept when he’d first heard of it — both to his comrades and in print — yet he had to admit it might have its uses. American commanders might have less latitude than their Heer counterparts — and their superiors would be watching over their shoulders — but their superiors would have a far better idea of what was actually going on

The enemy tactics made sense — indeed, he’d predicted precisely what the enemy would do while he’d been drawing up the plans. Standing and fighting would be ideal, from his point of view, but he knew better than to rely on the enemy doing what he wanted them to do. No commander worthy of the name would allow his forces to be pocketed in a caldron and crushed if he could avoid it. And slowing up his advance would be enough to give the enemy time to pull back and escape the pockets.

“Order the advance units to keep pushing forward,” he ordered. “And move the secondary units up ahead of schedule. Warn them to keep sweeping the landscape for surprises.”

“Jawohl, Herr Field Marshal.”

Gunter nodded, leaving the dispatchers to issue the orders to the units in the field. The time-delay was a major headache; no matter how quickly he responded to any reports of trouble, events might well have moved on before his orders reached his subordinates. But he had faith in the junior officers leading the advance. They could cope with most matters without needing him to hold their hand.

But they don’t see the overall battle either, he reminded himself.

The map was updated, again. Blue arrows were lancing towards Warsaw, punching through the observed enemy defensive lines. It wouldn’t be long before the enemy CO had to make a choice between pulling into Warsaw — and being trapped — or retreating further east. Either way, Gunter thought, his counterpart would lose. Unless he had something clever up his sleeve…

“More contacts,” a dispatcher called. “Enemy forces are holding the line at…”

“Dispatch aircraft to deal with them,” another dispatcher snapped.

Gunter nodded to himself. The Waffen-SS was good, but he had enough mobile firepower to flatten them. If they chose to stand and fight, so much the better.

And if they don’t, he thought, we still have enough firepower to give them one hell of a mauling.

Hauptmann Felix Malguth kept a wary eye on his radar screen as the HE-477 flew over the battlefield. There were no SS aircraft in the air, according to the intelligence staff, but it would only take one jet fighter to ruin his day. And besides, the level of antiaircraft firepower the SS had drawn up to protect their lines was truly staggering. He’d seen two of his comrades blown out of the sky, one crashing before he’d had a chance to eject, simply for flying too close to one of their concentrations.

But that didn’t stop him playing a major role in the battle.

He smiled, coldly, as he altered course, following the orders crackling through the radio. The SS was making a stand, holding back the panzers as they fought to punch through enemy lines and advance towards Warsaw. Felix allowed his smile to grow wider as he caught sight of the enemy positions, then tipped his aircraft down towards the ground as he released his bombs. A chain of explosions billowed up underneath him as he levelled out, spinning his aircraft through a whole series of evasive manoeuvres. The SS’s antiaircraft rockets were pitiful, compared to the American Stingers, but they might still score a lucky hit.

Go get them, boys, he thought, as he saw the infantry run forward. Any survivors, he hoped, would be too badly battered to put up much of a fight. Don’t let them get away.

A lone farmhouse sat in the midst of a field, looking suspiciously innocent. Felix had learned a great deal over the last month about ‘innocent’ buildings — it looked, very much, as though the SS had turned it into a fortress. He pointed the nose of his aircraft towards the farmhouse and strafed it, watching with satisfaction as a pair of black-clad men fled the burning ruin and ran for cover. There was no point in trying to pick them off individually, he knew; he turned and headed north, looking for further targets of opportunity as he returned to his base. Once he had a new load of bombs, he’d be heading back out to find more targets…

…And hurting the SS, once again, for what they’d done to the Luftwaffe.

Andrew had been warned, very firmly, to stay at the rear as Generalmajor Gunter Gath led his staff through what had been the outer edge of the enemy’s defence line. He did as he was told, keeping his head down as the sound of shooting grew louder and louder. The roads were lined with destroyed vehicles, pushed aside by follow-up units as they headed into the combat zone. He couldn’t help wondering just how many of the destroyed panzers could be salvaged.

Panzer armour definitely appears to be somewhat overrated, he thought, silently composing the report he intended to write. He wouldn’t actually write it until he got back to the embassy, but it helped to plan it out in advance. German antitank rockets appear to be capable of stopping even their latest panzers, even when striking frontal armour rather than the sides or turret…

He smiled at the thought. The Germans had never succeeded, if MI6 was to be believed, in duplicating Chobham armour. And it looked, very much, as though the Brits were right. The panzers, once the most feared tanks in human history, had taken hideous losses to weapons their American and British counterparts would shrug off. But then, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Britain and America had lavished billions of dollars on finding new ways to penetrate panzer armour, unaware — until it was too late — that they’d not only beaten the Germans, they’d moved so far ahead that the Germans didn’t have a hope of catching up.

A set of orderlies hurried past them, carrying stretchers as they headed west. The wounded, no matter their condition, were being moved all the way back to Berlin, where doctors and nurses were waiting to treat their wounds. Andrew had a nasty feeling that it wouldn’t be long before the medical staff were completely overwhelmed, if they didn’t start running out of supplies. The Reich hadn’t asked the United States for medical supplies…

They probably don’t want to admit just how badly they’re suffering, Andrew thought. He couldn’t blame the Germans for trying. If they looked weak, their American counterparts would try to take advantage of them. But it doesn’t take a genius to know that they are taking a beating.

He sucked in his breath as they walked into a village… or something he assumed had been a village. There were piles of debris everywhere, but no intact buildings. Even the church had been destroyed. It didn’t look as though the damage had happened recently — there were no fires — yet there was no way to know for sure. Even if the war ended tomorrow, even if Holliston shot himself in a bunker, the Third Reich would take years to recover. The United States would have plenty of time to solidify its position.

Hitler wouldn’t have gone down so easily, Andrew thought. It was easy to imagine the first Führer leading a final defence of Berlin, reverting to the infantryman he once was as British, French and American troops broke into the city. Hollywood had definitely thought so — there were plenty of movies where the Reich was defeated, either during the war or shortly afterwards. But instead he went mad and died.

He wrinkled his nose as he scented the burial pit. Dozens of bodies had been unceremoniously dumped in the hole, after they had been stripped naked. Their hands were tied behind their backs… he swore, quietly, as he saw the blue tattoos on their arms. SS men, not Heer or civilians. They’d been killed by their own side.

“Deserters,” Oberleutnant Sebastian Riemer said.

Andrew glanced at him. He looked sick.

“How do you know?”

“They’ve been stripping bodies ever since the offensive failed,” Riemer told him. “We’ve stumbled across plenty of naked bodies. But this… they’ve all been shot in the back of the head.”

Andrew nodded, slowly. He had no inclination to get any closer — the smell was thoroughly unpleasant, even though it was cold enough to keep the bodies from decomposing rapidly — but Riemer was right. The dead men — the murdered men — hadn’t been killed in battle, they’d been executed. And the only reason the SS would execute its own men was for desertion.

“Crap,” he said, finally.

He wondered, as Riemer hurried after his commander, just what it meant. The SS had a reputation for toughness — was that, like so much else, breaking down under the pressures of civil war? It couldn’t be easy to lay waste to Germany, not when it was Germans who would suffer. And then, being defeated had to be a shock too. The SS had lost small-unit engagements in the past, but it had never been defeated in open battle. Its reputation for invincibility had seemed deserved.

But the Reich never had a civil war before, he reminded himself. How badly did we suffer during the War Between the States?

“Keep funnelling men towards Warsaw,” Gath was saying, as they caught up with him. He was barking orders to his staff, one by one. “Keep the pressure on. I don’t want to give them a chance to regroup.”

He smiled, rather thinly, at Andrew. “Finding it a little cold, American?”

“You’ve never experienced winter in Alaska,” Andrew said, choosing to ignore the fact that he’d never set foot in Alaska either. He’d never gone any further north than Boston. “I’m warm enough, for the moment.”

“Good,” Gath said. He turned back to peer eastwards. “Let’s see how hot we can make it for them, shall we?”