Sabres in the Snow

Chapter One

There was a thunderous roar as the shell from the Russian 45 hit the ground. The snow covered earth shook for long seconds and one of the SS men crouched over the detonator box slipped.

“Come on, hurry,” yelled Captain Josef Kleiser, slamming a fresh magazine into the MP40 which he had picked up from one of the men lying beside him. Kleiser’s shouts were swamped by another tidal wave of sound as the entire Russian battery opened up again. From such close range, shells powered into the rock hard earth, some skidding on the icy surface. One skittered for a few yards then exploded, showering those nearby with lumps of red hot metal. One piece, the size of a football, slammed into the side of a stationary krupp and carved a path right through the cab, slicing the driver in two and decapitating the other man in the cab. The ten-ton lorry teetered on two of its mighty wheels for interminable seconds then keeled over with a loud crash. Men who had been using it for cover hastily scattered.

Kleiser gritted his teeth and ran across towards the three big 88s which he had positioned close to the tunnel entrance. On both sides of him a high bank of snowy earth rose sharply and his men clung defiantly to it, returning each fusillade of Russian fire.

“Knock out that mortar battery,” roared Kleiser, ducking low as another shell exploded close-by. It struck the tunnel arch, blasting away a huge chunk of stone and earth. Above the roar of the explosion he heard screams of agony as two of his men were catapulted into the air by the force of the impact. Fragments of rock and metal rained down like confetti. The SS captain spun round to see the two men with the detonator box scurrying back up the slippery slope which led from the last stantion of the railway bridge. Beneath the bridge itself a deep gorge, fully fifty-feet if Kleiser’s calculations were correct, yawned. The only thing which connected the two sides was the bridge and, even as he watched, the leading Russian troops began to pick their way cautiously onto the metal structure, using its steel girders for cover.

Sergeant Dietz, crouched behind the MG42 tightened his finger around the trigger and sent a stream of bullets cutting into the advancing brown-clad men. They went down in heaps, their companions using their bodies as cover but, from such close range, the machine gun was lethal. Slugs ploughed through dead flesh, erupting from shattered bodies to blast holes in living flesh beyond. Dietz saw that the two men with the detonator box had been singled out by the Russian snipers and he roared at the men close-by him to cover the fleeing Germans. Dietz himself stood up, the long cartridge belt of the machine gun dangling beneath him as he fired. The MG42 roared, bright tongues of flame lancing from its muzzle and more Russians went down in the furious fire.

Kleiser himself left the 88s and scurried back towards the edge of the gorge, watching as the other two SS men ran for their lives, trailing wire behind them. One was hit in the leg, the bullet catching him just below the knee, ripping open his calf and ploughing on to shatter his shin. He screamed and went down heavily, clutching at the wound. His companion wavered for a moment but Kleiser cupped a hand to his mouth.

“Leave him,” he bellowed, his voice almost drowned as the 88s let loose. Had Kleiser taken his eyes off the fleeing German he would have seen the heavy shells speed across the gorge and obliterate the Russian mortar battery on the far side. Men and weapons disappeared beneath a screaming blanket of fire. But, the captain was more concerned with the private who was scrambling back towards his colleagues. The SS man was panting heavily, the cold air rasping in his lungs, bullets zipping past him. Behind him, his wounded companion was crawling after him, his shattered leg leaving a crimson trail on the snow-covered ground. He dragged himself for a few more yards until a well-placed Russian bullet caught him in the nape of the neck, just below the rim of his helmet. The heavy grain slug erupted from the man’s face, tearing away most of his bottom jaw in its wake. He sagged forward, limply.

“Come on,” Kleiser screamed at the second man who finally reached the cover of a half-track and threw himself down just as a stream of tracer whipped across the ground throwing up dozens of small geysers. The captain pushed the gasping SS man aside and looped wires around the two terminals on the detonataor box.

Dietz, still standing up holding the MG42, saw what was happening and called those nearby to him. Still keeping up a withering fire, they pulled back, away from the bridge. At the far end, taking advantage of the small respite, the Russians advanced, driven on by fanatical officers; many of them even reached as far as half-way before concentrated fire from the SS men on the slopes above brought them down in heaps. A huge sapper hurled a grenade as he fell, watching with satisfaction as it exploded amidst a group of retreating Gemans. Men were hurled into the air by the force of the blast, some performing bizarre swallow dives as their torn bodies flew skyward.

Kleiser looked around, checking to see that all his men were clear of the bridge. He rested both hands on the detonator, watching as more Russians fought their way across. They flooded onto it like a brown river, many almost reaching the side where the Germans were. The SS captain smiled as they drew closer, then, with a defiant roar, he pushed down hard on the plunger.

The fifty pounds of High Explosive attached to the base of the closest station erupted, tearing the metal as if it were paper. Tongues of flame rose from the searing explosion, to be followed, seconds later, by mushroom clouds of black smoke which swirled and eddied in the snow-filled air.

The bridge buckled at one end, the metal tearing itself free from the icy ground. Those Russians closest to the edge tried to turn and run but the press of their companions behind made it impossible. They could only scream in desperation as the bridge seemed to disintegrate before them. A secondary charge, set off by the initial explosion, tore what remaiend of the stantion away and many of the brown men plummetted into the gorge, their screams carried on the wind, rising above the thunderous roar of the explosives.

“Move,” shouted Kleiser and his men rose as one, heading for the krupps, jeeps and half-tracks which had been used as cover just minutes earlier. The men on the slopes around the tunnel slid down at break-neck speed and scrambled towards their appointed vehicles. Engines roared and the air was filled with a bluish haze of exhaust fumes, the choking odour mingling with that of cordite and blood. The 88s were hooked up to the back of the lead vehicles and, at an order from Kleiser, the entire convoy moved off towards the yawning mouth of the tunnel.

Angry that their foes had escaped, the Russians on the far side of the gorge seemed to double their efforts. Shells from the 45s sped towards the retreating SS men, exploding against the slopes on either side of them. One blast uprooted a tree, the thick trunk rolling downhill like some kind of battering ram. It crashed into the side of a half-track but the mighty vehicle rolled on, its tracks churning empty air as it crawled over the puny obstacle. Another shell struck the tunnel arch again and, as his own jeep passed beneath, Kleiser looked up anxiously, wondering if the entire structure was going to cave-in. Once inside the tunnel, all was darkness, the black of the SS men’s uniforms making them seem a part of the gloom. The rumble of machinery grew in intensity while, outside, shells continued to rain down. Sweating Russian gunners rammed fresh ammunition into breeches already hising with the heat of prolonged use. But, gradually, as the last of the German vehicles was swallowed up by the gaping mouth of the tunnel, the furious onslaught eased somewhat. Half-a-dozen thunderous blasts added a fitting postscript to the engagement.

Inside the tunnel, Kleiser stood up and looked behind him. He could see the smoke swirling at the far end of the seemingly endless black tube. Finally, satisfied that all his vehicles were safely through, he sat down once more, sliding the Walther PPk from its holster to check the magazine. It was full. Kleiser pushed the weapon back into position and rubbed his hands together, trying to restore some of the circulation. Christ, it was cold. The driver of the jeep, a youth in his teens known to the captain as pimmel, because of his bald head and long neck wore the familiar fur cap usually reserved for machine-gunners. He had picked it up from a dead engineer a month ago and, despite the fact that he’d had to scrape most of the previous owner’s brains from the inside, pimmel wore it without qualms.

“Do you hate the fucking country as much as I do?” asked Kleiser, shivering.

Pimmel shrugged.

“I don’t know sir,” he said. “How much do you hate it?”

The youth looked at his commander and smiled thinly. He looked much older than his nineteen years but then, two years on the Eastern Front were enough to age anyone prematurely thought Kleiser. He ran a hand over his own grizzled features, touching briefly the scar which ran from the bridge of his nose to his chin. It was deep, a furrow in his skin which would remain a legacy of his encounter with the Russian’s Siberian troops. Most of them were Mongols and they were the hardest fighting troops Kleiser had ever enountered. Nevertheless, he carried one of their twelve-inch knives in his belt, a reminder that even these ‘other’ Russians were vulnerable. The Siberians thrived in conditions such as these. It had been snowing solidly for the past three weeks, the ground was as hard as stone and, in many places, the snow as much as five-feet deep. Leafless trees stood like petrified sentinels on either side of the railway track and Kleiser glanced at them as the jeep emerged from the tunnel mouth.

The snow seemed to have become a torrent and, high above, banks of thick grey and black cloud promised no respite. The temperature was already down to –9° and, with dusk approaching, it looked as though there would be another iron-hard frost. More than once during the retreat, vehicles had been abandoned because their moving parts had simply seized-up due to the cold. During the depths of winter itself, Kleiser and his men had seen petrol freeze in engines as the temperatures dropped to fifty below freezing. That had been two months ago. Though still constantly assaulted by the fierce Russion weather, the Germans had come through the worst of the winter. They knew, from bitter experience, that the thaw would follow in a few weeks and iron-hard, icy ground would be replaced by a continual quagmire of sucking mud and glutinous ooze, as capable of stopping men and machinery as any snow or ice.

All along the Eastern Front, the German armies were retreating. Kleiser stroked his chin thoughtfully and remembered how easy it had been in the beginning. The Russians had crumbled beneath the Wehrmacht’s brilliantly organised attack, the SS man himself had led his unit to within twenty miles of Moscow but then the winter had struck. He exhaled deeply, the memory painful. His breath formed gossamer clouds in the freezing air. That had seemed like a hundred years ago; now it was March 1943 and it was the turn of the Germans to run. Something which Kleiser found humiliating. Ever since he joined the SS he had been taught that the Bolsheviks and Slavs were untermensch, and that much he believed. Their string of victories only served to further anger the young SS captain.

At the age of thirty, Kleiser had risen through the ranks, gaining a reputation for himself in the process. The older officers distrusted his fanatical patriotism, the younger ones feared his ruthlessness but Kleiser didn’t care for the opinions of others. He cared for just two things. The Fatherland and victory. His men, he knew, were of a similar mind, ready to obey any order he gave them. But, whether it was through duty or fear, he had never been able to discover. He looked at pimmel, studying the youngster’s profile for a moment. The lad swung the jeep off the tracks with a bump and Kleiser waved a hand in the air as a signal for the vehicles following to do likewise.

The sheer weight of the half-track behind had smashed the sleepers to matchwood, bending and buckling the rusty rails beneath its weight. Twenty men sat in the huge juggernaut, Sergeant Dietz at their head, his hands firmly wrapped around the butt of the MG34 mounted atop the vehicle. The sergeant was scanning the hills and trees around them, watching for any sign of movement. Vague reports of partisan activity had reached the SS unit during the past few days and Dietz, for one, was taking no chances. He was a large, bull-necked, man with a lisp. His grey hair closely cropped beneath his helmet and he stood above the troops in his section like some kind of ship’s figurehead.

“Shit,” grunted pimmel as the jeep skidded slightly. He fought to regain control of the wheel and eventually succeeded in guiding the vehicle to the bottom of the slope where it bumped to a halt and stalled. He twisted the key in the ignition with a snarl and drove on. Kleiser looked behind him to see the other vehicles slipping precariously down the incline. The last krupp looked as though it would turn over but, finally, the huge wheels got a grip and it bucked forward. Satisfied that all of his convoy were safely on the road, the SS captain waved them forward, pulling his goggles down to protect his eyes from the snow. His lips felt numb and, when he spoke, his tongue seemed too big for his mouth, the words coming with difficulty.

“We should get off this road,” he said. “If any Russian planes fly past we’re sitting ducks.”

“Which way then, sir?” asked pimmel, easing his foot off the accelerator slightly.

Kleiser bit his lip contemplatively then jabbed a finger towards a range of low hills, South of their present position. The driver nodded and swung the jeep off the road, great flurries of snow flying up as the rear wheels spun round impotently for long seconds before gaining a grip.

The other vehicles folowed.

“Do you think we will still win the war, pimmel?” asked the captain, running his hand over the MP40 which he had across his lap.

“I am not paid to think, sir,” the youngster said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Kleiser wanted to know.

“I am paid to obey orders, sir.”

Kleiser smiled, humourlessly.

“So you have no personal opinions?” he said.

It was pimmel’s turn to smile.

“Are you ordering me to answer, sir?” he asked.

“Yes.”

The driver nodded.

“Yes, I think we will still win the war.”

Kleiser lifted the sub-gun and stuck it into his driver’s face but the youth merely carried on driving. There was a crooked smile on the captain’s face.

“For one so young,” he said, “you are a good liar.”

He slowly lowered the MP40.

The two soldiers regarded each other impassively for a moment then Kleiser cracked out laughing.

“I don’t know how you have stayed alive so long,” he said.

“I don’t know why I’ve bothered sometimes, sir,” the driver told him.

Kleiser told him to pull over and, with its engine idling, the jeep remained stationary as the remainder of the column trundled past. The captain shook his head as he ran an appraising eye over the battered vehicles. The half-tracks were rusted, one of them bearing bullet holes, another had almost lost a track when a large lump of shrapnel had struck it during an engagement a week before. The canvas covering on the krupps was holed and ripped in many places, even rotting due to the ravages of the weather. Those hub caps which remained were mottled with rust, as if someone had smeared blood on them and allowed it to dry slowly. One of the ten-ton lorries bumped along on a flat tyre, the driver constantly cursing as he struggled to control the vehicle.

Kleiser was surprised when the last vehicle came to a halt.

“Who gave you the order to stop?” he roared at the driver.

“I did, sir,” said Sergeant Statz, clambering down from the back of the krupp. He stood beside the vehicle, watching as Kleiser swung himself out of the jeep and trudged across to the waiting truck.

“What the hell are you playing at, Statz?” he demanded.

“I have two men inside this truck,” Statz told him. “Two men who are badly wounded. They need morphine.”

“There isn’t enough for every man in the unit,” Kleiser snapped. “I’ve told you that before.”

“They are very badly injured, sir,” Statz insisted.

Kleiser looked at him blankly, the sounds of pain emanating from the truck swelling like an organ note on the wind. He pushed past the sergeant and hauled himself up into the back of the lorry. There were other men inside too, most of whom were wounded. They regarded their commander with pale, fearful, expressions, watching as he walked to the rear of the truck where two men lay, covered by blankets.

“They are very badly hurt, sir,” said Statz, appearing at his side.

Kleiser knelt and pulled back the blanket which covered the first man. The soldier groaned. He had been hit in the stomach by a piece of shrapnel and, as he looked, Kleiser could see the glistening knot of his large intestine protruding from the savage rent in his belly. Blood, both congealed and fresh, was caked thickly all over the man’s chest and groin and his hands were clamped firmly to his wound as if he feared that to release the ragged edges would cause his entrails to spill out. The stench was almost overpowering.

The captain pulled back the cover from the second SS man who was lying on his stomach. Two bullets had hit him in the small of the back, one shattering his spine. The flesh had been ripped away to reveal glistening pieces of vertebrae and the wounded man merely lay still, his lips fluttering soundlessly, a mixture of blood and sputum forming a pool beside him.

“They need morphine, sir,” Statz said, again.

“We haven’t the time or the facilities to deal with men as badly wounded as this,” said Kleiser, pointing almost accusingly at the two stricken Germans.

“If they could just be given morphine until we reach…”

Statz’s protestations were cut short.

In one swift movement, Kleiser whipped the PPk from its holster and shot each man in the head. He holstered the weapon again and pushed past Statz.

“Get rid of the bodies and then move this fucking truck,” he rasped.

Statz could only gaze dumbly at the two corpses. He swallowed hard then snapped out orders to some of the men standing close by. They lifted the dead men and heaved them out of the krupp.

“Move,” shouted Kleiser and the lorry driver put the huge vehicle in gear. It gradually picked up speed, finally joining the rear of the column once again.

Kleiser rubbed his cheeks with one hand then looked at his driver.

“Let’s go,” he said and, within moments, the jeep was leading the way again.

Kleiser was the first to spot the farmhouse and he swiftly held up his hand as a signal for the others to halt. A downward movement of his arm told the drivers to turn off their engines.

The silence which descended so suddenly was almost palpable. The rumble of powerful engines was replaced by an unsettling solitude, accentuated by the thickly falling snow which seemed to mask any sound.

Kleiser reached for the binoculars which hung around his neck and squinted through them, pausing a moment to brush some snow from the lenses. He focussed and then scanned the small farm ahead of them. Snow had been cleared from the yard, heaped up in large mounds all around the centre of the farm. There was a small wooden hut which he took to be the dwelling of the owner, flanked by two large buildings which looked like barns. Across the yard lay a small stable. The top of a wooden fence thrust upward from beneath the thickly-packed snow.

“No sign of movement,” said Kleiser, under his breath. He lowered the binoculars and stepped out of the jeep. The SS men in the half-track behind sat shivering in the freezing deluge of white. Most wore their camouflage overalls but, even those who chose to retain the distinctive black of their regular uniforms were covered in snow. They looked as if they had been coated in sugar. But, whatever they wore, all bore the glistening Death’s-Head silver badge on their caps or helmets. The skulls seemed to grin at Kleiser as he approached.

“Dietz,” he snapped. “Take six men and check out that farm. The rest of us will follow.”

The sergeant nodded and barked an order to the half-a-dozen troops closest to him.

“We need food,” the captain told him. “Look in the barns.”

Dietz and his men scuttled off through the snow, watched by the rest of the column. Kleiser himself returned to the jeep and slumped into the passenger seat.

“Do you think they’ll find anything, sir?” asked pimmel.

Kleiser shrugged, his eyes fixed to the dark shapes making their way towards the farm. He saw them reach the first of the snow mounds, Dietz and another man taking cover behind it. The sergeant waved two other men towards the farmhouse itself and, through his binoculars, Kleiser could see them approaching the door. Still there was no sign of movement from any of the other buildings.

The barns were checked, as was the stable, the men emerging unscathed each time. The house was the final obstacle.

As Dietz himself kicked the door open, Kleiser gave the order for the column to move forward, and the silence was shattered once again by the roaring of a dozen powerful engines.

Uri Kuratayev was, Kleiser guessed, in his early forties. He looked like a powerful, muscular, figure even though most of his body was covered by a shapeless sacklike garment which smelt of manure. He stood between Dietz and Private Hadel, looking every inch the Russian farmer. A thick growth of beard sprouted from his cheeks and chin looking like an extension of the fur hat which he wore.

“He was hiding inside,” said Dietz, motioning towards the farmhouse.

Kleiser spun round when he heard the neighing of horses. He left the two SS men with their captive and walked across to the stables. Inside were four horses, one of which had a foal with it. The captain ran an appraising eye over the animals which continued to paw the ground nervously.

“What did you find in the barns?” Kleiser called.

“There’s wheat but most of it is rotten,” Statz told him.

“Anything else?”

“Some salt pork; he’s stored it in drums.”

“We’ll take that,” Kleiser said. “Get it loaded into one of the krupps.”

Statz nodded and gathered a number of men to assist him in the task. Kleiser watched as the first of the large containers was brought from the barn and lifted up into the back of one of the waiting lorries. Then he turned his attention back to the horses.

One of them, a magnificent black gelding, stood quietly in its stall almost as if it were returning the SS officer’s stare. Without taking his eyes off the horse, Kleiser shouted;

“Rutweiss. Moller. Here, now.”

Two of the men arrived and saluted.

“We can’t leave the Russians anything,” said Kleiser, flatly. “Shoot the horses and burn the stable.”

The two men hesitated momentarily, looking first at the animals and then back at their commander.

“Do it,” he ordered.

Rutweiss slid back the bolt on his MP40, the sound causing the horses to become even more nervous. Moller did likewise. Then, gritting their teeth, the SS men opened fire. Kleiser stood in the doorway watching as the horses were dropped like slaughtered cattle. The 9mm bullets tore through them from close range, the sound of the chattering weapons deafening in the cramped confines of the stable and, above it all, the agonised sounds made by the stricken animals as they were shot to pieces. Fountains of blood sprayed into the cold air, pieces of mane and hide blasted into atoms and the sub-guns rattled until, at last, the hammers slammed down on empty chambers. Both men tore the magazines free, hurriedly slamming in fresh ones. Rutweiss, holding his breath as best he could, peered into the stalls one at a time. Condensation was rising in reeking clouds from the blood and excrement and the SS man paled. The foal was still moving slightly. He looked at his companion and then at Kleiser who was still standing in the doorway, then, reluctantly, he opened fire again. One short burst which caught the small creataure in the neck and head, nearly severing it. Its body underwent a final muscular twitch and then was still.

“Burn it,” said Kleiser, flatly, and stalked off across the yard towards Kuratayev who was now being restrained by Dietz and to more of the black-clad men. On hearing the shots, the big Russian had tried to break away, to reach his dying animals. Now, as he saw the first tongues of flame rising from the stable, a single tear burst from his eye corner and froze on his cheek.

“Ask him where the nearest village is,” said Kleiser, pulling Corporal Harger towards him. Harger spoke fluent Russian and repeated his superior’s question to the stricken farmer whilst, to his left, other SS men were already setting light to the first of the barns.

Kuratayev rasped something back and Harger raised a hand to strike him.

“What did he say?” Kleiser wanted to know.

“He told me to fuck off,” the corporal said. “Ask him again,” said Kleiser.

Harger did so.

“Germanski, bastards,” snarled the big Russian, and then proceeded to launch into a furious tirade against the questioning corporal.

“He says he’d rather die than tell us,” Harger translated.

Kleiser nodded thoughtfully and slowly drew his PPk. Apparently without aiming, he fired once. The bullet hit Kuratayev in the left knee, the close-range impact shattering the patella, snapping the leg back at an impossible angle. The big man went down in a heap, clutching at the shattered joint but Kleiser kicked his hands away, instead bringing the heel of his boot to rest on the wound. Kuratayev shrieked in pain.

“Ask him again where the nearest village is,” said the captain and, for the last time, Harger repeated the question in faultless Russian.

“Nyet,” gasped the farmer and now Kleiser put all his weight on the wound, grinding his heel deep into it until the leg threatened to come off. The SS captain gritted his teeth and kept up the pressure, finally stamping on the crushed knee cap. He knelt swiftly and slapped the farmer around the face.

“Don’t pass out on me you scum,” he rasped, shaking the big Russian. “The village. Where is it?”

Kuratayev tried to shake his head but Kleiser gripped him by the beard, pushing the PPk into his face.

He murmured something which Harger just heard.

“He said there’s a village about a mile West of here,” the corporal told his superior.

Kleiser released his grip on the farmer and stood up.

“Untermensch,” he growled and shot Kuratayev in the face. Kleiser stood staring down at the body for long seconds, as if wondering whether or not the farmer was going to get up, then he turned and scanned the farm. All but one of the buildings were already ablaze and four other men were in the process of setting light to the farmhouse itself. Private Reifel tossed a stick grenade inside and the men scattered as an explosion blew the roof from the tiny dwelling. Fire began to lick at the damp beams, burning dimly and giving off clouds of thick black smoke.

Kleiser gave orders for his men to return to the trucks then he himself, after taking one last approving glance at the burning farm, strode back to the jeep. The column moved on, Westward.