Sniper's Honor

CHAPTER 32

For their command appearance, Karl and Wili brushed out their bonebags, scraped the mud off their boots, shaved, and bathed, even fished out the white summer cap they, as Luftwaffers, were entitled to wear. If they said so themselves, they managed to look pretty spiffy. You could never predict who you’d run into, so spiffy was always the wise move.

Not being assigned a Kübel themselves, they were driven to the HQ building, a mansion under some trees from an earlier century. If there was a mansion, the staff found it; 14th Panzer had found a beautiful old house set in some trees on the far side of the tank park. Actually they’d found the house first and established the tank park next to it. The dwelling, of Georgian grace and with an aristocratic background until the Reds had turned it into some kind of potato collective in ’39, was festooned with gaudy National Emblem banners and 14th Panzer flags, surrounded by security behind spools of K-wire and MG-42 posts, the lawns and shrubbery all cut and smashed by the treads of the armored beasts.

Inside, it was all business, as about all the division’s needs were serviced by a Panzer cadre who scurried about, administering a twelve-thousand-man/four-hundred-tank military entity, in the field, in constant contact with the enemy. Communications rooms, a huge study where a topographic map was being examined by officers while enlisted men pushed little painted blocks around it, and other rooms turned into offices where ammunition was ordered, tracked, and stocked, fuel levels monitored, supplies listed, living quarters assigned, mess supplies provided. There was hardly ever time for tea.

But today General von Bink made time for tea. Von Bink, his white shirtsleeves rolled up, his Knight’s Cross with oak leaves displayed not at his neck but in a drawer somewhere, his riding breeches with their red stripe for general officer disappearing neatly into his highly polished riding boots, his gray hair bristly, was one of the old guys. He was Panzer Aristocracy: he’d fought in the Great War, then Spain, and rolled his machines across the flat countries of both Europe and Ukraine. He’d been shot at a million times, wounded half a dozen, and was still full of pep and vigor. He really did enjoy the hell out of war.

“Nice of you fellows to come by,” he said, as if an issue of free will had been involved. “Sergeant, you’re the one with six wound stripes, is that so?”

“Yes sir. Almost as many as you,” said Wili Bober.

“Sir,” said Karl, “I’d like to get him sent back to Germany. He’d make a superb training NCO. The new boys could use his wisdom.”

“An excellent idea. If we were winning the war, I would say yes, yes, immediately. But as you know, we are losing, and the situation is somewhat different. Oh, and Sergeant, I have six, too, but I was sitting down when I got most of mine!”

That brought a laugh. Yes, sitting down in a burning Panzer IV with Ivan 76s whizzing through the air! Anyway, he poured each parachutist a little more tea. He was nothing if not a stickler for ceremony.

The office was huge, with a wall map of the immediate operational area obscuring one whole side. Otherwise, it was the kind of room where piano recitals may have taken place, and coming-out parties and all the social niceties that filled the work of Tolstoy but not Dostoyevsky. Compared to the frenzied activity on all other floors, this room was serene. The outward wall was given to broad sheets of window, out of which could be seen a terrace, cherry orchards, Panther tanks, and mountains.

“Well, you know you’re here for a job.”

“Yes sir.”

He led them through the glass doors to the patio beyond. It was a cooler day than normal, and for once the oppressive humidity wasn’t melting everything. A breeze kept the exhaust miasma in circulation, so the air seemed fit to breathe. It was a good day to be alive, even if too many like it weren’t left, both the “good day” part and the “alive” part.

“Come, over here,” the general said. He pointed. “The mountains.” Not so far away, the bulk of the green Carpathians humped up against the western horizon.

“We used them to navigate our way back to the lines after the bridge job.”

“Good, then you’re familiar with them. A road runs through them, called the Yaremche Road, for the biggest village along the way. It’s too steep and too unstable, the engineers say, for tanks. At most it could support a Panzerwagen, but no more.”

“Yes sir,” said Karl.

“The road takes you through them, and then to Uzhgorod. At a certain point, four-point-six kilometers beyond Yaremche, it rises and passes through a gap, high stone cliffs on each side for about a hundred meters, which is called Natasha’s Womb. No one know who Natasha was, but the point is, we need to hold her private parts.”

“Yes sir.”

“Ivan has a partisan army in those mountains. He may order them to the Womb. He can land several platoons of paratroopers not far away. He might infiltrate a special group, commandos like yourself, overland, through the forests. If he closes it off, he cuts down what I think many see as a last-minute escape, the shortcut to the next operating area behind our newly established lines. I cannot move a tank army or an infantry division through it. But there are many who could make use of it, men who want a quick, sure way out, our staff, the other divisional and regimental staff, the intelligence people, the signal people, anyone too valuable to join the long, slow-moving escape north of Lemberg and link up with what’s left of Army Group Center, subject to strafing, bombing, artillery, do you see?”

“And of course the SS?”

“Yes, yes, the SS, correct.”

“It’s sort of a secret escape route for the SS, then?” said Karl.

“I sense sourness in your voice. Why can’t SS invest its own troops in protecting its way out? The answer is, the Waffen-SS units are very badly mauled, almost nonoperational. We do have a new group from Thirteenth SS-Mountain, called Scimitar, a police battalion I’m told, but they’re specialists in anti-bandit operations, not in static warfare. This would seem perfect for them, but they’re on their own special security assignment for Dr. Groedl. They work directly for him. Not available. So it’s fallen to us. That means I need a bunch of extremely professional boys to hold Natasha’s Womb until the very last second, then blow it so that no Russian vehicles can pursue, and get out the best way possible. Obviously, Battlegroup Von Drehle is best suited for a special-needs job like this.”

“Yes sir.”

“Now, not so down, Major Von Drehle. It’s quite possible Ivan won’t be interested in it, won’t consider it worth sending troops. He can’t get tanks up there, and it’s quite likely, given his lack of attention to details, that he’ll just ignore it. It may be like a summer vacation for your fellows, and when you get the signal, you can blow it, come out of the Carpathians, having had a nice rest.”

“On the other hand, we could get hit by a battalion-sized unit, isn’t that right, sir? All fifteen of us?”

“Major, if that happens, I know you will inflict massive casualties on the enemy before withdrawing. And if it’s close, between you and me, I don’t give a damn if you engage the enemy or not. Just blow the goddamn thing and come through to Uzhgorod.”

“So we just wait until the signal and blow it?”

“Well, there’s another thing. While you’re up there, you’ll have to assist Police Battalion.”

“Rounding up Jews?”

“I think most of them have been rounded up,” said the general. “It’s one of the things the SS is reasonably good at. No, it’s not that. Evidently at some high level, one of our intelligence agencies has learned that Comrade Stalin himself has sent a sniper in to liquidate the senior group leader.”

“I’ll happily hold the rifle for—”

“Sergeant Bober, you flirt with destruction both in and out of battle. There are people in the very next room who would have you shot for uttering such a thing. Von Drehle, if you can’t control him, I’ll have a couple of large sergeants tape his mouth shut.”

“I understand, sir,” said Von Drehle.

“I can watch my tongue, but not my brain,” said Bober.

“A fair compromise. Anyhow, the word is that this sniper isn’t a him, it’s a her. It’s a woman who has operated in battle against us in Stalingrad and at Kursk. Her name is Petrova, she’s got over a hundred kills, she’s very skilled. In the east, they have a name for her. They call her the White Witch.”

Von Bink narrated the adventures of the White Witch in evading the ambush and probably preparing to assassinate Groedl.

“Police Battalion has been conducting sweep operations and intelligence gathering in the villages beneath Natasha’s Womb. I believe hostages have been shot and interrogations are vigorous. Typical SS operating procedures.”

“Aren’t they run by some kind of Arabian pimp, sir?” said Von Drehle.

“As I understand it, he’s not a pimp but the cousin of an important Reich supporter who broadcasts to the Middle East from Berlin these days. This cousin is a very determined young man. Do you know him?”

“We’ve had words.”

“So he has developed some information that suggests one area as a likely hiding spot for this White Witch. He means to run a sweep with dogs up that way. If she’s there, she will head for Natasha’s Womb and escape into uncontested country.”

“What is the Russian army going to be doing this time, sir?”

“Almost certainly attacking. Yes, it will be quite busy around here. The First Ukrainian Front has over one-point-two million men, twenty-two hundred tanks, and twenty-eight-hundred planes. Sometime soon they will launch all of them in our direction. We have only Army Group North Ukraine spread through these parts, about half as many men and machines, and the men are, many of them, Hungarian, perhaps not that inclined to give their all. So when Ivan comes, he will come in deadly earnest. And in the middle of that will be poor little Battlegroup Von Drehle, hunting for a single girl. Your job is to catch her, if indeed she makes for the Womb, and hold her for Police Battalion. Please pay no attention to the one-point-two million Red soldiers.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’ve made arrangements for you to draw ammunition and other supplies. You’ll also have a radio transmitter, and you know how hard to get they are. Division intelligence has already put a map package together for you. I want you to check with them for detailed briefing; they’re expecting you. Your transportation will get you through Yaremche tomorrow at 0630, and I want you in place by 1200. I’ll want a daily report, as will Police Battalion. SS must be kept in the communications network or they’ll make trouble, and this Police Battalion officer has Groedl’s ear.”

“Understood, sir. One question, if I may.”

“Go ahead,” said Von Bink.

“If I’m in the shit and I have to hold on against a large attack, I’d dearly love to have a Flammenwerfer in my bunker. Ivan hates the bite of the Flammenwerfer. A few squirts of burning fuel and he loses his taste for the charge.”

The Flammenwerfer-41 was the flamethrower, which spat out bolts of pure fire for twenty-five meters in half-second units. Everybody hated to go against it; that was the primal power of flame.

“Yes, but not right away. It seems Police Battalion has requested them, and with their high Kommissariat authority, they’ve got them all, for some damned reason or other. I’ll put through an order so that when they’re done with the things, they’ll radio you. I’ll give you a Kübel so that you can run back to Yaremche and pick up your Flammenwerfer.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Look, I know you don’t like this, but we are all going to be in the shit in the next few days as we fight our way through another retreat. Be glad you’re not on some lone 8.8 battery facing Ivan’s thousand T-34s.”

“Yes sir.”

“And Bober, watch that mouth. It could get you killed.”