A good feint and parry, he thought to himself. But overconfidence got the better of him and he added, ‘Actually, even someone who isn’t a signals expert ought to be able to grasp the principle of that, General, sir!’
‘Aha, I see…’ General Schmidt studied his fingernails. ‘Well, Colonel, I’d strongly advise you against such an attempt. Any contact with the enemy is an act of high treason. It will cost you your head!’
Paulus returned. He seemed relaxed and content. When he noticed the colonel’s stricken face, he looked embarrassed.
‘You see, I tried everything,’ he said, as if to excuse himself, ‘but I’m only just another link in the chain. I can’t break the chain.’
That same day, Schmidt presented the C-in-C with an order of the day to the troops that he had drafted. Paulus gave it a cursory look and signed it.
The order was dated the twentieth of January, 1943.
4
Horror at Gumrak
The senseless attack by the Russian reconnaissance party had cost Fackelmann’s company three wounded and one dead. Breuer was taken to the old major’s bunker. The medical orderly had not been able to do anything more than apply an emergency dressing. It was by no means clear exactly what had happened. It appeared that, as Breuer fell to the ground after being wounded, something sharp had jabbed itself into his eye. Moreover, he must have suffered some sort of brain concussion, because he was still unconscious. Fröhlich was by his side almost constantly, and even Herbert and Geibel came and stood around helplessly. The incident had thrown all their calculations into disarray. The whole escape plan was now in doubt.
Night closed in. It had stopped snowing and the temperature had dropped again. The moon shone full and sickly green through veils of fleeting grey clouds. Beyond the German front line the Russians, in carefree abandon, had lit blazing campfires all around. Black figures stood out in sharp relief against the bright flames. Snatches of laughter and singing drifted over, engines stuttered into life and vehicles cast dazzling headlight beams across the snowy landscape. They knew that their prey, which they now held in a choking grip, was no longer to be feared. Now and then, a low-flying ‘sewing machine’ came puttering along and circled over the gorge. The dark bird-like silhouette of the machine was clearly visible against the milky moonlit sky and its red and green navigation lights looked down like the eyes of a raptor. But it didn’t strafe them or drop any bombs. It wasn’t worth it any more! Despite their miserable predicament, the men crouched behind the snow ramparts, clenched their teeth grimly and clutched their rifles tightly. This shameful lack of respect shown by the enemy was worse than any pitched battle.
Breuer tossed and turned on his camp bed. Glaring lights pierced the darkness of his unconsciousness. He moaned in feverish dreams. It was high summer. He was stretched out on a beach somewhere on the Baltic Sea, with the sun beating down out of an unbroken expanse of azure sky. The white sand stretched out as far as the eye could see, silent and soothing. The sea lapped softly at the shoreline, while behind him, improbably far away, the white humps of shifting sand dunes shimmered in the heat haze. But now the sun was burning, glowing red-hot, scorching his flesh! Its searing heat gnawed ever more ferociously into his defenceless body. Pain… pain… and then darkness once more. And now another image floated before him. A lake, in the shadow of a black wood. Straw-roofed buildings nestling in a green forest clearing. The sound of bells pealing across the water from an isolated church tower. On a distant hill, three black crucifixes loom over the dead from the Battle of the Masurian Lakes. Little by little, the boat rocks through the lapping waves. Two brown eyes are shining with happiness. Irmgard – there is a sharp hiss as the boat noses its way through tall reeds and its bow slices deep into the mossy bank. Redness flows instantly from the wound it has made, spreading out over the shoreline and the lake. Help, help! The earth is drowning in blood…
When Sonderführer Fröhlich arrived at the bunker the next morning, he met Breuer staggering out of the doorway towards him. He looked dreadful. His flowing greatcoat was covered with large, rust-brown stains and beneath his misshapen head bandage the lieutenant’s stubbly, blood-caked face looked ghostly thin. His good eye flitted about restlessly.
‘B-But Lieutenant, sir!’ Fröhlich stammered.
‘Ah, it’s you, Fröhlich… Yes, I’m off now. I’m leaving.’
‘Leaving, Lieutenant? You can’t leave now! Where will you go? And besides, we’re still planning. I mean, what’ll happen to our breakout, sir!’
‘Breakout? Ah yes, breakout… You’ll have to go it alone now. What day is it today exactly, Fröhlich?’
All the while, Breuer’s hand pawed aimlessly at his head bandage.
‘The twenty-third, sir. But you’ve got to—’
‘The twenty-third! Right, right… That’s okay, Fröhlich. All fine and good. I’ve just got to learn to see. Learn to see, Fröhlich, even with no eyes… If you get lucky and make it through, say hello to my wife from me!’
The Sonderführer called Herbert and Geibel over to help him deal with this delicate situation. But Breuer had a childish obstinacy about him.
‘No, no, I’ve had enough… I’m going to Gumrak… or back to the Staff HQ.’
‘Then at least let one of us come with you! You can’t go out on your own like that!’
‘Nonsense! You just make sure you manage to escape! Go on now, best of luck to you. Break a leg!’ Breuer attempted to crack a smile but only succeeded in producing a pained grimace. Then he stumbled off. The three men watched him leave in silence until he disappeared round a bend in the path. Geibel swallowed hard a couple of times and sniffed theatrically.
Over the course of the morning, the Russian mortar bombardment increases in intensity. Occasionally, nervous bursts of machine-gun fire sweep the gorge, or a tank round punches a blackish hole in the steep side of the balka facing the enemy line. High up above, heavy artillery shells whine over to the rearward positions. Otherwise, though, nothing happens. Now and then the noise of moving columns and the faint sound of fighting drifts over from the right. No one knows what’s going on there, as the pioneer battalion has no telephone contact with that sector. Captain Fackelmann also finds the failure of any orders to materialize and the absence of any communications with the rear deeply unsettling. He still sweats profusely, despite having lost all his former corpulence.
Around midday, the man who he’s sent over to the positions occupied by the anti-aircraft battery and its captain comes back. Even from a distance, he starts waving his arms in agitation.
‘There’s no one there any more! They’ve all cleared off – along with our first platoon!’
He tells the captain that he found every last bunker abandoned. The radio telephone equipment was still in place. But all attempts on his part to call the command post on the airfield were in vain; no one was answering.
As fast as his weakened legs will carry him, the captain runs over to the major’s position to confer about the situation. All of a sudden there comes a terrified shout from the gorge:
‘Tanks! Tanks!’
Fackelmann climbs up and peeks over the snow ramparts. It’s true! Up ahead there, barely a thousand metres away, three tanks are advancing like turtles towards the mouth of the gorge. My God, what can they do now? All they’ve got are their rifles and two malfunctioning machine guns! And no one in proper command… There he stands now, Alois Fackelmann, the proprietor of a furniture shop, with cold sweat breaking out on his jaundiced brow. There he stands, with sole responsibility for almost sixty of his compatriots, ignored, abandoned and betrayed by the High Command and the Corps and the division and the officers in command of the airfield. And this Captain Fackelmann – who up to this point has only been responsible for matters pertaining to the canteen menu, and who is now utterly alone and left to his own devices as a military commander, and is in complete possession of his mental faculties and fully conscious of the painfully limited options open to him – takes a decision in this instant that no Paulus and no Seydlitz and none of the corps commanders have had the courage or the force of will to take: namely, to lay down his arms and to cross the line into the unknown, in order to save his men from reeling headlong into a senseless massacre. And in order to save himself, he’s not ashamed to admit. Because living to run a furniture store seems to him more sensible than dying for nothing. Yet this man Fackelmann, who is only a temporary officer and wholly inexperienced in infantry matters, has no idea how to put his momentous decision into action. And in the search for urgent advice, he scrambles down the slope and makes for Fröhlich’s bunker, which is on the other side of the gully.