‘What news have you got about the situation, then?’
The captain said he regretted he knew nothing.
‘Nothing? What are you doing here, in that case? Why have you come here at all, in fact? Oh, reinforcements for the defensive front, are you? Great, then you can start by taking over the first two hundred metres of my sector here! I’ve got to shift further to the right. I’ve got no support down there.’
The captain’s timid reply that he wasn’t actually under the lieutenant colonel’s command went unheard by the little gnome’s malformed ears.
‘You keep a civil tongue in your head, understood? I’m not leaving this bunker here come hell or high water! Wouldn’t dream of it!’
Fackelmann was relieved when Breuer appeared. But the lieutenant didn’t bring him any cheer either. Taciturn and indifferent to the captain’s loud complaints, he soon moved on to try to track down Fröhlich. He found him in a remote bunker with no heating, which he had picked out as a hidey-hole. Breuer then went to find his men. The first person he came across, behind a snow rampart, was First Lieutenant Nasarov, with his two Hiwis in tow. They were all carrying captured Russian weapons. Nasarov had put on Breuer’s motorcycle jacket over his Russian greatcoat. He smiled at Breuer from beneath his fur cap and slyly showed him the red collar flashes and the enamel Soviet star that he’d got hold of somewhere to lend the finishing touches to his uniform when they put their escape plan into action.
‘Goot, goot, Lyevtenant, sir,’ he said in broken German. ‘All will go very goot!’
Geibel and Corporal Herbert sat crouched over a machine gun. They were frozen stiff, from the wet snow soaking them to the skin through their clothes, but otherwise in good spirits.
‘Look over there, Lieutenant!’ said Herbert, pointing over the bank of snow. A long column of vehicles could be seen moving in the far distance. Breuer reached for his field glasses.
‘Well I never!’ he exclaimed in a puzzled tone. ‘Could those be ours?’
Herbert couldn’t suppress a laugh.
‘Ours? No, it’s the Russians! They’ve been dashing about there since first light.’
Breuer put his binoculars down.
‘Damn and blast it!’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s come to that already, has it? If only we could lob a few shells in among them! But with what, eh? Oh well, no matter.’
He turned back to his men.
‘OK, as you were; we’re going to stay back here as planned, come what may! Everything’s disintegrating, and it’ll all fall apart here soon as well. If the retreat is sounded or the position’s overrun, we’ll assemble individually in the bunker over there and wait until the coast is clear.’
He clapped them both on the shoulders.
‘Our scheme’s got to work – just as long as our side doesn’t go and ruin it by breaking out themselves!’
The two men nodded and laughed.
Around midday, urgent shouts are heard at the western end of the line.
‘The Russians! The Russians are here!’ A Soviet patrol on snowshoes has pushed forward into the corner between the main German defensive line and the gorge. The men up front start shooting; some of them have got up out of their snow holes and are shouting and waving excitedly. Captain Fackelmann is no infantryman, but he realizes straight away that the men standing up over there on the ridge are blocking the line of fire from the main defensive line, where the Russian patrol was spotted some time ago.
‘Lie down!’ he yells. ‘Are you crazy? Lie down!’
All the yelling and shooting had lured the ‘radish-dragger’ out of his lair.
‘Unbelievable!’ he screeched. ‘That’s what passes for soldiers nowadays!’
Saying this, he sets off up the slope without more ado, his little dachshund’s legs pounding away furiously.
‘Everyone listen to my commands! Follow me! Chaaaaarge!!!’
And he dashes off across the open expanse. Some of the men follow him.
‘Chaaaaarge!’ His battle cry sounds hoarse and rather constricted at first, but then rises to a clear, furious pitch, transcending all fear. The cooks, office clerks and drivers following in his wake must be uttering this cry for the first time in their lives. They put all their pent-up frustration into it. Up to now, all they’ve been required to do is to suffer, suffer and hold out. Now at last they can see some action – finally! And however futile this action might be, it brings them a sense of release.
From behind the charging men comes the staccato bark of a machine gun. The Russians are laying down covering fire for their men. Here and there, some of the attackers fall down, while the rest, quickly brought to their senses, stop running and stand frozen between fear and doubt, helplessly exposed to the bursts of fire from the machine gun. Breuer has also set off up the incline. He recognizes the folly of the initial assault and can see the danger the men are in.
‘Stop!’ he bellows at the top of his lungs. ‘Turn around! Lie down! Stop!!’
Suddenly something knocks him to the ground. A searing pain centred on his left eye bores into his skull. He feels something warm running down his face. Then he slips into unconsciousness.
When, not long after his discussion with Knittke, the commander-in-chief of the army summoned the heads of the various corps to a meeting, the colonel’s hopes were raised again. He was tempted to chalk this up as a success for himself. But he was wrong in this. The meeting had been arranged some time beforehand. The Eighth and the Eleventh Corps were only represented by their respective chiefs of staff. No one at all from the Fourteenth Panzer Corps attended. The one-armed general who had intended to fight to the death in a foxhole in Dubininsky had just flown in a few days ago, fresh from attending his daughter’s wedding, and was present, resplendent in his Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves. On the orders of Army High Command he had left the celebrations in a tearing rush, without even saying goodbye. ‘To bring some order to the air supplies,’ was the official reason. It seemed an operational general from the Stalingrad Cauldron was needed to make sure that no more old newspapers, jam and private parcels were flown in for the top brass! Schmidt had suggested his old regimental comrade; he was to become the rope with whose help he would be able to extricate himself from the trap at the very last moment. The only commanders to put in a personal appearance were those from the Fourth and the Fifty-First, generals Jaenecke and Von Seydlitz.
Under the frosty gaze of General Schmidt, discussion at the meeting was weary and sluggish. The chiefs of staff hardly dared to open their mouths. General Jaenecke showed not the slightest interest any more in proceedings. He was wearing a dressing on a head wound. During an air raid, a beam from the ceiling of his bunker had come loose and cut a nasty gash in his head. Army High Command had been informed about this injury. And he had friends in high places, so he could count on being flown out. For good measure, he had already brought his successor along to the meeting. This was the old white-bearded general whom the Russians had harried so relentlessly at Zybenko. He delivered a morose account of the situation in their sector. Yes, he reported, lots of complaints were being made, and there had even been a few instances of open rebellion. His division scarcely existed any longer. It had disintegrated and dispersed. Yet he had little inclination to admit this in front of his own division.