“Capitalist cigarettes, capitalist tea, capitalist mugs. What are you doing to me, Stefan?”
Kriks turned his mug over. On the underside was the outline of a maple leaf, the British War department stamp and, in pencil, the name ‘Wainwright’.
The Starshina shrugged.
“Comrade Colonel, it was Canadian tea or nothing. This is the fault of my tank commander.”
The twinkle in Kriks’ eyes was very evident.
Replying as evenly as he could, Yarishlov kept a straight face.
“I am your tank commander, Comrade Starshina.”
Feigning surprise, Kriks proceeded.
“Quite so, Comrade Polkovnik. So, I regret to say, it is your fault alone. Had you not directed your brand new command tank through the treacherous Germanski undergrowth, without need I might add, then you would still have good Soviet tea. Whereas that tea, my smoked sausages, and certain other items of high value, are now hanging on some damn bush somewhere, to be found by some undeserving rear-echelon beauty whom, I might add, I desperately hope chokes on the fucking sausage!”
As time was short, Yarishlov could only call a halt to the NCO’s diatribe by raising a hand.
“And speaking of my new command tank, has Lunin sorted the problem yet?”
“Indeed he has, Comrade Polkovnik, and you will be surprised to learn that it was not a transmission fault, just a gear linkage problem, so our beast is up and running again.”
The Colonel finished the last of his tea and thumped the mug on the table.
“Well, we have it so that I can write a report on its combat usage, so let us go and see how it fights, shall we?”
Slapping his senior NCO on the shoulder, he picked up the map and walked out into the evening sunshine, casting a professional and appreciative eye over the T-44/100 the Corps Commander had presented to him over a month ago.
The men of Kommando Tostedt were tired. Having fought alongside the Canadians in the defence of their home town, they had reluctantly fallen back, only to turn on their pursuers and deal them a heavy blow, combining with their new allies to drive the Russian infantry back through Rotenburg and Wistedt, where they now waited for the inevitable next assault.
The Canadian Company Commander had tried to persuade them to fall back to the river line but they refused, offering to cover the withdrawal for as long as they could.
Now they were all alone, sticking out like a sore thumb, the Canadians having pulled back to more defensible ground.
Numbering less than one hundred and eighty capable men, the Kommando sat astride the four roads that ran south-west from Rotenburg and Wistedt. Whilst they could not bring themselves to quit their homes quite yet, their pragmatic leader ensured that he could withdraw his unit over the Everstorfermoor Bridge at any time.
Alfred Dœring-Beck was a veteran of both world wars. The elderly silver-haired Colonel of Infanterie affected a monocle, a clue to the fact that he had learned his soldiering in a different age, when cutting-edge tactics dictated lines of infantry sweeping down on defensive positions strewn with barbed wire and covered by machine-guns and artillery. Such ways were of little use in 1939, and he was forcibly and very publically retired by the then Divisional Commander of the 24th Infanterie Division, Generalleutnant Friedrich Olbricht. During the invasion of Poland, Beck’s 32nd Grenadiere Regiment took unusually high casualties during the Polish counter-attack around Bzura in mid-September 1939, something which his inconsolable second in command reported instantly and directly to Olbricht.
Beck, embittered by his public humiliation, crowed long and hard when Olbricht was executed by firing squad, payback for his part in the failed assassination attempt of 20th July 1944.
Commanding his unit in defence of the town had not been particularly challenging, more a question of standing fast as the Russian wave broke over him. Relic of a bygone age he may have been, but he was a man of great courage, a fact attested to by several Great War decorations.
As the Russian barrage grew in intensity, he moved forward and observed Soviet infantrymen and armour massing on the outskirts of Tostedt. He recognised the danger immediately.
‘If the Canadians are not in position now, then God help them’, he mused.
Calling his second in command to him, Beck told the man that there was no point now in remaining in situ and instructed the former Luftwaffe Artillerie Captain to evacuate all but the first section immediately, the first section being formed of the older men who had served their rifle time in Flanders fields.
They would buy as much time as possible for the unit to withdraw.
The man saluted and scurried away.
A shell landed nearby and the screams of the dying immediately filled the air. An elderly medic rushed over to do what he could. Normally the local doctor, the medic had once been a Major in Füsilier-Regiment 80 ‘Von Gersdorff’, and had served at Verdun, the Somme and the Aisne. His intimate knowledge of shrapnel wounds, combined with his medical experience, enabled him to understand that all five men were beyond help. Easing the pain of the two men remaining semi-conscious, he moved on to where the Soviet artillery was providing him with more work.
Moving further forward, Beck entered a large house on the edge of Wistedt, once the home of the local apothecary.
He settled in alongside the man with the binoculars, waiting until the NCO finished scanning the enemy positions.
“Well, Hüth? Are the Garde-Füsiliers ready for the enemy?”
The former Hauptfeldwebel of the 3rd Garde-Infanterie Division was used to the baiting, as he and his three comrades had endured it most evenings in the bierkeller, when war stories and tall tales flowed as freely as the chilled Beck’s.
“We will hold until we are relieved of course, Herr Oberst.”
The man relaxed the binoculars and looked at the Kommandofuhrer, the resignation on his face at odds with the weak attempt at humour.
“Mind you, Herr Beck, I rather suspect our communist enemy has a different end in mind for us.”
He coughed violently and spat a gobbet of bloody phlegm against the wall, wheezing as he often did when the lasting effects of his exposure to French gas made themselves known
“I have ordered everyone back, except first section.”
Hüth turned to look at Beck and nodded gently. Neither he nor his fellow ex-Garde needed further explanation.
Turning back to the window, he spoke rapidly, pausing only to duck involuntarily when a shell landed particularly close.
“We have tanks and infantry on either flank, and they don’t seem positioned to attack us at the moment.”
“Yes. I saw them from back there a few minutes ago.”
“Still building up, as I see it. Here.”
Hüth handed the binoculars over, indicating where Beck should look.
Tanks and infantry were gathering on both flanks of Tostedt, seemingly oriented to by-pass their position. Beck calmly noted that there were many more than he first thought.
“Well, we can’t do anything about them, Hüth. However,” sweeping along the landscape he stopped and focussed on the area directly opposite, “I do believe that they are not intending to leave us alone after all.”
His eye had caught movement, and he passed the binoculars back.
“At the railway track there.”
Hüth’s eyes were still keen and he swept the line of the railway that prescribed the edge of the town. He could see numerous helmets and other signs betraying the presence of Russian infantry forming behind the slight rise of the tracks.
Soviet mortar rounds started to drop around the Apothecary’s house, and the occasional lump of metal pinged off the brickwork or embedded itself in something softer. Adler, the oldest of the Garde, received three small pieces as he went to grab more stick grenades. Bleeding profusely from his buttocks, he was tended to by one of his comrades, but wasn’t spared from the man’s heavy-handed humour.