After an hour of waiting all the platoon leaders were sitting in the Briefing Room in the HQ building. Apart from Arno, the leaders now were Sergeants Guntz and Lutzow. Sergeant Lutzow had taken over from Lieutenant Shasta, who had suffered a heart attack during the crossing of the Danube. They were in the main living room, a ground storey hall with a fireplace and windows in three walls. At one end of the table stood Captain Friesler, tough demeanor augmented by two days’ stubble. He was flanked by two orderlies and a Staff Squad leader, Corporal Fidus.
Friesler pointed to the map spread on the table and said:
“There is a risk that the enemy will land on the lake shore close by. So I need a man to lead a recon patrol.”
Friesler looked at Arno and said:
“Feldwebel Greif will lead the patrol. You can take 1st Squad. Your other squads I need to defend HQ. – Your mission: scout southward up and until the lake shore, fight any hostile resistance and report the situation: Is the enemy nearby, what is he doing, what is his strength? This I want to know. My HQ will be here in this house.”
Arno said, “Yes, Captain, will do.” He secretly despised Friesler and thought him a coward, a madman giving unsound orders.
After the briefing Arno went out and took 1st Squad along, going south and crossing the front line, nodding to the tired looking sentry. The sky was now bright white with thin, grey clouds drifting by. Cannon thunder rumbled ceaselessly to the northeast.
The patrol moved off through bushes. The ground was muddy. After crossing a meadow, they reached a gravel flat. On the far side of it they stopped in their second-nature defensive mode. Arno looked at Bauer and the other eight men. His men. Still going strong, Arno thought, in spite of all the hardships, retreats and the prospect of a war lost.
The patrol moved off southwards, fulfilling the orders to check the shore and see if the enemy had landed. As they got close, they spotted a column of Russians approaching through the woods. It was one of several patrols that had just landed on the shore, using storm boats. Arno signed, “get down”. Then he said in a low voice to his closest men:
“Enemy in the woods, straight ahead. Wait until I give orders, instantaneous opening of fire.”
When the Soviets were 100 metres from their position Arno ordered “fire”. The StG-men fired their 7.92-rounds, with bursts of three or four shots at a time. The Russians fell. Then the Germans advanced, hurling grenades to add to the damage. Finally, Arno went forward with two men to finish off the injured.
Arno had no radio. But he could send a runner to Captain Friesler and report the enemy contact. Said and done, an orderly was sent off back to Company HQ with a report of the incident. After some 15 minutes the man, Ilo, returned. He told Arno that the HQ was deserted. They were all gone, the Captain and his Staff, the units supposedly deployed for defence, the rest of 3rd Platoon, the whole of 8th Company – all gone.
“Gone?” Arno said. “You mean, nobody home?”
Indeed, Friesler had left the scene and taken the whole company with him. Only Arno’s patrol was left, out without any support, in the forward combat zone.
Arno quickly gathered his men under a big spruce and told them the news. Then he said:
“Now we’re in hot water. The normal thing to do would be to head north and try to find the company. But, on the other hand, I get the feeling that Friesler is a coward and shirking his duty. Earlier today he said nothing of retreating. His HQ during this operation was supposed to be at the house where I got my orders from him this morning. Maybe he sensed that landings were coming, and having got me out of the way he just left the premises, taking the company with him. This, to me, frees us from his command. I hereby give you, my soldiers, a choice: You can leave my squad, leave my command and go north, looking for the company, with Reds crawling all over the place. Or you can follow me down to the lake shore where we’ll seize a boat, cross the lake and take the bastards unawares.”
Arno looked at his men. No one said anything. Arno continued, elaborating on his plan, and especially eyeing his old comrade Bauer:
“You remember how we in Battalion Wolf have always attacked? Even when we’ve been outnumbered and surrounded, we’ve attacked – attacking in order to escape the enemy, to escape from encirclements and Kessels. We did it in Kamenets-Podolsky and we did it in Belarus. So I suggest the same now: Attack! Always attack! So let’s get down to the beach and borrow a Russian landing boat.”
“And then…?” said Bauer.
“Then we head south, over the lake. And then we’ll land and move on, fighting the enemies of the Reich wherever we find them – as we head west.”
Bauer nodded and understood. Better to withdraw westward and oppose Americans than to fight against the Russians here in the east. All the other men of the patrol decided to join Arno in this grey-area venture. No-one wanted to be captured by the Bolsheviks, and they had all heard the rumours that the unnatural alliance between Stalin and the Western allies might break down – then they could find themselves once again advancing against the Reds, but this time with Mustangs and Typhoons in support against the T-34s.
A tactical decision was reached, Arno saying that they would approach the lake shore in a flanking movement. They went away in double file; Arno and Bauer taking point, followed by the eight men of the squad – Ilo, Henko, Tauber, Crispus, Gipp, Ullmer, Sachs and Emostas. After 200 metres they crossed another gravel flat, their advance the whole time accompanied by gunfire in the background; the Russians were advancing, more boat patrols having landed. But Arno’s unit was dodging the enemy patrols, managing to infiltrate the enemy position by swinging far out on the right flank.
They approached the shoreline, moving stealthily through aspen and maple thickets. They were good, Arno’s lads, not a twig was snapped underfoot to give them away. They reached the gap he knew they would find. Going as point man Arno spotted a landed Russian storm boat. One bored looking guard, gazing vaguely in the direction of the gunfire. Arno motioned for Bauer, Ilo and Tauber to come with him. They moved closer, tree by tree.
But there was not enough cover to creep up and deal with him with a knife. So it must be done with the least amount of gunfire in the shortest time. Whispered orders. Tauber crawled back towards the other men to tell them to be ready, Bauer and Ilo both got ready to fire. Two rounds each. Simultaneous. To be absolutely certain.
“Ready to fire, wait.”
The two quietly brought down the control handles of their StGs.
“Fire!”
The sentinel fell, dead before the echoes of the burst had died away. Hopefully it would have been too short to be noticed in the general clatter of gunfire all along the shifting front through the trees away from the lake. Arno’s men, all nine of them, rushed forward, pushing out the boat, splashing through the shallows and throwing themselves aboard. Henko took on the engine, got it started first go – our luck holds – and as helmsman steered out to open water. The boat barely had room for ten men. Ilo was placed as bow gunner and the rest sat on the three cross benches. The craft was built of plywood on a tubular steel frame.
Further along the beach, another Russian boat guard must have guessed what was going on and fired towards them, but they were already at the limit of his effective range. The boat was at full throttle. The coup had succeeded.