“At this time, I can only fucking guess, but if they’re working me over, then it’d be a fucking fair assessment, old friend!”
More bombs, further away this time, rocked the concrete structure that had saved his life more than once since the first Allied aircraft appeared overhead just after 9 o’clock.
“No…no… nothing. My men are working to get it all connected… no… radio room took a direct hit from something huge…yes…yes, I’ll wait…”
At the other end, Zhukov was receiving a report from another source, so Chuikov took the opportunity to light a cigarette, although his preference would have been to knock back a vodka… or two.
“Hello, yes, I’m still here… what… really?”
Zhukov relayed the report of an attack on 1st Southern’s Headquarters, whilst Chuikov worked his jaw in an effort to improve his hearing.
“Is Yeremenko ok?”
Chuikov grimaced and spat, waving his arm at the waiting Lieutenant General, whose blood was steadily dripping onto the Marshal’s boots. The exhausted man lowered himself onto the ground, careful to avoid any sharp debris.
Chuikov tossed his cigarettes to his Chief of Staff and probed him with his eyes as he listened, and received a small shake of the head.
A near miss shook the whole structure, causing concrete to spall off the roof and drop on and around the pair.
“Hello… hello…”
Chuikov placed the receiver on the box and set the combination down on the floor.
“Telephone’s fucked too now.”
The two senior officers drew on their cigarettes.
“Well, Alex?”
Lieutenant General Bogoliubov pulled out a cloth and bound his badly gashed hand.
“Whatever they were that the bastards dropped in the first attack… well… they were huge. We’ve lost our complete radio facility and all the staff… one bomb, dead centre, now just a huge hole surrounded by a pile of rubble and dead… burning too… the schloss is flattened… motor pool’s the same,” he grimaced as he pulled the temporary dressing tight, knowing that something was still lodged within the wound.
“As far as I can see the headquarters is totally gone… smoke and flame… everything. I’ve organized efforts to firefight and rescue but… well… the whole duty group…” both ducked instinctively as the rain of bombs continued.
Something was burning close by and the smoke started to trouble both men.
“The whole duty group is probably gone, including Colonel General Tsvetayev.”
Shouts and cheers outside marked a success against the medium bombers that were undertaking the third attack in the space of an hour.
Another close one, probably the closest yet to Chuikov’s battered senses, shook the whole structure, and only the keenest ear would have managed to separate the sound of the explosion and a piece of heavy metal striking the side of the sleeping accommodation.
“So, all fucking communications are down,” he kicked out at the useless telephone, “I’ve lost half my fucking staff, my fucking second in command… any good news, Comrade?”
“None that comes immediately to mind, Comrade Marshal.”
Outside there was a silence of sorts.
No bombs.
No firing.
The occasional whimper of a hideously wounded man.
“So, what do we have?”
“Mess hall is still standing. Re-establish there and get ourselves sorted out quickly?”
Chuikov shook his head.
“I think not. Find me an alternate place, nothing fancy, a chair in the fucking woods’ll do, a radio and a phone,” he looked around him, “But I’ll not do business here again.”
Chuikov climbed out from under the table and dusted himself down, only then realizing that his left thumbnail was blacker than a lump of Siberian coal.
Shouts from outside seemed to indicate that the enemy attack was over.
“Right, Alex. Let’s get this fucking mess sorted.”
Things for Chuikov were much worse than he had first imagined.
The whimpering drew his attention to an awful sight.
A quadruple Maxim mount, the source of the metallic thump against the bunker wall, had pinned its mangled gunner to the blood splattered concrete.
What was moaning was not really recognizable as a human being.
Chuikov fumbled with his holster but the wreck gave up its last breath on cue.
The commander of the 1st Alpine Front looked around him.
The first thing he really noticed was the absence of trees. The Chateau was a decoy, his actual headquarters buried in the adjacent woods, camouflaged by real trees and netting and, as he thought, undetectable.
The results of the efforts of Allied photographic interpreters lay all around him.
Nearly two thirds of his headquarters staff had been obliterated in the first attack, the huge bombs taking out a large number of those off-duty as well as in the headquarters bunker.
Only two platoons of his security detail remained, shocked and stunned by the loss of so many of their comrades.
His radio equipment had all gone; nothing was salvageable, or at least, they couldn’t even try until the flames were extinguished.
Telephone communications were out, the bomb that had cut his call with Zhukov taking out the telephone exchange with an inch perfect arrival.
He suddenly had a thought.
‘Zhukov? Why Zhukov, not Konev?’
The few wounded were being spirited away, bearing injuries of the hideous nature that accompanies the application of high-explosive to the human body.
As Chuikov walked around the site, he recognized bits and pieces, lumps and slivers of things that had once been the sons and daughters of Mother Russia.
‘This is fucking worse than the Mamayev.’
Coming from the Victor of Stalingrad, who had stood and held at the Mamayev Kurgan, that was an admission indeed.
He was not alone, for every Front command, and some Army commands, had received visits from the Allied air forces and, in truth, some of them were much worse off than 1st Alpine.
Impatience was a Chuikov trait that was not always a vice, and he had travelled to the headquarters of 4th Guards Cavalry Corps, on occasion dodging the roaming Allied ground attack aircraft by the skin of his teeth.
The only vehicle he had found capable of immediate use was the trophy Zundapp motorcycle combination that had been the plaything of the now dead Front Political officer.
His arrival at the unattacked headquarters deep in the Schlieflinger Wald was greeted with no amusement, the soldiers all aware that something terrible was in progress.
Chuikov arrived in the office of the Corps commander unannounced.
Lieutenant General Fedor Kamkov sprang to his feet, still holding the telephone that had been denying all his attempts to speak to the man who was now in front of him.
“Comrade Marshal, what’s going on?”
Chuikov took a few minutes to fill him in on the details, such as he knew.
A few minutes later, 4th Guards’ headquarters started to put out contacts to other units, trying to establish a picture for Chuikov.
By the time that Chuikov had established an element of control, the Allies had ruptured his lines in at least two places.
Once Bogoliubov had got some sort of effective headquarters put together, the 1st Alpine commander issued some final instructions to Kamkov and mounted the Zundapp for the brief ride back to Klagenfurt.
1st Alpine’s headquarters was now spread through a number of buildings in a section of St Ruprecht in the southern suburbs of Klagenfurt.
The previous day had seen the destruction of acres of woodland around Krumpendorf and Viktring, as Allied bombers sought out the command structure.