Russian Front (2) The other obvious plan would be to wait until dark, infiltrate the position and kill the enemy with knives after disorientating them with grenades. It could be done, it was largely a question of timing, since the best way would be to come in from several directions at once. They had done this with some success before. Swayne leaned back against the rock, took a small swig from his water bottle, and wiped his forehead. They were on the East Side of the rock and, although it had been cold during the night, the temperature was climbing steadily. Montague looked at the other man. Swayne was a bit shorter than average, and tightly muscular with a roundish, weather beaten face. The windburns gained from his eighteen months in the desert made him look older than his twenty-six years. ‘It’s that armored carrier I don’t like,’ said Swayne. If you toss a grenade in, fine, you’ve got them in a walled explosion, but if you miss …’ ‘Or if they erect a canvas top at dusk to keep the dew off ...’ murmured Montague. Swayne leaned forward. ‘Those carriers have a door at the back. There’s no reason for them to close it out here, the chances are that they will keep it open while they’re camped – easier to get in and out. Why don’t I make my way around to the West side, cover the inside of the carrier from cover, with my trusty Lee Enfield, while you and the rest of the team attack from the East?’ Montague smiled at the ‘trusty Lee Enfield.’ Swayne was always moaning that he had not been allowed to bring from home the Parker-Hale rifle that he used for hunting deer on Exmoor. ‘And when might this adventure take place?’ asked Montague. ‘Dawn, tomorrow. The beauty of it is that we won’t need to synchronize our movements. As soon as you hear me taking whoever is in the carrier, you attack. Crawl to within about a hundred yards of them just as the light is coming up. ‘Can you hide yourself with the Sun coming up against you?’ asked Montague. ‘I think so. I’m sure in fact. There’s some dead ground and a few features. I’ll be in place while it’s still dark.’ Montague considered, his Cambridge Double-First mind weighing options and probabilities. ‘I think you’re right. We’ve got to attack anyway, and even if the carrier is closed up somehow, you can pick off anybody who stands up to operate the Spandau. Additionally, when you’ve taken care of that threat, you might – if you wouldn’t mind - deal with anyone who dares to come out of the truck looking for trouble.’ Swayne grinned to himself. ‘You’re the boss,’ he said, but Montague noticed that his eyes were looking down. They waited for night. Before leaving their vehicles the previous evening they had eaten a huge meal, all out of tins: bully beef, sausages, peas, potatoes and marmalade pudding, washed down with mugs of strong, sweet tea. They could last for a while without food, but the water situation had to be carefully controlled. Lying up in sparse cover for a day under a sun that, even in late October, was very hot meant that each man used up most of the water in his pack. Each man also knew that he had to keep a cupful for a ten-mile forced march back to their vehicles if the attack went wrong or had to be aborted for any reason. The sun moved on in the sky, insect bites began to appear as if by magic, and patience was a virtue. Swayne waited until night fell and then waited another quarter of an hour to be sure of darkness. There was no moon as yet, but that would appear in a few hours. Plenty of time to get into position. Digging Montague in the ribs, Swayne began to crawl, his rifle cradled in his arms. He had carefully blacked his face and hands and wore a black-wool Commando cap. During the day he had calculated distances and angles and now he moved southwest for a mile, as close as he could judge it. He was heading for a small hillock, a dark outline against the brilliant stars on the horizon. Keeping this just to his left he knew approximately in which direction he was heading. He checked his direction with the compass on his wrist; its luminous dial kept under a buttoned flap. Slowly, and placing every step with caution, he walked in the darkness for about half a mile to the North. Then, feeling sensing, the ground around his feet he searched in the immediate vicinity for a rock or similar feature of any size. If he had worked the geography right in his head, the Germans should be to more or less directly to the East of him. Checking the direction with the compass, he lay down flat behind the West side of a rock. The rock was just bigger than his head and shoulders and, provided he kept the angles right, he would not be seen when the Sun came up. He pulled a piece of scrim net over his shoulders and waited for dawn. He started awake when the moon rose, about three. He shouldn’t really have dropped off, but there was no harm done, and the sleep would have done him good. He was terribly thirsty and allowed himself a mouthful of water from his canteen. Let’s hope the Germans have plenty of water, he told himself. You’ll have to kill them for it, another part of his mind observed. His conscience? Fear? Alone in the desert under the brilliant moon, his breath frosting in the near-freezing cold, his mind roamed the past: Exmoor on a November dawn, lying in cover in his ghillie suit – a camouflage overall that covered the whole body – tracking a deer through his telescopic sight. He had been working for a rich landowner, culling the deer on his estate. The hind looked up at the tiniest of sounds and Swayne had the perfect shot in his sights. There. Now. His fingers squeezed the trigger and the hind fell, shot through the heart, dead in a second. Merciful to kill an animal without pain. But men are different, whispered that voice in his mind. He peered cautiously around the base of the rock. There was a thin aura on the horizon to the East. Dawn comes up quickly in the North African desert, and a few minutes later, looking to left and right of his boulder refuge – never over the top – he could see that he was only about a hundred yards from where he intended to be. He felt a surge of satisfaction. His sense of direction was as sharp as ever. The back of the armored carrier was about two hundred yards in front of him at about ten o’clock. It was parked at a favorable angle. The metal rear door, open as he guessed it would be, revealed the entire length of the inside. Silhouetted against the growing glare from the East was the wicked-looking heavy machine gun, an MG 43. Its rate of fire was such that it sounded more like a pneumatic drill than a weapon. There was no cover of any kind over the carrier, so they could have tossed a grenade in, but it was no use knowing that now. Was anyone sleeping inside? Slowly but steadily he brought his binoculars around the side of the rock, keeping the lenses in shadow. By pressing his chin into the gritty sand he could just see through the left eyepiece. The binoculars were more powerful than his telescopic sight and it was strange to be looking down the length of the carrier into the face of a solitary sleeping German soldier. He was still bundled in his blankets and greatcoat, with his distinctive Afrika Korps forage cap at an angle on his head to keep out last night’s chill. Then his eyes opened and seemed to look directly into Swayne’s. Being a hunter, Swayne was used to this and kept still, knowing that the German could not see him covered in scrim net behind a rock two hundred yards away in shadow. But it was an eerie feeling, the eyes looking at him, almost in recognition, as if he could see Swayne was lying there and knew what he was about to do. The German closed his eyes, appeared to sigh, and scratched his head under his cap. What was he thinking, Swayne wondered, before he could stop himself. Had the German been dreaming about home, before waking to find himself in the middle of a war? Swayne noticed that he had brown eyes and very blond hair, the kind of hair that isn’t really blond but bleaches in the sun. Beside his bedroll were a mug and what looked like a book under his wristwatch. Personal effects. Swayne knew he had looked too long at this man. It just made his job more difficult. The sun was well over the horizon now. They hadn’t agreed any set time to start the attack, it was all up to Swayne to start the ball rolling by shooting Sleepyhead, as he had just named the man in the carrier. When you split your forces it’s best to keep the plan as simple as possible to avoid confusion. The others would, by now, be in position with the rising Sun behind them on the East side of the German camp. Sudden activity. Swayne saw a number of soldiers with slung rifles heading out to a foxhole just to his side of the armored carrier. A sentry climbed stiffly out and was replaced by another from the group. The relieved sentry headed towards one of the trucks, presumably for his breakfast. A sentry in a foxhole at each point of the compass? That was probable. Swayne brought his binoculars back behind the rock and put them in their case. The sun was getting too high. One flash on a lens and it could mean his life. Before he put his binoculars away he could see the aerials strung around on poles, with one large telescopic antenna in the middle reaching to the sky next to one of the trucks. That would be the vehicle with the radio listening and recording equipment and, more importantly, the codebooks. There was a metallic cough as a generator started up. The Germans had finished their breakfast and were going to work Sleepyhead, who Swayne imagined was simply a bit of a loner who liked to kip away from the others, had got himself up and was bending over with his back to Swayne, busying himself with his kit. It looked so domestic, so peaceful. But that machine gun could fire 1200 rounds of heavy bullets a minute. Swayne might pity him, but would he pity Swayne? The whispering voice inside his head was silent on that topic. And then it was time to push the button, because two Germans with spades were wandering off to the right, looking for a convenient dip in the ground to squat down. Why were they going together? British troops didn’t, generally. But the Germans were more communal in their pleasures. A vague memory came to him of reading All Quiet on the Western Front years before. Erich Maria Remarque had written of Germans in the trenches during the First Lot all sitting down enjoying having a good crap together. Fair enough, he thought as, moving only his fingers, he took the cloth wrapping off the bolt of his rifle. Each to his own. He was beginning to feel the need himself. Then the Germans with the spades started walking towards him. Christ! At least they weren’t armed. Sleepyhead, who was still bent over his kit - lost something, old man? - took precedence, as he had access to a weapon that, in previous forms, had changed the face of war in this century. The good news was that the sentry in the foxhole had clambered out and trotted back to one of the trucks for some reason. The Germans with the spades were talking to each other although he couldn’t hear them yet. They were just over a hundred yards away and ambling very slowly, heads down, intent on their conversation. The bad news was that Swayne, who was right-handed, would have to shoot Sleepyhead from the left-hand side of the rock if he wasn’t to risk being seen by the two on their way to their al fresco toilet. Slowly Swayne slid his rifle along the palm of his left hand while simultaneously backing away behind the rock. Now he was as covered from sight as he possibly could be. Through the scope the back of the carrier sprang into relief, not as big as with the binoculars, but clear enough. There seemed to be no wind to allow for and the range was just about two hundred yards. Sleepyhead stood up and turned around obligingly, smiling to himself in satisfaction, looking at something he was holding in his hands. His breastbone was in the cross-hairs. Swayne squeezed the trigger. Even at two hundred yards the bullet knocked the German back against the machine gun mounting. He was dead before he crashed to the floor of the carrier. The other two had frozen, petrified, at the sound of the shot. One of them shouted something to the other, dropped his spade and began to sprint back to what he imagined was the safety of the trucks. The other seemed to be too shocked to move, and merely grabbed his spade in both arms, as if he intended to use it as a weapon. Swayne stood up, scrim net still covering his head, brought his rifle to his shoulder and shot him in the belly. The German fell like a sack of potatoes and Swayne ran left until the back of the carrier was between him and the rest of the camp. What seemed like all hell had broken loose on the other side of the camp. The noise, after the peaceful morning silence a few moments ago, was shocking. Montague had spread his men out in a fan, and they were dashing forward under cover of smoke grenades, pouring automatic fire into the camp. It looked and sounded as if the Germans were under attack by at least two companies. Swayne jumped into the back of the carrier, heading for the heavy machine gun. On the way he grabbed the Sleepyhead’s forage cap and stuck it on his head. Troops were scrambling out of tents and trucks. He grabbed the Spandau’s cocking lever and drew it back. As an LRDG man, he had been trained to use any weapon he might come across. Flicking the safety he pulled the trigger and hosed the tents next to the trucks. Anxious German faces looked back at him, wondering why his covering fire was so bad. Montague and his men were getting close to the trucks and grenades began to explode among a group of soldiers. The slaughter was terrible as the tommy-guns and Swayne’s requisitioned heavy machine gun cut through men, tents, equipment, sand and vehicles. The huge mobile cast-iron cooking stove in which the Germans had been baking bread and brewing coffee fell over, spilling scalding liquid and ashes onto the wounded. One of the trucks collapsed like a wounded elephant as its tires were shot through. Then the first German to surrender put his hands up holding a white handkerchief, the meaning of his imploring screams unmistakable. Once he had had enough, the others not so much dropped as threw their rifles to the ground as if they were suddenly disgusted with the whole business. The shooting died down. There was a moment of silence as smoke swirled and the wounded groaned. Montague’s men kept their weapons leveled as the Germans raised their hands higher. The Afrika Korps had a relatively chivalrous reputation, but the Germans were famous in this war and the last for being able to produce a steady supply of false-surrender fanatics who had grenades hidden under their coats and were willing to take some Tommies with them. While the unhurt and lightly wounded prisoners were carefully searched, Swayne trotted back out to the man with the spade that he had shot in the belly. Mercifully, he was dead. The human body was not designed to withstand a .303 round tearing and tumbling through it, especially at close range. It was just as well, since they had no doctor and carried only basic first-aid kit into the desert. The most they could have done for him was give him morphia. The LRDG had sustained one casualty, a trooper who had been shot through the hand. His wound was carefully cleaned and bandaged – wounds quickly became septic in the desert – while two stretcher cases among the Germans were lifted as gently as possible into the one truck which was still serviceable. All the code books and every scrap of paper from all the prisoners were packed into a tin trunk found in one of the tents. Montague, among his other accomplishments, spoke faultless German and began to interrogate the one German officer who was still alive. This man bore a bitter look on his face and wasn’t giving much away. Three or four other German troops were more or less unwounded and these were ordered into the back of the German truck under the guard of the grinning cockney corporal who covered them with a tommy-gun. Something coldly glittering in his eyes made them keep their bound hands very still on their laps. The intelligence-gathering operation went on for some time, and then the unharmed German prisoners were ordered out of the truck to bury their dead. The contents of all the tents were gone through, sifted and decisions were made about what was worth taking. The German officer – himself a radio intelligence expert – who was standing with Montague, nodded with grudging approval as Swayne and the LRDG troopers painstakingly went through every item of equipment and personal effects, measuring its worth to the intelligence analysts back at base. They examined spare clothing to assess its quality before storing it on the truck against possible use in future clandestine operations. A couple of highly prized Schmeisser submachine guns were dismantled and stored in grease. The freshly brewed coffee and bread were tasted and then spat out – the Afrika Korps was well armed but poorly fed. The condition of the men was noted. They all seemed malnourished, except the officer, and Swayne, who had three years of medical school, guessed that they were all vitamin-deficient. Finally, the truck was merrily overloaded with booty and water. After a few minutes scratching his head, one of the LRDG drivers worked out how to start the armored personnel carrier. One of the Germans put his hand up, like a boy at school, apparently volunteering to help, but he was ignored. The LRDG driver’s proud boast was that he could steal anything on wheels or tracks. Swayne, most of the LRDG troopers, and various bits of kit piled into the back and the small convoy began to roll East back to the wadi where their own vehicles were hidden. On the way it became clear that one of the stretcher cases was not going to make it. He had been terribly burned when the stove had tipped over, and he had caught a burst of .45 caliber tommy-gun rounds across his torso. The man was in agony and they had run out of morphia to give him. In the full heat of day, Montague and the German officer exchanged a few whispered words in German. The casualty – screaming, now – was taken off the truck and Montague gave the officer back his Walther pistol with one round chambered. Nobody in the truck spoke or looked at each other as the officer took the young soldier’s hand and raised the pistol to the side of his head, speaking a few quiet words - merciful lies. There was a loud crack in the hot, dry, brilliant day and in the same instant the screams stopped. Three of the German prisoners buried the soldier who had been put out of his final misery while the officer, ashen-faced, handed his pistol back to Montague, clicked his heels together in formal salute at the corpse, and climbed back into the truck. Everybody was quiet as the convoy started up again. All of a sudden there seemed to be no discernible difference in atmosphere or bearing between the two groups of men. After a few minutes Montague handed out handfuls of Players’ cigarettes, and the mysterious camaraderie of a relieving smoke cheered everyone. * * * * * * An ATS stenographer recorded every word of Montague and Swayne’s report. When they reached the point where the wounded soldier was given the coup de grace, her eyes began to fill. Swayne looked at her, noticing for the first time since he had entered the room that she was attractive. Auburn hair, like Betty Grable. She looked up and caught his eye. He looked away and his face began to go red with faint embarrassment. He glanced back at her and she was looking at him with a faintly tender smile that he couldn’t interpret. Was there a chance? He amazed himself, he thought. Here he was, fresh out of a raid deep into the desert, killer of at least two and probably rather more men, and the first thing he wants is … Montague was talking to him. He had drifted off into one of the reveries for which he was notorious. The academic Montague called it ‘phasing’, whatever that meant. The homicidal cockney corporal, with perhaps more insight, was fond of telling Swayne that he thought too much. ‘Get some sleep, Hugh. I don’t feel too bad, I believe I shall go and stuff my face first.’ ‘Yes, you look tired,’ said the ATS Sergeant in a soft voice, looking at Swayne. ‘Both of you,’ she added. They wandered out into the brilliant late morning. There was a stiff sea breeze, delightful after the desert. Montague wandered away to the NAAFI without saying goodbye. Swayne trudged with his rifle towards the armory. He and the other officers were billeted in a rather nice and mercifully undamaged block of flats nearby, and he didn’t want to walk through the narrow streets with a weapon, although there was nothing to stop him doing so. LRDG troops were allowed tremendous latitude when it came to military discipline. A group of foreign-looking officers were being shown around the compound. The British were proud of the LRDG and showed them off to visiting dignitaries. They had a translator with them and Swayne recognized their Red Army uniforms from the newsreels. His route to the armory took them directly past the Soviet visitors as they were being invited to sit in one of the stripped-down Chevrolet trucks. Lost in thought, he didn’t notice one of the Russian officers staring at him and his rifle in amazement. Chapter Two MOSCOW AND THE WOLF'S LAIR The staff car sped through the streets of Moscow away from the Kremlin. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning and there was no other traffic. Generals Georgi Zhukov and Alexander Vasilevsky sat together in the back, quietly going over the meeting with Stalin that had just ended. There was an atmosphere of relief from tension as the car gathered speed along the street. Zhukov offered the younger man vodka from a silver hip flask. Meetings with Stalin could be brutal. Apart from the ever-present possibility of not leaving the Kremlin alive, the paranoid dictator was often bullying and abusive to his staff. This time it had been different. Stalin was quiet, almost courteous, as he listened to their reports on the progress of their bold plan to encircle the two hundred thousand strong German Sixth Army at Stalingrad. Huge formations of tanks and assault troops were being secretly massed to the North and South of the city. The aim was to smash through the Nazi lines at points held by ill-equipped Rumanian and Italian formations - contemptuously disregarded by Hitler - who were nevertheless very thinly strung out and expected to hold huge areas of the line. The two arms of the assault would then go hell-for-leather to meet at Kalach, to the West of Stalingrad.
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