The Boy in Black, page 34
One of the tanks hit a maxim, blowing it up along with its gunner, and a second was hit by shrapnel, bending the metal to make it unusable – there was only one light machine gun left. Our soldiers were to move forward, in front of the tanks, and assault the elevator.
There were over two hundred of us, with machine guns in hand, approaching the elevator. Cautiously moving, we threw grenades in front of us and then ran forward, trying to distract the Russian soldiers so we had a clean run before approaching the concrete giant. Flames licked through the holes blasted in the elevator, as the grain caught on fire. Some of the Russian soldiers caught our grenades and threw them back, forcing us to dive in different directions as they bombarded the earth. They gritted their teeth as they seemed to clasp our grenades in their hands, fighting to their last breath.
After pushing through, with the tanks continuing to fire on the building as we moved forward, we entered the building from the left side. The smoke was thick, and the only indicator that the enemy was near was the noise of their breathing as we got closer. Firing at anything that made a sound, we had no idea whether we were firing at our own or at the enemy. I stayed low, hoping they would pass over and we would finally be finished.
While lying low, I almost screamed out as a hand grabbed me by the wrist. But as my face got closer to theirs, I noticed it was all too familiar – Earnst.
‘Stay close,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t make any loud noises. The Russians are moving to the south of the building. If we move north and to the west, near the edge, we can avoid them. It’s too dangerous to fight in this darkness.’
I nodded, though I was sure he couldn’t see me do so, and so I replied, ‘I’m right behind you.’
Earnst and I moved to the north and then westward, trying to move near an exit, knowing our tanks were there to protect us if needed. The building was surrounded by tanks only a hundred yards away, as our soldiers moved through, wiping out any Russian soldiers that were left. That night, we took the elevator as the Russians broke out to the south, our tanks moving back and forth to the north and east of it. Corpses sprawled across the ground throughout the elevator, stained with blood and dirt. Their eyes had lost colour, but they still seemed as though they were alive, cursing us each step we took; almost watching us. We had finally taken it. But at a cost.
•
During the days, dogfights in the sky could be seen, as smoke trails followed planes that had been hit and plummeted to the ground. The Russians had taken areas we took only two days ago and the battles started over again as we struggled to maintain our grip on the city. Our soldiers were dying, not just in the front line, but from the rear, too. The Russians had moved around us and now threatened our soldiers as they moved through the ruins, unbeknownst to us, and began to fire.
Through the thickness of the smoke, we could make out a few figures as it cleared, though the smoke was constant, with fires burning throughout the city – or what was left of it.
We were caught unaware at one point when the Russian soldiers had remained hidden in the cellars and the second storeys of multiple buildings, launching attacks against us as we marched through. The fights were far fiercer than to begin with, in short range of each other. A number of times it came down to knife fights and bayonets. We could see the other soldier’s eyes, we looked at each other before we knew it was over for one of us; we felt the warm breath of the other on our cheeks, and we touched their hardened skin before plunging the sharpened bayonet into their stomach.
Each time we did so, I felt ever guiltier. It was a far different game now. From a distance, they are just figures – they are unknown to you, and it stays that way. After a time of grumbling to myself that it was for my own safety, I found the courage – or the evil – inside of me, enough to pull the trigger from afar. Now, it was reduced to looking them straight in the eye and taking their life. You could not cower; you could not whimper; for if you did, you would be the one that waited as Death took you to the darkness.
To look at a soldier in the eye, to see them, touch them, and think of what life they may have, or would have, it took every piece of self-worth away to kill them. They may have had children, they may have had a wife, they may have been a gentle person, and yet, on the battlefield, in the ruins of a once great city, within moments, you had the choice of life or death – and you would choose anything to live.
I would flirt with Death often, hoping we would soon unite, and I would be spared anymore of this wretched war. When given the chance, I would cower at the thought and do what I had to do – as though I looked Death in the eye and could not look any longer.
The fighting was intense, and as time went on, every soldier, whether German or Russian, became far more desperate to end this, doing what needed to be done.
I was caught in a small building, backing into the corner as a Russian soldier held his bayonet up, scowling at me. I walked backwards until I felt the stony wall on my fingertips, knowing I had nowhere to go. I looked at him, hoping he would change his mind for some miraculous reason, but he continued to walk towards me. With one lunge of his bayonet, the sharp steel hurled towards my stomach. I grabbed the end of the bayonet where it was still rounded and diverted it to the left. Grabbing the bayonet with one hand, I thrust my right leg into the air, making contact with the soldier’s stomach and winding him. As he dropped to the ground, his grip on the bayonet loosened, and with a quick heave, I relieved it from him completely. Hurling the back end of the bayonet in the air, I then swung it back around, sharply hitting the soldier in the cheek with a large crack.
Slowly, he looked up anxiously. His eyes showed that he, too, was scared of dying, and knew it was about to be over. But I knew I could change that. The decision, I knew, would be devastating if it went wrong – it would mean my life. I looked him in the eye, then shut mine slowly as I took a deep breath. I held up the bayonet, and the soldier turned to look away. I opened my hands, and let the bayonet drop to the floor.
‘I can’t do this,’ I whispered to myself.
The soldier turned and looked, then squinted as he was coming to terms with what just happened. I knew that letting this soldier live would never make up for the soldiers’ lives I had taken in the past, but somehow, I felt compelled to do it. I nodded to the soldier, then brought my clenched fist up to my chest. He continued to stare at me, as though contemplating whether he should kill me or not – I hoped like hell it was the latter.
The soldier stood and approached me, my legs now quivering as I was beginning to think I had made the largest mistake. We were nose to nose, looking at each other. Outstretching his arms, he grabbed me and hugged for a moment, then put his arm on my shoulder and nodded with a solemn look. He picked up the bayonet and exited the building, not looking back. Regardless of the small, hopeful moment that we had in the building; it wasn’t enough to deter any other soldiers from the fighting – as though I was naive enough to think that each person was somehow affected by everything I did.
The sun set, the moon settled over the city, the stars glinting in the dark sky, and still the fighting raged on. The sun would rise, the sky boasting shades of pink and orange, and still the battle continued. There was no rest for the wicked – no rest for the already dead.
Chapter 36
October 3, 1942
They called it the fight for Red October. No soldier thought they would get out alive – we presumed that Death was calling us, whispering to us subtly, but enough for us to inch further and further to it. In the last week of September, our soldiers advanced across the ruins of the workers’ settlement, and lay siege to Red October – the large industrial sector. Earnst had times where he would cry to me, hoping the tears would heal in the mourning process. He begged for Felix to come back, and I was all too familiar with it – I still missed Oskar, but I tried to convince myself otherwise.
Each time the Red Army’s soldiers were cut down in numbers, it seemed to grow more. We took up positions in a ravine in the flatlands filled with bushes. Some were large enough to conceal tanks and a number of soldiers, but this one held only a few of our men. A gully sat adjacent to our location, where the tanks and a larger number of soldiers were positioned, allowing us to carry out a full-scale attack. As we waited, we could easily see the chimneys towering in the air. Dead soldiers littered the ground, and we knew this was the last great assault, and it was either going to be a sweet victory or a bitter defeat.
•
The past two days had proven difficult to penetrate the factory sector. The Russians had machine gunners lined along the buildings, leaving us to wonder where they were getting them from. We were so certain we had crippled their defence, and yet each time more recruits sprang from what seemed like nowhere.
Our battalion had attempted to attack four times, and each time we hit the ground hard, the Russian snipers were shooting anyone so foolish to openly show their face. Our soldiers were stunned at the sight of female soldiers in the Russian army – they were mainly the snipers. Yelling in the Russian tongue, their voices were distinct from the male, and yet they seemed to be the fiercer. They bellowed orders just as the men did, and did it with such vigour and determination. We pushed furiously at the factories, hoping to make any sort of small incision that would allow us to pour our forces behind their defensive line.
I often wonder if there is such thing as good and evil – whether it is real, or whether it is just a myth perpetuated by mankind over the years. And whenever I think of the conundrum, all I have to do is look in the mirror.
The men that stand by my side have one objective – the annihilation of the Russians and the spread of Nazi doctrine – which also happens to incorporate the annihilation of my people. And yet, somehow, over the years, I find myself easily defending those who defend the doctrine. And whenever I wonder if evil is real, I look at myself now, and who I used to be, and somehow, I can’t help feeling that it is real, and alive inside of me. I am part of that evil.
The failure of our army to cut off the Russian supply route via the Volga River meant that each night, Russian soldiers would receive more supplies, including soldiers. Easily identifiable with their fur ushankas and thick coats, the Russian army seemed to swarm the city, no apparent victory in sight.
The Führer had suspended all operations on the Eastern Front, except for Stalingrad – it was now the sole mission for every German soldier present in Russian territory. Our attack force on Red October was bolstered by four battalions of new engineers and experts in demolition, and in addition, we received ninety thousand men and three hundred tanks. The fight for Red October was going to be fought hard by both sides, and no one, not even our commanding officers, knew who would find victory amongst the chaos.
Our soldiers pushed at the Russians, forcing our way into the factories and laying siege to those that opposed us. The Russians had positioned themselves in the upper storeys of the large factory buildings, with snipers shooting down our men in an instant. Our men still held Mamayev Kurgan, the crucial point that overlooked the entire city from the south where the ruined residential suburbs lay waste, to the north where our soldiers pushed at the Russians in the factory district. That seemed to be our only advantage. But they knew their city, and they were more determined to defend it than we were to take it.
Within weeks we had gained the tractor plant, north of Red October. We were now coming at the Russians from the north, south and west. But to the east lay a cliff on the edge of the Volga River, and it was still at their advantage. Supplies were still carried through the Volga to the Russians that fought in the factories, and to the soldiers that were positioned on the far bank of the river across from the city.
The river stretched a mile wide, giving the Russians an advantage on the other side where mass artillery was ranged and firing on our soldiers. They were safe from our attacks as we attempted to wipe them out, but the range was cut short as we were under heavy fire from the factory district. Shells flew through the air and hit the ground as the Russian artillery continued to bombard us. The earth was constantly uplifting by artillery fire, a constant rain of dirt blinding us as the landscape continuously shifted.
As we looked to the skies for the Luftwaffe, hoping they would take them out with ease and accuracy, each passing plane was just as easily a German plane as it was a Russian plane. We no longer dominated the skies as we struggled on the ground and in the air. The artillery fired heavily down on us as we ran through the ruins of a once majestic and industrial building, only to be brought to the ground with one explosion.
I ran alongside another soldier, who kept me by his side. We ran through the crumbled buildings, ducking under broken steel structures and jumping over piles of rubble and broken clay, dodging any bullets that we could. As we ran, I could hear the sound of the distant artillery guns firing. I looked up at the sky, spotting three shells that were soaring through the air, heading straight for us. I grabbed the soldier’s arm.
‘Find cover!’
As I pointed upward, he looked and quickly grabbed me. We ran into a building that was crumbling, but one side had fallen on top of a pile of an already ruined building that had previously stood and allowed enough shelter for a few soldiers. A large metal beam ran along the ground as we made our way inside. I don’t know how – I had kept my eye on it the whole time – but as I stepped on the beam, my boot slipped and I fell to the ground, smashing my knee on the hard metal. I screamed out in pain, but the soldier cupped his hand over my mouth, muffling any noise that was made. I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed heavily, trying to make the agony go away.
‘You’re going to be fine,’ said the soldier. ‘Just breathe.’
I continued to breathe heavily, then limped over to the pile of dirt and clay that had mounded up and sat quietly. We waited, hearing yelling outside.
‘Get to cover!’
‘Artillery!’
Within a few moments of those screams, the building rocked and the earth beneath us shook as the shells hit the ground. The explosions ruptured the ground and the deafening sound seemed to make the air vibrate. The ruined structure began to groan, and the soldier looked at me.
‘We have to get out of here. This building will collapse any second.’
I stood up, taking a few moments as I hopped on my good leg, then began to limp for the exit. The building continued to creak and moan, until the top wooden beam that held most of the roof, collapsed. The heavy wood hit the ground hard, and along with it came a scream from the soldier. I stood there, trying to see through the dust.
As the dust settled, my eyes became fixed on the soldier as he lay on the ground, with the wooden beam pushing firmly down on his stomach. Blood had begun to seep, and the wood soon became stained in red. I ran over to the soldier and attempted to lift the wooden beam off, but it refused to move. Grunting in pain, the soldier looked at me.
‘It’s not going to move.’
‘It will, we just need more men,’ I replied anxiously.
He shook his head.
‘No, we don’t. Even if it does lift off, my stomach is crushed. I’m not getting out of here alive.’
I bit my lip in frustration, fighting off the tears.
‘But do me one favour,’ the soldier continued. ‘Get out your pistol.’
I began to shake my head.
‘No, I won’t do it.’
‘Please. Do this for me.’
‘You can’t ask me to do this. I won’t. I can’t.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Hans,’ I said quietly, after a moment’s thought.
‘Hans, I am asking you to grant me a quick death. Please. I won’t hold it against you in the afterlife, or wherever we may be. But please grant me this.’
I shakily pulled out my pistol and aimed it at the soldier’s head, clenching my teeth as I let my emotion run free.
‘I’m sorry…’
‘Rikard.’
‘Rikard.’
My finger slowly pulled back the trigger, until the shot was fired. A large bang, amidst the chaos outside, loudly ringing inside the small enclosure. I wanted to sob, but was cut short as the building continued to collapse around me. Wiping away any noticeable tears, I rushed for the exit and dived outside. The building collapsed, and as I looked around, our soldiers were still running through the ruins, not giving a second thought to anything that had happened. I rubbed my face and ran on.
•
Pontoons ran across the river, connecting the islands that were opposite the factory district to the riverbank, allowing Russian soldiers to move across the river far more easily. By late October, large ice floes began to drift along the Volga, southward. As large as ships, the ice floes were unstoppable and made the river completely unnavigable.
The temperatures dropped to well below zero as the snow began to fall and the water froze over. We had experienced the harsh Russian winters before, and we knew how devastating they were. The sharp icy winds blew against our faces and numbed our lips, our fingers unable to move when the frost set in. Our faces began to peel as the winds blasted us, fighting to hold us back.
Accompanied by a tank that we escorted through the streets, a group of our soldiers pushed forward through the workers’ suburbs, just south of Red October. Our orders were to make our way through the streets of the southern suburbs, eliminating any enemy at all costs, and bring the tank to the point of Red October, from the south. Having a presence from the south would mean that our forces would be attacking from the north, west and directly south, forcing the Russians into one small location on the cliff edge.
The Russians no longer screamed, ‘For the Motherland!’. No, they crept in the shadows and hunted us like animals in the streets, patiently walking with our guns cocked in the air and ready to fire.
