Cauldron of Blood (18 page)

‘
He is of the SS. I feel we would sleep sounder in our beds, Keitel, if our best and boldest young commanders came from the
Wehrmacht
, where we can control them, instead of Himmler.’

The
reply took the wind out of Keitel’s sails for a moment, and he fell silent.

Outside
the Fuhrer was saying, ‘I’ve always had dogs, Lieutenant, even in the trenches during the First World War out in Flanders and I can state categorically they have never betrayed me one single time.’

Jodl
sniffed and waited.

‘
The Fuhrer is on “thou” terms with
Gauleiter
Kirn,’ Keitel said, ‘And there are only two other men who can boast that high honour.’

‘
There ‘s his dog,’ Jodl countered cynically.

Keitel
flushed crimson. ‘I do not think,
Herr
General
,’ he snapped icily, ‘that that remark was called for.’

‘
Perhaps not,
Herr
General
,’ Jodl replied, his eyes full of amusement. Keitel was the boot-kissing lackey that the staff thought him. What did they call him behind his back?
Lackeitel
.

‘
The Fuhrer will demand some sort of action,’ Keitel said with as much firmness as he could ever muster.

‘
Naturally.’ Jodl waited, not letting Keitel off the hook, making him sweat, while he made up his own mind about what should be done.

‘
How will we advise him, Jodl?’

Outside
the Fuhrer was talking doggie language in his thick Upper Austrian accent, as he fed Blondi a few titbits, the signal that exercise period was over and that he would be soon coming in to be welcomed by his steaming hot peppermint tea, sickly cream cakes and the usual handful of tablets supplied by his quack.

‘
His beloved SS have refused to help. That butcher-boy Dietrich has declined to assist the baker-boy.’ Jodl smiled sourly, while Keitel stared at him wooden-faced, wondering how he was to keep the Fuhrer from falling into one of his blind rages if Jodi could not find an acceptable solution. ‘Nor are we of the
Wehrmacht
in a position to do anything. So?’

‘
So?’ Keitel echoed puzzled.

‘
So that leaves the fly-boys.’

‘
But how can the
Luftwaffe
help, Jodl?’

Jodl
picked up his belt from the hook and bound it round his trim waist. Automatically Keitel did the same, though he had more difficulty with his gross stomach. Jodl checked his uniform. All his buttons were done up. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘So my dear General Keitel, shall we now go and tell the Greatest Captain of ALL Times what he must do...?’

TWO

Obersturmbannfuhrer
Jochen Peiper’s spectacular breakthrough put new heart into the hard-pressed garrison of the shattered little Russian town, even though his men were as starved as the defenders were. That very same day, Schulze snapped out of his lethargy and organized patrols from Spanish and Wotan volunteers to loot the Russian tanks and dead for food and ammunition. Their haul was meagre, but the volunteers found enough millet and the dried
kiska
fish the Russians always carried with them in combat to provide one hot meal for every man, washed down with the last of Little Napoleon’s supply of cognac.

Peiper
was in high spirits, although he gave his own mug of cognac to his gunner as a prize for having knocked out three T-34s, pleased by the final success of his mission in spite of all the odds against it.

Speaking
informally and without any pretence, although he was aware he was known to every man in the room from his photographs on the cover of the
Signal
and the heroic prose of
Schwarze
Korps
, he sketched out the situation as he saw it and outlined their chances of being relieved now that he had managed to get a radio message through to the rear.

‘
Comrades,’ he said, with only a trace of a Berlin accent in his hard, incisive voice. ‘You can rest assured that our own people will begin to take immediate steps to relieve us here now, more especially when the Fuhrer is informed that his old comrade
Gauleiter
Kirn is part of the garrison.’ He looked over at Kirn, who was stuffing his mouth with the tiny, dried fish, tails and all. The Golden Pheasant waved a happy hand, too busy with the food to reply. Peiper winked at Schulze knowingly.

‘
When the Fuhrer realizes just how much his old comrade is suffering here in the frontline, he will undoubt-edly order a major force into action.’

The
Wotan men grinned at Peiper, but then the young colonel’s pale face hardened once more. ‘Now it is simply a question of sticking it out till our rescuers arrive. The Ivans got a bloody nose this morning. But do not underestimate them. They will be back. Therefore we must maintain an aggressive defence with what resources are available to us. We must encourage them to believe that we are larger and fitter than we really are.’

‘
Blind ’em with bullshit!’ Schulze shouted, carried away by the new spirit of hope and resolution that the handsome colonel had brought with him.

‘
Exactly, Sergeant Schulze.’ He raised his empty mug. ‘For those of you lucky swine who still have some damned firewater left, I give you a toast.’

The
men followed suit, whether their mugs were empty or not.

‘
Comrades, let us blind ’em with bullshit!’ Peiper called.

‘
Blind ’em
with
bullshit
!’ a hundred hoarse, delighted voices roared back and next to a beaming Schulze, Matz growled, ‘You know, you big barn-shitter, I think that gent up there is going to pull it off...’

*

The next twenty-four hours passed uneventfully, save for the hourly Soviet ‘hates’, when their artillery blasted the defenders’ positions with five minutes’ intensive shelling. But in spite of the relative calm, the defenders were uneasy and on edge, continually glancing to the west and anxiously waiting for the first sight of the relief force. Twice Schulze sent out volunteer patrols as far as the thick pine forests, but they returned with the disappointing news that the most likely spot for the relief troops to re-group ready for the break-in was empty.

In
the end, just as even Peiper was beginning to despair that perhaps his radio message in clear had not got through after all, the first sign that action was being taken appeared — but not from the direction the hard-pressed defenders had expected.

Just
before noon on the second day, while the Spanish cooks laboured at preparing a gruel, made from tree-bark and boot-leather, and given body with a sack of sawdust that they used normally to heat their stoves, a sentry alarmed the camp with the cry of: ‘Aircraft approaching -ten o’ clock!’

Immediately
the alarm bells started to sound every-where, with the NCOs shrilling their whistles urgently, while the men staggered wearily to their duty positions.

Peiper
snapped, ‘Sergeant, give me your binoculars.’

Readily
Schulze handed his own glasses to the young colonel, who sprang easily onto the deck of the nearest Panther and raised them to the sky.

‘
What are they, sir?’ Schulze asked, taking in three black dots advancing terribly slowly on the horizon. to the west. ‘Ours?’

‘
Famous last words,’ Matz sneered at his side, as the flak on the enemy side of the line opened up with a roar, indicating that the three slow planes were indeed not Russian.

At
a steady one hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, the planes advanced towards the watching men, who stood there everywhere, necks craned as they tried to make out the nationality of the strange machines, heedless of the copper driving bands and pieces of shrapnel dropping from the Soviet flak all around.

Suddenly
Peiper let out an uncharacteristic yell of triumph. ‘They’re ours!’ he exclaimed. ‘Good old Auntie Jus! ‘

‘
Auntie
Jus
!’ the men yelled, as they, too, recognized the slow old three-engined Junkers 52 transport, flying towards them purposefully like ancient harbingers of good tidings.

The
flight-leader waggled his clumsy wings and began to descend. The other two did the same.

‘
They’re not going to attempt to land here, sir?’ Schulze cried in alarm, ‘It’s too rough!’

‘
No,’ Peiper snapped back, his glasses fixed on the planes. ‘They’ve got their doors open. They’re going to make a drop.’

‘
Drop!’ Schulze echoed excitedly. ‘Did you hear that, you little arse with plush ears?’

‘
Yeah, lovely flyboys, they’re gonna drop us some grub.’ Matz licked his lips in anticipation. ‘Perhaps there’ll be a drop of firewater as well.’

‘
Keep it down to a low roar,’ Peiper commanded, concentrating on the planes which were descending in perfect formation despite the enemy flak exploding all around them in frightening black puff-balls. ‘Get ready to send out a party to recover the ’chutes.’

‘
Sir!’ Schulze barked and cupping his hands around his mouth, bellowed at the Butcher hiding in the nearest foxhole now the falling shrapnel was getting really thick, ‘Haul ass, you cowardly shit! Get a party together ready to pick up the ’chutes and do it now!’

By
this time, the three Junkers were at tree-top height, sailing across the steppe and trailing their black shadows over the surface of the snow. Now Schulze could quite clearly see the pale faces of the pilots and make out the dispatchers in the grey coveralls and parachutes clinging to the open doors, the wind whipping their uniforms, ready to eject the supplies.

A
near miss sent the lead plane skidding fifty metres to the right. Schulze caught his breath. It had nearly smashed into the second Junkers. The harassed pilot caught it just in time and swung it back on course and Schulze, his heart beating furiously, could imagine just how the unknown flyboy had felt as he fought the controls.

‘
Standby now!’ Peiper barked.

‘
Standby recovery party,’ Schulze commanded.

The
Butcher and his hastily assembled force poised. All around the Spaniards were cheering wildly. ‘
Viva
Alemania
...
Viva ’Itier
...
Viva
el
Fuhrer
....’ They cried over and over again, swarthy faces aglow with excitement.

The
first bundle tumbled from the lead plane, hurtling towards the ground at a tremendous rate.

‘
Shit on the shingle, it’s not going to—’ Matz cried. There was a sharp grating crack. Silk mushroomed from the top of the bundle and the long, torpedo-like shape slowed almost instantly. It started to float down, swinging gently from side to side.

‘
A food-bomb,’ someone identified the long container happily. ‘It’s a food-bomb!’

That
act of recognition made even the Butcher forget his cowardice. ‘Follow me, you cardboard-soldiers,’ he commanded and started running heavily to the spot where the container would land.

Now
the other two planes started to drop their loads too, ignoring the flak which peppered the air all around them, while Peiper watched anxiously for the smaller parachute, which would indicate the long awaited message from HQ.

Then
tragedy struck, just as the drop seemed to be going off so successfully. With the recovery party running everywhere across the snow in front of the perimeter to rescue crate after crate, ignoring the suddenly angry Russian small-arms fire, the lead Junkers going into a gentle bank was hit.

Peiper
gasped as the three-engined plane staggered visibly.

‘
He’s bought one!’ Matz cried.

‘
No, he’s gonna be all right,’ Schulze corrected him, as the pilot caught the plane just in time and prevented it from diving. The squat nose with its radial engine rose once more and the pilot completed his bank, while the other two of the flight did the same. ‘He’ll get home—’

Schulze
broke off abruptly. Thick black smoke had started to pour from the leader’s right engine. Madly Peiper focused his glasses on it. The engine was on fire. Now he could see the tiny tongues of greedy yellow flame licking up in the smoke. The stricken Junkers pitched lower and lower, while above it the other two hovered helplessly.

‘
Rescue party, sir?’ Schulze asked.

Peiper
lowered his glasses and shook his head miserably, as the plane started to head for its doom. ‘I don’t really think, Schulze,’ he said slowly, ‘that we can do very much for the poor brave bastards. I don’t really.’

‘B
ut, sir, we can try. I mean they did—’

The
rest of Schulze’s words were drowned by the screech of the Junkers’ wildly protesting engines, as it went down into its last dive. Desperately the pilot fought to keep the plane’s wings level. To no avail. The starboard wing tilted dangerously. ‘Get it up, man, get it up!’ Peiper yelled, digging his nails into the palms of his hands painfully, willing the unknown pilot to make it.

He
couldn’t. The wing struck a fir. The wing fell off and started swirling to the snow like a great, gleaming metal leaf. The Junkers careened to the right, completely out of control now, and then with a great rending crash that seemed to go on for ever, it smashed directly into the forest and exploded in a blinding burst of violet light.

Wordlessly
Peiper raised his gloved hand to his cap in silent salute, while all around him the cheering died away...

*

Ivan the Terrible had watched the air drop in angry impotence. All that morning the Cossacks had been working their way through the woods, labouring through the deep virgin snow which came up to the bellies of their steaming mounts, as they attempted to outflank the Fritz positions, probing for a weak spot in the enemy perimeter. Now the drop and the crash of the plane, burning fiercely somewhere on the other side of the hill, the spot where it had come down still marked by a thick mushroom of slowly ascending black smoke, made the Cossack leader change his plans.

He
reined his horse and stood high in his stirrups, while the
Sotnik
waited anxiously at his side for his commander’s orders, which more often than not meant plenty of headaches for him.

‘
Horoscho
,’ Ivan the Terrible said and tugged his black beard. ‘No Fritzes in sight. Looks as if it’s all right. And if it is an ambush Comrade
Sotnik
,’ he grinned maliciously, revealing a mouthful of gleaming stainless steel teeth, ‘you ‘ll make a sweet corpse.’

‘
What am I to do, comrade?’ the
Sotnik
ignoring the CO’s so-called humour.

‘
Take a troop and go to that crashed plane. I am curious to know why the Fritzes were stooging around here. If you find a Fritz alive, which I doubt, don’t kill him, bring him back here.’

‘
Why comrade?’ the
Sotnik
asked puzzled. In the Red Cossacks they invariably killed prisoners.

‘
Because there are a few little questions I would like to ask the Fritz,
Sotnik
. That is why.’ Ivan the Terrible laughed softly. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. Involuntarily the
Sotnik
shuddered.

*

‘Dismount,’ the
Sotnik
ordered softly, as the riders halted in the cover of the trees.