Red Inferno

CHAPTER 21

There were two sets of hospitals in besieged Potsdam: military and civilian. Most of the medical personnel were military but still found time to help out at the main civilian hospital, located in a ruined hotel. Work had been done to seal windows and roofs, but the building was still stark, drab, and poorly ventilated.

With the need for her services as a translator diminishing, Lis found herself with time on her hands and a need to do something useful. Working at the hospital was an easy choice.

“Look at them,” she said to Logan. “This shouldn’t be happening in the twentieth century.”

Lis was wearing a dirty smock and her short hair was a mess. She was tired, but appeared satisfied. She admitted that the work took her mind off the terrible things she’d seen and it permitted her to help others.

Jack couldn’t argue. Rows of beds were filled with people whose conditions wouldn’t normally exist in the type of civilized society he was used to. Starvation, malnutrition from bad food, dysentery from contaminated water, and even a few cases of scurvy were present. In addition there were numerous cases of wounds from the intermittent shelling and from gunfire. Civilians were always getting killed or wounded, but, other than the occasional callously ignored body by the roadside, this was the first time he’d seen real evidence of it.

Thanks to the renewed airdrops, there was minimally sufficient food and the military was providing bandages and medicine. One colonel had complained about scarce resources going to their former enemy, but the doctors had basically told him to shove his complaints up his ass. They reminded the colonel that they had taken an oath to help, regardless.

In a separate room she would not let him enter were a group of women. They had been gang-raped, beaten, and sometimes mutilated by the Soviets as they took revenge for similar atrocities committed by the Germans during their advance in Russia. Unspoken was the fact that such would have been her fate if the Reds had taken her and would still be if Potsdam fell.

“Most of them are not ready to come out into the world, and certainly not to be stared at by a strange man. Some will never be ready. They will be put in asylums once this is over.” She smiled wanly. “I hope.”

She showed him the children. There were only a dozen of them. “The children and the old people are the weakest and most have simply died. These are the lucky ones.”

“As was Pauli?”

“Yes.”

Several children stared at him, shyly and hesitantly. He was an American, and they were now taught that the Americans were the good guys. Some had casts and bandages and all looked reasonably well fed.

A couple, however, stared blankly into the distance. “They’ve walled themselves off, haven’t they?” he asked, and she nodded.

Finally, they passed a family of five, two adults in their thirties and three small children. They were gaunt and filthy, although otherwise they appeared unhurt.

“Every now and then a miracle occurs,” Lis said. “These people arrived yesterday. Somehow they managed to make it through the Red Army lines and up to your defenses without being hurt. They said their guardian angel was watching over them, and I believe it.”

Jack could understand getting through the Soviets. They were overconfident and sloppy and ripe for a counterattack if only the Potsdam defenders had the resources. The real luck came in not getting shot by nervous GIs. He didn’t ask if the woman had been assaulted. It was far too common an occurrence to even think of asking.

“These refugees said that the Russians are stripping the land bare of food and leaving the Germans to starve. You Americans are so unlike them. You wouldn’t do anything like that, would you?”

“That might depend on how hungry I was,” he said grimly. “So don’t canonize us just yet.”

But he would relay the offhand comment to General Miller’s headquarters. Were they aware that the Reds were out of food as well? Scrounging and stealing from locals could feed the Red Army only for so long. At some time, they would run out of food and get very, very hungry. And what would they do then? Of course, by that time everyone in Potsdam could be starving as well if the food drops were cut off.

Or would the presence of any food at all in Potsdam make it a more desirable target by this Bazarian person?

Lis squeezed his arm, and they stepped outside and breathed in the fresh air. “I wanted you to see the hospital. If the Russians make it in, they will all be brutally murdered. I’ve heard what happens when they storm a hospital. It will be an orgy of horrors.”

Jack shook his head. That could not be permitted to happen.

Colonel Paul Tibbetts sucked in the mild, cool air of Iceland. After the stifling heat of Tinian in the South Pacific, he found it refreshing. He did wonder just how cold it would get in winter if this was what they called summer.

Considered one of the best pilots in the air force, Tibbetts had flown as personal pilot for Generals Mark Clark and Dwight Eisenhower, and was now the commanding officer of the 509th Composite Group. A demanding and superbly organized taskmaster, Tibbetts had received his orders to pack up and right away move halfway around the world. He had loaded the massive B-29 Super Fortresses with essential supplies and a number of ground personnel and, after several refueling stops, had landed on the cold ground of Iceland. None of his men were surprised at the suddenness of their change of orders and direction. They all knew what was happening in Europe.

The rest of the 509th’s people and equipment would come over on slower C-47s. The 509th consisted of 15 aircrews of 9 men each and an enormous ground crew of 1,700 men, all experts in maintaining and servicing the B-29s.

One thing about Iceland did please him. There were few other air force personnel about to give him and his men a hard time. On Tinian, they had been the butt of jokes and teasing from other bomber crews since all the 509th seemed to do was train or go on reconnaissance runs over Japan. They never went on real bombing runs and they never appeared to go in harm’s way. While just about everyone assumed they were training for something special, the fact that they never shared in the danger of bombing Japan frankly pissed off a lot of other aircrews.

Tibbetts’s men did know they were training for something special, only they didn’t know exactly what either.

Training had begun in Wendover, Utah, and then moved to Tinian, and now, with the Russian menace on the horizon, to Iceland. Technically, Iceland was part of Europe. The part that shits, one of his sergeants had said upon seeing the place, and to a certain extent Tibbetts had to agree.

Training for the 509th generally consisted of taking off, maneuvering, and landing with enormous weights in the bomb bay. The pilots also had to contend with extra quantities of reserve fuel which made the Super Fortress a difficult plane to handle. They had also made practice runs with a strange-looking bomb that was filled with ordinary explosives. Without anything being said, the pilots clearly understood that they were training to drop some other, new kind of bomb.

Tibbetts had proven scathingly demanding of his pilots with regard to accuracy and timing. Only he knew that the decision had been made to use pilots to guide the bomb and not drop by radio control, since no one knew just how the atomic bomb would behave.

All in all and despite the confusion resulting from the sudden move from Tinian, he was satisfied. His men were responding magnificently, as he’d known they would. That left only the question of a target, and his men were speculating openly on the obvious-that the new bomb would be dropped on a Russian target. Only he in the 509th knew that they would shift to England before their attack and that it would not be on Moscow or any other major Russian city.

Use of the bomb, therefore, would be tactical and not strategic. It also meant revising and rethinking the tactic that had the pilots of the 509th flying in isolated groups of three over the Japanese islands. The purpose was to get the Japanese used to the sight of the small groups of bombers and their relative harmlessness. He would have to reinstate it over Europe, where Russian airpower was much stronger than that of the depleted Japs. It saddened him to think that some of his planes might be lost in such training, but it was a price they would have to pay. The B-29’s maximum ceiling was 36,000 feet, which put it at the same maximum as some of the Red fighters.

One of his pilots, a very young major, walked up to him, grinning. “Hey, Colonel, we’re getting up a group that’s gonna find a sauna in town. Are you interested?”

“Not now, thanks,” Tibbetts responded politely. Sweating in a sauna didn’t appeal to him. He’d sweated enough on Tinian.

“By the way, sir, I drew Berlin in the target pool. I think I got screwed out of five dollars. There’s nothing left in Berlin to bomb, is there?”

Tibbetts smiled slightly. “Nothing that I know of. Consider yourself thoroughly and royally screwed.”

The major walked away. They both had known that Tibbetts wouldn’t be interested in finding a sauna, and he hadn’t given out any information regarding a target. What the major hadn’t known was that Tibbetts didn’t know the target either. It didn’t matter. Someone would tell him when the time came. He had too many other things on his mind to worry about that.

When the Soviet infantry reached the Leine River, they did not stop. Instead, the shock troops swarmed across in an assault that was effective because it was so unexpected and illogical. Logical thinking dictated at least waiting until the launches and small boats were ready, or until the soldiers could be covered by artillery and air, or if their armor could cross with them. In this case, General Chuikov had told his men to grab anything that would float, and swim, wade, or paddle their way across.

It helped that the Leine was not a major obstacle. In some places, a man could have stood on one bank and thrown a rock to the other. Thus, the Americans had been shocked and confused by the sight of hundreds of Russian soldiers running into the water and emerging wet and bedraggled on the other side. It simply wasn’t the way Americans fought, and many a local commander was caught off guard.

American retaliation came quickly, and the Soviet infantry on the western bank quickly found themselves scourged by American artillery and mortars. Attempts to reinforce the tenuous foothold on the western bank were mauled and few reinforcements reached the other side. Those that did dug in and waited for help. It was the armor’s turn.

Suslov looked through the hatch as the column’s lead tank gingerly approached the water. The battalion’s colonel thought the river could be forded, and there was only one way to be certain. If that was the case, they could save hours that would otherwise be spent waiting for engineers to build a bridge, hours in which the American planes and guns would continue to pound the bridgehead, shelling and bombing the other vehicles that were lining up to cross.

Suslov opened the hatch a little higher so he could see just a bit better. He was not going to poke his head all the way out. There was too much danger from snipers and from all the shrapnel and lethal debris that was flying around

The tank selected to test the river eased itself into the water like some giant jungle beast. Maybe a hippo, Suslov thought. It paused as the water deepened and its treads churned brown mud and froth. The tank got about halfway across when it lurched, settled deeper into the water, and stalled.

“I think it hit a mud pocket,” Suslov commented.

“Fairly logical,” said Latsis drily. “After all, it is a river.”

“Aw, shit,” snapped Suslov. “Look at those damned fools.”

The tank in the middle of the river had quickly attracted the attention of machine gunners on the American side, and the water around it was splashed by bullets. While in potential danger from American artillery or an airplane, the crew of the stuck tank had nothing to fear from machine guns. Even if bullets should hit the fuel drum strapped behind the turret, the possibility of explosion was not all that great. As Suslov and the others knew, those drums were now fairly empty and they were awaiting replenishment. The tanks would have to go forward on what they had in their internal tanks.

The driver’s hatch on the grounded tank opened and a man climbed out. He was quickly followed by a second while the turret hatch opened and the other two crew members joined them. They paused for a moment on the tank as if they were afraid to jump into the water.

“Hurry,” Suslov hollered even though they were too far away to hear.

Almost immediately, one of them went limp and fell into the river. Suslov could hear the sound of bullets hitting metal as the machine guns rained shells on the tank.

“Help them,” he yelled, and the machine gun by the driver began to chatter as it searched for the source of the American fire. He presumed it was Latsis doing the shooting. It was too late. As if swept by a wind, the remaining crewmen fell into the water and slowly floated away.

“Damn it.” Suslov pounded his knee. “What a waste.”

Latsis ceased firing. There had never been a real target. He had been trying to provide indirect cover for the now dead tankers. The Americans were too well hidden. “At least the comrade colonel used his head. That was one of the replacement tanks and crew, inexperienced chicklings.”

“What do you mean?” Suslov had a feeling he was not going to like the answer. Latsis had been acting even more strangely lately. Just the other day Suslov had caught him slashing an American corpse.

Latsis chuckled. “Haven’t you noticed? Whenever something like this comes up, the colonel sends out one of the new chicklings. If we lose one of them, who cares? They had no experience anyhow, and another new tank with four or five warm bodies will show up sooner or later. But if he loses one of us, his elite, then his loss is irreplaceable.”

Suslov thought of telling Latsis he was full of crap, but the man was probably right and Suslov wasn’t particularly upset about not having to take on the muddy little river. He scarcely knew the new tankers. They had arrived a couple of days ago, all fresh-faced and eager, and now they were dead.

Latsis was right on one count. The new crew had been almost ludicrously inept. They knew little more about their T34 than how to drive it. Even that skill had failed them when they had attempted to cross the river. Suslov had the nagging feeling that he and Latsis could have navigated the Leine with little problem. Now they would have to wait for a bridge to be built. Perhaps it was better. Maybe the colonel was making the right decision by husbanding his dwindling supply of skilled human resources.

A little while later, the engineers made an appearance and a bridge started to take shape. As this occurred, the fire on the Soviet soldiers who had crossed earlier slackened as the bridge became the primary target. More infantry crossed, again using small boats. Several of them were hit and more bodies floated gently on the Leine. Overhead, there was a second battle as Stormoviks, protected by Yaks, tried to take out the American positions. The Americans called on their fighters, and P-47s dived among the Yaks. The American planes were better but the Yaks more numerous, and this permitted the armored Stormoviks to do their bloody work.

Even so, Suslov kept his hatches closed and his tank buttoned up. Whenever his men complained about the stifling heat, he told them to be quiet and listen to the sound of rain on the hull. Only it wasn’t rain. It was the clatter of small pieces of metal impacting on the armor. Inside they were safe. Outside, the poor, bloody infantry and engineers were having their flesh penetrated.

After what seemed an eternity, the bridge was completed. First across was another swarm of infantry to finally reinforce the earlier river crossers-if, that is, any were still alive.

Suslov’s tank was the fourth one across. He noticed that the lead tank in this effort also belonged to a replacement crew. Latsis was right. The colonel was very consistent. Reinforcements had brought the battalion up to twenty tanks, and many of their crews were very inexperienced indeed.

There was no real embankment on the other side of the Leine. The river had been channelized by the industrious Germans. Suslov’s tank was soon on the flat plain and he was watching a line of buildings a quarter mile away. It looked like another of the damned little villages that speckled the landscape in Germany. If defended, it would be hell to take.

“What do you think?” Suslov asked Latsis. The man was probably crazy but he did know his tactics.

“They have an observation post in the church and they’re dug in along the ground levels of the houses. It’s just like every other time we see a setup like this. Hell, there’s only so much they can do.”

Someone must have agreed with them. The church erupted as shells hit it, tumbling the steeple. Latsis laughed. The entire armored battalion was now across. The tanks began to fan out and move forward, accompanied by trotting infantry who tried to hide behind them. They had to move quickly. To sit still was to die. They had no idea how long the Yank planes would stay preoccupied with the Stormoviks or what evil was hidden in the village.

The answer came quickly. Suslov saw the flashes of antitank guns coming from the buildings. There was an explosion nearby as a T34 took a hit. “Faster,” Suslov urged. His tank surged ahead and the infantry were running to keep up.

There was another blast and then the feeling of heat. “What the hell was that?” Martynov, the young gunner, asked.

Suslov turned the turret and squinted through his view port. A great cloud of smoke and flame was enveloping two of the battalion’s tanks. Smoking bodies lay on the ground and he saw a couple of men tumbling and burning, trying to put out the fires. It had to have been either a mine or some goddamn thing dropped by a plane. Intuitively, he decided it was some kind of incendiary bomb. There was a banging, clattering sound as bullets struck the turret and hull from close range. Aside from the noise and the terror they inflicted, they did no harm.

Martynov fired the cannon at a building that was coming up quickly. The front wall disappeared, but there was nothing to indicate any damage to an American fortification. The Soviet infantry moved into the village. They crouched over, cowering as if they expected to be shot at any moment. He watched as a couple of them had those expectations fulfilled and fell to the ground. The Red Army had crossed the Leine but was paying a terrible price.

Finally, they were through the line of buildings and the firing from the ground slackened off, although American planes still whirled through the sky. They had defeated the Stormoviks and Yaks, and were now after prey on the ground. After a short while, even they pulled away, their bombs dropped and their bullets fired.

The exhausted tank crews found places to pretend they were hiding their iron steeds. Hell, the Yanks knew where they were and could come back at any time. Suslov checked the number of remaining vehicles in the battalion. There were fifteen. In one skirmish they had suffered 25 percent casualties. Worse, not all of them were Latsis’s inexperienced “chicklings;” a couple were fairly experienced crews. Fire from the sky, Suslov concluded, could not differentiate the elite from the chicklings.

Suslov opened the hatch and climbed out. It was a profound relief to be outside. He checked the tank for damage and found nothing serious. The extra fuel drum, however, had been shredded. Even though it had been 80 percent empty, it was a small miracle that there hadn’t been some sort of fire.

Latsis yelled down to him that the colonel wanted to see him immediately. Suslov trotted over to the command tank and presented himself. He knew he looked like hell and didn’t care. He noted that the colonel looked like he had been wallowing in dirt as well.

The colonel, an older man of almost thirty, nodded to him. “Good to see you made it.”

“Thank you, comrade Colonel. It’s good to see you as well.” He meant the comment. The colonel was a good man who tried to care for his troops, even the new ones when he could. Suslov was shocked at the lines of fatigue on the other man’s face. He wondered if that was how he looked to Latsis and the rest of his crew.

“Your captain’s dead. You will take over for him. And by the way, we have a new political officer. He likes to be called Comrade Boris.” The colonel rolled his eyes. That communicated enough. Comrade Boris was an asshole.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.” Suslov wheeled and returned to his vehicle. Shit, he thought, ten minutes ago all I had to worry about was one tank. Now I have five tanks to watch out for and we don’t have any reserve fuel. Worse, two of the crews are raw trainees. Latsis had laughed at them yesterday and said they didn’t even know how to wipe their asses without hurting themselves or getting shit on their feet. He had to admit that Latsis, crazy or not, was again correct and had a way with words.

Perhaps he would let Latsis help out with the training of the new crews. Maybe they would even get some more replacements, although he would rather have some fuel. A T34 had a supposed range of 250 miles, but reality pushed that down considerably. Every second with the engine idling, or every time a tank had to backtrack or maneuver, ate into the distances they could cover. He also wondered when they would start to get some of the improved T34s or the Josef Stalin monsters. He would settle for a new T34, the improved version of which had an 85 mm gun instead of a 76. It also had an additional crewman, and he was curious as to how another human being would fit into the already cramped, hot, and stinking quarters. Maybe he would get Comrade Boris and find out?

Well, rumor had it that the Yanks would now pull back to the Weser and concede this last move to the defensive line they’d been working on for two months. If true, that would give him some time to whip his litter of young pups into shape. When the time came to cross the Weser, only the fit and cruel would survive.

Is this what I’ve become? he suddenly thought. Cruel? Well, he had survived, hadn’t he? All the way from Stalingrad to this dirty little river in the middle of Germany. If it was necessary to be cruel to survive, then he could live with that. Perhaps he could someday change into the human being he had been so many years ago. At least his cruelty was not the same insane variety as Latsis’s was. Suslov recalled that Latsis had not always been that way.

“The war has made us all monsters,” he said.

Latsis stuck his head out of the tank and grinned cheekily. “All hail comrade tank commander, captain and leader.”

Suslov shook his head. He would gather his chicklings and get to work. Lives were at stake, and one of them was his own.