Casca 4: Panzer Soldier (18 page)

Bodies littered the streets, many mutilated beyond any recognition by the tracks of tanks and wheels of trucks running over them. There was little time now to bury the dead. They were just hauled into basements, placed in new rows, stacked up and the building blasted down on them to serve as their tomb. Langer hunted his prey eagerly and returned to the chancellery several times to replenish his supplies of ammunition and food, then going back out to fight. Russians died from single shots, slit throats and the
garrote. Langer knew all the ways of killing. Several times he had come on one or two Russians separated from their packs and stopping to enjoy themselves with a woman before killing her and hurrying on to catch up with their comrades. These he killed with a special pleasure. They kicked the dead bodies of the women or girls. Children of nine or ten were not too young for the attention of the heroes of the Soviet. Even grandmothers of eighty had their clothes ripped from them and were tossed out open windows to smash against the streets below.

Not all of his victims were Russians. He still took the opportunity when it presented itself to eliminate a squad of SS herding civilians rounded up to be shot for some infraction or another. It was a city gone mad. Women threw themselves from buildings to
escape, others became killers and hunters seeking their own salvation in the death of others.

On the twenty-fifth, the forces of the Russian armies completed the encirclement of the city.

The armies of Koniev and Zhukov met on the west side of Berlin. There was no way out now for the civilians to flee. Only small parties managed to slip through now and again. On the same day, regiments of the American army made the first contact with Russian forces on the Elbe River at the city of Torgau.

Uniforms were everywhere, not only those of the army and SS, but also navy and Luftwaffe. He saw several pilots talking together in groups. They had been issued rifles to fight with instead of planes. There was no fuel for the new fighters that continued to turn out on the assembly of Messerschmitt and Fokker. Langer wondered how many would survive the next few days. It was a lot different fighting on the ground. Their courage was not in question, only their experience. Enthusiasm would make little difference to a Mongol with a bayonet at your throat.

He sat down in the shelter of a bombed-out bank. Taking his pack off, he leaned back and shut his eyes. Tonight he would go hunting. It was time now to rest.

The sound of sirens woke him. The high keening wail meant a raid from the RAF was on its way. They usually hit about midnight. The sirens screamed and faded, screamed and faded. Then he heard the droning of hundreds of planes. The burning of the city lighted the way for the British bombardiers at their sights. A few antiaircraft guns fired ineffectually into the sky. Then
came the bombs, thousands of the high explosives and incendiaries. The city blazed anew. Whole districts were lit up as bright as day. The only good thing about the bombing was that the Russians wouldn't attack in the target area with ground troops until it was over. People by the hundreds were melted from the intense heat of the fire bombings. Stacked on top of each other in cellars and bomb shelters they just melted. In the mornings special cleanup squads with flame throwers would go through the buildings and burn what was left of the civilians trapped below. Disease was a danger too.

The animals in the zoo were killed and eaten on the twenty-ninth.
Most of them, at any rate. Langer gnawed on his iron ration and took a swig of water from his canteen, waiting behind a pile of bricks, the dust coating his face, collecting in the wrinkles by the corners of his eyes. He squinted down Prenzlauer alley.

Across the way he could see a mixed bag of
Panzergrenadiers and Hitler youth bring a captured Russian 76 mm antitank gun into position. Only the barrel showed from where he lay. From the street itself the Russians would see nothing. On the rooftops snipers lay in wait. The street had the hell pasted out of it earlier and it was about time for Ivan to come on. These were tough men and even the children had hard eyes in their small faces under oversized helmets, dirty urchin faces hungry for more than food. How could they send the killer children back to the playgrounds and schools after they had experienced this. For them childhood was lost.

They were coming. The distinctive clatter of metal treads against the pavement of the street preceded the actual sight of the tanks. In front were the infantry leaping from door to door in front of their iron escorts, submachine guns at the
ready. The defenders held their fire; they wanted tanks. On the rooftops, too, there was sign of the snipers lying in wait. They would hold their fire until the tanks were knocked out and they would go after the infantry. The tanks came rumbling over debris and broken bodies. The JS-1 swung its barrel slowly from side to side, seeking out something to kill, behind it a T-34 and another Stalin. The crew behind the captured 76 waited, the gunners carefully sighting, following the advance of the enemy until they were sure there would be no error in their firing. If they missed they would most likely have little chance of getting off another shot. From his position Langer could see clearly the faces of the gun crew lying in wait, the tension in the clenched jaws. He, too, waited from his cover, sighting on the leader of the Russian advance party. He carefully kept him in his sights, knowing that when the antitank gun fired he had to take out his target quickly. Without leaders the Russians showed very little ability for individual action.

The JS moved closer, the sound of its engine echoing from the side of ruined buildings and offices.

The 76 mm fired, the round hit the side of the junction between hall and turret, a perfect shot. The JS just stopped. For some reason it didn't explode, but all in it were dead. It just sat there half blocking the street.

With the shot from the 76, Langer fired also a single round aimed for the largest part of the body, the stomach and chest. A pro wasted little on fancy shooting. The idea was to take them out, not to take chances. The Russian doubled over and fell face first to the pavement, his feet kicking as if he were still trying to run. Langer wasted no more time on him; another quick shot, then one more. Two more lay crumpled in the doorways of the city they came to kill.

The sniper on the rooftops opened up. Selectively picking targets, they sent bullets smashing into helmeted heads bursting the brains inside. They had some of the new Kar-44 sniper rifles with scopes and knew damned well how to use them. The Russian tanks tried to raise their guns high enough to fire at the snipers but they couldn't elevate enough, so they just began to fire into the buildings. Round after round until the entire structure would crumble and fall in on itself.

The gun crew reloaded and took out another tank before the Russians spotted it. They lay over its side, the barrel twisted, its crew scattered about in twisted, awkward positions. The child soldiers, two smaller bodies
beside the larger, lay looking suddenly even smaller than their actual size. Why did death diminish one so much that even at the instant of dying one always looked smaller? Langer pulled back, there was little more he could do here. He had an appointment tomorrow morning and didn't want to miss it.

Scrambling backwards to keep out of sight, he groped his way through the back of his shelter to the adjoining street, stood in a door where he looked down the street, and got ready to run across. Holding his weapon close to his chest he took a breath and stepped out, only to bump chest first into an equally surprised member of the 1st Guards Army, a veteran of many battles. They both froze for an
instant, they were too close to shoot. Arms went around each other's bodies. They held on twisting and grappling, the Russian in his straining grimace showing a full set of stainless steel teeth. He put a leg behind him and twisted Langer down to the pavement, falling. Langer's hand went to his boot. The small, close-combat knife with the wooden handle and short, four-inch blade. He struck again and again five or ten times, but the damned Russian just wouldn't die, he kept trying to crush Langer's throat between his black-nailed hands. Then the body just quit, the life clock stopped. The Russian gave one long sighing shudder and was still. Langer rolled out from under him, his jacket covered with the Russian's blood, recovered his assault rifle and raced down the street to lose himself in the maze of wrecked buildings and alleys.

That final night Langer lay concealed in the ruins of a burned-out apartment building. He found a single mattress to lie on, his eye watching the sky, counting the fiery tails of the rocket barrages from the
Katyushas two miles away race through the night like manmade comets.

He wondered what the next day would bring, 30 April 1945. A world was ending, what would the new one bring?
Probably more of the same after they had a chance to rest.

He also knew that beneath him in the subways of Berlin thousands also waited for the morning to come. Would the new, day bring peace or death? They had no choice. They also waited. Ten days, it seemed much longer.

Things had been busy at the Fuhrer bunker also. Hitler had fired Goring and replaced him with General Baron von Greim. Himmler had been conducting talks with Count Bernadotte of the Swedish Red Cross, discussing the capitulation of German forces with him as the new head of the German people. Hitler branded him a traitor too. In these final hours he forgot who his master was. Eva Braun's brother, SS General Fegelein was shot for treason that didn't exist this very night. As Langer slept, Hitler married her. Few were left in the bunker now. Most had found one reason or another to absent themselves and never returned. Only a few loyal retainers waited for the end. They had bound their fate to that of his and knew no other way of ending it. They had to see through to the final act before they would be free of their oaths of allegiance.

Langer's sleep was full of twisting, turning dreams that came and went.
Tendrils of thought and memories. The dying of a city, a nation and an insane idea lulled him finally to deep, dreamless rest.

* * * * *

GOTTERDAMMERUNG

April 30, 1945

Hitler moved with the shuffling steps of an old man, his right arm trembling, eyes vacuous, lips pale. He moved down the corridor followed by the last of the royal retainers, stopping before the entrance to his small rooms. Turning, he looked at the faces of those left out of the millions that had so recently worshipped at his altar of the greater German Reich.

Casca stood silently as the Fuhrer, shook the hands of the men and patted the cheeks of the women as he sent them away weeping. Even at the end, he had a strange power which aroused great emotions and loyalty from women.

Those left were a poor facsimile of the former glory. Unshaven faces and dingy uniforms from the dust which constantly fell in response to the seemingly unending barrage of Russian shells as the city above them was destroyed. The generator droned on, tended by its loyal retainer...

Bormann, Goebbels, General
Burgdorf and Krebs, Linge and Artur Axman who had arrived too late for the midnight wedding of Hitler and Eva and several others were visible at the far ends of the hall – all waiting, expectantly. A world was ending.

Major
Guensche moved down the hall closer to the door. Hitler looked at him and smiled gently, wearily. Taking a, deep breath, he tried to give his voice some semblance of the former strength it once had when he drove men and women into a fanatical hysteria with the sheer force of his personality.

Pointing with his left hand at Casca, he spoke. "I have one last command. In the name of all that was and all that will be, you must obey. If you have any loyalty to me and our dream, you MUST obey."

His hand wavered with emotion, his voice cracked for a moment and then the spark returned to his dulled eyes. His voice rose, gaining in strength. The listeners straightened and the officers stood to attention. This was their god speaking.

"This man," he said, touching Casca's sleeve, "does not exist. You have never seen him. He has never been here. You may speak of men after this is over, but
never never must you ever in your lives – however how long – never speak of this man."

Catching another breath, he went on: "When this is over he will leave my rooms. You will not speak to him or question him. He must be left to go his way without delay or hindrance. Do you understand?"

One of the unlookers responded with the force of an old habit, "
Jawohl mein Fuhrer, zum befehl
. Yes, my leader, at your command."

"Good. You will wait ten minutes before entering." Nodding, Hitler indicated for Casca to precede him into his quarters. Eva sat on the far side of the blue and white sofa to the left of the room. Her pleasant face smiled timidly at Casca. Her feet were curled up under her and her shoes lay at the foot of the sofa. At first glance, she looked like an attractive housewife waiting for her husband to come home. In front of her on the sofa table was her pistol, a 6.35 Walther automatic pistol.

Hitler laid two guns on the table, one like Eva's he had carried hidden in a small leather holster sewn into his trousers which he had worn for years and the other a larger caliber, a 7.65 Walther automatic. Sighing, he reached into his coat pocket and removed a small white box and placed it on the table.

With trembling hands, he opened it and took out two poison vials from the half dozen inside. Saying nothing to Eva, he handed her one, which she took as if it were no more than a headache remedy. As she smiled shyly at Casca, he thought how out of place she looked here.