Crack of Doom (16 page)

The sergeant still said nothing. His unshaven, dirt-encrusted face had turned white. Stiller took the tommy-gun from his hand. "Who gave you permission to leave your position?"

"There isn't a position any more, sir. Everything's gone to pieces up forward. We remained in our positions till the Russians were right on us/

"Your regimental commander is still in Durkov."

"I don't know anything about that, sir. The command post was at Rozhanovce. We tried to get there and ran into Russians everywhere."

"You withdrew from your regiment's sector without permission."

"The regiment hasn't a sector any more, sir."

"So long as your commanding officer is in Durkov, and so long as you still have a tommy-gun to shoot with, you've got a sector to hold."

"It would have been irresponsible to . . ."

"Shut your mouth," yelled Stiller. He turned to Giesinger. "Shoot that man for cowardice in face of the enemy."

Giesinger staggered back. His fleshy face turned ashen. He looked at the sergeant, who was staring at the general in disbelief. Before Giesinger could recover from the shock, Stiller's biting voice lashed his ears again: "Didn't you hear?"

Giesinger looked desperately at Kolmel, but the colonel was looking out over the valley. Behind the mountains artillery boomed, and the snow fell in huge flakes from a black sky. Giesinger stalked past the sergeant. For a moment he was tempted to take his pistol out of its sheath and aim it at the general. The scarlet stripes of Stiller's trousers gleamed against the snow. "What the hell are you doing?" he called, when Giesinger hesitated.

"The firing squad, sir," Giesinger answered, his voice shaking with rage.

"You
are the firing squad." Stiller pointed across the road. "Over there."

"I can't do that."

"Are you refusing to obey an order?"

Looking into his ice-cold eyes, Giesinger again felt the wish to kill him; but his fear was far stronger. "According to martial law. . . ." he began laboriously.

Stiller cut him short. "You can complain later if you wish, but at present you will do what I ordered."

"It'll be your responsibility," rasped Giesinger, and went up to the former sergeant. He pulled his pistol from the holster. The other men dared not move; they stood in the snow like helpless animals, fear and dismay on their faces, staring at the general. Kolmel was looking away; his long face wore a rather sorrowful expression.

With a wooden movement Giesinger took the soldier by the arm. "Come on." He led the unresisting man across the road. They were about three steps from the steep slope, and further below the wood began. Run, thought Giesinger, why don't you run, you idiot? All of a sudden the general was standing next to him, asking icily: "Like to join him?"

Giesinger looked into Stiller's face and from there at the sergeant's head. The man's long hair stood out above his coat collar, and he had a pimple behind his right ear. When Giesinger placed the butt of the pistol next to it, his stomach protested, and sent foul-tasting bile up into his mouth. He was nearly sick, and his arm trembled so violently he had to grip the pistol with both hands. He saw the sergeant's profile before him as in a close-up. The man had shut his eyes tight, his unshaven chin hung slackly down, and saliva trickled out of the right corner of his mouth. Why doesn't he struggle, thought Giesinger, and pulled the trigger.

The short sharp report hit him like a piece of wood between the eyes. He staggered, and looked at the sergeant, who fell down as quickly as if he had dropped from a tree, his feet drumming a crazy dance in the snow. The sight was too much for Giesinger's stomach, and he vomited. Nearby he heard the general's shrill voice shouting an order, then two men came running across the road, aimed their guns at the soldier, and fired.

Giesinger reeled over to the car, put his handkerchief to his mouth, and stood with his face averted until he heard the general's voice behind him: "You bungled even that, eh? I'll send you to the front with a gunner's company, so you'll learn how to handle a pistol."

Giesinger did not move. He heard the general talking to Kolmel and someone giving the order to collect the paybooks. Then the general yelled at him: "Well, get in," and he stumbled into the car.

Stiller leaned out of the window, and looked at the men, who were standing in a disorderly bunch on the other side of the road. He beckoned to one of them. "Your name?"

"Corporal Hebauer, sir."

"Take the men to Durkov and report to Colonel Wieland."

"Yes, sir."

"Bury the dead man."

"Yes, sir."

Stiller dropped back against the cushions and gave a sign to the driver. The car moved off.
"Pour encourager les autres,"
he remarked to Kolmel.

"Do you think it will do any good?"

"Those thirty men are going to talk, and within three days the whole division will know not only that it has a new general, but what I'm expecting from it."

They drove for awhile in silence, then Kolmel said: "We should soon be at the fork."

"The crossroads, you mean?"

"It isn't really a crossroads, sir. The main road goes straight on, but there's another one forking off to Durkov. Here, have a look."

Stiller studied the map. Suddenly he started up from his seat; somewhere to the right the crashing of shells could be heard. "Russian artillery," said Kolmel. The road now dipped steeply down into the valley, and climbed up the other side. The driver reduced speed, steering past several shell craters. Five minutes later they came to the fork: the road to the Durkov Pass led almost straight ahead to the top of the hill, while the other road cut a narrow glade into thick pine forest, curving off after a few yards to disappear from view. Stiller noticed some broken trees on the other side of it, and on looking closer discovered the assault guns as well, barely distinguishable in their camouflage. "Stop just by the edge of the wood," Stiller told the driver. As he was getting out of the car, two shells landed not far away. He ducked and ran over to the guns with Kolmel. The dark uniforms of several men emerged from between the trees. They looked at the two high officers, and one of them, with a captain's markings, saluted.

"What's happening here?" asked Stiller.

"We're covering the road, sir."

"So I see. Where are the Russians?"

The captain made a gesture with his hand. "They're banging about all over the place, and I'm stuck here with four guns and no infantry."

"Haven't you any contact with Colonel Kreisel?"

"Only by radio, sir. I've already told him. . . ."

"But you've got eight guns, haven't you?" Stiller interrupted.

"We lost three at Rozhanovce, sir."

"You were at Rozhanovce!" Kolmel exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes, sir. Our advance went pretty well up until then, but after that things blew up on all sides. Colonel Kreisel sent me here with four guns."

"Three from eight leaves five."

"The colonel took one with him to Durkov, sir."

Stiller talked to Kolmel for a moment, then turned to the captain again. "Did you see the ambulances?"

"They came through here, sir. They were fired at."

"Yes, we know. You must give us one of your guns so that we can get through. What orders were you...." Stiller broke off, suddenly hearing a series of sharp reports behind him. Heavy-calibre shells roared over the trees so close that he automatically drew in his head.

"Our artillery, sir," the captain exclaimed. "It's there just behind us in case Russian tanks come."

"Have you seen any?" asked Stiller.

"Rozhanovce is swarming with them, sir."

"Then I'm surprised they're not here yet," remarked Kolmel, who had been listening intently.

The captain pointed to the road. "We've still got a twenty-five-pounder there."

"Any infantry with it?"

"I've no idea, sir."

"All right," said Kolmel. "Listen. There's a reserve unit coming up from Kosice, you're to keep it with you. Hold on here and await further orders. Signal Colonel Kreisel that we're on our way. We're going up there now—unless you have any other questions, sir?" he turned to Stiller.

"No, I don't think so," said Stiller, and they returned to the car. He waited till the assault gun they were taking had lumbered past, then told the driver to follow behind it, and remarked cheerfully to Kolmel: "We'll squeeze them—between Kreisel with his regiment from Durkov and Hepp's lot coming from here."

"We must reinforce the reserve unit," Kolmel suggested.

"I'll see. With what I have in mind it'll hardly be necessary. After all we've got the three assault guns down there."

"What about this one ahead of us?"

"We need it for Kreisel. He can't do much with the single gun he has in Durkov. Besides, there's still this mess with Hopper in our rear."

"Yes," said Kolmel. "I'm almost more worried about him than Wieland."

Stiller peered over Giesinger's head at the assault gun. "So long as Hopper stays in Slancik, nothing much can happen. I don't think the Russians are all that interested in Slancik, there aren't any roads leading west from there. If they want to get to Kosice, they can only do it through Durkov or Rozhanovce. We're holding Durkov firmly, and we'll get Rozhanovce back. Once the Russians are on the run, we'll push them back over the Durkov Pass as well. And even if we don't, there's always the chance of stabilizing the front along the line Slancik-Durkov-Rozhanovce. When people are ensconced in warm houses, they don't let themselves be driven out so easily—one of the things I learnt in Russia."

Kolmel watched the assault gun traveling up a steep incline. The deep furrows it plowed in the snow made it increasingly hard for the command car to follow: the right wheels kept getting stuck in one of the gun's tracks, while the left wheels skidded in the snow. "If it goes on like this," said Stiller, "we'll bog down here. I don't remember any more whether it was right or left of the road—the clearing where the ambulances were fired on."

"Right, according to that corporal—so we must keep our eyes skinned to the left."

"This
is
going to be interesting. A mile and a quarter before Durkov: we should soon be at the place."

"Until we see something of the clearing. . . ."

"Always assuming the Russians haven't gone beyond since then."

"I hate operating in the woods," said Kolmel, "you can never feel safe in it."

Giesinger hardly listened to them. Since the terrible incident he had been only half conscious of what was going on around him. He felt in an unspeakable way defiled, his thoughts veered continually between fear and hatred—and the sickening sense of shame, which grew stronger and stronger the further they went from the scene of his disgrace. When he thought of how he had vomited in front of the thirty men, he felt like putting his face in his hands and crying like a child. He did not dare think of the coming hours. Irrespective of how the counter-offensive might improve the situation, he knew it was all up with his position at divisional headquarters—unless General Marx should be rescued. His recent humiliations were only a foretaste of what he could expect if Schmitt came back empty-handed— he'd be better off then as commander of a gunners company. For a moment he found this idea less terrible than having to work under Stiller. But when he had a closer look at it, imagined himself running toward the Russian positions at the head of his men and being wiped out by a spray of machine-gun fire, he shuddered. I'd rather go over to the Russians, he decided.

His head almost went through the windscreen, as the car suddenly braked hard. He saw that the assault gun had also stopped.

"The clearing," announced the driver.

The assault gun started again and moved on. Kolmel bent toward the driver. "Wait till they're past the clearing, then make a dash for it."

The driver let in the clutch. The wheels skidded in the snow for a second, then they gripped and the car shot toward the clearing. They were past almost before they realized it. Ahead of them the gun was jolting laboriously up a slope. Stiller sat up straight again. "In ten minutes we'll be there."

"If we don't have any trouble from the Russians," muttered Kolmel, and neither spoke again till they reached Durkov.

Here the road led into another, the main road between Slancik and Rozhanovce—as Kolmel knew without looking at the map. The assault gun clumsily turned right, disappearing behind the first house. The village was in a narrow valley and had about seventy houses. Men were standing around in the street in small groups; they stared at the passing officers. The gun now pulled up on the right of the road, and the car stopped behind it. The men got out and were met by Lieutenant Colonel Kreisel who took them into a room where Colonel Wieland was standing with several other officers. "Your new general," said Kolmel, turning to the astonished colonel. "Sad news for you. General Marx has been captured by partisans." He informed the speechless officers how it had happened.

When Kolmel had finished his account, Wieland stared at the floor for some time. Finally he looked up. "It never rains but it pours. My regiment is in pieces, only about a hundred men left. Oh yes, and there's something here for you, Kolmel."

"For me?"

"Yes, from corps. We got the radio signal through division a quarter of an hour ago." He gave Kolmel the message.

"From the corps commander," said Kolmel. "I'm to go straight back to DobSina."

"That's all we need," Stiller growled.

Kolmel asked for a report on the present position.

"It went all right as far as Rozhanovce," Kreisel told him. "Then the Russians came at us from all directions."

"From the west too?" asked Stiller.

"Yes, sir—from the west too. Either they were detached groups we'd passed without noticing it, or they simply surrounded us. In the operation I lost three of my assault guns, I sent four off to break through to the west. . . ."

"Yes, we know that. What we don't know is why you decided to come to Durkov. You could have gone back to the road fork with your guns."