the winds were fifty KPH and growing in intensity. Here, huddled together, they had to wait and let the storm use up its strength while they tried to conserve theirs.
Sleep, the great healer, was their best ally, and they used him as much as they could, letting the darkness take them for hours at a time. They woke Only to repair an item of their gear, or to eat a piece of bread. They filled their canteens with snow from outside and waited for it to melt, then drank and slept some more. They only left their cave to take a leak or crap and scurried back to their burrow cursing. The storm passed, leaving a startling clearness. The new snow sparkled with millions of flashing diamonds, each one a pinprick to the light-sensitive eyes of the cave dwellers. A brilliant crystal cold day, the air bit at their lungs and skin.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
At the Ingul they crossed over what in the spring would be swift flow, now frozen solid to a depth of five feet. An eighty-ton tank could rumble over it with no fear of crashing through.
They decided not to try and break through the Russian lines to their own forces at Novy Bug. With the food they had picked up at the hut they had a better chance of making it on to their original destination at Yuzhney Bug. Twelve days of crisp clear weather and they reached the first German outposts. Staggering in they almost had their asses shot off by the machine-gun crew sitting behind an MG-42. Only Gus's string of curses which could have been heard clear to Berlin stopped the gun crew from ripping them to pieces.
Ragged, bearded, filthy caricatures of soldiers, they were hustled to the rear in an amphibious Volkswagen. They were shown into the presence of
an immaculate colonel of Jagers, a man who obviously considered those beneath him fit only to do his bidding.
Langer read the martinet correctly and reported in the best military manner. 'Sir,
Colonel von Mancken rose from behind his field desk and stepped in front of Langer, looking the man up and down in distaste. Wrinkling his nose at the odor of this disgrace to the glory of German arms, he said, 'You mean you came all the way from Nikopol? I do hope you have a proper explanation or I assure you that you and those with you will most certainly face a court martial for desertion.' He called for his regimental sergeant major, a huge Bavarian with a barrel chest. He had the look of a man who enjoys the power he has over others.
Schmitt clicked his heels together.
Once out into the open, leaving the colonel to his delusions of grandeur in his log and sandbag HQ, he halted Langer. 'Okay, knock off the tin soldier shit. You're in a lot of trouble. That prissy bastard in there will have you before a firing squad in the morning unless you have some help. Do you have anything to trade for the services I might be able to render you in the name of German soldierity? Gold, silver, jewels, opium. I'm not hard to get along with; almost anything will do that I can resell.'
Teacher and the others joined Langer, who had had just about enough. He looked the sergeant major over carefully. The lack of combat badges or ribbons was obvious. This was one of those bullies who had spent the last four years in some training regiment, impressing recruits and being careful to make themselves indispensable to their commanders in order to avoid going to the front. But time had caught up with this one and he was on the front, now. It was high time he learned a reality.
Gus moved up closer to Schmitt; Yuri began to give his butcher knife a finer edge, stropping it on his boot tops, while squinting and looking up at Schmitt, grinning. His gold tooth gleamed in a dark, wizened face. Teacher merely smiled and began fondling his submachine gun. Schmitt hesitated. What was this? Why weren't they afraid of him? He was a sergeant major and outranked them. Everyone had always been afraid of him back in Germany.
Langer moved up closer to Schmitt, his face only inches away from the other's. 'Listen to me. I have seen your type for years and you're a gutless piece of suet. You can get away with that bullshit back in Germany, but here on the front it's a little bit different. You mess with us and I'll twist your head off your shoulders. Do you know what it means to die? For your sake I hope so. Now get away from me and go scare some children.'
The first real fear he had ever known struck him. Schmitt took a step back in shock. He had been on the front only two weeks, and there had not even been a shot fired other than an occasional sniper and that was on the lines, a place he carefully avoided. He cursed himself. His mistake was making himself too indispensable to Col. von Mancken. When the colonel received orders to the front he just had to take his faithful sergeant major with him. The pompous bastard! Blustering, he tried to fake it. 'You watch your step. I'm the boss here and you heard what the colonel said. The showers are over behind supply. Get cleaned up and write out your report. I'll see you later.'
Langer snorted and turned his back on him. Yuri rose from his squatting position and passed in front of Schmitt. Smiling and bobbing his head, he took out a small bulging cloth bag. He grinned as he pressed it into Schmitt's hands. 'For Germanski, presento.' Gold tooth gleaming he followed after the others.
Schmitt, who was used to his lessers presenting him with tokens of their esteem, mumbled to himself that the savage had more sense and manners than the others. At least he recognized his betters. 'Wonder what it is?' Pulling the drawstring open, he shook the contents out into his hand and froze; his gut squirmed and he let the contents fall to lie on the snow. Ears! Human ears! A dozen or more, all from the right side. Sweat broke out on his forehead in spite of the cold. He backed away and almost ran back into the security of headquarters.
The showers were a canvas field tent with empty petrol drums set up outside filled with water. It had a stovepipe affair running from an old wood-burning stove, up through the center of the drums to heat the water. Crude, but right now it was the most luxurious innovation they had ever experienced. All except Yuri, who distrusted water in any form other than drinking, but he gave in to the demands of the others that shed his lice-infested rags and joined in.
Gus, removing his boots, let out a yelp of pure joy. 'Here, fellows, look what I got.' He had to peel his socks off and there exposed to daylight for the first time in days were two blackened toes on his left foot, the two small ones, black and dead; frostbite. 'I got my bleeding ticket out of here, ain't they beautiful?'
Gus refused to go to the dispensary until after he washed. 'There's no rush, they ain't goin' no place, for a while, that is.' A supply clerk came over with clean uniforms for them after they had been de-loused. The only one who wasn't infested was Langer. For some reason the little bastards didn't like the taste of him, but the others had to submit to a complete spraying and laughed as their clothes were tossed into the wood stove. They enjoyed each
