withdrawals, stretching the pursuing enemy out to the limits of supply and knowing just when to turn and fight.
For the most part German forces tried to straighten their lines and set up barriers to slow down the Russian winter offensive. Leningrad finally had to be evacuated after three years of siege.
The Russians still managed to advance to the Bug and Dniester rivers despite brilliant counterattacks by Manstein. The trapped 1st Panzer Army at Tarnopol managed to fight its way out almost intact with the aid of the Luftwaffe, which air dropped all of its supplies. The old reliable Junker 52 workhorse tri-motor was the back bone of a massive air resupply. Langer and Teacher spent the remainder of the winter trying to cram as much training as they could onto the replacements being sent up. It was woefully short many times. The boys they sent up had less than ten days' familiarization with their weapons. Gus was disappointed in his hopes to be sent back and discharged. Instead he was returned to Langer in May, busted down to private. Ivan had a habit of treating prisoners according to their rank; the higher you were, the worse they gave you. A private could always claim he was forced into the war and was really a Communist at heart.
The spring campaigns opened when the ground was firm enough to handle the weight of the armored vehicles. Langer wasn't worried about going up to the front. He knew that the front would soon come to them. It was just a matter of time. In the meantime, he did the best he could to teach the replacements how to survive, not that it did much good. Already, most of the replacements were no more than seventeen, but the Russians, too, were showing some of the strain of replacing troops. They had lost millions and were now fleshing out their ranks with boys of fifteen and old men of sixty. Anyone capable of carrying a weapon was called into service. There was no medical excuse that could save one from the army, unless he was an amputee or cripple.
On 6 March, Colonel von Mancken did his best to win the Knight's Cross and was promptly ground into jelly by the tracks of one of the new JS-I (Joseph Stalin) heavy tanks.
By mid-April the Russians had advanced to striking range of the frontier of Poland and were facing the Carpathian mountains to the south. The Crimea had fallen, the 17th Army fought without support until it could hold out no longer. Some units were rescued in a German version of Dunkirk but not all. Thousands of horses were driven off the cliffs to drown in the Black Sea, the German defenders' last act. Destroy anything that might be of use to the Russians. By the end of July Langer's prediction that the front would come to them came true. They were pushed out of Vilnyus to form a hedgehog northwest of the city, surrounded and cut off.
Yuri motioned to Gus to come and take a look. Gus raised his head up far enough to get a good look at a T-34 sitting just a block away beside a burned-out bakery on the outskirts of Vilnyus. The crew was taking a break to enjoy their lunch. They had already strung up, and were butchering a pig for their lunch.
Gus whispered to Langer, who was talking to Teacher. 'Hey Sarge, chow time. There's only four of them.'
Langer took a look, not at the pig, but the tank. 'You're right, Gus, and there's our way out of here.'
Gus looked at the sitting T-34 and smiled. 'I'll make you a deal. You get the tank and I'll get the pig'
'Good enough, but let's keep it quiet; no shooting unless we have to. Let's not let their cousins know we're here if we can help it. Teacher, you take the Mauser and cover us. Yuri, you come at them from around the rear of the bakery and wait until Gus and I move before you hit them. Gus and I will handle the three with the pig. You take out the one by the tank. Got it?' Yuri grinned his sparkling gold smile.
'All right, then let's be at it.'
Gus took his entrenching tool from its case. He had, as usual, honed the edge down fine enough to cut silk with. Yuri had his butcher knife and Langer the long M-98 bayonet. They didn't have much doubt that they would be able to get close enough to use their blades. The Ivans were totally involved with gutting the pig and building a cook fire.
Bellies to the ground, they slid out through the brush and grass slithering like snakes. Before Vilnyus had fallen they had been issued new uniforms and the summer camouflage of light and dark brown splinter patterns blended beautifully with the cover they used.
They moved slowly, the smell of the grass in their nostrils. The heat of the sun beat down their backs and small rivers of sweat ran down the hollow of their spines.
Teacher watched from the cellar window. It seemed to take forever for them to cover the short distance to the bakery wall. Langer raised his head for a quick look.
One of the Ivans was showing off to the others, making swipes with a saber through the air, obviously showing them how it was done when he was still in the mounted calvary. Langer focused on him. That could be dangerous. The swordsman wore the collar tabs of a major. He looked to be about thirty-five. Lean, with high Slavic cheekbones and deep-set eyes that were always in a shadow. He moved through some quick ghost parrying-and- lunging techniques to the delight of his comrades, and with a whirling sweep severed the head from the pig.
Langer grunted mentally. Not bad. It's hard to cut through a neck like that, especially one as thick as a pig's. You have to hit at just the right spot between the vertebra or you can't do it. But it still takes a lot of strength just to cut through the muscle. The Order of Suvarov and the badge of a Hero of the Soviet Union were easily visible.
They reached the wall, their hearts pounding but with the calmness that comes before action. Yuri moved around the building, keeping close to the wall. He had until the time it took him to count his fingers and toes twice slowly, then Langer and Gus would move.
Gus pointed out one of the Ivans. A big man almost as large as himself, bending over slicing up the pig's hindquarters. Whispering, 'That's my meat.'
Langer nodded he'd take out the major first, and then the little Armenian-looking one by the tank would go to whoever was closest. Yuri would get the one closest to him, a youngster who looked more German than Russian, probably from the Caucasus.
It was time. Langer touched Gus on the shoulder and nodded, took a deep breath, and moved straight at the major. Gus followed, his entrenching tool held like a barbarian axe from the days of the Vikings.
Gus lurched out in front of Langer, the entrenching tool above his head, aiming to slice through the neck of the big Russian who was involved in pulling the intestines out of the slaughtered pig. He was almost on him when his feet hit a slick pile of pig guts, and he went ass over end in a heap under the knife of the big Slav.
