Langer chuckled. ' Left ball, huh? How can you be sure he can get a hard-on for anything?' The gunner smiled in the dark . . . good question.
Snick. The sound of a rifle bolt closing.
'Somewhere out there. Hard to tell how far. Sound is different at night; could be twenty meters or a hundred.'
The gunner nodded. 'I heard. Bet they're in the small piece of low ground to the left. He shifted his gun over to where it touched one of the stakes he had driven into the ground on each side of his weapon. They served as markers for him in the dark.
'There's another one. They're getting ready. What say we shake them up a little.'
Langer thought about it for a moment. 'No. We better let them make the first move. I don't want to give your gun position away too soon. We'll wait awhile. They won't be long now. I'm going back to the tank and when you're sure they are out in the open, give a whistle and I'll light them up for you.'
The gunner grinned again.
'You've got HE in the tube, don't you, Teacher?' The esthetic-looking scholar confirmed that they had high- explosive rounds ready and to hand.
'Good, infantry will come first. We'll have time to load for tanks when we hear them coming. I think they're going to try and surprise us first without any mortar fire, or artillery preparation. They lay that on us if they can't infiltrate.'
Gus sat on the go position, ready to turn on his engine and start up. Stefan was on the hull gun waiting. Humming to himself, Manny stood ready to load whatever shell was required and Teacher entertained himself by quoting passages from Schiller to himself. Langer took the flare pistol and loaded it. A short soft whistle. Carl motioned Teacher to get on his gun while he took the MG on the turret. Raising the flare pistol, he fired a long burning arc that raced overhead like a sky rocket, leaving a trail of sparks behind it to burst into a searing flash of white light. Beneath the glow the Russians stood frozen in their tracks by the unexpected illumination.
'Fire!' Langer's MG joined that of the gunner on the ridge in sending rapid bursts of fire into the massed bodies of the Russians. The chatter of the MG's was joined by the slower cranking of the Mauser rifles of the infantrymen.
Ilye Shimilov screamed orders and the guardsmen hurled themselves at the German positions shouting
The gunners on the ridge held the Russian attack.
Ilye Shimilov screamed in frustration and shot two guardsmen in the back of the head in order to provide the others with the proper spirit. He was going to shoot a third when a bullet from a Mauser smashed into his forehead and blew most of his brains out, leaving a gaping hole you could stick a fist in. The rifleman who hit him laughed as he told his neighbor, 'I told you, cut the noses off and you will blow the shit out of anything you hit. Dumdums ought to regular issue.'
His dialogue ended when a grenade blew his face off and left him gurgling wetly in the bottom of the gully. The Russians to the front faded back into the dark, firing as they went. A ricochet bouncing off the turret told Langer that they were coming from the ravine now. Swinging his MG around, he waited a second and the rapid, distinct sound of Koch's MG-34 told him it was time to let go with his own. He swept the gully in front of him from side to side, his weapon joined by Stefan's in the hull. Counting slowly, he gave Koch his minute and ordered Teacher to fire the 75 mm set to the lowest position. The shells burst in the middle of a packed group of about sixty Russians, sending arms, legs and torsos into different directions. Teacher fired as fast as he could be reloaded.
The rest of the trench was involved with their own troubles and had no one to spare for them. Each had to hold his own or die. The grenadiers on the edge of the ravine turned their weapons to point down the gully and began firing and throwing grenades as fast as the pins could be pulled. Koch's group stayed on their side of the ravine to keep out of the way of the Panther's gun and continued to send a hail of fire into the Russians below. The exploding shells of the Panther tore the attackers to pieces.
A cry from the side of the ravine jerked Langer's head around.
'Enemy tanks. They're coming. I can hear them.'
A runner from Major Kruger raced up to them. Breathless, he climbed up to Carl. 'The old man says you are to pull back up to the other side of the ditch and cover us while the Wespes get to some high ground.'
Langer acknowledged the order and told Gus to start her up. The Maybach roared into life and the Panther moved off. Langer kept the turret facing the Russians and Teacher continued to fire, giving cover while the infantry withdrew. Flares started to pop overhead, lighting up the whole area in blinding brilliance. The artillery to the rear was giving what support they could in response to Kruger's frantic plea for support. The flares showed a wedge of T-34s led by two KV-Is moving across the field, all guns firing.
Langer's tank moved up the opposite rim of the ridge. Without waiting to be told, Teacher reloaded with a piercing scream and sighted on the approaching tanks. Taking the leader in his sight, he nodded for the okay and fired, the round knocking the tread off, leaving the T-34 turning in circles, a wounded beast waiting for the death blow which was not long in coming. The crew burned inside as the fuel tanks went up and then exploded when the flames reached the stacks of shells inside, blowing the tank completely over.
The Wespes had reached ground suitable for the use of their powerful 105s. The assault guns had a limited traverse but were in their element in antitank fighting from prepared positions. One after another, Russian tanks were knocked out until the field in front no longer needed the flares of the artillery to light it up. The burning hulks of Soviet armor provided all the light they needed. As soon as the tanks were done in, the Wespes shifted over to antipersonnel rounds, firing shells that exploded above the heads of the panic-stricken Russians, smashing them into the earth while the combined machine-gun and rifle fire of the grenadiers of the Gross Deutschlanders stitched them back and forth, the tracers from the MGs like racing fireflies. They sought out the soft bodies of the attackers. The Russians broke and disappeared back into the dark, leaving their wounded behind. They had enough. Only one KV-I returned. Eight lay burning on the field. They never got closer than two hundred meters to the gully.
CHAPTER FIVE
Immediately after the Russians withdrew, Major Kruger ordered all the men back into the gully, including the Wespes and Langer's Panther. Carl thought he was crazy when he ordered all guns to fire at nothing from the
