Winter Warriors

“Yes Asbach, a light platoon each side. And I sent a squad to watch our rear as well.”

“Good, take as many men as we have left and form a reserve. Form it around a couple of half-tracks for support. If we get attacked, move to reinforce wherever the attack is coming from.”

“Very good Asbach. I’ll have two good squads each in a ‘track.”

Asbach nodded and returned to his thoughts. There was one source of manpower that the train could access. Partisans. They were all around him. He always knew that. Now they were closing in to help the train. That damned train.

He shook himself. It was as if that hell-spawned train was alive, that it was fighting him all by itself. It had sucked him and all the other forces around him into a private little war. One that had little to do with the greater war that was going on around them. Had the devil himself possessed that great gun and was using it for his own plans? Asbach hadn’t been a religious man since his youth. He’d lost his faith in God during the stone-by-stone fighting for Moscow. But he believed in the devil and now he was getting a growing feeling that the devil was becoming inordinately interested in him.

Behind him, the sun started to edge over the horizon, the dark of the night turning into royal blue. And that’s when Asbach heard the sound of aircraft engines.

F-61D “Evil Dreams “ Over Letnerechenskiy, Kola Peninsula

It had been a hard night. First of all, two hours over Helsinki being buffeted by the rising air currents from the growing fires down below. They had hunted the anti-aircraft guns that threatened the B-29s. They’d got most of them, or at least the ones that opened fire. Sometimes they’d been too late. They still remembered the sight of one B-29 with its port engines on fire. It had folded up in mid-air and crashed on to the city beneath. And another just exploded, sending fire and fragments in great arcs downwards. Then, they had landed at their home base, to be hurriedly reloaded with bombs and rockets. All so they could go and support the train that was trying to get through to safety in the north.

Lieutenant Quayle thought that it was only fair. He had been the one who had shot up the trains in the first place. But he didn’t like being out this close to dawn. No, that wasn’t quite right, it was at dawn and the sun was already showing its tip over the horizon. Wasn’t there a legend that witches melted in the sunlight if they were caught out after daybreak? Or was that vampires?

Evil Dreams headed south, looking down at the rails in the dawn twilight. Their shine was a faint but ghostly trail that reminded him of a snail moving. His first job was to find the train. Apparently only a single gun survived, and he had to ensure it was clear of the battle area. Then he had to track the rails back and try and work out where the German force was hiding. Word was they were hidden in the woods. That was bad news. His favorite anti-personnel weapon, napalm, wasn’t that effective against targets hidden in dense trees. The fire tended to run through the tree tops and miss the troops underneath. So he had one thousand pound bombs and five inch rockets. Plus his cannon and machine guns of course.

“I’ve got the train Boss.” Sergeant James Morton’s eyes were hurting and he had a bad headache. Too much work, too many searchlights, not enough sleep. Helsinki had been the added bit of strain on the Black Widow crews that had pushed them over the edge. They needed rest, needed it very badly.

Evil Dreams orbited over the train, recognizing the gun in the dim light. Then, the crew set off north again and tried to work out where the German ambush unit was situated. The railway skirted the ridgeline, curved around a mound and then set off across the shallow valley. Then it curved away around another gentle rise. Quayle looked down at the track in the valley. Somehow it looked wrong.

“Donnie, look at that track. It seem wrong to you?”

Phelan looked hard, cupping his eyes and trying to focus on the track. Even with binoculars specially designed for low-light conditions, it was hard to make out but…. Then as the light strengthened he realized what he was looking at.

“Got it, Boss. The tracks been torn up. Rails are off to the sides. The sleepers have been pulled away. Shadows make it look like the bed has a couple of holes in it as well.” That could be a mistake, the shallow- incidence light made every slight bump or dip look like a mountain or a yawning chasm.

Quayle circled around again. Now, if the track was torn up here, then the best place to cover it would be over there wouldn’t it? He looked down hoping for a flash of light as an incautious officer watched him with binoculars but no such luck. Too much to hope for. “Donnie, get on the radio and call our friends over. We’ll need some help for this.” And better to have four Black Widows than one if enemy fighters turned up. As soon as the light grew better, they would be replaced by Thunderbolts or Thunderstorms and that would make life a lot more comfortable.

Right, it was time to start. He had to make a choice and Quayle picked a point that looked as if it would give a good field of fire for the hidden German force. Evil Dreams angled over and started her run towards the selected piece of pine forest. Quayle leveled the aircraft out and let fly with all twelve of his five inch rockets. Below him, the wood line erupted into explosions as the salvo struck home.

Mechanized Column, 71st Infantry Division, Kola Peninsula

The American Night Witch pilot was good, very good. Even in the deceptive light of early dawn he had searched out his target and selected the likely position of his prey. He’d got damned close as well, the rocket salvo had punched into the treeline barely 100 meters from his position, close enough for some of the rockets to land amongst his men. Asbach had held his breath, hoping that none of them would open fire and reveal his true position. Doing that would bring down accurate fire from the Night Witch overhead. Discipline held, and the Night Witch climbed away, resuming its circling and waiting for something to break cover. Asbach guessed that the big twin-engined jabo wouldn’t be on its own much longer, it had probably called in its friends and reinforcements would be on the way.

Then Asbach heard the sound he had been expecting, hoping that he wouldn’t hear it but expecting it nevertheless. The crash of light mortar rounds, the rattle of machine guns and the baying ‘urrah, urrah’ of Russian infantry. Asbach listened carefully, for sounds could tell him what eyes could not. Was the rhythmic thumping of StG-44s, the German rear-guard? Or partisans with captured weapons? The ripping sound of the German MG-42s and MG-45s were already dominating the symphony. That meant the attack had to be developing fast. Mixed up with the sound of the German weapons was another tearing noise, one so fast that individual shots were indistinguishable. That had to be the PPS-45. And finally, a slow, dull, thumping, richer and heavier than the rest. The American .45 machine pistols they handed out with such largess. A crude, clumsy weapon but one that was accurate and fired a crippling bullet.

Asbach held his breath. It was a partisan attack for sure. But if Lang moved his two halftracks to support the tiny force at the rear of the formation, he would reveal the position of the unit to the Night Witches overhead. Even as he thought the situation through, a runner slid in the snow beside him.

“Captain’s compliments and he’s leading his reaction force in on foot, doesn’t want to move his vehicles. Says the enemy is attacking in at least battalion strength and there are ski-troops mixed in with Partisans. They have mortars, machine guns and our rifles.”

Asbach nodded. “Tell Lang to drive the enemy back. Keep them away from our main position. If those Partisans have a radio and they report where we are, our friends up there will be having a field day.” The runner nodded and slid off to rejoin his units.

Asbach sighed gently. This was likely to be the final confrontation between him and the men on that accursed train. Once, in Monte Carlo, before the war, he had seen the combination of hope and despair on the face of a man who had placed his last few chips on a single number on the roulette wheel. He had watched that wheel spin with hope despite the odds against him. Against all common sense, he had been shocked when the turn went against him and he lost the last of his small wealth. Now, Asbach knew just how that man had felt.

Top Floor, Bank de Commerce et Industrie, Geneva, Switzerland

“Any word from the Finns, Tage?”

“Much news, it will be public soon but we have had warning first. Helsinki, what’s left of it, told Stockholm less than an hour ago and they told me. Risto Heikki Ryti has resigned as President and Marshal Mannerheim is being elected to take his place. Ryti had to go, nobody would believe him, even if he did declare peace. The message from the Marshal is that Finland will accept the Russian peace terms as laid down in our last meeting, harsh though they are. He believes German troops in the north of the country will retreat to Norway but it will be necessary for the Canadians and Russians to deal with those in the South.”