same spot.
As on the previous day, the gunners shifted their focus after half an hour, and began pummelling the German forward defences some two kilometres to the east. A look through the unit's periscope revealed the familiar curtain of smoke above the invisible Oderbruch. Tank guns boomed in the distance.
An occasional plane still flew over their position, but the rain of shells had stopped, making movement beyond the trenches a relatively safe affair. The gun emplacements had survived several near misses, and the outer door to the dugout had been blown in, but the only real casualty was their football pitch, which now featured a large crater where the centre circle should be. Neumaier looked ready to kill, and Paul's consoling remark that further fixtures were unlikely elicited a bleak stare.
Hours of nervous waiting followed. They could hear the battle, see it reaching for the sky in smoke and flame, but had no way of knowing how it was going. Were the Russians on the point of breaking through, or simply piling up corpses in the meadows? No one, with the possible exception of Haaf, actually expected the 'turning of the tide' their Fuhrer was demanding, but stranger things had happened. Maybe Ivan had finally run out of cannon fodder. It had taken him long enough.
More likely, he was just taking his time, grinding down his opponent with the same remorseless disregard for life he'd demonstrated from day one. And any moment now his tanks would rumble into view.
But when? The unit radio just crackled, and no runners arrived with orders. Utermann sent two men off to battalion, in search of news and additional shells. Paul, on observation duty, watched a steady stream of laden ambulance carts lumber west towards Diedersdorf, and found himself remembering a long-ago birthday party, and the seemingly endless string of coloured flags which the hired magician had drawn from his sleeve.
The emissaries returned with neither news nor shells, but bearing two dead rabbits. The smell of cooking soon wafted along the trenches, and by three in the afternoon they were all licking grease from their fingers. As they dined a Soviet plane passed high overhead, and several leaflets drifted down amongst them. 'Your war is lost – surrender while you still can' was the basic message – one that could hardly be argued with. But here they were.
'I bet they're not having meat for lunch,' Hannes muttered.
An hour or so later German troops, most of them Waffen-SS, appeared in the distance, falling back across the fields. The trickle soon turned into a flood, soldiers with smoke-scarred faces and dark-rimmed eyes, half walking, half running, passing them by with barely a glance. There were vehicles too, self-propelled guns and the occasional tank, with lines of soldiers clinging to whatever purchase they could find, bumping up and down like amateur horsemen as their mounts rumbled across the uneven ground and blundered their way through the trees.
A grey-haired Hauptsturmfuhrer told them that Soviet tanks had broken through on either side of Seelow, and were close to surrounding the town. He looked as tired as any man Paul had ever seen. 'They're not far behind us,' the SS officer said, looking back across the fields as if expecting to find the Russians already in view. 'We're moving back to the Diedersdorf line,' he added, then managed the ghost of a smile. 'But I doubt we'll be there for long.'
He raised a weary hand in farewell and walked off towards the west. So this is it, Paul thought.
But it was another couple of hours before the enemy appeared, and by that time the fields ahead were bathed in the golden light of the setting sun. The first Soviet tank, a T-34, appeared as a flash of light, then coalesced into the familiar profile. As Hannes manned the sighter, Paul and Neumaier spun the direction and elevation wheels to his bidding, and Haaf stood waiting with the second shell.
'Wait for it,' Utermann warned. He might be an idiot, Paul thought, but he knew how to run a battery. 'On the left,' the sergeant reminded them. The other 88 would take out the tanks on the right.
A second T-34 slid into view, and a third. Soon there were ten of them, fanning out on either side of the road. They were advancing slowly, with all due caution. A big mistake.
'Fire,' Utermann said, almost too quietly to hear.
Paul's left hand tugged on the trigger, and the gun shook with the force of the discharge. A split second later the other 88 followed suit. As the smoke cleared Paul could see two of the T-34s in flames. He thought he heard a distant scream, but was probably imagining it.
One of the other Soviet tanks opened fire, but it was still out of range. Haaf rammed another shell into the breech as Hannes barked instructions, and the other two adjusted their wheels. 'Now,' Hannes shouted, and Paul pulled the trigger again.
The target slumped to a halt, but no flames erupted. The crew were already tumbling out.
Three further tanks were destroyed, but more were moving into view, and the 88s were running out of shells. Another two burst into flame, and another two. It was like shooting ducks in the fairground on Potsdamer Strasse, Paul thought, only these ducks would outlast the supply of shot. And those that survived would be angry.
They were down to five shells when the first tank turned away, and the others soon followed suit. Their commander had probably just been told there was no chance of air support that evening, and had preferred a ten-hour wait to losing his entire brigade. He had no way of knowing his opponent was down to his last few shells.
It was time to get out. With two shells needed to render the 88s useless, there was no point waiting for morning to fire the other three. They might as well charge the Russians on foot.
'Prepare the guns for demolition,' Utermann told the two crews fifteen minutes later, apparently satisfied that the Russians weren't about to reappear. 'And get all the fuel into one of the half-tracks,' he told Hannes.
They set to work. Ten minutes later Hannes returned with the bad news. 'There's no fuel in either tank,' he said. 'Those SS bastards must have siphoned it off.'
Utermann closed his eyes for a second and breathed out heavily. He was still opening his mouth to speak when they all became aware of the roar in the distance which heralded a katyusha attack. 'Stalin's organs!' Utermann shouted unnecessarily, as everyone bolted for the nearest trench. Most were still running as the roar transmuted into a hissing howl, and an area of the wood some hundred metres to the west exploded in flames. By some merciful chance, Ivan had got the range wrong.
Over the next ten minutes he did his best to make amends. As Paul and his comrades hunkered down helplessly in the emplacement trenches, the rocket-launcher crews systematically worked their way across the wood, drawing ever nearer to the German guns. Looking up, Paul saw that the stars were lost in smoke, the branches above bathed in orange light. This is it, he thought, the moment of my death. It felt almost peaceful.
And then the salvo fell, straddling their position with a flash and crash that threatened to obliterate the senses. Paul had his eyes closed at the vital moment, but still had trouble focusing when he opened them again. Haaf, he realised, was screaming his head off, though he couldn't hear him. Something had landed in the boy's lap – a head, Paul realised – and he had leapt to his feet to shake it off. Before anyone could stop him, the boy had clambered out of the trench and disappeared from sight.
Someone shone a torch on the head. It was Bernauer, the other gun's loader. His emplacement must have taken a direct hit.
Another salvo landed, sounding much further away but still turning nearby trees into torches. They had all been deafened, Paul realised. It would pass in a few hours. Or at least it always had.
The rockets kept firing for another ten minutes, the hiss of their incoming flights barely discernible above the hissing in their ears. Once they had stopped, Utermann gestured them out of the trench – the Soviets might be playing games, creating a false sense of security before launching more salvos, but an immediate infantry assault was much more likely.
There were no obvious human forms in the other emplacement, which was itself barely recognisable. Paul had seen such sights in daylight, and felt grateful to the darkness for cloaking this particular jigsaw of blood, flesh and bone.
Hannes cursed as he tripped over something in the dark. It was Haaf's life-less body – a large chunk of the boy's head had been sliced off.
A red flare suddenly blossomed above what was left of the wood – Ivan was on his way.
Utermann was waving his arms around like a demented windmill, trying to get their attention. 'Let's go,' he shouted, if Paul's lip-reading was any good. The sergeant must have been feeling pretty lucky, Paul thought. Up
