CHAPTER 30
Lieutenant David Singer simply showed up that evening at Logan’s bunker. He looked a little pale, but had regained some lost weight and seemed otherwise healthy. He leaned his cane against the wall and grinned infectiously, like a kid who had just put something over on a teacher.
“David,” said Logan as the others looked on, “aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital?”
“Hospitals are for sick people. Tell me, do I look sick?”
“Let me rephrase the question. Did the hospital release you, or did you just take off?”
“What does it matter? I’m here, aren’t I?”
Sergeant Bailey offered Singer a cup of coffee. “I think Lieutenant Logan is concerned because he is in so much deep shit with the captain for breaking rules that he doesn’t want to get in any deeper.”
Singer took a swallow and made a face. “This really tastes like hell. All right, I took off and Dimitri doesn’t know I’m here. So what?”
Logan took a deep breath. “Why, David?”
“Guys, I wasn’t joking when I said that hospitals are for sick people. There’s a battle coming, and they don’t need me moping around and getting in the way just because I lost twenty pounds the hard way. Besides, unless I’ve missed something, I’m still an officer in this man’s army and I am reporting for duty. And I’m not going to tell the captain. I should also be honest and tell you I’ve been thinking it may be safer right here with you guys. The hospitals are marked with red crosses, but that hasn’t stopped the Reds from shelling them.”
“Why not tell Dimitri you’re here, sir?” asked Bailey. “You afraid he’ll send you back?”
“Because rumor has it he’s so pissed at young Lieutenant Logan that he’d replace him with me, one arm or not. After all, I am senior to him in date of rank. Worse, there’s the possibility that Dimitri would make me stay with him so as to keep me out of trouble, and that’s not why I’m here.”
“Okay,” said Logan resignedly, “you’re our little secret and just one more reason for Dimitri to crucify me. Now, what use can you be to us?”
At that moment, the thundering Russian barrage began again. For a second, Singer looked like he wanted to change his mind and return to the hospital, but he quickly settled down. “Maybe I can help with the radio. If nothing else, I can praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” he answered, mimicking the song that had been popular after Pearl Harbor.
“Hallelujah,” said Logan, and he winced as a shell landed near. “Then get on the radio and find out what the hell is happening at the outposts. And David”-he grinned evilly-“don’t drop it.”
As darkness fell, they got word that the Russians were advancing and that there was a lot of armor headed in their direction. Shortly after, the men from the outposts snaked their way back through the trenches and tunnels, passing through on their way to the rear.
An engineer captain was the last to appear. He was stringing wire and had a detonator, and explained that an earlier line had been cut by the Russian artillery.
“Are all the men out, Captain?” Logan asked. He knew a lot of those people in the outposts.
“All that’s coming out, buddy.” With that, he twisted the detonator. A second later, the earth a half mile out in front of them lifted in a shower of dirt, destroying the now abandoned outposts. “Well, that’s that. I can only hope there were some Commies in there when we blew it.”
Logan agreed, but he also hoped there weren’t any Americans alive in that hell.
He quickly stopped worrying about others and focused on himself and the bunker. The Russians were indeed coming. American artillery began firing back with everything they had, aiming for the roads the enemy armor had to use. There was no reason for either side to save anything for a tomorrow that might never come. American mortars soon began landing on presighted targets where the Russians had been observed. Soviet artillery picked up the pace and the explosions became deafening, with the vibrations shaking the ground and sucking the air out of the bunker. Worst were the rockets, the Katyushas, the Stalin Organs, which the Russians had not used on them in a while. Shrieking like banshees, the shells came down in hosts, having been launched dozens at a time. Wildly inaccurate, they were, however, devastating psychologically and saturated the area on which they impacted. Worse, they lit up the sky and announced that the main attack was coming.
Logan’s bunker was one of a number that were placed at angles to provide enfilading and overlapping fire on an attacking force. As before, there was a pattern of tank traps in front of them and a number of lines of barbed wire; however, there wasn’t enough wire. Getting quantities of it into Potsdam had proven a major problem. The area in front was mined as well, but, again, not enough mines had been flown in to really saturate the area and many of those had been destroyed by the artillery. The idea of dynamite had been General Miller’s, and it did appear to have slowed the Russians down a little.
By now, the smoke and dust blown into the air obscured their night vision and limited their line of sight to an indistinct couple of hundred yards. American antitank guns and dug-in Shermans had opened fire, but on what? The air outside was filled with flying metal and other objects, and it was inevitable that some would find their way in through the bunker’s firing slits, causing cuts and bruises.
“Aw, crap,” muttered Bailey, “look what’s happening to the tank traps.”
Blood was trickling down Logan’s face, and he plucked a small piece of metal out of his cheek. He tucked it into a pocket, insanely thinking it would be a nice souvenir. Trying to keep as small as possible, he looked out and quickly understood his sergeant’s dismay. The dirt walls of the tank traps were collapsing. They had all been afraid of that possibility. Almost surrounded as they were by the river and the lakes, the water table was very close to the surface; thus, when the earth was damp and muddy, it became very unstable. The shelling had loosened the walls of the traps, and now they were falling in and filling the ditches. Could a tank get through? They would soon find out.
“Tank,” yelled Crawford. “Jesus Christ, what the fuck is that?”
An iron monster emerged from the smoke and darkness. It seemed twice the size of any tank they had ever seen before. Logan watched in shock as it moved slowly forward. Infantry huddled around it, but they were quickly swept away by the storm of metal. The tank crept closer. The main gun looked larger than anything Logan had ever seen in his life. A Stalin tank, he thought. It had to be a Josef Stalin model, as if that was important. An antitank shell hit the tank’s turret and bounced off. The Stalin was impervious to them.
Like an animal, the tank was testing the ground. The collapsing trap had it confused. The turret turned and seemed to see the bunker only fifty yards away. It fired and the bunker shook from the impact. Someone screamed. Logan picked himself up and took another look at the tank. It fired again. This time, the shell hit the edge of a firing slit and blew it apart, sending debris flying around inside. Now the slit was an open window and there was screaming from inside the bunker.
The tank moved forward. It felt for the slope of the collapsed trap. Slowly, it lowered its bulk into the hole and almost disappeared.
“Get me a bazooka,” Logan screamed. The tank would be on them in a minute if it was able to climb out of the hole.
Bailey handed him a panzerfaust, the single-shot German antitank rocket weapon. It wasn’t a bazooka, but he had heard it was better, and there were a number of them in the bunker. The tank’s turret was now plainly visible as it slowly emerged. Logan laid the tube on his shoulder, aimed, fired, and watched as the rocket’s shell hit the front armor of the tank and bounced off. He yelled and asked for another, but Bailey was down. The side of his head was open and he could see the sergeant’s brains. Logan wanted to gag, but there wasn’t time. The tank was out of the hole and beginning to climb over the bunker. They were going to be squashed like bugs and buried alive.
“Here,” said Singer with surprising calmness as he handed Logan another panzerfaust. “Try for a belly shot.”
The ruined firing slit was almost all blocked by the bulk of the Russian tank as it began to churn its way onto the top of the bunker. Did its crew think everyone inside the bunker was dead? Perhaps they hadn’t even felt the first rocket when it glanced off.
Logan backed away from the slit. The tank was actually too close for him to fire safely. Tough shit. He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. The rocket roared forward and pierced the less heavily armored belly of the Stalin and exploded inside it. The ammunition inside the tank began to detonate and hot metal shrieked into
