Макс Глебов – Prohibition of Interference. Book 1 (страница 10)

“Get down!” yelled the Sergeant, obviously familiar with this enemy weapon.

I was lying down, but the Red Army men, huddled in a tight group along the embankment to our right, did not react immediately to the command. For the first time we were lucky and the mines fell short, but continuing to play this roulette game was not just dangerous, but criminal.

“Comrade Sergeant! We need to take the men away. Otherwise everyone will be chopped up! We don't even have individual cells dug, not to mention trenches, and the embankment won't protect against mines. There's a gully between the hills that's a good escape route. And there is a forest there…”

“There was no order to retreat,” the Sergeant cut off, lifting himself up over the rails and firing toward the enemy, “Don't you know the regulations, soldier? The enemy must be boldly and swiftly attacked wherever he is detected!”

I mentally groaned. If anyone here didn't know the regulations, it was the Sergeant and our Commander. So many great guys have already died because of that phrase, that was hammered by political officers into the heads of Red Army soldiers and commanders with wanton ruthlessness, it just made me want to howl. And no one even once remembered that this phrase refers only to OFFENSIVE combat, as the Red Army Field Manual of 1939 says quite unambiguously. What are we doing now? Are we fighting an offensive battle? But I couldn't have a military-theoretical debate with an NKVD sergeant right here, under mortar fire!

The second series of mines flew too far, but the embankment did not cover us on this side, and the cries of the wounded showed that the shrapnel had found its targets.

“I need your help, Comrade Sergeant,” I reminded Pluzhnikov, “We need to silence the machine guns on the Hanomags, or they'll keep pinning us to the ground, and the mortar men have almost zeroed in.”

“What have you got in mind now, Nagulin?” the Sergeant turned to me, rolling down the embankment after another shot.

“Do you see this knoll?” I showed Pluzhnikov to a small hill in our rear, overgrown with bushes and small trees, “I'm a pretty good shot, as you may have seen, and there's a very promising sniper position. I'm sure I'll get German machine gunners from there, and maybe even mortar crews if they're in direct line of sight. The First Lieutenant ordered you to keep an eye on me, and I need a second man to control my surroundings anyway – the Germans are not fools, they can outflank us. Will you help me?”

Pluzhnikov looked like a smart man, though he was severely damaged by the local political system. He didn't hesitate for more than a second – combat puts a lot of things into place in a head.

“Follow me, soldier!”

That was the right thing to do. If you can't prevent a subordinate's insane scheme, you have to lead it!

We quickly covered the distance of 50 meters to the gully. I had time to think that our maneuver might look like desertion and an attempt to leave the battlefield, but the Red Army men and the First Lieutenant obviously didn't have time for us right now. Of course, they should have spread out along the embankment…

We reached the position I had chosen in less than a minute, but in that time the position of our unit had changed dramatically for the worse. Another series of mines fell almost exactly behind the embankment, and the number of dead and wounded increased noticeably. Good thing the Germans only had three mortars, or it would have been over long ago.

“Hurry up, Nagulin,” Pluzhnikov poked me lightly in the back as we climbed the hill. Apparently, what he saw from above did not please him much.

“Yes, Comrade Sergeant,” I answered, raising my rifle.

It was about 400 meters from here to the Hanomags. The German infantry had already deployed in a chain and started moving toward us, shooting incessantly, soldiers strived to help their machine gunners to keep our fighters off the embankment. To my surprise, the Germans never attempted a flanking movement. Apparently, they thought they could handle such a weak enemy without it. Now we'll see.

After another close look at the German positions from above, I discovered where the mortar men had set up. They were doing the most damage to us now, and we should have started with them. Unfortunately, the distant Hanomag was blocking one of the mortar crews from me, but the other two mortars were visible quite well. Of course, I couldn't spot enemy positions by observing the Germans from here, but looking from orbit gave me a lot of advantages, and I was going to make the most of them.

I fired the first three shots almost without pause, two at the crew of the mortar on my right, and one at the machine gunner of the Hanomag in front of me.

The rifle's magazine was empty, and I silently held out my hand for the Sergeant's weapon. He was about to say something back, but he looked at the enemy soldier slumped behind the machine gun and handed me his rifle.

The German infantry mortar crew consisted of two men, so three more of my shots silenced the second mortar and the last machine gunner on the rear armored personnel carrier. I tried not so much to kill enemy soldiers as to damage their weapons, so I aimed more at them. It's not hard to replace a dead machine gunner, but there's usually nothing to replace the machine gun during combat. The same can be said for a mortar, but it is harder to damage with a rifle bullet. In any case, the firewall, which had pressed our squad to the ground had weakened dramatically; all that remained was to silence the third mortar.

“It's time to change positions, Comrade Sergeant. If we've been spotted, the mines will fly here.”

I, of course, was exaggerating. The crew of the third mortar, greatly impressed by the almost instant deaths and wounds of their comrades, stopped firing and also decided to change position, which was only to our advantage. I hoped that the place where they would move would not be covered by the carcass of an armored personnel carrier.

We ran to the right, went back down into the gully, and quickly climbed the next hill. This position was less convenient, but now I could see the crew of the enemy's third mortar. Pluzhnikov loaded my rifle and gave it to me, taking his rifle back. I fired two more quick shots, and the chain of German soldiers, which was approaching our position, was finally deprived of fire support.

The First Lieutenant's men perked up and began firing at the enemy as intensely and accurately as they could with the means at their disposal, while the Germans, on the contrary, faltered somewhat because of the sudden change in the situation. I remembered that the enemy had at least one more machine gun on the third motorcycle, but I couldn't see where it was now, even using the satellite panorama. Around the bend in the road, three trucks stopped without coming under our fire. German infantrymen were now jumping out of two of them and, spurred on by commands from noncommissioned officers, were running straight through the woods to help their comrades.

I fired a few more shots in an effort to add confusion to the enemy's battle lines.

“Comrade Sergeant, we have to get the men out immediately before the Germans regroup and come to their senses. We have a lot of wounded. This is the best moment to pull back – we won't be able to break away later.”

Pluzhnikov glanced at me and opened his mouth for another rebuke in the spirit of the earlier quotation from the army manual, but the reality of the brutal battle must have shifted something in his obviously intelligent head, and instead of another crackling phrase he muttered only, “I have to report to the Commander,” and started ducking down the hill.

And then something happened that I tried not to believe, but which I was still afraid of somewhere inside. Below, at our positions, a discordant "Hurrah!" erupted, and about 50 Red Army men – all those who could still stand on their feet – rushed into a counterattack, led by the First Lieutenant. Less than half of them had rifles. Others clutched stones in their hands, and some simply ran toward the enemy with empty hands, aided only by a fierce shout.

“Why?!!!” I just didn't have the words to express my indignation and incomprehension, but now I had no choice but to support this suicidal counterattack with fire.

Machine guns started firing from the forest again, three at once. Apparently, the Germans from the trucks brought them with them. And I, naive as I was, thought how I could explain to Pluzhnikov and Fyodorov that even if we beat off the Germans now, in half an hour we would be flanked or destroyed by artillery fire, or rather both at the same time. But they won't outflank us, because none of us will be left alive.

I fired as fast as I could with my rifle, and at the same time yelled at the Sergeant who had gone down, to come back and get ammunition, but Pluzhnikov didn't seem to hear me.

After a minute my small ammunition ran out, and the Germans still had one machine gun, and a pair of 50-millimeter mortars started firing again. Of those who had risen in the counterattack, which almost instantly collapsed, only ten men were able to return under the cover of the embankment, but even there mines were already bursting, at least not very densely.