The Schütze’s agonising scream drew Johann’s attention in time to see the blood spatter from the exit wound in the man’s chest just before he fell. Without a moment’s pause, Johann led the men out of the death trap they had unwittingly stumbled into, retreating fast towards the ferns, pursued all the way by a hail of bullets. Random shots were returned, but Johann and what was left of his small reconnaissance troop were firing blind. There was no time to take proper aim. Just before they reached the cover of the ferns, Johann felt a tug at his right thigh and he knew he’d been hit. He gritted his teeth as the pain hit him, and he was forced to remind himself of the maxim that had been drummed into him during his time at the training school at Bad T?lz.
‘Pain is in the brain,’ he uttered to himself, biting hard as he threw the heavy MG34 ahead of him and dove into the ferns after it. He didn’t know if he was going to make it out of that woodland alive, but he did know that if he were to stand any chance he had to stop his leg from bleeding. When he reached the fallen tree he had first taken cover behind, he stopped and quickly removed his belt.
‘Keep going!’ he told his Kameraden, waving them on. ‘Sturmmann, join up with the rest of the unit at the farmhouse.’
‘We won’t leave you, Obersturmführer. You know what those Ivans will do to you if they capture you.’
Johann knew only too well. He had heard the stories and had seen the evidence first hand. Captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often tortured and mutilated before they were allowed to die at the hands of the Soviet Army, who had not signed the Geneva Convention. In some cases, as he had seen for himself, prisoners were subjected to the Handschuhe torture, whereby their hands were placed in boiling water until they turned white, and then the skin would be cut around their wrists before being pulled from their flesh. Only then, and if he were lucky, would the soldier be shot in the head to end his suffering.
Johann looked up at the faces of the men before him and knew it would serve no purpose to order them to leave him. It made him hurry all the more. He looped his belt around his thigh as shots were exchanged. As he suspected, the enemy was not holding back. He pulled his belt as tight as he could bear it and tried to stand, hoping that the bullet had passed clean through his leg and not hit the bone. It would have shattered it if it had, making it all but impossible to put any weight on it. Sturmmann Sachs helped Johann to his feet as their few Kameraden continued to fend off the enemy.
‘I can make it,’ Johann said.
Sachs, a big man even among a division of Leibstandarte soldiers, who were typically chosen for their size and strength, picked up the MG34. As the unit continued its retreat, he sprayed what bullets remained on the ammunition belt into the trees, sweeping left to right to keep the enemy down, hoping to buy them enough distance to make it out of there. But the Soviet bullets kept coming, even if for now the soldiers firing them did not.
The air was alive with the fizzing sound of hot lead and splintering wood. When the MG34’s bolt clicked back and stayed back, indicating that the ammunition belt was spent, Sachs dropped the weapon from hands that now seemed too weak to hold it. He wheeled around, and Johann saw that the torso of his camouflage smock was glistening with blood. He appeared to have been shot several times, but had somehow managed to remain standing and firing until his ammunition ran out. A moment later Sachs closed his eyes and slumped to his knees before falling flat onto his face. Dead.
Johann fired several shots in anger before he turned away from the fallen Sturmmann. It was easy to blame himself for his death, and he did so without question. Sachs was another Kamerad to add to every other who had died under his command.
‘Gehorsam bis in den Tod,’ he told himself. It was the oath they had all sworn to stand by: obedience unto death.
Shortly after Sachs fell, the shooting stopped. His heroic act of bravery had bought Johann and his few remaining men the distance they needed in order to lose themselves from the enemy’s sight. Now it became a matter of remaining unseen. They trod carefully through the trees, minding every twig and fallen branch so as to make as little sound as possible, while maintaining as much haste as they could manage. Johann doubted the Soviets would give up the chase so soon, but he was to be proved wrong. At least, the attack soon took on a different form.
‘Take cover!’
Johann heard the mortar shell screaming like a banshee over the woodland canopy. It landed ahead with a thump that was followed by exploding steel. Trees began to creak and fall, crushing everything in their path, adding to the danger.
‘They’re finding their range!’ Johann called. His eyes darted here and there, looking for shelter, but there were no trenches here—no foxholes to scurry into. Johann knew they had to clear the trees, and quickly. The next shell would fall shorter. It would not take the Soviets long to find their target.
Another shell went over, this one to the right. Then another landed to their left. To escape the trees Johann realised they would have to pass through this killing zone, and yet to remain where they were, as the enemy advanced on their position, offered no better odds. Around him, Johann’s unit had frozen to the spot, unsure what to do next, looking to him for guidance—for leadership. All Johann could think to do was to wait for the next shell to fall ahead of them, and then run after it, hoping the enemy would not fire so soon at the same spot. It was a gamble, but the time to make a decision was fast running out.