Claws of Steel Read online

  ‘You mean you two rogues wanted to desert!’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it as drastic as that, sir. It was just that we thought a trip to Spain or somewhere like that would speed up our recovery. All we had in mind was getting back to the mob as soon as possible. Well, at least that’s what I had in mind. It was different with Hartmann.’

  ‘How?’

  Schulze touched the new scar on his forehead. ‘The same night that we made contact with a Spanish skipper, the bastard whopped me on the head. I was unconscious for twelve hours. When I woke up, he was gone and the roubles too.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you report to the nearest military police post?’ von Dodenburg asked sharply.

  ‘I was ashamed, sir,’ Schulze said and hung his head. ‘After all, I’d been trying all along to get cured so that I could get back to my unit and now here I was with my head bashed in again, no use to anybody again.’

  Von Dodenburg could hear Schwarz’s heavy boots coming down the rickety stairs; he had to make a decision fast. ‘All right, Schulze, SS Man Schulze, I’ll say no more about your desertion. You’ll lose your rank and return as a common soldier. Wotan is full of rogues now, one more won’t make any difference, I suppose.’

  Schulze raised his head. His light blue eyes were sparkling, as of old.

  ‘You won’t regret it, sir,’ he said enthusiastically.

  ‘I know, I won’t, Schulze. The next time it’ll be the firing squad. Now get rid of those mares of yours and report back to the Battalion at once. I’m sure Sergeant Metzger will be pleased to see you again.’

  ‘Just one request, sir, before I go.’

  ‘What?’ von Dodenburg asked impatiently.

  ‘Well, sir.’ Schulze was suddenly hesitant. ‘The girls have done well by me this last month. I don’t think it would be right just to leave them like that. I mean it wouldn’t, would it?’

  ‘Get on with it, man!’

  ‘Well, I think I ought to slip them a last link. Not Faith because she’ll still have wet decks from Captain Schwarz. But the other two – Hope and Charity. I mean, sir, they love me.’

  Major von Dodenburg exploded. ‘Schulze, you’re an impossible rogue. Get back to those bloody barracks before I change my mind and have you shot here and now!’

  Naples was burning. Somewhere miles out to sea the great enemy battleships pounded the Italian port with their massive sixteen inch guns. They couldn’t see them, but every time the Amis fired, the horizon erupted in a series of volcanoes. They were supported by flight after flight of twin-engined Mitchells which dropped tons of bombs on even the smallest hamlet bordering Highway Six, the vital road leading north to Cassino and from thence to Rome.

  But Battle Group Wotan was well dug in. Von Dodenburg’s panzer grenadiers were scattered on both sides of the highway as it straightened and began to run towards the bridge across the River Volturno, while the Vulture’s Tigers were carefully concealed, hull down, on the right bank of the river itself. When the Amis finally took the crossroads up ahead and began to roll north again, they would be in for a great surprise.

  The first stubble-hopper from one of the scratch infantry battalions defending the highway came tearing up, his eyes wide, staring and crazed with fear. He burst through their foxholes, crying:

  ‘They’re coming … they’re coming, thousands of them!’

  They didn’t attempt to stop him. He was a broken man, no use to them. Besides the chain dogs had thrown a barricade across the road beyond the bridge to stop people like the panic-stricken stubble-hopper. They would shoot him without trial as an example to those who would undoubtedly follow. And they did. A good half hundred of them, their arms flailing wildly as they fought to make their escape, throwing away their weapons in their blind panic. Again the panzer grenadiers, crouched pale-faced and tense in their coffinlike holes, let them run by without hindrance. One of the ex-paras spat drily and remarked contemptuously:

  ‘Typical Greater German infantry – the first enemy shell and they wet their field-grey knickers.’

  Five minutes later the Ami artillery bombardment swamped them. It seemed the Amis had an inexhaustible supply of shells. They worked over the whole area beyond the cross-roads, switching their fire back and forth suddenly, as if the fire-control officers were hoping to catch the enemy in the opening. But they didn’t. Von Dodenburg’s panzer grenadiers were cowering deep inside their narrow pits, tense bodies pulled into the foetal position, as the red-hot shrapnel hissed harmlessly over them.

  At last it stopped. Cautiously they peered over the edges of their pits. The landscape in front of them had been transformed, as if a hundred gigantic moles had been at work in a sudden frenzy of digging. Anxiously von Dodenburg asked for casualties. With relief he heard that they only amounted to six and ten wounded.

  ‘Put the dead in one of the shell holes and send the walking wounded back to Group HQ,’ he ordered and settled down to wait again at Schulze’s side, as he crouched there over his spandau.

  Time passed leadenly. To their front all was silent. Nothing moved save for the smoke streaming straight upwards into the blue Italian sky from the burning crossroads.

  ‘Think the Amis must have gone back home for a bit to eat and one of them milk shakes they were always drinking in the pictures before the war,’ Schulze said and wiped the sweat off his face.

  ‘It’s a nice thought, Schulze, but somehow I think the gentlemen from America will be paying us a visit before this day is much older.’

  ‘Could be,’ Schulze said morosely. ‘Could be.’ Then his big face brightened. ‘Did I ever tell you the joke about the bras they issue to the ‘field mattresses’, sir?’

  ‘No,’ von Dodenburg said, not taking his eyes off the wide valley of the Volturno in front of him. ‘No, I don’t believe you ever did, Schulze.’

  ‘Well, sir. There are five sizes – small, medium, large. Then there’s – wow, holy God!’ He paused dramatically for the punch line. ‘And then, there’s – my aching back—’

  ‘Shut up!’ von Dodenburg snapped. ‘Here they come!’ He raised his voice. ‘Pass the word – stand to your weapons everybody! The gentlemen from America are here.’

  As his panzer grenadiers fumbled with their weapons and took aim, von Dodenburg watched the first khaki-clad figures emerge cautiously from the burning crossroads, their rifles held defensively across their chests, walking on the balls of their feet fearfully, as if they expected a slug to whack into their soft flesh at any moment. They would be the scouts, he decided. The handful clambered up the embankment onto the white, pitted road and began to advance up it warily. Now more and more Amis came into view behind them. Suddenly the fields and olive groves on both sides filled with plodding cautious khaki figures. Even more of them. Scores, hundreds, thousands. They were so thick on the shattered ground that they formed almost solid lines.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Schulze breathed at his side, as he lifted his spandau, adjusted the long belt of ammunition and then tucked the wooden butt firmly into his shoulder. ‘There must be thousands of the bastards! Amis everywhere. They must breed like shitting rabbits in the United States of shitting America!’

  Von Dodenburg did not comment. All of a sudden he felt old. There had been many other moments just like this in the past four years: first the Belgies, then the Frogs. After them the Tommies and the Popovs. Now the new boys – the Amis.

  ‘Breed like shitting rabbits,’ Schulze had said. It seemed like that. As if all over the world, hatred and envy of Germany spawned new enemies. Kill them as they might, there were always fresh enemies to take the place of the dead ones. He was seized by an irrespressible desire to see the faces of these new enemies, who had come nearly five thousand kilometres to be slaughtered on this hot Italian plain. He lifted his binoculars and focused them on the first line of American infantry, sweeping the glass along their faces.

  They were fresh, well-fed and unlined. Most of them were young, and one or two of them appeared to be laughi
ng or joking, as if the advance were a walk-over, a simple stroll under the bright Italian sun; as if their real war would be fought by machines and not human beings. He stared transfixed at them. They were the faces of innocence, still untouched by the compromise, the brutalities, the horrors of total war. They made him feel very old – and very angry.

  He dropped his binoculars. With a bound he sprang onto the top of the foxhole so that his men could see him clearly. He raised his hand in signal. The panzer grenadiers – criminals, paras, mountain boys and veterans – squinted through their sights at the carelessly advancing Amis.

  ‘Welcome to Europe – Americans!’ von Dodenburg screamed with rage. He brought his hand down sharply.

  Schulze squeezed the trigger of his spandau. With a jolting high-pitched scream it burst into deadly life. White-and-red tracer zipped across the valley. The next instant the rest of the panzer grenadier line erupted. Lead cut the air. Amis began dropping, faces contorted with horror, pain and surprise. Wotan’s new battle with a new enemy had commenced.

  Notes

  1. General Kurt Student, chief of Germany’s airborne troops.

  2. Army slang for money (transl.)

  Also by Leo Kessler and

  available as an ebook in

  The Dogs of War Series

  No. 1 Forced March

  No. 2 Devil’s Shield

  No. 3 SS Panzer Battalion

  No. 5 Blood Mountain

  No. 6 Death’s Head

  No. 7 Blood and Ice

  No. 8 The Sand Panthers

  COPYRIGHT

  First published in 1976

  This edition first published in 2004

  Spellmount is an imprint of

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.thehistorypress.co.uk

  This ebook edition first published in 2012

  All rights reserved

  © Charles Whiting 1976, 1984, 2004, 2012

  The right of Charles Whiting, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied,

  reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly

  performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted

  in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by

  applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this

  text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 8886 8

  MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 8885 1

  Original typesetting by The History Press

  Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk