The judas battalion, p.1
The Judas Battalion, page 1
The Judas Battalion
Peter MacAlan
© Peter MacAlan, 1983
Peter MacAlan has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1984 by W. H. Allen & Co. Plc.
This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
For two generous friends – Rudiger and Sylvia Stetzelberg
‘They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.’
- Joseph Conrad Under Western Eyes, 1911
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Historical Note
Chapter One
The bullet struck less than a yard in front of the face of Sergeant Kiril Dobrush as he lay prone in the freezing snow and slush of the roadway. It splintered a protruding rock and Dobrush gasped painfully as he felt something sharp graze his forehead. He raised a hand, felt the warm blood, and swore.
‘Sniper!’
The warning cry came from a member of Dobrush’s platoon crouching behind a wood pile on higher ground.
Dobrush rolled swiftly to his left, towards a heap of stones which had once been the boundary wall between the road and a field. Once in the shelter of the ruined wall, he rose to a kneeling position and slowly raised his head.
A plain of white rolled away into the distance before him, sparkling and glistening in the pale early morning sun. The snow-covered Belorussian vista was beautiful in the soft winter light. Far to the south the tips of high mountains edged the horizon, while to the north the blue sparkling band of the Pripet River wound its way towards the town of Mozyr. But Sergeant Kiril Dobrush, of the 8th Assault Regiment, 49th Army Group of Lieutenant-General Konstantin Rokossovski’s 2nd Belorussian Army, was not appreciative of the scenery which met his searching eyes.
Three hundred yards away, in a slight depression too shallow to be called a valley, sprawled a group of ruined houses which surrounded a half-demolished church — its tower, a jagged piece of shattered masonry. This was the village of Serov, his regiment’s main objective and the last fortified German position before the morass of the vast Pripet Marshes, beyond which lay the Polish frontier. Since December, Dobrush’s regiment had been pushing the Germans backwards towards Poland, driving the invaders out of Soviet territory. Now, with only a few days of the New Year gone, Soviet forces were already on the Polish border. Moscow was hailing 1944 as the year of total victory over Fascism.
Well, it was a long way to Berlin yet and the village of Serov still stood in the way. Dobrush peered at the war-scarred and blackened buildings, but without curiosity. All he was interested in was pin-pointing the sniper. His platoon commander, Captain Volkov, had informed them that, according to intelligence reports, Serov was being held by units of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the SS Totenkopf (Death’s Head) Division — highly trained and fanatical troops. To Dobrush, soldiers were men whatever title they had; their bodies could be hurt and destroyed in the same way as others; they bled, felt pain, they screamed and they died just like anyone else. Dobrush was not given to flights of imagination. He was a stolid farm-worker from Fumanova; placid, thick-set, a steadying influence on his men.
He could see nothing stirring among the buildings.
Two more shots came in rapid succession.
Dobrush threw himself down, cursing that he had not spotted their origin.
One of his men, Fastov, came slithering through the snow on his stomach and reached the safety of the wall.
‘One hundred yards down the road, Sergeant,’ he gasped. ‘The bastard is holed up in that ruined house.’
Dobrush bobbed his head up.
A hundred yards down the road was a stone building. He presumed it had been a cottage. Its roof and one wall were completely missing and large holes had been punched in its crumbling masonry. Dobrush caught a slight movement behind the broken glass of a window and ducked as another bullet came whining through the air. The sniper had placed himself in a good position, Dobrush admitted to himself. Beyond the stone wall, behind which he crouched, there was virtually no cover across the snowfield which separated them from Serov. The sniper could pin down the entire regiment in such a position. Unless he was an amateur and exposed himself for a clear shot, there was no way of eliminating him. Dobrush did not think the man was an amateur.
‘I think I can take him, Sergeant,’ Fastov interrupted his thoughts in a tone of excitement.
Fastov was young, not yet eighteen. Dobrush gazed down at his fair, tousled hair and flushed boyish face and found himself thinking that the lad ought to be still at school. He shook his head.
‘But Sergeant,’ protested Fastov, ‘there’s a gully along the side of the road. I can crawl along it while the rest of you put up a fire to divert his attention.’
Dobrush could see what the boy meant. He hesitated. The advance could not be held up. Captain Volkov had emphasised the importance of getting into Serov as part of the big push. Re-organised and re-supplied, the Red Army was going to roll the Germans all the way back to Berlin. Serov had to be taken.
He gave a grimace of consent to Fastov and then signalled across the road to where Corporal Rudnov and Private Komrat had set up their machine-gun post. He caught Rudnov’s eye, pointed to the ruined house and made a gesture with his hand. The machine-gun erupted into a staccato chatter and Fastov, pulling a stick grenade from his belt, started to crawl rapidly along the narrow depression. He had not gone more than twenty-five yards when he stopped moving.
Dobrush gazed at him for a full minute before he realised that the boy had been hit. With a grunt of suppressed anger he turned and waved at Rudnov to cease firing.
Two figures were crawling down the road behind him. Dobrush turned and shouted at them to take cover, his instructions liberally laced with expletives. One of the men was Captain Volkov; the other was his radio operator.
‘What’s the situation, Dobrush?’ demanded Volkov, ignoring his sergeant’s lack of military courtesy.
Briefly, Dobrush told him.
Volkov checked his sergeant’s assessment and ordered the radio operator to raise the regiment’s command post. The soldier fiddled with his instruments and began calling softly.
‘Kishinyov Five to Command, come in. Come in.’
There was a pause before he handed the mouthpiece to Volkov.
‘This is Kishinyov Five, we need urgent tank support.’
Volkov paused and gave map co-ordinates.
Meanwhile, Dobrush was peering over the wall again. Among the ruined houses of Serov he could now see movement. Through the crisp January morning air he heard a metallic clanking.
‘Captain!’
Volkov glanced up, frowning at the tension in Dobrush’s voice.
‘I think the Nazis have tanks in Serov.’
Volkov reached for his field glasses and trained them towards the ruins. He could see a grey shape moving amidst the rubble. Dobrush was right. The outline was familiar. He had seen such shapes before at Stalingrad. Henschel Tiger Tanks. He frowned. How many tanks were in Serov? He bit his lip as he crouched down behind the wall.
‘Panzers,’ he said in reply to Dobrush’s glance of inquiry. ‘The Germans might be preparing a counter-attack. Get me regimental command again.’
The operator soon handed the instrument to Volkov. The captain swiftly explained. He paused, listening to instructions.
‘Yes, yes. I’ll hold my men back … what else can I do?’
He forced a tired grin towards Dobrush.
‘They’ll be in for a hot time in a minute, you’ll see.’
A moment passed before they heard the ponderous note of a heavy engine behind them and the clanking of metal treads. Slowly down the road trundled the heavy brown shape of a T34 tank, its cannon lurching menacingly.
Volkov muttered something inaudible and, crouching below the level of the wall, began to run towards it. Dobrush could see him talking to the gunner, hanging over the rim of the turret, waving his arm towards the sniper’s position. Moments later the turret with its black muzzled cannon was swinging. The first shell screamed low overhead, causing Dobrush to wince, and exploded twenty yards behind the building. Dobrush glanced over the wall. A heavy pall of smoke hung between Serov and the house. It occurred to Dobrush that the German tanks would not be slow in answering the T34. A second shell screamed overhead and the sniper’s position erupted in a shower of flaming masonry and black smoke.
Dobrush half rose but Volkov was yelling for him to get down.
‘We still have the Panzers to deal with!’ he cried.
‘Surely we ought to get in now, under the level of their gunfire?’ Dobrush retorted.
‘Not yet …’
There were several flashes from the ruined buildings. Dobrush could see them clearly. A split second later came the whine of shells. Explosions rocked the earth behind them. Dobrush glanced back and saw the T34 hastily reversing down the roadway, trying to get out of the range of the German fire.
Then Dobrush heard a new sound. Shrieking, screaming wails — one after the other until they merged into a hideous chorus, flashing across the now-acrid sky. Dobrush had seen the Katyusha multiple rocket throwers at work before. For fifteen minutes, rocket after rocket screamed into Serov, exploding with force and volume until Dobrush felt that nothing could be left alive there.
Eventually there came a silence which was almost painful.
‘Let’s go!’ cried Volkov, leaping to his feet and scrambling across the wall.
The cry was taken up by the men of the 8th Assault Regiment as they scrambled from their positions and began to run forward.
Dobrush spat reflectively as he swung over the wall and trotted across the mushy snowfield towards the smoking pile of rubble in which the sniper had hidden. A sporadic rifle fire came from Serov. Dobrush shook his head in wonderment that men could still exist in the inferno caused by the Katyusha rockets. He reached the mess of stones and climbed inside. Rudnov and Komrat followed him, dragging their heavy machine gun with them. Behind them a squadron of T34s were rumbling towards Serov.
‘We’ll let them mop up,’ grunted Dobrush.
Rudnov set down his gun and reached into his tunic, fumbling for a soiled packet of cigarettes, and offered them to the others. Dobrush passed a match around.
As he exhaled he noticed the crumpled bodies of two German soldiers half hidden by the fallen masonry. Perhaps it was curiosity — a desire to see the face of his enemy — which prompted him to move across and look down on them. One of the bodies lay face down in the rubble, hand flung out still clutching the shattered stock of a rifle with a telescopic sight. The left leg and arm of the body were missing; the entire left side was merely a bloodied pulp. Dobrush was used to such sights. The second body also lay face down a few feet away.
Dobrush was about to turn away when a slight movement stayed him. He would not have noticed anything had not masonry dust been piled on the back of the jacket of the soldier and a slight breathing motion caused some of it to be dislodged. Sergeant Kiril Dobrush did not change his expression as he worked the bolt action of his rifle. Then, with the toe of his boot, he pushed violently at the body, turning it over on its back. A scream of agony came from the mouth of the man, causing Dobrush’s nerves to tingle. An expression of distaste moulded his features as he saw the multi-coloured mess that had been the man’s stomach and smelt the vile stench of bloodied gore. As he dragged his gaze away, he suddenly realised that the man’s eyes were wide open, staring blankly at him in pain and fear. Dobrush had seen such expressions before on the faces of sick animals back on his farm in Fumanova.
Dispassionately, Dobrush saw that he was looking into the face of a boy; a boy not more than eighteen or nineteen. The face reminded him of Fastov. It was a white, gaunt face contorted in fright and agony. Tears stained the dirt-covered cheeks. The mouth was working, blood oozing at the corners. No distinguishable words came from the boy, only terrified animal grunts.
‘Poor swine,’ muttered Dobrush, raising his rifle and shooting the boy through the head. He turned and dragged heavily on his cigarette.
‘Hey, sergeant!’
It was Rudnov, bending and peering at the boy’s body with curiosity.
‘Have you seen a uniform like this before?’
Dobrush frowned.
‘What do you mean, Rudnov?’ he asked, turning back. ‘It’s an SS uniform, isn’t it?’
Both Dobrush and Rudnov were old hands, veterans of the struggle for the isthmus between the Don and the Volga back in ’42. They could tell most German units by insignia.
‘There’s an English flag on the sleeve of the jacket.’
Dobrush’s eyes widened as he bent to examine it.
The uniform was a field grey German military uniform right enough; there was the usual SS markings and the collar badge had a design of three leopards. On the left sleeve of the jacket, however, was a shield bearing the British flag, while just below, around the cuff, was a black band, silver-edged, on which were stitched, in Gothic characters, the words Britisches Freikorps.
Dobrush was puzzled.
During the last two years of fighting across the broad expanses of Belorussia and the Ukraine he had come up against a weird assortment of foreign regiments fighting for the Germans: Rumanians, French, Italians, Flemish, Spanish … even Russian emigres and deserters who stupidly thought that the Nazis would somehow return the Tsar to power. But the British! That didn’t make sense.
Dobrush fumbled with the breast pocket of the dead boy’s tunic and pulled out a wallet. Inside was a letter written in a language Dobrush didn’t understand. He presumed it was English. There were a few creased photographs and, more importantly, there was the dead soldier’s paybook, the Soldbuch issued to all members of the German Army. Dobrush tried to make out the unfamiliar characters of the Gothic print.
‘Edward Small.’ He pronounced the foreign name with difficulty. ‘Born London, 17 March 1924.’
He glanced at Rudnov in amazement.
‘Damned right!’ he whistled. ‘There must be an English unit serving with the Germans.’
*
Lieutenant Vaslav Koblenski of the 49th Army Field Intelligence Unit, watched anxiously while two of his men finished photographing the body.
‘You made sure that the badges were in focus?’ he demanded.
It was the third time he had made the demand. Koblenski was a former mathematics teacher, precise, methodical, always checking and re-checking the work of his men. It made him a good intelligence officer, but did not endear him to his subordinates.
‘Yes, sir,’ sighed the photographer. ‘Everything will be perfect.’
‘It is important,’ Koblenski said. ‘Moscow wants these pictures by this evening.’
Not only the pictures, he thought moodily. He had to fly with the pictures to Moscow to make a personal report to the Politburo. That Moscow was disturbed by Sergeant Kiril Dobrush’s find was an understatement. It was well known in certain quarters that Hitler had secretly been trying to form an alliance with Britain and America against the Soviet Union. Even at this late stage of the war Moscow did not entirely trust her Western Allies. Like most Russians, the men of the Politburo had long memories. After the Bolsheviks had come to power in the October Revolution of 1917, the English had panicked and to secure their capitalist interests had sent armed forces into Russia in an effort to overthrow the infant Communist regime. Winston Churchill, who had been the British Minister of State for War at the time, had been a leading instigator of British intervention in Russia, and had persuaded America, France and Japan to send expeditionary forces to reinforce the British armies. A fierce war had disrupted the country from March 1918, dragging on until 1920 before the fledgling Red Army and Navy had succeeded in driving back the interventionist forces. The Soviets had not forgotten. What Churchill and the British had done once, they could do again. That the British might be allowing the recruitment of men to serve against the Soviet Union on Germany’s Eastern Front was not beyond Soviet comprehension.
The report of Sergeant Kiril Dobrush’s discovery, when relayed to Moscow, had brought forth immediate demands for action.
‘Are you sure everything is in order?’ snapped Koblenski again.
His men had finished their gruesome photographic task and were now removing the dead boy’s uniform to preserve the insignia badges.
‘Everything is fine,’ assured one of his men. ‘You’ll be in Moscow in time.’
Koblenski blinked.
