Cut Off

(Source)

One hundred and twenty seven men still in the ranks, at least that's what the sergeants were reporting. Majór Ivan Filippovich Telitsyn shook his head as he pondered the implications of that number. He had lost over eighty percent of his battalion. The high command would not be pleased with this, Telitsyn thought, not at all.

"Why so glum Comrade Major? Look on the bright side, none of the politruks¹ have been accounted for." Krasnoarmeyets Vitaliy Afanasievich Kolobkov grinned as he said this.

"I am still stunned that the Party hasn't had you shot for your anti-Soviet attitude, Vitaliy Afanasievich." Telitsyn smiled. He was rather fond of his orderly. Not a day went by that he didn't remember the Winter War in Finland. No doubt had it not been for Kolobkov, Telitsyn's corpse would be moldering in some Finnish bog.

"Without me, who would the politruk point to as a 'bad example,' Comrade Major?"

"Has Stárshiy Serzhánt² Kasharin been accounted for yet?" Stárshiy Serzhánt Arseniy Antonovich Kasharin was the battalion's senior non-commissioned officer. A professional soldier who had been conscripted into the Czar's army back in 1916, he had chosen wisely during the Revolution and had served with the Reds during the Civil War. Though long in the tooth at 41 years of age, men like him kept the Red Army going. The other non-commissioned officers in the battalion were jumped up conscripts, promoted for simply having served longest.

"No Sir, one of the junior lieutenants, his name escapes me, said he was spotted with the rear guard as we fell back into the forest. No one has seen him since." Kolobkov shook his head as he looked to the west. Though Kasharin was a crusty old bastard, the men liked him. He wasn't sure how things would go without the old sergeant around.

Ernst Paulus was sweating profusely, the 12 kilogram MG 34 felt heavier than it usually did after a long march. For today was the first time Paulus' team had taken a casualty.

They had been advancing down a dirt road, Paulus had heard that Russia had paved roads, but he'd yet to see one. Word was that the Soviets were falling back willy-nilly, trying to escape being surrounded by the German tanks advancing far more rapidly than the German infantry could keep up. Their job would be to mop up pockets of resistance.

So far that had consisted of detailing one or two men to herd hundreds, if not thousands, of Russians who no longer wished to fight for Stalin to the rear. As Paulus' team was the heart of the German squad, they weren't detailed to guard prisoners. But they had lost two riflemen from the squad detailed to escort prisoners, which left them understrength.

Paulus' squad leader had pointed that out to their platoon leader when he had directed that the squad take the point. To no avail, the young Leutnant was convinced that the Soviets were collapsing, just as Hitler had promised.³ He ordered the squad to take point, reluctantly their squad leader took them forward of the main column.

The squad leader and three of the squad's remaining riflemen were a good fifty meters ahead of Paulus and his team. The squad leader had told him, "Stay back here Ernst, be ready to come forward at the run if I need you."

The Russians who ambushed them knew their business, aiming for the machine gun team. Fortunately for Paulus and Kołodziej, they were not very good shots. But they were good enough to hit Schütze Kazimir Dutka, multiple times. The big Pole was dead before he hit the ground.

Paulus and Kołodziej had the gun in action in record time, laying down suppressing fire as their squad leader took the riflemen around behind the Russians. Within minutes the squad leader brought two Russians out of the woods lining the dirt track.

"Two men? That's all, two men killed Kazimir?" Paulus was outraged and was reaching for his sidearm.

"Calm down Ernst, there were four other live ones, we killed them when they wouldn't quit. There were also three bodies which appeared to have been killed by MG fire. These two decided not to die for the Motherland." The young Unteroffizier thought for a moment, then he looked at Paulus as if he'd come to a decision.

"What should we do with these two prisoners?" Paulus asked.

The Unteroffizier began to point his MP 40 at the two Russians, then stopped. "Send them back with Brinkmann, that's what we'll do. Let the Leutnant decide what to do with them."

The rifleman named Brinkmann gestured with his K98k, the two Russians understood and began to move. Both looked resigned to whatever fate awaited them.

"Sir, they've found Stárshiy Serzhánt Kasharin!" a man shouted as he approached the small command group.

"Where soldier, where is he?" Telitsyn asked, grabbing the man by the front of his gymnastyorka.

"Down by the road, Comrade Major, he's dead."

Telitsyn shook his head then turned to his orderly, "Vitaliy Afanasievich, have the surviving officers report here. Have them set up defenses before doing so, we'll spend the night here. It sounds as if the Germans are everywhere but our little slice of the Rodina."

Telitsyn's battalion, or what was left of it, was cut off in the forests between two German armored pincers. He and his men were not alone, the frontier defenses were collapsing all along the line. One scout had reported seeing a huge mass of Soviet soldiers, all disarmed and moving to the west, guarded by as little as one or two German soldiers.

Telitsyn was no longer worried about being shot by the Party, the Germans would probably finish him first.

Things looked very bad indeed for the Red Army.

(Source)

¹ A politruk was a Soviet-era political officer or commissar.

² Equivalent to a Sergeant Major in the U.S. Army

³ "Wir müssen nur die Tür eintreten, und das ganze verrottete Gebäude wird zusammenbrechen." Hitler to his generals during planning for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. (We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.)