Out of the Frying Pan ...

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"DOWN!!"

The men all went to ground at the call of one of the sentries posted along the riverbank. It had snowed the night before and from what the erstwhile sailors in the company were saying, the river could ice up before another 24 hours passed.

All those thoughts ran through Krafft's head as he watched the three Ilyushin Sturmoviks lazily following the curve of the river to their south. They passed to the north and out of sight. Krafft heard his lieutenant sigh.

"Sir?"

"Nothing seems to be going our way, Staber. Ivan has his aircraft up, Küstrin is being pounded, and we're on the wrong side of the Warthe."

It was true, in the direction of Küstrin could be seen towering columns of smoke by day and at night the horizon glowed from the fires in the city. Ivan was making a major push on the city, no doubt with a mind to eventually forcing their way over the Oder beyond the town.

They had put the boats ashore not long after boarding them and getting the engines running. They hadn't gone far when tracer fire from both banks of the river began crisscrossing through the air to their front. Von Zitzewitz had ordered the boats to the opposite bank of the Warthe, his reasoning being that at least that would be one river behind them. After looking at the map though, he realized that they had a new problem now.

"Dieter, we need to move away from the Warthe and head south, but then we need to cross the Postomfließ¹, I don't know if we can ford that, it's fairly wide." Von Zitzewitz shook his head at this new problem.

"Well, we need to get away from here. I hate leaving the boats but from the look of things, Küstrin has already fallen or will soon. Going there seems less and less an option."

"Agreed, so we strike south. Get the men ready."

It wasn't long before the company was retracing its steps back to the Warthe. The land between the two rivers was a network of small streams, swamps, and small lakes. Krafft realized that there was no hope of going that way. He just hoped that the boats were still there.

The boats were there, however they weren't alone.

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The lieutenant called out to the man standing atop one of the vehicles, scout cars from a Panzer Aufklärungsabteilung².

"How goes the war Oberfeldwebel?"

The sergeant turned and nodded at the lieutenant, "Not well I'm afraid. We're trying to retake Küstrin and we're getting our arses kicked." Then noticing that von Zitzewitz was an officer, he hastily added the word, "Sir."

"How did you get here? We were coming down the Warthe from Vietz. The plan was to relink with our forces at Küstrin, is that still possible?"

"Afraid not, Herr Leutnant, Zhukov's boys hold the city. If you come with us we have a pontoon bridge over the Postomfließ close to where it meets the Warthe, hopefully we still hold it. From there we can hopefully make our way through the suburbs then cross the bridge over the Oder. If it's still standing."

Von Zitzewitz shook his head, things were looking bad indeed.

The company had followed in the wake of the two armored cars, their sergeant apologized for leaving them but he had his orders. After the cars left, the sergeant and the lieutenant consulted the map.

"Maybe two kilometers?"

"Ja, Herr Leutnant. We should leave now, but if Ivan is over the Warthe, we'd be sitting ducks. And if that's the case, that pontoon bridge will be in their hands. I'm for waiting until nightfall, a short march in the dark and if needs be, we take the bridge by a coup de main."

"Are you serious, Dieter? We have, what, seventy men?"

"We get over the river, Sir, or we prepare to march to Siberia. Or we have no more worries as we'll be quite dead."

"Scheiße," the lieutenant muttered.

"Indeed, Sir. Nothing but ..."

The night was a long time coming, Krafft tried to sleep as best he could, to no avail. He had a strange dream during one bit of restless drowsing, he was back home in Köln, listening to his wife complaining about rationing.

He awoke with a start, how much food did they have left? Only what the men were carrying, he knew he had a little bit left, but if the bridge wasn't there, the next few days would be hungry ones.

Shortly after nightfall, they moved out. Lang and his little band of scouts, as he called them, led the way. After about two hours of struggling along the river bank, one of the scouts returned.

"Bridge is still there, Herr Leutnant. We saw the reconnaissance troops, they're at the bridge waiting for us. They have orders to blow it up, Unteroffizier Lang talked to their Oberfeldwebel, he said to hurry up, Ivan is starting to advance in their direction.

Before von Zitzewitz could say a word, Krafft was on his feet, "Double time lads, not a moment to waste!"

They were over the Postomfließ and moving towards the Oder. One of the armored cars had been destroyed at the bridge, the other had run out of fuel and was left behind. The reconnaissance Oberfeldwebel and his two crewmen had joined the company in their retreat.

"Name's Wagner, Gottfried Wagner." The Oberfeldwebel had managed to gasp as they ran for the Oder.

"Krafft, Dieter Krafft, pleasure to make your acquaintance. Come this way often?" he said with a gasping chuckle.

"Verdammter Komiker,³" Wagner answered with a groan.

In the distance they could see that one of the bridges over the Oder was still standing. Artillery fire could be heard and seen falling all over the far side of the river and in the Küstrin suburbs on the eastern side of the river.

"We just might make it," Krafft heard one of the men say.

Then he saw bright flashes all along the bridge, followed moments later by the sound of explosions. They were too late, the bridge was down.

Krafft stopped running, Wagner kept going but had turned to his left. He looked back and shouted, "Follow me, there's another pontoon bridge further south!"

The company followed the reconnaissance sergeant, von Zitzewitz fell back to run with Krafft, though now it was more of a shuffling jog.

"Still knee deep in it, aren't we Staber?"

"If life were easy, we wouldn't be soldiers, Herr Leutnant."

"Ja, vom Regen in die Traufe!⁴"

¹ The Postomia is a river feeding into the Warthe.

² Armored reconnaissance detachment/battalion.

³ Damned comedian.

⁴ Out of the frying pan and into the fire, literally "out of the rain and into the eaves. (The water dripping from those.)