Time to Move!

Source

Three Soviet soldiers on a motorcycle/sidecar combination had been sent down the road to check on something that one of their officers had thought suspicious. A civilian lying on the track whose body had not been there when they had come through the day before.

The three men thought it was a fool's errand as they were supposed to be tracking down rumors of a German armored unit in the area. But what did they know, or care, they were soldiers, they did what they were told to do.

As the driver pulled up, he could see that the dead civilian was a woman. She'd been a pretty one as well. What a shame.

The corporal climbed out of the sidecar, unslinging his PPSh-41 as he did so. He stretched for a moment, looking around, forest to the east, south, and north. There were trees to the west but they were thin, except for one stand of pine which looked pretty thick.

"Yuri, those pines over there, keep a sharp eye on those."

That soldier climbed down off the pillion and unslung his rifle. He yawned, the day was cold and damp, a miserable day, he would much rather be somewhere else.

The corporal knelt down next to the body. She had been shot, the round had come from her left, and her blood was still fresh on the ground.

"Okay boys, let's get back on the bike and head back to camp. Act naturally, no sudden moves. There's a fascist sniper out there, somewhere. This girl hasn't been dead very long."

"Damn it." Fischer hissed as he watched the Russians through his scope.

"Problem?" Seidlitz whispered.

"Yes, those Ivans are on to us, I think. They showed up too quickly, they have to know that she hasn't been dead that long."

"How could they tell that?"

"The blood, it takes time for it to thicken. Hers is puddled there on the road. Why did these bastards have to investigate? Get ready, get your scope on them."

"What? We're going to engage them?"

"Only if they come this way. If they head back to their unit, we're going to run back to our unit and warn them.  If they don't, then we'll have to kill them and get back to the unit. Things will go straight to hell in a hurry if that happens. The Russian reconnaissance unit  will come towards this position, I think the guy in the sidecar was awfully interested in our little wood here. If he's got half a brain, he'll realize the shot came from this direction."

"How can you be sure?" Seidlitz saw that the Russians were heading back the way they came and breathed a sigh of relief.

"She was heading in their direction, they might assume by the white flag she was carrying that she was wanting to contact them. And she fell to the right of the track, meaning she was shot from the ..."

"The left, our position."

"Exactly, now come on, Ivan's out of sight, let's report back. We might have a fight on our hands."

"Mein Gott! We haven't gone fifteen kilometers and we're in the shit already." Oberst von Balck was frustrated. "Oster!"

"Herr Oberst?"

"How far back are those civilians?" Oster turned to Lang and Krafft who had just arrived the command post, "Gentlemen?"

Lang answered, "Maybe two kilometers back, we had a hike to get there and back."

"Were they still coming on?"

"No Sir. They were stopped when we got there, apparently one of their number, a Communist apparently, had gone on to contact the Russians. I think that reconnaissance unit probably passed them by and paid no attention to them. Some leftist decided that she wanted to tattle and went to ..."

The two snipers arrived, panting. Von Balck looked at them and sighed, "Scheiße."

"You shot the woman?" von Balck asked Fischer.

"Yessir, she went down hard."

"And then shortly thereafter the Ivans showed up?"

"Yessir."

Oster interrupted, "From the Soviet bivouac that part of the road might be visible, someone must have seen something and sent the motorcycle to investigate."

Von Balck took off his cap and rubbed his face hard, sweeping his right hand back over his hair before donning his cap again. "Alright, everyone mount up and get ready. Hauptmann Oster, I want your boys to hold here. I'm convinced those recce boys are looking for us, the Panzers are hard to hide. My supposition is that the reconnaissance outfit, or part of it, will head back down the track and contact those civilians. Soon the Ivans will know for a fact that we are in the area."

"For a fact, Sir?" Oster asked.

"Their interrogators can be very persuasive and those civilians will see that giving us up is probably the only thing to save them. My lads, with our armor, will head due west and then circle back ..." he pulled out his map and looked at it hard. Then nodded.

"To here," he pointed at a spot where the road went down a slight valley then back up into yet another patch of forest, "I think we can get there in the time it will take for the Soviets to find the civilians, slap a few of them around, and then come back this way looking for us. In the meantime, Oster, I want your boys to hold here, but deeper into the forest. The Soviet won't go into the woods looking for Panzers, we don't operate very well in the trees. So you should be safe. When you hear our guns firing, then you can come up on us. Hit the Ivans from the rear, panic them, then, God willing, we can be on our way. At least for half a day or so."

"Do you really think we'll have that much time?" Oster asked.

"No, but I can hope."

"Hope isn't much of a plan."

"Best I've got at the moment. If you can think ..."

"No Sir, I cannot. What if they just come straight in and hit us in our current position?"

"That would be excellent, we would tear them apart, they don't know our strength. Our Panthers will destroy their T-34s, they are an older model, and the Wirbelwind¹ will shred their halftracks and their infantry. The motorcyclists will be slaughtered if they try riding their vehicles in."

"Hhmm, they might get lucky and ..."

"Luck always plays a role, I'd rather they come straight on then have to do this dance across the countryside. We'll probably expend the last ammo for the Wirbelwind but what else can we do? We're either going to get lucky, or we're not. We have to react to circumstances as best we can. We're out of options."

Von Balck turned as one of his men reported in, "And?"

"We're in luck Sir, the whole recce unit went down towards where the civilians are supposed to be."

Oster smiled, "Our first bit of luck?"

"Maybe, their commander is probably nervous about being out here on his own, no doubt he wants to stay concentrated so they all went. Now we have to move. Oster, you know your part. Carry on."

As Oster departed to take his men, and Frau Schmitz, deeper into the pines, the rumble of tank engines starting up disturbed the peace of the forest.

Krafft looked back, he was nervous at losing the armor support, but then again, his own group was far nimbler without those steel monsters. They'd made it this far, he felt convinced that they would be better off on their own. He'd speak to the captain about that, he had an idea.

¹ "Whirlwind" - the nickname for the four-barreled 20 mm anti-aircraft gun mounted on the chassis of a Panzer IV tank.