We traversed the first German defense line for about an hour and a half, and when it was behind us, the scouts looked like big moving lumps of mud. Only the weapons, which everyone was trying to protect, looked more or less clean. But now we could afford to move faster, since there were noticeably fewer Germans.
Enemy infantry moved in separate groups along some very bad roads leading from the coast to the front line. It looked like the Germans used the night time to reinforce their troops on the bridgehead. There were also horsed antitank guns, and this indicated that not only ordinary boats but also more serious watercraft were involved in the crossing.
“We must keep going, Comrade Captain,” I suggested softly to Shcheglov, “everything will become clearer near the river, and there are probably officers there – someone has to distribute the incoming soldiers. And here we can search for control points until the morning, and it's not a fact that we'll find them.”
“Go right, Nagulin,” the Captain nodded toward the nearest group of trees, which seemed a vague blur in the darkness. It was obvious that he really did not want to get into the middle of this snake's nest, but Shcheglov saw no other way to perform the command's task.
In about 40 minutes we came to the Dnieper. The splash of the oars and the muffled commands in German resounded far and wide in the moisture-soaked air. No one prevented the Germans from crossing the river. It seemed that the command of the Southwestern Front did not consider an increase in the number of enemy infantry on the Kremenchuk bridgehead a serious problem for itself; moreover, it had, by and large, no way to effectively prevent the Wehrmacht infantry divisions from moving across the Dnieper at night.
We got almost to the shore. I unobtrusively straightened our route, and eventually we came to one of the distribution points for soldiers arriving from the west bank. Not that there were many boats, but they regularly came ashore, emerging from the damp haze. The Oberleutnant, surrounded by a few noncommissioned officers and a couple of dozen soldiers, was in charge of meeting the new arrivals. The boats poked their noses into the shore, and the Germans quickly unloaded and formed a marching order. The local Oberleutnant briefed their commanders, gave the forming columns an escort, and sent them east. That was a real Ordnung.
One could not even dream of capturing the Oberleutnant as a prisoner for interrogation. He was surrounded by many soldiers the whole time, but even if we had succeeded, his disappearance would have almost instantly turned the river bank into a disturbed anthill, and we would not have been allowed to leave in peace.
We had been lying motionless for nearly two hours in the wet grass under cover of not too dense bushes and watching the shore. The situation looked like a dead end. All officers arriving by boat went to the front in platoon columns, and attacking such a column with our forces was out of question.
I knew that German sappers had already built a pontoon bridge to one of the islands closer to their shore. Now this structure could not withstand tanks and other heavy equipment, but light artillery and trucks moved confidently over this bridge. This greatly simplified the task of crossing the infantry divisions, and by and large this bridge should have been destroyed immediately, but our command knew nothing about it yet, and it was only possible to get proof of the existence of this bridge here.
Judging by the fact that the columns of German tanks continued inexorable movement toward Kremenchuk, the Germans were soon to begin building a bridge across the Dnieper. They were already bringing in pontoons and the necessary materials for construction and storing them on the opposite bank. With such a concentration of forces and means, German sappers could accomplish the task very quickly, and then a very unpleasant surprise in the form of a strike from the south by von Kleist's Panzer Group 1 threatened our 300th Division, the 38th Army, and the entire Southwestern Front.
“You called me ashore, Junior Lieutenant,” Shcheglov couldn't stand it, “Here we are, then what?”
“Just a minute, Comrade Captain,” I asked, closing my eyes and concentrating.
The night and low clouds made it very difficult to see the details, but I did manage to spot a boat heading toward our shore, the composition of its passengers being somewhat different from the rest of the boats. The German officer who crossed to the eastern bank of the Dnieper was not of high rank. By playing with the filter settings, I was able to see his insignia – the Hauptmann. Perhaps it was a company commander, or maybe a battalion-level staff officer. The computer had no additional information about him – he wasn't Guderian after all.
“I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a little swim,” I finally said, which seemed to put Shcheglov into a slight stupor. I should have hurried up and made my point clear. “Comrade Captain, the boats approach the shore at 10–15 minute intervals. Every fourth one is a freighter. There are only four soldiers on oars, one or two noncommissioned officers, and an officer, as a rule, a lieutenant or Oberleutnant – probably a platoon leader. They don't expect an attack, especially from the water. You remember, I think, how I know how to handle knives. Only I must start now, or the boat with the officer will get too close to our shore, and my actions will be discovered.”
“Do you realize that if something goes wrong, there's nothing we can do to help you?” Shcheglov answered after a second pause, looking somewhere in the distance.
“I understand that, Comrade Captain. There are no Germans a kilometer downstream. They don't control the whole shore behind them – apparently, they believe that no one but their own can come from here. I'll try to be there in an hour at the latest. If I don't make it in an hour, I won't go to the meeting point – I'll hide on some small island and wait for the next night.”
Shcheglov glanced at his watch. He didn't want to let me go alone, it was obvious, but the group still didn't have time to complete the task any other way in the time remaining before dawn, so the Captain essentially had no choice.
“We'll wait for you for two hours,” Shcheglov cut off in a tone that could not tolerate objections, “Then the group leaves. If you make it sooner, we have a better chance of getting to our troops without shooting. If you don't find the right boat, come back immediately, that's an order. Have you understood everything, Nagulin?”
Chapter 3
The water was quite cold, but bearable enough. I left my Nagant and PPSh with my ammunition and all my iron, except the knives, with the Captain. But I had six knives hanging from my belt, and two more in special sheaths mounted on my shoulders so that I could reach and throw them in one motion.
The quietest and most inconspicuous way to swim is underwater. That's what I chose. Holding my breath for five minutes did not cause me undue stress, and in that time I could swim a long enough distance. I didn't need to dive out to get my bearings, so I headed straight for the point where I planned to meet the Hauptmann's boat. It took me about ten minutes to get there, and now I was about 50 meters away from my target. The boat turned out to be quite large and could have been equipped with a motor, but the Germans, who had such motors, decided not to make any noise and preferred to use oars.
My plan did not contain any subtle tricks and was based solely on surprise, speed and accuracy. I assumed that the Germans would not be expecting an attack on a route already traversed by other boats dozens of times that night, and I was confident that the speed and precision of my body movements far exceeded the the reaction and coordination of the movements of the locals. As it turned out a little later, I was very much mistaken.
I waited underwater, and when the enemy boat was a meter from my head, I made a sharp movement with my legs that pushed me upward. At the same time, I grabbed the bow of the boat, and threw my body over the side, which tilted slightly.
The soldiers, who were oaring, didn't even have time to realize what had happened. They were only a few meters away from me, and I couldn't miss from that distance. Hauptmann, comfortably seated in the stern, did not have time to react either, or rather, he reached for his holster, but the handle of the knife that struck him in the forehead rendered the officer unconscious for several minutes. But the non-commissioned officer, who on closer inspection turned out to be a Stabsfeldwebel, showed better training than all the other Germans in the boat, and in addition, he had more time than the soldiers who died almost instantly.
I feared he would start screaming, trying to raise the alarm, or try firing his MP-40, but apparently the German knew he might not make it in time. I didn't even notice him pulling a knife, as I was busy first with the soldiers and then with their commander, and when my attention did shift to the last enemy, the German had already thrown his weapon. I must say, he did it masterfully, and his knife was as good as mine.
The unexpectedness of the attack played a cruel joke on me – I was not prepared for such a development. Instantly assessing the threat, the computer took control of my muscles and jerked me to the left with a U-turn, disregarding my body's physiological capabilities. The combat mode of the implants allows me to do such tricks under the condition of an immediate threat to life. I needed to keep my body as trained as possible just for occasions like this. Such a stunt would put an unprepared person in a hospital bed for a very long time.
The Stabsfeldwebel's knife, aimed at my heart, ripped through my blouse and flew into the water, tearing the skin on my shoulder. I didn't even notice this wound. My spine cracked, my back muscles felt like they were exploding with pain, and I could hardly keep from screaming, but I couldn't stop. The German, not the least bit embarrassed by the fact that I managed to dodge his knife, had already grabbed his submachine gun. I jumped forward, ignoring the pain in my protesting muscles. The boat rocked, and the German, who had begun to raise his weapon, lost his balance. In principle, it didn't make any difference – he wouldn't have had time to pull the breechblock anyway. At the last moment, the Stabsfeldwebel tried to shield himself with his submachine gun, but my fist took a circular trajectory and struck the German in the cheekbone. There was an unpleasant crunch, and my enemy's body went limp. I picked up the MP-40, which had fallen from his weakened hands, and laid it carefully on the bottom of the boat.
My body resented this treatment, and I was frankly wobbly. The combat mode of the implants lowered my pain threshold, but I still felt bad and time was inexorably running out. The current was carrying the unmanageable boat, and even though it played into my hands now, I needed to take up the oars right away. I could clearly see the marks of the group's men, who had already arrived at the agreed point on the shore, but first something had to be done urgently with the wound I had sustained.
The knife had thoroughly damaged my skin and many small vessels, and the blood didn't want to stop, despite the best efforts of the implants and my increased ability to regenerate. The Stabsfeldwebel had a bandage bag, and it took me a few more minutes to stop the bleeding.
After about ten minutes, my body gradually began to recover. This wound, quite light in itself, could not really have knocked me out, but the strong burst I made when dodging the knife put a lot of strain on my body, and these two factors, put together, almost killed me. Bio-implants do not have their own energy sources, and are powered by the body's resources. Apparently, I spent too much energy on dodging in forced mode and the subsequent jump with a punch, and there was almost no energy left to fight the wound, but now I was gradually getting better.
When the boat bumped into the shore, I was still dizzy and lurching. The scouts picked me up and helped me get to the bush. I did not participate in the ensuing looting of the enemy boat. Enjoying the rest, I allowed my body to send all the resources to recover, and when Shcheglov came up to me a quarter of an hour later, I felt noticeably better.
“Can you walk, Junior Lieutenant?” the commander asked worriedly.
“I think so,” I sat down carefully, listening to my feelings. My back was aching, but I seemed to be able to avoid tearing my muscles. I swayed gently left and right and back and forth. My spine did not protest. But the wound on my shoulder was beginning to hurt, but I could bear it.
“It's not that bad, Comrade Captain,” I grinned, “I'll make it. In about 40 minutes I can help you drag the prisoner, but now please give me back my weapon.”
“He'll go himself if he wants to live,” grumbled the Captain. It was obvious that he was relieved that I could walk on my own.
Hauptmann did want to live. I exchanged a few words with him, and it became clear to me that we've caught a very tasty fish. This German officer turned out to be a radio company commander in the communications battalion of the 125th Infantry Division, which we encountered near Uman right after our train was bombed. Now they were being transferred to the Kremenchuk bridgehead, and Hauptmann was on his way to the eastern shore to his first platoon, which had been transported here along with the division's advanced units the previous night.
It was about two hours before dawn. None of us doubted that the Germans would soon discover that their officer was missing, and we tried not to lose time. The gagged German walked obediently, crawled when necessary, ran when necessary. The Captain occasionally glanced at me warily, seeming to think I was holding on solely by sheer force of will, for I looked very bad when they took me out of the boat. In fact, I was feeling better by the minute. I knew that if we made it to our troops, the ideal would be for me to give up and get 24 hours of uninterrupted sleep, but I highly doubted I would be allowed that luxury.
The Germans got worried about 20 minutes after we left the shore. At first their reaction was rather sluggish and routine. Well, the boat was delayed for some reason. Maybe the loading was delayed, or they were waiting for someone. Nevertheless, the vigilant Oberleutnant in charge of receiving the reinforcements questioned the soldiers who were the last to arrive and quickly found out that the Hauptmann's boat set out without delay, but they did not meet the boat on the way.
Patrols dispatched along the shore did not find the boat as the scouts pushed it into the water and it sailed downstream, soon jutting into the shore of a small island not occupied by the Germans. The Oberleutnant immediately reported the incident to his superiors, and the latter, realizing how knowledgeable the missing officer was, took drastic measures.
The sky above the neutral strip flashed with dozens of 'chandeliers'. The Germans did not spare flares and rockets. The enemy was well aware that we still needed to get the captured officer through the front lines, and no one was going to make it easy for us.
“Maybe we should have left by boat?” Ignatov said quietly, looking at the illumination, “we would have gone down the river about five kilometers, and maybe it would have been calmer there. Well, we would have come out not in our division zone, but at the cavalrymen's, what difference does it make?”
“We wouldn't have made it before dawn,” objected Shcheglov, “and what's there to reason about now…”
We managed to get to the ravine, through which we squeezed between the German positions on the way to the Dnieper, without any adventures. The density of troops deep in the beachhead was not as high as at the front, and we managed to avoid encounters with German patrols and columns, taking advantage of the darkness and bad weather.
Remizov was about to move forward to lead the group through the mined area, but I stopped him, putting my hand on his shoulder.
“There's an ambush, Comrade Captain.”
“Do they know this is where we're going?”
“More likely, the Germans just put out an extra listening post due to the announced alarm, but there are five or six of them – we won't get through quietly.”
“Shall we use knives?”
“No way. There are observers above, they will immediately notice our attack.”
“That's not good.”
