North-West of Demjansk, Eastern Front.

3rd December 1941, 3:35 p.m.

German territory.

Winter.

“The summer birds fly,

Over the forest and field,.

It's time to say goodbye,

We go out into the world.

Halli hallo, we go out,

We go out into the world.”

- Excerpt from a German folk song

Ice bounced glaring reflections from the low sun across the Polomet river, each shine masking the glint of a potential sniper scope or watching binoculars. Under the watchful gaze of the icy waters, twenty two men churned up a path along the steep river bank, making for the promise of warmth and safety at the other end. A frosting of ice drifted down from the high clouds.

Their breath froze into crystals as they marched, the warmth it provided snatched by the cold around them. They huddled deeper into their overcoats and wrappings for what heat they could provide. The ground beneath their feet was disturbed mud, frozen into chunks of icy dirt. It was treacherous footing, but the men were as well equipped for the cold and the terrain as any Germans were these days and they made their way along without major incident.

Soon the half platoon arrived at their destination. Two trenches, gashes sundered in the ground of the Siberian countryside, emitted the chuckles, swears and mutters expected of bored soldiers about to finish their watch. The swathe of ground the two trenches covered had been quiet, as the sprinkling of snow on the mounted MG34 and lack of alertness would suggest. The glow of a heater turned up as far as it could go was blocked by the huddle of bodies around it, struggling to penetrate the freezing Soviet cold.

As their replacements drew closer, the two trenches burst into action. Dirt and ice was brushed away, cigarettes were stowed and viewing slits were cleared.

Ten men filed out of each trench, ten men filed in. Weapons were shouldered or laid to rest and the watch resumed. Outside the trench, however, the relieved officers had another concern on their mind.

“Hauptmann.” Loring, the first officer to emerge, saluted. His colleague, Jurgen, joined him as soon as he noticed who they were addressing, although his salute lacked the precision of one used to military formality. Junior officers like him weren’t trained on the front, they were born of necessity.

Twenty of the men who had made the march to the vantage point entered the trenches, leaving two outside. The Platoon’s commanding officer, Senior Lieutenant Meier, and the troops’ captain, Karl Tesdorpf. Of those two, the more senior gave a nod to his men, his breath blowing out in a long puff of steam.

“At ease,” Karl said to Loring. “We’re here to observe the position, nothing more.”

“Aye, Hauptmann,” Loring said. “It seems the Ivans are quieting down after the march on Moskau stalled. They haven’t made a move on our lines and now winter is setting in. That’s sure to slow them down.”

But the captain shook his head. “The cold is more our enemy than theirs. This will not be a quiet winter, mark my words, even if our assault is called off in the coming days.”

Sigwald Meier glanced at the two, who gulped down saliva and wished they hadn’t spoken. If they had been cows, his glare would have curdled their milk. “Enough idle talk. Both of you, take your Gruppe back to town. The Hauptmann and I will follow you shortly.”

As the twenty men sped away, Karl pulled out his binoculars and scanned the horizon. “It is as we feared,” he said to Sigwald. “The river has frozen solid all the way to the flatlands, and the ice will only get thicker as time goes on. As it is, we could move a Gruppe down it. In a few weeks, a Panzerdivision. It will be a highway through our lines, not an obstacle.”

Sigwald patted Karl on the back. “Let’s walk as we talk. There is no need to worry the men.” He glanced at the grenadiers poking their heads around the edges of the trench, already looking for distractions in their hours-long shift.

Karl nodded agreement and began striding back the way he came, examining directions and widths of the river. Every so often he pulled out a compass to orient himself with the town, fumbling it through his thick gloves, imagining paths of artillery fire and potential for sapping the nearby trails. The smaller oberleutnant had to jog at times to keep up, although he welcomed the chance to keep warm. On occasion he scratched the corners of his trimmed beard, deep in thought.

The path backwards was no less treacherous for being more downhill. The one benefit was that the forty boots running over it, twenty in each direction, had softened it - but that turned parts of the trial alike to the sucking mud of the Rasputitsa, while others remained icy. The two officers managed to make it along the riverbank path, although their breaths were coming fast before them by the end of it.

As they returned to the better maintained woodland trails, their journey eased up. North Watch, the furthest of the company’s three watch posts, was a long trek in the cold, but one that needed to be made if they were to keep watch for the inevitable Soviet counter-offensives into the region.

A Blitz cargo truck was waiting for them, engine idling, in a townlet the locals called Serki. In the back were the twenty freezing infantrymen who had gone ahead. The lack of a canopy and the winds that one would have shielded sent chills through those inside. Karl and Sigwald climbed in the back and the truck sped out, wheels churning up mud and snow.

As they pulled away, Karl cast his eyes over the abandoned houses that made up the townlet, their residents having fled before the first Wehrmacht troops arrived. Perhaps they were the clever ones. But he doubted it, given how poorly the Soviet people had fared this war.

As the half buried doorways and broken rooves disappeared behind the trees, he joined his men in surrounding the oil heater as their vehicle bumped its way along the unpaved woodland trail on its way back to the icy main road. He had his own more pressing concerns if he wanted to survive the winter.

The truck pulled into the depot back at the base camp of the 30th Infantry Division and the two dozen occupants poured out like a black and camo flood. They flowed back into the main army camp and its occupants, all hurrying about their business and hoping it would lead somewhere warm.

All, that is, but a few.

Several shadowed figures were scattered around the barbed wire fence that formed the exit of the motor pool. While they were standing in a nonchalant fashion, Karl saw hands within easy reach of weapons and eyes scanning the faces of those disembarking.

Their uniform was not black and white like his own subordinates’ camo, but rather a deep grey lined with silver. The grey of a cloudy sky, of funeral ash.

Sigwald spotted them too. “Do you think they’re here for you?”

“Who else?” Karl asked. He felt for the cross in his breast pocket, its sharp corners against his fingers giving him comfort. “We knew this was coming. In fact, I’m surprised it took so long.”

Karl’s fingers rubbed the worn edges of the cross, remembering the man who had given it to him and the battle in which it had been won. Their division against four of the enemy’s, stretched out far further than they could hold. The men ready to break, Polish armour and cavalry advancing. A final, desperate charge of the reserves, rallying the men at all costs. An injured commander and a fighting retreat.

And the terrible losses that day.

Then the moment was gone, his old commander had fallen to a VVS air strike, and he was back in the Siberian winter, approaching a half-squad cordon of four SS Riflemen.

The two of them slowed down as they approached the gateway in the fence. Their men passed through uncontested, until the two of them stood alone on the edge of the motor pool. Then the SS formed up, confirming Karl’s suspicions.

“Go on ahead, Sigwald,” he said, loudly enough for the SS to hear. Then, softer, “Give the General my regards. If I don’t write I’m on my way to Lübeck.”

Sigwald gave a stiff nod and saluted. Hidden by his arm, he gave his own parting words. “Stay safe. And remember everything we discussed.”

“That’s for me to worry about, not you,” Karl muttered as Sigwald strode through the blockade. They made a show of checking his papers but let him go untouched. It wasn’t him they were after.

“So what do you want?” Karl called out. He didn’t bother with formalities - he doubted any of them were of his rank or higher.

He was proven correct when an SS Lieutenant stepped out from behind his men, bringing the total number to five.

“Greetings, Hauptmann,” the officer called out. “Were you expecting us?”

“Untersturmführer.” Karl put as much condescension into the rank as he could, and was rewarded with a scowl. “Why would I expect such elite troops in a backwater such as this? Is there some great enemy of the state that needs chasing down?”

“Interesting choice of words there, Tesdorpf. Interesting indeed.”

“Use my rank, Untersturmführer.”

The officer pulled out a missive from his greatcoat and handed it to Karl. “Your former rank, you mean. You have been temporarily stripped of command while the inquiry is in place.”

Karl smiled at the officer and didn’t take the papers. “What inquiry, Holger?”

“You remember it. Just like you do my name, it seems.”

“Enlighten me.”

“That your family are harbouring enemies of the state.”

“Oh, that one. I thought the General had sorted that out.”

Holger smiled, sensing a target. “Your hook handed general isn’t around to protect you and your precious family any longer.”

Karl took a moment to hold back his surge of anger, but before he could respond Holger cut in again, taking back the papers in his hand. “Enough dodging the issue. We’re taking you to the Sturmbannführer. You can explain your family to him and, if you make the right decision, you can… mediate with them on our behalf. If that happens things will work out well for you. If it does not, there will be consequences.”

Two soldiers stepped up behind Karl and grabbed him by the soldiers. A quick note brought his mental total of SS soldiers up to seven - too many to take on. Not that he needed to make his move now.

While the others watched the pair of soldiers patted him down with rough slaps of his clothing, a rushed job. They pulled off his pistol and binoculars, but let him keep the cross in his pocket. They missed the compass and hand-drawn maps of Demjansk among his winter clothes.

The two men reported the all clear and handed Karl’s effects to the Untersturmführer. he smiled and patted Karl on the shoulder. “Good. We’ll take you back to Rshev, and there we’ll see how well you sing.”

He turned to the four SS troops behind him. “Search his quarters. Take his belongings and bring them to my Peno offices. We’ll find what he has to hide.” He handed them a warrant and turned away as they saluted.

“Let’s get on the road. A quiet departure is better for you too, yes?” He glanced at the muted activity in the camp behind, the SS troops just disappearing into the rows of broken buildings, tents and campfires.

Karl sighed as his gaze followed the officer’s to the camp of the 30th. His home for the past two years, the Briesen Division. If God willed, he would see them again.

Although he would not, he thought as he was bundled into a canopied truck by his two burly guards, give in to the SS to make his return a reality. He was giving himself up, not joining them. No harm would come to the company this way, from him or from others. The ones to pay for his family’s choices would be his family alone.

He shook his head to clear it as the four took their seats in the truck. Him against the driver compartment. The Untersturmführer opposite him, as close to the single brazier as he could achieve while remaining in his seat. And the two guards on opposite sides of the entrance, lowering the cover into position over the entrance. The truck’s interior was cast into darkness, lit by a few patches of light. The palm-sized window looking onto the driver compartment. The flare then dull glow of a guard lighting a cigarette. The seeping illumination of the brazier, casting leaping shadows across the Untersturmführer’s face.

As the acrid cardboard smoke of the Russian-made cigarette started to fill the air, Karl leant back and settled in for a long, bumpy ride.

Karl didn’t check his compass lest it be taken from him, but he could see from the direction of the sun through the front window that they were heading South. Twice he heard engines outside, one of which sounded like a tank - either a village or a passing German convoy. When the truck stopped for the men to piss and eat, he looked around, but could discern little from the surrounding area - the sun had already gone down, the temperature far below freezing, and nothing but sparse woods lay in all directions around the road. They had a scant meal of hardened rations in the headlights of the Blitz.

Before they returned to the truck, he heard the Untersturmführer and the driver, frost covering his clothes from the unheated vehicle cabin, arguing about enemy lines and danger on the roads. He didn’t know who won the argument, as they finished it off in the woods, but when they resumed driving they headed off the cleared road before it veered to the East onto an unmarked, icy trail leading deep into the Russian forest.

Looking at the nervous and distracted faces of the guards, Karl started thinking of escape, but dismissed the thought as it arrived. It was now when the guards would be most alert. He would use that against them the next morning.

He lay his head back against the rail of the truck and slept the deep sleep of an experienced campaigner, huddled in his greatcoat and gloves.

When he awoke, the sun was starting to shine into the driver’s eyes, meaning the time should be approaching nine in the morning. One of the guards was fast asleep, and the other was awake, albeit tired, so they must have slept in shifts. The truck was back on paved roads, although the stress on the Untersturmführer’s face - who, amusingly, looked like he hadn’t slept at all - meant that the danger wasn’t past yet. Or perhaps something else had gone wrong.

Karl stretched, bringing his awakening to the attention of his captors. The one conscious soldier, who seemed about to fall asleep again, brought himself under control. The other was too far gone to pay any attention.

Karl was expecting a stop for breakfast, but time passed without any indication that would happen. That wasn’t a good sign - perhaps even with the truck’s slow pace, skating over patches of ice, they would arrive soon.

Seeking something to calm himself, Karl pulled the cross from his pocket and spun it, resting his fingers on the swastika in the centre. Its sharp corners, and the memories that came with them, focused his mind.

Holger noticed Karl’s fingers and focused in on what he held between them. “I didn’t know you were decorated. What battle was it from?”

Karl hesitated before answering. “It was won in Bzura.”

The guard by the entrance nodded to the response. “An impressive victory.”

Karl didn’t vocalise his disagreement, but did think back to their horrid casualties. Many new troops reinforced the division after that battle.

Interrupting his reverie, the SS officer pulled something to him from Karl’s effects. His pistol, an M1912. It was dragged from its dark leather holster and held near the brazier, the fine leaf filigree spinning and twisting as it glinted in the firelight.

“Somme. Arras. Cambrai,” the officer read off. “I saw this before, but you do have quite the hoard. Is this an heirloom? I suppose the make is old enough. Did it belong to your father?”

Karl nodded, clutching the cross tighter in his fist. The points dug into his palm, nearly drawing blood. “It was a gift.”

Holger flipped the pistol over in his fingers, examining it from multiple angles. “So he was an officer on the Westfront, was he. Poor bastard. It’s such a shame that we achieved what his generation could never do.”

Karl gripped the cross a little tighter. A spark of pain flared in his hand, but he ignored it.

“If only he had been born twenty years later. Or maybe it wouldn’t matter. How old is he? You’re not that old, so he could rejoin the fight if he wanted to, couldn’t he? I wonder why he didn’t try to make up for his old mistakes.”

A single drop of red tainted the silver edge of the Iron Cross in Karl’s hand. By the exit flap, the guard stuck his head into the crack to get his head away from the conversation.

Holger wasn’t done. He brought the barrel of the gun to face Karl, his index finger off the trigger but his thumb flicking the safety on and off provocatively. “Maybe like you, he was a cow-”

Karl burst forward, knocking the brazier over. Hot coal scattered across the floor of the truck. His left hand slammed Holger’s throat against the wall. His right stabbed two of the points of the Iron Cross into the Untersturmführer’s left eye. The SS officer devolved into panicked panting, his hands clutching at nothing before his face. Blood spurted from between his twitching eyelids.

The alert guard fumbled for his Karabiner, bringing it up and ready as Karl snatched the pistol from where it had fallen on the bench. The second guard started to wake, darting his eyes around and shivering at the frigid air.

The standoff continued for a few seconds, the guard switching his aim between Karl’s gun hand and his head. Karl for his part used Holger as a shield, hiding as much of his body as possible behind the smaller man. The rousing guard noticed the situation and snatched at his own rifle. He was slowed by the woolen blanket tangled around him.

The standoff was broken when the truck jolted, passing over an icy bump on the road. The guard stumbled backwards, his aim shifting towards the roof. At the same time, the hot coals on the floor slid to the back of the vehicle, burning against the boots of the two guards.

Karl was supported in front by Holger, so he wasn’t nearly as affected by the jolt. Before the armed soldier could recover, he fired two precise shots from his pistol, one into each opponent. They sagged like dropped potato sacks. The sound of the pistol was drowned out by the roar of the engine as the driver regained control of the Blitz.

Karl was left with his prisoner - the Untersturmführer. His cries had turned into feeble whimpering, both eyes clenched shut in an effort to stop the pain. He started to crawl his way along, leaning against the wall, one hand feeling around the P38 on his waist. Karl pulled a bayonet from the body of one of the SS troopers and stabbed it through his chin to the hilt, holding his mouth shut to prevent any more sound leaking out to the front compartment.

Checking on the driver, he was still focussed on the road, probably insensate after the long drive. More important than that, the engine was still heaving the truck along. Karl sighed in relief and checked over the men he had killed. A few long years ago he would have hesitated, but time and battles had passed since then. Of course he would regret. But hesitation had been drilled out of him by necessity.

A quick search of their possessions yielded some results. His own effects were reclaimed, the blood and fluid stained cross returned to his pocket. He kept the bayonet as well, although he cleaned it on the officer’s once grey uniform.

There were a few other useful items. Ammunition from the P38, which he emptied to use in his own pistol. Half a bag of rations, the other half having been their meal the previous night. The woolen blanket the two guards had been swapping between them, now with a few holes where coals had scattered over it. The now empty sack that was used to store the coals for the brazier.

He tore off a piece of cloth from one of the blankets and wrapped it around his head in a makeshift cowl. It would keep him warm better than his helmet would. The rest he wrapped around himself underneath his clothes, anything to keep himself warm in the Russian snow.

He didn’t bother with a canteen as any he brought would soon freeze, if they hadn’t already. Snow and ice would have to do.

He jumped over the bodies to the back of the truck, minding the hot coals and puddles of blood beneath his feet. The cargo space was a mess - if it had been cleaner he might have considered dumping the bodies, throwing off the scent. But that would leave other clues behind - better he disappear here and leave the SS with dozens of kilometres of highway to search, not knowing exactly when he disappeared.

He untied the rear canopy straps. A few patches of ice dropped off the canopy as it opened.

Now that he could see outside, he was confused by the road they were travelling down. Besides having to avoid Russian frontlines around Ostashkov, their path to Rshev should be along major roads. Instead of what he expected though, they were travelling down an uneven, single lane path with forest encroaching on either side. They had to have taken a detour for some reason or another, perhaps trying to avoid checkpoints. That would make it easier for him to disappear into the forest.

Mindful of another bump or icy patch on the road ahead, Karl lowered his body over the edge, resting his feet on a metal bar just rear of the spare tire. The wind picked up underneath the truck, blowing back mud and ice kicked up by the snow tires.

He stuck his head out to the left of the truck, looking for a turn to come up ahead. Slow as the truck may be going, he wanted it to slow down before he risked a jump.

Instead of a road ahead, however, he saw only trees and the truck slowing down. Confused, he loosened his grip, before the truck spun around to the right and he felt his right hand slip free of the edge. Inside the cabin the coals all rolled to the left.

Acting quickly, he dropped his left hand as well, tucking in his head as the truck accelerated into the turn away from him. He felt two heavy impacts, one on his side and one on his back, one after the other, as the world spun around him. Then with a crunch, everything was white and cold.

Sticking his head up out of the snowbank, he watched the truck drive off down the road with its cargo of German corpses. He was lucky to not be one of them.

As the truck passed out of sight, he stepped away from the snow and shook himself dry. The dull ache in his side faded away when he remembered what he was facing. He had evaded the SS for now, but they would search for him - especially back among the 30th. At least that would tell his men that he had slipped from their grasp.

Instead, he would head into the lion’s mouth. The SS wanted him South? Then he would head South. He would vanish without a trace, right next to where they wanted him to go, and then reappear on his terms.

That being said, he could evade the SS but they were not his only enemy. General Winter could not be escaped - only endured. And without shelter of some sort, there was no way he could survive a single night. He should also beware a Soviet advance. Fugitive though he may be, he was still German, and they would show him as little mercy as they gave to their own. The only people he could count on were himself and his division, if he could find them.

Chewing on some dry rations that would suffice for a late breakfast, he strode off into the woods in search of a place to lay low.