Death's Head
By Leo Kessler
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
SS Assault Battalion Wotan, the toughest troops in Europe, are chosen to spearhead Operation Barbarossa, opening up a whole new theater of war. Not to the West, but to the East. Schulze, von Dodenburg and the unstoppable Vulture embark on an assault deep into the Soviet Union, and into the iron claws of winter. Can Wotan survive this incredible punishment? This is the sixth explosive book in Leo Kessler's fictional Dogs of War series.
Leo Kessler is a pseudonym of the late Charles Whiting. Over three million of his books have been sold worldwide.
Leo Kessler
Leo Kessler is the pseudonym for the late Charles Whiting. Over three million of his books have been published worldwide.
Read more from Leo Kessler
Otto's Phoney War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOtto's Blitzkrieg Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Operation Iraq Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Death's Head
Titles in the series (8)
Forced March Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Devil's Shield Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SS Panzer Battalion Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Claws of Steel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death's Head Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frozen Mountain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStormtroop Edelweiss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sand Panthers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related ebooks
Devil's Shield Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sand Panthers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5By Blood Spilt: Steele's Verdun Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFury of the Tiger: A WWII Tanker's Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Grey Wolf, Grey Sea: Aboard the German Submarine U-124 in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Claws of Steel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frozen Mountain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSS Panzer Battalion Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Forced March Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fighting in Hell: The German Ordeal on the Eastern Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStormtroop Edelweiss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood & Bullets - The World War II Action Pack (6 Full Length Books) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Marcus Device Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn the Roads of War: A Soviet Cavalryman on the Eastern Front Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radio Operator on the Eastern Front: An Illustrated Memoir, 1940–1949 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Talent for Adventure: The Remarkable Wartime Exploits of Lt Col Pat Spooner MBE Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTiger Command!: A Novel Based on a True Story of Combat on the Russian Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAt Leningrad's Gates: The Combat Memoirs of a Soldier with Army Group North Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stalingrad: City on Fire Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lake Ilmen, 1942: The Wehrmacht Front to the Red Army Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsObedient Unto Death: A Panzer-Grenadier of the Leibstandarte- SS Adolf Hitler Reports Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Defense of Moscow 1941: The Northern Flank Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGermany Wins! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe U-Boat War Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Haigerloch Project Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pavlov's House: A Russian Soldier's Tale of Love and War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEye of the Wolf: One Russian Rifle Against the German Ss Panzer Tanks During Ww-Ii Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Stormtrooper on the Eastern Front: Fighting with Hitler's Latvian SS Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Hans von Luck Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Suspense For You
The Perfect Marriage: A Completely Gripping Psychological Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Then She Was Gone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5None of This Is True: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Housemaid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl Who Was Taken: A Gripping Psychological Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Maidens: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Turn of the Key Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brother Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Misery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lagos Wife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Thing He Told Me: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If We Were Villains: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The It Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Flicker in the Dark: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whisper Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zero Days Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Mercedes: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wrong Place Wrong Time: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finders Keepers: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Death's Head
5 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Death's Head - Leo Kessler
DEATH'S HEAD
DOGS OF WAR – VOLUME SIX
by Leo Kessler
This Edition Edited and Published by Benjamin Lindley
Bootham, York, England
www.benjaminlindley.co.uk
First Published Worldwide in 2014
Copyright © Charles Whiting 1978, 2006, 2014
www.charleswhiting.co.uk
Distributed by Smashwords
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The moral right of the author has been asserted.
The right of Charles Whiting to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Benjamin Lindley, Publisher.
A GLOSSARY OF WOTAN TERMS
Full House – both venereal diseases
Asparagus Tarzan – weakling
Popov, Ivan – Russian soldier
Dice-beaker – Jackboots
Flatman – flat bottle of schnapps
Green-beak, Wet-tail – raw recruit
Ami – American
Base Stallion – rear area soldier, base wallah
Bone-mender – doctor
Warm Brother – homosexual
Kitchen-bull – army cook
Dead Soldier – empty bottle
Field Mattress – German Army female auxiliary
Tin – decorations
Throat-ache – Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
Moss, Green Leaves – money
Old Man – tinned meat
Cancer Stick – cigarette
Giddi-up Soup – horse meat soup
Stubble Hopper – infantryman
Reeperbahn Equaliser – brass knuckles
Pavement Tail – Street walker
Parisian – Contraceptive
Flipper – hand
Turnip – head
WOTAN II
C.W.
So we National Socialists take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement towards the south and west of Europe and turn our gaze towards the lands of the East... When we speak of new territory in Europe today we must think principally of Russia and her border vassal states. Destiny itself seems to wish to point out the way to us here... This colossal empire in the East is ripe for dissolution, and the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state!
Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf
BOOK 1 – WIR FAHREN GEGEN ENGEL-LAND!
"Our flag waves as we march along.
It is the emblem of the power of our Reich
And we can no longer endure
That the Englishman should laugh at it
So give me thy hand, thy fair white hand
Ere we sail away to conquer Eng-el-land!"
Marching Song, Autumn 1940.
CHAPTER 1
Fertigmachen!
The Vulture's thin nasal voice carried across the still water. There was a soft clatter of entrenching tools, gas mask cases, weapons as the men of SS Assault Battalion prepared to disembark.
Heaven, arse and twine!
Sergeant Metzger cursed urgently. Do you want the shitting Tommies to know we're here!
The engines of the motorboats had been stopped now. There was no sound save the sidling hiss of the wavelets at their bows and the tense breathing of the young troopers waiting for the order to move in the soft, September darkness.
Captain von Dodenburg, C.O. of the 1st Company, took a last glance at the steep, white cliffs in front of them – silent, harsh and infinitely menacing. Then he took a deep breath and dropped over the side of the boat, his pistol held high above his head. After me,
he hissed. One after another his men followed him in. Everywhere along the long line of requisitioned Belgian boats the other companies were doing the same.
Von Dodenburg stumbled forward, up to his waist in water. The white cliff ahead remained silent. The Tommies hadn't heard. The Captain quickened his pace. Once they had reached the top of those cliffs, nothing would be able to stop them. General Kurt Student's paras would follow, consolidate the bridgehead and hold it until the infantry came ashore. Thereafter, he knew, they'd make short work of the ninety kilometres to the enemy's capital. Thirty-six hours of fighting at the most and the Bolshevik-Jewish pack who ran the country would be fleeing for their precious lives and they'd be stringing up the fat, cigar-smoking prig who called himself prime minister from the nearest lamp post. The handsome, young SS officer felt the gravel crunching and rolling under his jackboots.
Behind him his men quickened their pace, weapons held high. Obviously they preferred to face the unknown dangers of the land ahead than be sitting ducks in the water. Von Dodenburg stumbled ashore. He was on enemy soil at last! All around him the men of the Wotan were coming ashore, stamping their big boots on the pebbles to force out the seawater. Von Dodenburg stared up at the cliffs. As the intelligence men had told them back at Calais, it had a retreating face and not a vertical one as it appeared to have on the Luftwaffe photos.
Behind him Sergeant Schulze, the battalion's comedian, said in that unmistakable Hamburg accent of his, I think I'll go back now, sir. I even get dizzy when I stand on a box.
Knock it off, Schulze,
von Dodenburg said without asperity. He knew that at moments like this, Schulze's remark helped to lower tension.
He grasped the first tussock on the cliff face. There was a slight shower of chalk rubble but when he put his full weight on it, it held. Almost parallel with him the Vulture was going up the cliff too, monocle jammed firmly in his eye, his one weapon the thin riding switch which he always carried. Together they clambered up swiftly. Towards the top, the chalk rubble was very loose. Once von Dodenburg slipped and hung precariously, fifty metres above the stony beach, his heart beating like a trip-hammer; then he regained his foot-hole and a few moments later he was over the top and lying full length in the grass, gasping for breath.
Nothing moved. A faint breeze rustled the grass, but that was the only sound. The men behind came scrambling over the edge of the cliff and flung themselves down, weapons at the ready. Von Dodenburg rose to his feet and, unslinging his machine pistol, doubled over to where the Vulture squatted with Lieutenant Schwarz, the CO of the 2nd Company.
Everything all right, von Dodenburg?
Yessir.
Good.
Under the too large steel helmet the Battalion Commander wore all that von Dodenburg could make out was the great beak of a nose which had helped to give him his nick-name.I'll set up my command post here. You take the right flank, Schwarz the left. If you do bump into any resistance for God's sake don't bog down. Move, and move fast.
Schwarz's face contorted into a sneer. What have the Tommies to stop us with? They ran like the rabbits they are at Dunkirk. They'll run again here.
We shall see,
the Vulture began. Now –
He stopped abruptly.
To their front a silver spurt of light rose in the night sky. Freeze!
the Vulture yelled. For one long moment it bathed them in its icy white light, casting their shadows behind them in monstrous distortion.
A hoarse voice shouted the alarm in a language they couldn't understand. Another took up the cry. A red flare rose into the sky and a machine gun began to chatter.
Don't stand there waiting to be slaughtered,
the Vulture cried, springing to his feet. Attack!
Attack!
von Dodenburg echoed the cry. He fired a wild burst from the hip and rushed forward towards the enemy. A faster machine gun opened somewhere on the right flank. A line of troopers collapsed like marionettes in the hands of a puppet-master gone crazy. A heavy potato-masher grenade sailed through the air. The machine post disappeared in a vicious red ball of flame.
They hit the enemy's wire. Von Dodenburg found himself clawing frantically at the barbs. Schulze grabbed him and tugged hard. The wire gave. Satchel charges!
von Dodenburg yelled. A trooper doubled forward, the heavy parcel of grenades tucked to his chest. Suddenly he screamed, flung up his arms and fell flat on his face. Another man doubled towards him, kicked the dying man round, and, tugging the parcel over his neck, doubled for the wire.
He dropped the charges and began to run for cover, but a burst caught him before he had gone five metres. He dropped with a strangled scream. Automatically von Dodenburg noted his name; his next-of-kin would receive the Iron Cross.
The explosion shattered the night into a thousand fiery splinters. The wire disappeared. They were up the next instant, charging through the gap.
They ran on. Behind them the sounds of the first skirmish began to die away. They'd broken through the first line of defence.
***
Sir.
It was Schulze, running at the head of about a dozen men he had collected from the disorganised 1st Company.
Yes?
The stink... it's gas.
What are you talking about?
Can't you smell it? It's every–
He never completed the word. The next moment the field in front of them exploded in a great roar of red flame. The horizon erupted from end to end. They dropped instantly. In front of them some of the troopers were too slow. One broke away screaming, desperately seeking for some way of putting out the flames.
Over there – water!
Schulze screamed, his hands cupped around his mouth, trying to make himself heard above the roar.
The trooper followed his directions and flung himself in the shallow pool of water that lay just in front of them. But it was too late. Before their eyes he began to burn away in the wet mud.
His arm pressed across his face to shield it from the heat, the Vulture yelled, Back! Everybody back!
They needed no urging. The wall of flame was advancing, burning away everything in front of it. They began to run back the way they had come, clawing at each other in their panic, and stumbling over the bodies of the dead Home Guards.
From somewhere behind the fire screen an enemy mortar opened up. Mortar bombs began to fall in their midst. In his panic a man threw away his rifle. Stop that!
von Dodenburg cried. Pick up that weapon!
The man ignored him. Another followed his example, and another. The withdrawal was becoming a rout. He lowered his machine pistol and raced after the rest.
A man bolted past him, his eyes wild with fear, flames licking up about his body. Schulze grabbed at him but the panic-stricken trooper evaded his grasp. Before anyone could stop him, he had jumped over the edge of the cliff and his blood-curdling scream followed him to his death on the rocks below.
He wasn't alone. More and more men followed him. In vain Schwarz and the Vulture tried to stop the rout but they were swept aside by the stream of fleeing soldiers, as the wall of flames grew ever closer and the enemy mortar bombs rained down upon them. Von Dodenburg ducked as fist-sized pieces of red-hot metal hissed through the air about his head. Below the white foam swirled around the rocks, its colour now turned blood-red by the fiery flares bursting above them.
The boats – the boats are going to leave us behind!
a voice screamed hysterically. Scores of SS men started to clamber down the cliff towards the dim outlines tossing on the waves. Schulze grabbed von Dodenburg by the arm. Come on, sir,
he yelled. Let's get out of this shit!
The young officer's eyes turned towards the wooden sign on the edge of the cliff. 'SOUTH CLIFF DOVER – SIX MILES!' But we're running away,
he shouted. We can't!
We can, sir. Everybody is!
Together they lowered themselves over the edge of the cliff. A body sailed over their heads and dropped like a hawk to its death, followed a second later by a great echoing scream that seemed to go on for ever. Frantically they clambered down, while above them the roaring flames teetered on the edge of the cliff.
Schulze dropped the last six metres or so and von Dodenburg followed suit. His legs felt as if they were being thrust up into his guts. Ignoring the pain, he pulled his Schmeisser and levelled it at the men around him. They were fighting and clawing at each other to get into the water. Stand fast,
he yelled at the top of his voice. For God's sake – stand fast!
They brushed past him, their eyes empty with fear, as they scrambled into the water and plunged towards the boats. Beside himself with rage, he lashed out at the nearest man with the butt of his machine pistol. Get back... get back and fight, you rotten bastards,
he screamed. We've got to hold them. We've got...
His words ended in a groan of pain. He had a momentary glimpse of a blinding light. Then his head was jerked back and his helmet slipped over his eyes. He sank to his knees in the cold water. He fell flat on his face and a blessed blackness overcame him. The long-planned invasion of England had failed even before it had started. What was left of the shattered SS Assault Battalion Wotan streamed back to the boats in panic-stricken defeat. Within minutes the sailors of the Kriegsmarine had the motor boats underway, leaving the burning beach to the dead and dying.
CHAPTER 2
The long, white room stank of ether, sweat and fear. The floor was greasy with blood where the two surgeons were working at a furious rate, the sweat pouring down their faces. Von