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.”
“Give me a minute, Comrade Captain,” I asked, sinking to the grass.
The scouts stood silent, trying not to move. Even Hauptmann fell silent, unable to understand what was going on, while I carefully examined the front line and the no man's land between our trenches and the German trenches. What a pity we don't have a radio station… Now we could really use a diversionary attack or a heavy artillery strike on German positions, or better both. I'll have to be sure to take care of that in the future, if, of course, there is a future for us.
The Germans approached the execution of the received order with their usual punctuality. If there had been gaps between their positions before, now they were tightly covered by a dense network of posts. It'll be light in about 40 minutes, and if we're not out of here by then, we're dead. The infantry will comb the bridgehead, look under every bush and into every hole. They will find us, there is no doubt.
“That's a dead end, Comrade Captain,” I shook my head as I opened my eyes, “all the loopholes in the immediate vicinity are caulked up tight.”
“I have a last resort,” the Captain's voice sounded doubtful, ”a red and two white rockets. The Division Commander gave me permission to use this signal if we were returning with really valuable booty. Our troops will go on the attack, moving toward us, but the chances of success are still slim, and probably dozens of people will die in such an attack.”
I thought about it. There are five of us here, but someone will have to stay with the Hauptmann, so
