The Last Frontier

By Sergey Konyashin

The action of the historical novel “The Last Frontier” takes place on the ruins of Novorossiysk - a small town on the Black Sea shore, almost completely swept away the face of the earth in the result of fierce battles with the fascist invaders in 1942-1943.
This is a very difficult time for Russia that is drastically drained after a whole line of crushing defeats. Each of the heroes experiences it in his own way. Some of them demonstrate unparalleled heights of resilience and courage, others try to settle old scores in order to save their lives through deception and betrayal.
But for all of them, as well as for the Wehrmacht’s - many times superior - troops, rapidly rushing to the Caucasus, the fierce battles at cement plants on the eastern outskirts of Novorossiysk are in some way their own last frontier, on which they must make a difficult choice - to die or to win.
The storyline is based on the fate of two completely dissimilar friends, fighters of the 305th Soviet marine battalion - Andrey Novitsky (a native of Novorossiysk) and Endel Mari (the Estonian). They, miraculously survived in the deadly battle at Balka Adamovicha, do not hesitate to respond to the proposal of their commander, major Caesar Kunikov, to go to an even more fierce battle - in a daring night landing on the western shore of Tsemesskaya Bay, on the now legendary Malaya Zemlya armplace.
Sometimes the novel is scary in describing the Nazi atrocities and the horrors of war. The author equally does not spare either his heroes or readers, successively, page by page, exposing the terrible price of the great victory, which no heroism and no achievements of top military leaders will ever justify. This book is a reminder not only of why and thanks to whom we have a clear sky over our heads, but also rather that it should never happen again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Aug 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667461052

Book preview

Prologue

Novorossiysk, officially not yet a hero city, celebrated the twenty-second anniversary of liberation from fascists with noisy festivities. At that time, a majestic memorial-museum in the form of the nose of an amphibious boat had not yet been erected on Malaya Zemlya, from which the first fighters of the daring Kunikov landing jumped off towards the withering fire of five selected German divisions, and as if drops of blood splashed on the emerald grass, it was all covered with large scarlet poppies.

The legendary bridgehead, almost entirely surrounded by new neighborhoods of Novorossiysk, which was completely restored and greatly expanded after the war, remained almost untouched as a monument to those terrible fighting years. The uneven, bumpy ground on the site of the suburban village of Stanichka, which was completely destroyed as a result of the fiercest battles, was still tensely bumpy with high parapets, gaped with deep craters and was densely streaked with long cuts of trench trenches. The charred and crumpled skeletons of blown-up tanks, fragments of broken guns, overturned logs and the ruins of destroyed houses were still black on it.

A native of the far Russian North, Andrei Prozorov, who received a distribution to the Black Sea Fleet after graduating from the Leningrad Nakhimov Naval School, slowly wandered among the menacing evidence of the fierce battle overgrown with tall grass that echoed throughout the world more than two decades ago on this tiny stretch of coastline.

Looking with surprise at a small bridgehead without natural shelters and sources of fresh water, which in the distant 1943 was shot through from edge to edge, over each piece of which Hitler's aviation hung for hours, plowing the scorched earth with fire and metal several times a day, he could hardly imagine how his father could fight here – on this a deserted, almost flat area, where by that time there was no longer a single tree, not a single whole structure. Heavy German and Romanian guns poured thousands of shells into this coast groaning from explosions and drowning in fire. Enemy boats and submarines continuously hammered torpedoes into hastily constructed berths and coastal cliffs, dropping them on the heads of wounded soldiers waiting for evacuation on narrow rocky beaches. But, despite everything, the people who fought desperately on this earth stood up and won!

Andrey reached the edge of the bridgehead and saw a group of retired marines. One of them was sitting on the burnt hull of a German tank and, masterfully stretching the furs of an old accordion, sang a cheerful battle song in a loud reckless voice:

The stormy sea roars overboard.

The Motherland calls us to a brutal battle.

Attracted by the song, Andrey came closer. The fellow soldiers surrounding the harmonica player sang along smartly:

A steep surf beat against the hot shore.

A battle was breaking out over the night village.

The gun roar tore the air.

Kunikov stormed the shore with a detachment.

Someone's warm palm gently touched Andrey's hand. He looked back, looked down and saw a little girl next to him, greedily gnawing a huge apple.

–Uncle, buy a ring," she offered, smiling broadly, handing him a thin copper ring clenched in her thin, dirt–stained fingers.

– How interesting! Let's see what you have here," playing along with the girl, Prozorov spoke in a cheerful, deliberately loud voice.

He took an old, slightly bent ring from her hand, cleaned it of the clinging wet earth and examined it carefully. On the outside, the words of the fine engraving Polina from Andrey were clearly read.

What a coincidence! – he was surprised. – A ready–made gift to your little sister!

- Where did you get such beauty?  Andrey asked.

–Dimka and I dug it out over there," the girl, who was watching him closely, quickly answered, pointing with a dirty finger at the opposite end of the Little Earth.

Well, all right, I'll take it, Prozorov agreed, as if doubting. – How much?

– Four leaves... – the young saleswoman answered quietly, as if not believing that she had found a buyer for her simple find so easily.

– Well, four is four, – said Andrey, starting to pluck leaves from the nearest tree.

– Not like that!  the girl screamed. – Dimka doesn't take these. Chestnut hair is needed.

– Whatever you say... – the sailor obeyed.

He went to a chestnut tree standing at a distance, tore off four of the widest and densest leaves he could reach, and gave them to the girl.

– Wear it to your health!  she squealed joyfully and, clutching the dark green leaves tightly in her palm, ran away.

Andrey looked at the ring again and, wiping off the remnants of dirt from it, put it in his pocket.

Chapter 1

Grenadier of the 17th Army of the Wehrmacht Wilhelm Schultz confidently walked along the cobblestones of Rubin Street reared from explosions. Spent shell casings, which completely covered the road, screeched to the sides from under the soles of his heavy boots and clattered loudly on the broken curbs. The whole street was strewn with still hot shards and charred fragments of destroyed houses. Huge poplars and acacias, mowed down by German artillery, were burning down on the roadsides. Bloodied, burned and torn corpses lay around. The heavy stench, spreading in the incredible September heat, took my breath away, made me dizzy.

Wilhelm squinted his eyes, blinded by the scorching Black Sea sun, and put his tired hands on the machine gun, scratched in recent brutal battles, dangling from his neck. It turned out to be easier to capture this port, the grenadier reflected with a grin on his face, indifferently examining the fresh ruins. Perhaps it was more difficult to read its long incomprehensible name in the crumpled maps, Schultz continued to grin.

Instead of a full-fledged army on the shore of Tsemesskaya Bay, German troops were met by a few scattered groups of sailors from recently sunk ships and a gathering of poorly trained partisan detachments dressed in rags and armed with captured weapons.

A little more, Schultz dreamed, and from behind the rocky peaks of the Caucasus, these damn oil rigs will finally appear, about which the prim German generals have told them so many times, and he will go home victorious. And then let the Turks, Italians or at least Romanians, advancing down the next street, drive the last nails into the coffin lid for this huge wild country.

Most of all, he wanted to finally reach the Coastal Pier at the sea station, from where the Russians evacuated seriously wounded soldiers, women and children from Novorossiysk on several surviving ships, and took out the remnants of weapons, food and ammunition from the doomed city. The destruction of these sea transports should have ended their mission today.

The deafening roar of a deafening machine-gun burst interrupted the grenadier's dreams. Several of his friends, who were walking in front, fell down dead.

Machine gunner in the tower! – was heard nearby.

Schultz rushed headlong from the road around the corner of the destroyed house. The only thing he heard in those seconds was the predatory clang of bullets hitting the round gray stones with which the pavement was paved right under his feet, and then the deafening crunch of lead in the concrete wall behind which he hid.

Wilhelm breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, it wasn't the first time death had passed so close, but it was probably the first time she had caught him with a weapon hanging around his neck and discharged. The platoon commander seems to have clearly said: The way is clear. Where could this machine gunner have come from?

Schultz changed the magazine on the machine and looked around the corner. A thin silhouette loomed in the window on the second floor of an ancient tower made of gray Crimean limestone. It looks like a very boy... However, the grenadier did not have time to aim, as the Maxim machine gun snapped furiously at him from the tower again.

The soldier recoiled around the corner and stared in fright at the wall behind the house, from which a machine-gun burst heaped several high-flying fountains of brick dust. If he had hesitated for even a moment, his head would have been caught between a machine-gun burst fired from the barrel of the Maxim and these bricks crumbled into red dust. If there really is a boy there, thought Schultz, he is very skilled for his age with a machine gun.

Around the corner of a neighboring house, a mortar crew of three people was hastily preparing a gun for battle. However, as soon as one of the soldiers inadvertently got up from behind the shelter to install the barrel on the bipod, deep lacerations immediately appeared on his tunic, and blood splattered on the red-hot curb. The mortar screamed and slowly fell on its side. The barrel fell out of his hands and rolled out onto the sidewalk, well shot from the tower.

– Cover it!  The commander of the mortar crew shouted to Schultz.

Wilhelm leaned out from around the corner and, almost without aiming, fired almost the entire clip into the window on the second floor. The mortar man ran out onto the sidewalk, picked up the barrel and barely managed to get back around the corner. As soon as the last sparks, knocked out by Schultz's bullets from the walls and the shield of the machine gun, went out in the window opening, Maxim began to scribble again. This time, a junior sergeant from the second platoon, who unsuccessfully hid behind acacias on the opposite side of the road, rolled into the gutter with a bullet through his head.

At the same moment, a fifty-millimeter mortar, still assembled behind a neighboring house, hit hard. With a loud whistle, the projectile plunged into the edge of the window. A deafening explosion tore a piece of the wall out of the tower, raised a thick cloud of dust. Clouds of black smoke poured down. When the ashen haze dissipated, Schultz saw in the shattered window a machine gun with a bent shield, overturned on the wide outer sill and covered with a thick layer of debris. At the same moment, from behind the branching acacias on the opposite side of the street, several soldiers rushed to the tower, probably hoping that the machine gunner was killed or stunned.

Wilhelm pulled the bolt of the weapon and, just in case, took aim at the blown-up window with an inverted machine gun. When the soldiers were already a few dozen meters away from the tower, its door suddenly opened. On the threshold stood a swarthy barefoot boy in torn shorts and a burnt vest with a German grenade in his hand. His head was badly cut, his brown hair and his face smeared with gun oil were heavily covered with blood. With a short, well-honed movement, he threw a grenade at the soldiers running up. Competently – on a hinged trajectory, Schultz managed to note, so that by the time of the explosion it was on the wane and it could not be thrown back. The Grenadier turned his sights on the boy, pulled the trigger, but he had already disappeared through the door, and the bullets only whipped a pile of splinters out of it.

There was an explosion. A tall fountain of earth and grass leapt into the air with a whipping blow. It seemed to Wilhelm that the torn bodies of his comrades had not yet fallen to the ground, as the boy put back the overturned machine gun and again tore through the street with a long burst. A soldier who was running past Schultz's hiding place at that moment, dodging bullets, tumbled around the corner towards him at a run.

– Have you seen what this brat is doing? – he blurted out, leaning back against the wall and more conveniently intercepting the machine gun. – It is unclear what he is counting on.

– Don't tell me!  Wilhelm answered angrily, shouting over the sounds of gunfire. – They would have given me a kick in the ass, and go wherever you want. But no! Apparently, he also decided to rot here among other Russian scum.

For more than two hours, Vitya Novitsky alone held back the onslaught of the German company on Rubin Street. Tired hands with the last of their strength pressed on the tight trigger of the machine gun. Blood from the broken head trickled down in viscous streams onto the face and down the collar of the dirty, sweat-soaked vest. In the corners of the room, with their bloody faces buried in brick crumbs, lay the last sailors of the destroyer Vigilant, killed by a shell of a German tank a few hours ago. The explosion was so strong that Mosin's rifle, which flew out of the window, stuck half a barrel into the nearest acacia tree. Vitya was in the basement at that time – he ran for grenades. He heard a deafening explosion from above, followed by an ominous deathly silence. The sailors no longer fired or shouted at each other. Only outside there were sometimes short automatic bursts and single rifle shots, sparingly diluted with sharp dry commands in German.

Vitya took a box of grenades, dragged it up the stairs into the room and looked around. The walls were very badly–to purple blackness –burned by the explosion and splattered with blood. It stank terribly of burnt gunpowder. Both of his senior comrades – the last Soviet fighters on Oktyabrskaya Square – lay with their heads smashed in the corners of the room, sprinkled with dust, splinters, fragments of bricks, glass fragments and shells. Pools of blood were spreading rapidly beneath them.

The window, in the opening of which the machine gun was cooling, faced the corner of Rubin Street and Dekabristov Lane. Victor cautiously looked out. A German tank with a black square turret rattled past the tower, gaining speed, with a groaning creak. Following him, crawling out of trenches and destroyed houses, from behind corners and trees, numerous dark green silhouettes slowly and at first not very firmly walked forward. But with each step, emboldened by the silence that followed, the Fritz moved faster and more confidently, closing uneven ranks on the march and starting to line up in a platoon.

Victor helplessly slid down the wall, got on his broken knees and tightly clutched his scratched fingers in his blond hair. A tear traced a thin line down his dirty cheek...

That's all, he thought, now the Germans will reach the Coastal Pier, blow up the ships that his mother and older sister were in such a hurry to get to this morning, and shoot a crowd of thousands in which they will stand waiting for their turn to board. And in this tower, where their whole family lived before the war, the German headquarters will be located – right in this room, where his father, who died two months ago during another bombing in the port, taught him to read and write. German officers will draw maps of the further offensive here and build victorious plans. And then somewhere far away in the Caucasus, a fascist will shoot his older brother Andrei, who was called to the front on the first day of the war right after graduation, with a black machine gun.

Vitya remembered how his brother hugged him for the last time a little more than a year ago at this window, in which a red-hot, crumpled and scratched machine gun was now standing, no longer needed by anyone.

What am I for, a fourteen-year-old boy , six months ago, he ran off to fight in the Crimea, lying to the commander of a combat boat, what did his parents allow? Why did I spend four long months in mud and sweat learning to throw grenades and fill cartridge belts into machine guns? Why did he sneak into the German rear under the guise of a beggar, reconnoitre the situation and report on the situation to Soviet officers? Why did he rush between explosions on the front line during fierce battles, collecting cartridges and grenades so that the Red Army soldiers left without ammunition could hold out at the decisive line for several more hours? Then, in order to remain a complete orphan now and clean the boots of the occupiers in his hometown?

How he hated the fascists with their brazen gait, rolled-up sleeves and machine guns at the ready!

No, we need to give the mother and sister at least a few more minutes. Maybe these minutes are not enough for them now to catch the last ship and escape, go to Gelendzhik.

Vitya jumped up, rushed to the machine gun and, without hesitation, pressed the cooling trigger. After a long, deafening queue, several Krauts buried their heads in the helmets that flashed in the sun in the ground and stretched out across the sidewalk. The rest scattered through the doorways and lay down.

If only it wasn't a tank! the boy thought and scared the Hitlerite with a short shot, who leaned out from around the corner of the house of his school friend Valka Svidersky, who lived opposite.

For two hours Vita managed to restrain the onslaught of the Germans. Wounded and tired, he continued to shoot back with the last of his strength, when the rapidly increasing clang of iron tracks on the pavement was heard from the street.

It looks like the end! – Victor smiled wryly and plowed Rubin Street in several tight bursts. Pretty beaten by this time, the German company once again retreated into the alley.

A minute later, a tank appeared under the windows. Its angular tower slowly slid in a circle, smoothly turning the short trunk in Vitka's direction. The same one...  he thought. Looks like he's back." So, he still managed to delay the advance of the fascists for a couple of hours.

A German soldier jumped out from around the corner of Svidersky's house and rushed to the tank, apparently intending to hide behind the armor in order to get closer to the tower. Vitka easily caught him on sight and shot him. The fascist folded in half, and then, clutching his stomach and side with his hands, collapsed on the pavement, shouting loudly and waving his legs. Only the machine gun that flew off his neck, spinning and rattling on the hot paving stones, drove a few more meters to the curb split by the explosion.

– Shoo-ulz!  Another German soldier shouted from behind cover and jumped out onto the road. He grabbed the wounded man by the collar and slowly dragged him back around the corner.

A good target...  Vitka thought. I would have shot both of them if it hadn't been for the tank." He grabbed a grenade in each hand, tore out the rings with his teeth and threw both under the right caterpillar.

Two powerful explosions a few meters from the tower sharply sprayed hot earth and metal fragments into the destroyed window – so that he barely had time to duck himself, and tore the caterpillar off the wheels. The tank abruptly moved in a circle. The multi-ton iron hull smeared several fascists hiding behind its armor on the road with a slurp. But the crew still managed to cope with the controls and stop the heavy black car at the moment when its trunk was looking towards the tower. A shot rang out loudly. The tank swung back easily, its bare wheels clanking on the rocks.

Vitka squeezed his eyes shut, but he only felt the tower shake violently from below. Apparently, the shell hit the wall at the level of the first floor. The thinned dark green groups, covered by the tank, again slowly but stubbornly went forward. The boy breathed a sigh of relief and began to pour lead on the street again.

Only he did not know that two fascists were already climbing the stairs of his impregnable fortress. The explosion of a tank shell broke through a window hastily boarded up by sailors on the first floor, and the Germans, seeing this, quietly climbed inside. The wooden steps creaked loudly under their boots, the door slid off its rusty hinges with a crash.

Vitya turned around in fright and, seeing the enemies, rushed to the box with grenades. But I didn't have time. One of the Nazis knocked him down, and the second one hit him on the head with the butt of his rifle. Having lost consciousness, the boy fell to the floor. The Germans threw him on the windowsill and poured kerosene several times from head to toe. From the sharp smell, Vitya began to slowly come to himself.

Paramedics carried Schultz, white as chalk and bleeding, past the window on a stretcher.

– Hey, Wilhelm!  One of the soldiers called out to him from the tower. – Do you want to see how we deal with the brat who shot your fat barrel?

Overcoming the pain, Schultz looked at his colleagues standing in the window of the tower, badly beaten by bullets, mines and tank shells. Meanwhile, the boy opened his eyes and tried to get up. One of the Germans hastily threw the remains of kerosene on him, the other lit a match and threw it on Vita's stomach. He burst into flames like a splinter, jumped to his feet with a deafening scream and, stumbling on the edge of the window, fell out into the street.

The Nazis sat down on the broken windowsill and lit a cigarette, watching with interest the Russian teenager burning at the base of the tower. He screamed, waved his arms and rolled on the ground in vain attempts to knock down the flames.

On the street, the brakes of a sand-colored Kubelwagen, badly beaten by bullets and shrapnel in the morning battles on the outskirts of the city, creaked sharply. Oberst-Lieutenant Alfred Schaffer, the regimental commander, jumped out of it without waiting for a full stop.

Hey, you two, he shouted casually to those sitting on the windowsill as he walked, "get down quickly!

And, without turning to the battalion commander, Major Heinz Krause, who jumped up to him, he asked in a steely voice:

– How many dead?

–Seventeen, Herr Oberst-Lieutenant," he mumbled guiltily. We decided that the way was clear and...

– And, as always, we screwed up, I know, – the regiment commander said in a calm rage. – What, you couldn't cope with a young brat for two hours? And even so many people put! I will not tolerate such a mess, Mr. Krause.

Is that him?  Schaffer asked, approaching the charred corpse.

Black blisters of burns covered almost the entire body of the teenager. Only a leg with bones sticking out from under the skin, broken from a fall from the second floor, and a lock of brown hair on the very top remained untouched by the fire. The boy was lying on his stomach, his burned and bloody face buried in the dry hot earth, strewn with casings from his machine gun.

–Yes, he is," Krause said dryly.

– Get that little shit out in the middle of the street! Let everyone see how the resistance to the Wehrmacht troops ends. Next to it, nail a poster that anyone who is seen trying to bury him will be shot on the spot. Let the Russian pigs know what awaits them...

Chapter 2

The massive silhouettes of the passenger transports Sudzhuk and Markoth were barely visible because of the crowd of thousands on the Coastal Pier. Frantic with fear, people loaded with bags and suitcases were furiously pushing against each other, pushing and screaming. In places, fights broke out amid the general uproar and swearing. Someone was suffocating, losing consciousness and falling in a monstrous crush. Such were trampled to death.

Near the narrow gangways to the ships, the already dense crowd closed even more tightly. Under her onslaught, those standing on the very edge of the pier broke into the sea and helplessly fell into the high gray-green waves. Those who managed not to drown and not get hurt between the concrete wall of the pier and the steep, densely overgrown with brown algae, crawled out onto the embankment with their heads smashed and their hands cut on rusty fittings to try to squeeze back to the ship.

Polina Shcherbakova tightly squeezed the palm of her twelve-year-old brother Vanya so that he would not get lost in the raging crowd.

– Hurry up, Polina! – her mother began to urge her, walking behind with a huge canvas bag on her back. – They are shooting very close.

They'll crush us here, Mom, the girl told her.

– Go faster!  Mother ordered. – Not their own, so the Germans will crush.

Polina let her brother go ahead and, putting her hands on his shoulders, began to push more actively with him to the landing place.

On the Markotha the siren howled loudly, the cars hummed. From under the stern, at first gently and slowly, and then harder and faster, bubbling streams of water began to crawl, broken by beige jets of sea foam. The captain from the bridge shouted menacingly into the loudspeaker:

– Back up, comrades! The ship is full. There's not enough room for everyone. Don't delay us! The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll be back for the others.

Hearing these words, the crowd rushed forward with a vengeance. The most desperate tried to jump on the overloaded board directly from the shore, but not everyone managed to grab the rail and ropes. Many, bumping against the sloping bulwark, slipped and fell into the sea. Seeing that his appeals were useless, the captain in a rage shouted to the sailors standing on the forecastle: Cut the bow!

After several strong blows with axes, the ends of the ship's ropes hung helplessly into the wide waves. Hundreds of people howled deafeningly in despair. They didn't even try to pull the ladder in – there was no room on the deck, and people were still standing on it, huddled close to each other. No one got off the rickety bridge, even when it became clear that the ship was leaving.

The gap between the berth and the side of the Markoth has widened dramatically. The end of the ladder slipped off the shore and fell down with a creak, raising a high fountain of spray and shaking people screaming from fright into the lumpy waves. Those who were standing closer to the side managed to catch on the rail. Others floundered helplessly in the water, shouting curses and begging to be taken away. A second later, about a hundred more people flew into