Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (14 page)

“
Listen harder now, boyo.”

Private Walshe screwed up his eyes and strained his ears,
concentrating on imagined shadows and sounds coming from the woods to his front. He failed to see the small motion of Corporal Kearney’s left hand, flicking two stones to one side, one after the other.

“
Feck me yes, Corp. Two noises, clear as day they were!”

His whispers sounded like shouts in the still night and Kearney wished he hadn
’t started the game, but only for a moment.

“
That were the sound of ma balls dropping off, you stupid gobshite!”

The boy
’s clear confusion undermined Kearney’s pleasure at the prank.

“
Oh feckin hell, nipper! Just slagging ya. Jesus.”

A third voice joined in.

“Shut yer fucking mouth, Kearney, yer fucking header. One more prank like that and I’ll have the fucking stripes off yer... one more fucking time and that’ll be an end to it, y’hear me?”

Not getting any reaction from the Corporal, Sergeant Reddan continued.

“Yer’s just throwing shapes for the lad here, trying to impress. Now tend your front, Corporal and no more of this holy show!”

“
Sergeant.”

That was all Kearney managed.

Their small position, covering a modest junction on the Draubodenweg, was abruptly transformed from night into day as the first of a sextet of flares exploded and shed its light over the Inniskilling’s positions and the No Man’s land to their front, an area that was suddenly and very obviously occupied by moving figures, all closing rapidly.

“
Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! Stand to! Stand to!”

With the light came bullets,
lots of them, as the need for secrecy was gone. Soviet heavy machine guns started to bathe the British positions with lead.

Tracer bullets had more than one effect. In simple terms, the fiery tails permitted the gunner to adjust his aim more accurately
, as he could see where the bullets were going. An additional benefit was that the sight of deadly glowing lead tested the nerve of the most steadfast of men, and many a bullet that was missing by a yard had the effect of making a soldier duck or miss his shot.

Vickers and Brens started to compete with Maxims and DPs
, and the ducking and missing spread to both sides.

Fighting
also erupted north of the Drau River, where the much-depleted London Irish Battalion suddenly found itself in a similar predicament.

The whole valley became a whirlwind of flying bullets, mortar shells
, and flares; add into the mix the shouts and screams of frightened, dying men, and the Drau had become a living nightmare.

Reddan had no choice. There was no-one he would rather be with
less than Kearney, but the space between positions was too deadly to traverse for him to regain his own foxhole, so the ex-battalion boxing champion moved in beside the present encumbent who had knocked out three of his teeth in the process and brought his Enfield into play.

For each Russian that fell, it seemed another two rose to take his place.

The carrier platoon was a carrier platoon in name only, many of its vehicles having already succumbed to the needs of the European Front, subject of a low-key plan that had relocated some equipment to the active front, most of the remainder having become victims of the extreme cold.

However, the Bren guns remained, transforming the platoon
’s position into a hedgehog of light machine guns, one that possessed five times the firepower that the attacking Soviets were expecting.

The
assault stalled.

Walshe remained rigidly at his post, the Bren gun seemingly just an extension of him.

Only the slightest of movements gave any indication that the young soldier was still alive, the barrel shifting imperceptibly as he checked clumps of enemy bodies for signs of life.

The last nine hours and ten minutes had witnessed a transformation during which the boy became a man, the inept fusilier became an adept soldier or, as the pain wracked Kearney thought, a pitiless killer.

The second attack had reached to within
forty yards of the front foxholes and there it had withered in sprays of crimson, as the lead elements of the Soviet infantry were flayed to pieces.

An hour later, to the second, the third attack commenced and got within twenty yards. No flares rose until the wave of men was almost upon the Inniskillings but one Russian accidentally fired his weapon and that was warning enough for the Irishmen to rise up and stop the rush in its tracks.

A ragtag group of reinforcements had arrived in the dark of night. Clerks, drivers, and cooks, issued with a bundook and sent up to fill the gaps in the line.

The body of an elderly Pay Corps Private was now frozen solid across the brow of the firing position. He had been killed in the thi
rd attack and both Kearney and Reddan bundled the man into position for the extra cover and to hell with the niceties. After all, they didn’t know the bloke.

The fourth attack came on the stroke of five o
’clock and was made with less vigour than the others, for it was just the remnants of the infantry battalion that had been hammering away, lead forward by a wounded Major, a commander desperate for his unit’s destruction not to have been in vain.

He died with most of his men, although the Ferryman exacted his price on the Inniskillings too.

Lieutenant Colonel Prescott, OC of the Battalion, fell to mortar fire in the first few seconds, having recently arrived at the crucial hot spot to make his own assessment of the situation.

At the last, the withdrawing Russians were covered by a few surviving Maxims
, and it was one of these final bursts that put bullets into each of the three men in the Bren gun position.

The firing died away, leaving both sides to lick their considerable wounds.

Had some higher authority looked down into the small position then he may well have excused the three soldiers from further hardship.

No such relief came.

Only snow and an increasing coldness.

Walshe had felt nothing as a bullet passed through his upper chest, missing everything of note before it exited through his back strap.

Kearney took two in the neck and shoulder. The former was just a graze, painful and messy, but not incapacitating. The latter clipped his left shoulder joint and brought about excruciating pain that forced tears from his eyes.

Despite that, he managed to use his right hand to clip another magazine onto the Bren, as Walshe the ‘Whirling Dervish’, manifested himself.

Beside Kearney sat Reddan, his face wrapped in a crude bandage that was the best that Kearney could do in the circumstances, one that failed to mask the signs of fresh blood and hideous injury.

Hit in the side of the face, the Sergeant had certainly lost his lower jawbone completely. Through his tears, Kearney had quickly looked for the missing flesh, just in case stretcher-bearers made it through to take the silent man away. A second bullet had carried away Reddan’s left eye and made a mess of the right one.

Not a sound escaped from the awfully wounded NCO, but his presence inspired the other two occupants of the position.

Three further attacks had been pressed hard, as a new unit replaced the one that the Inniskillings had gutted.

The 1st Alpine’s second assault would have succeeded but for the timely arrival of more ammunition, permitting silent weapons to spring into life and reduce the assault formations to little more than wrecks of men.

A 3” mortar group arrived, quickly deployed nine weapons, and helped to put the attackers to flight, their barrage brief but perfectly placed amongst the second wave of soldiers. The tally of dead was miraculously low, but nearly a third of the Soviet soldiers lay wounded upon the frozen ground and
many of their comrades took the offered opportunity to take an injured man to safer ground and, in the doing, quite happily removed themselves from danger.

The final infantry assault commenced at 0915
hrs and ground to a halt within fifteen minutes. This time the combination of infantry, mortars, and artillery proved far too much for troops whose nerves were already stretched to breaking point.

The 28th Rifle Regiment’s third Battalion broke and ran from the battlefield, except for those who could not move under their own power, already felled by shrapnel or high explosives.

It was these that Walshe sought out with small bursts from the boiling hot Bren gun, killing anything that moved on the snowy field.

Merciless.

Cold.

Without an ounce of compassion.

“Stop it now, Nipper, will yer. They’s had enough, boyo. Let ‘em away now.”

The sole reaction from Walshe was a gentle squeeze on the trigger and another four bullets
were sent across the wintry field and into a Soviet soldier struggling with a shattered leg.

“Nipper! J
esus, Joseph, and Mary, will yer let 'em be now!”

The young man squeezed the trigger to no avail and immediately ripped off the empty magazine, holding out his hand for a replacement.

“Gimme.”

Kearney shook his head and punctuated his decision with a dramatic flourish, flicking the ammo box lid shut.

“Stand down, Fusilier Walshe.”

The boy’s hand continued to hover in anticipation of receiving his needs, but Walshe’s face was already changing as the imposed end to his tirade of violence brought about new and calmer thoughts.

He lit two cigarettes and, without a word, passed one to the wounded NCO.

The Bren was field stripped, cleaned, and reassembled before the medical team arrived and removed the wretched Reddan.

The Inniskillings’ line had held.

“And that’s your full report, PodPolkovnik?”

“Yes, Comrade Polkovnik. I cannot do this without tanks.”

Colonel Ryzhov trusted the weary man stood before him and understood that he and his men had been through hell trying to push the Allied soldiers back from Töplitsch.

Gestu
ring at the dishevelled officer and inviting him to a seat where he could rest, Ryzhov leant on the table, rocking slowly on his knuckles as he contemplated the alternatives.

His 28th Regiment was badly beaten up but he had to preserve the unblooded 115th Regiment for the later assault at Villach, whilst the 34th Regiment was reorganising after its bitter fight at Feistritz an der Drau, ready for its leading role in the push south-east, a role it could only assume if the 28th Regiment did its job.

His eyes drank in every symbol on the map, its information not yet an hour old.

Part of him dismissed what he saw while another part shouted loudly for attention.

“Mayor Steppin, a word.”

The harassed staff Major almost glided to his commander’s side, his movement effortless despite the weight of papers and orders he was carrying.

“Are these bastards still held in reserve here, Steppin?”

He tapped the small township of Dobriach on the south-east end of the Millstatter See, some fourteen kilometres from where he now stood.

“Yes, Comrade Polkovnik, but I thought you said you didn’t want them anywhere near us?”

Ryzhov pursed his lips.

“So I did, Comrade Mayor, so I did. However, the 28th needs tanks and needs them now, so we’ll seek their release to us immediately. Understood?”

The commander of the 28th rose to his feet and moved forward.

Ryzhov acknowledged his presence with a slap on the shoulder.

“Mayor Steppin will contact Army and get these tanks rele
ased to my command... and you'll have your support, Comrade Kozlov.”

Kozlov leant forward, examined the map, and immediately understood the senior man’s reluctance.

Ryzhov put their feelings into words that lacked eloquence but did the job perfectly.

“To the Allied infantry, a tank’s a tank, so t
he fucking Romanian turncoats'll have a chance to bleed along with the rest of us, eh?”

By the time that Kozlov had put forward a simple plan
for employing their erstwhile allies, Steppin returned with confirmation that the 4th Romanian Armoured Group would be sent forward immediately.

Colonel Ryzhov had done all he could for the 28th Rifle Regiment, adding a short company from the 97th Engineer Sapper Battalion, a section of SPAA weapons and nearly half of the 124th Guards Artillery Regiment’s guns to the assault.

Leading the attack was the rag-tag 4th RAG, its cosmopolitan contingent of armour having made the drive from Dobriach in excellent time, although some of its older vehicles were still lagging behind.