Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (69 page)

“
Try that for size, Major.”

Unable to talk, he accepted it with a nod.

The spare ammo pouch came next, after the Captain had finished off the wounded engineer.

“
Bad news, Major. We’re fucking surrounded. We ain’t inclined to surrender either. We’ve seen what these bastards do to prisoners.”

He moved his head, checking the enemy positions to his front and saw nothing of note.

“Less’n you got any objections, we’re planning to keep this place for a’whiles longer, then bug out after dark. We’ve got a route planned ready for the time we can slip away.”

“
Fine by me, Captain.”

[*12th GHTR were well-known scroungers of running tanks and are documented as having up to nine T34's
on their strength at any one time, in addition to their full compliment of IS-II's]

That the night would bring opportunities for escape was not wasted on the Soviet force
, and they quickly determined not to permit the opportunity, redoubling their efforts.

A concerted
assault overran the ad hoc group of bakers and clerks, the men surrendering once the horrors of close combat started to reveal themselves.

Two brave men stalked the surviving Sherman and destroyed it with satchel charges, its destruction signaling the start of the final attack.

True to the Captain’s word, the armored infantry held fast, and the whole gutter fight of blade and blood was repeated, the last few survivors of the Soviet attack either cut down or bludgeoned to the floor as day gave way to night.

Elsewhere, the news was disastrous, as the US Third Army was battered to a total halt by the Red Army
’s exhausted formations, and the superhuman efforts of its Air Force.

That both Soviet ground and air units paid heavily for their efforts was of no consolation to George Patton
, and he was stunned to find that his normal ‘get up and go at ‘em’ attitude failed to win the day.

At first he railed, then ranted, then tried to threaten those he visited or radioed.

Only as the day developed did Patton realize that he had lost a very major portion of his command, that his men were exhausted by their efforts, and that, in a very real sense, he had experienced a defeat.

The call he made to Bradley was the most difficult call he ever had to make, his personal feelings rising again as he spoke to his former inferior and admitted that the attack had run out of steam.

“Well, you made some ground, George. Can you hold it?”

Patton considered the reasonable question, although
it felt like a slap in the face.

“
Yes, Brad, we can hold, especially if the weather’s gonna be as we’ve been told. Gonna need reinforcements though. I’ve lost a lot of my best boys in these hours.”

Bradley gave a respectful pause, not yet appreciating how many Allied
soldiers had fallen in Spectrum Blue.

“
Hold what you’ve taken then, George. We will get you some extra men and supplies as soon as possible.”

Bradley couldn
’t believe his ears.

“
Get me them straight away and I’ll push forward again before the worst of the weather sets in.

“
NO! It’s over, George.”

“
It sure as shit ain’t over, Brad. I’ve lost a lot of boys out there and I’m gonna have some goddamned payback!”

“
It’s too late now, George. The weather will be on us and that will be that. Just concentrate on holding for now. That’s an order.”

Words guaranteed to put Patton
’s hackles up.

The silence was deafening.

“You know, George. Guderian lost a lot of his boys too. This one just didn’t go our way, ok?”

“
Yes, Sir.”

“
Good night, George.”

“
Good night… Sir.”

CCA, 4th US Armored Division had been virtually destroyed, along with major lumps of the rest of the division… and the 17th Corps… and the Third Army.

Greenwood and his command group were, in the main, dead. The few survivors already walking through the night snow towards an uncertain fate.

Elsewhere, US 3rd Corps attack had run into trouble, as units tasked with stopping the Legion units
to the south, turned north and vented their anger upon the flank of the 14th US Armored Division.

Whilst the 14th had rallied and fought off elements of both the 6th Guards Cavalry Corps and 25th Tank Corps, the opportunity to advance did not exist
, and the unit slipped into defence.

To the north of Cologne, the advance of Guderian
’s forces had been painfully slow and costly beyond measure, the recently formed Panzer-Grenadier Division Deutschland virtually destroyed as it threw itself on the Soviet defences.

Other German Republican forces had suffered badly
, and the German attack had also come to a halt in front of Burscheid and Leverkusen.

The weather played its part, snow reducing visibility and proving a leveler, reducing the effectiveness of the Allied formations.

In the air, the situation was less clear, with both sides having successes and failures, although the claims of the Allied pilots would indicate a three to one ratio of kills on the day.

His mind started to clear, first recognizing the coldness of the air that entered his lungs.

His body came alive slowly, the aches and pains of wounds and bruises making themselves known as his mind sorted through the signals one by one.

He groaned, an immense headache coming out on top of his internal cataloging of his problems.

He raised his hand to his head, or rather tried, instead finding that he couldn’t because he was under something heavy.

His eyes opened reluctantly, but he found things were fine, the soft light of a burning building ample to see by but not enough to make the headache worse.

The weight was a body.

Extricating an arm, he tried rolling the corpse down his body, but found it impossible.

Using both arms
, he got a purchase and eased the cadaver enough to be able to bring his body into play.

His arms protested, as did his back, and his legs, but he extricated himself and fell against the damaged wall, panting with the exertion of it all.

The light of the fire illuminated the face of the armored infantry Captain, frozen in horror and incredulity, as a burst from a submachine gun had ripped him from crotch to neck.

Fig#110 - The end at Müggenhausen, 11th December 1945.

There were more bodies, all of them in olive drab
, and bearing the insignia of the 4th US Armored on their upper sleeves.

Hardegen looked around and found his Colt
with ease, spending much more time looking for the spare clip.

There were no Soviet bodies, the victors having taken them away for proper respects to be paid.

The tank officer tried to remember what had happened, but only flashes of memory suggested themselves to him, not enough to recall how the full details of those last few minutes, but enough to suggest to him that his lack of memory was an advantage.

Now, out from under the protection of the body, the cold started to affect him and he sought extra layers as the temperature dropped dramatically.

He scrabbled on all fours, moving into other areas, finding little of value, every US body having been stripped down to the shirts and trousers, every item of winter gear removed by the victors.

He found a helmet comforter and sliced it open, slipping it over his head and around his throat, to act as a scarf.

One of the armored infantrymen was quite large and his trousers offered a warming second layer for his legs but, stiff with frozen blood and urine, they proved impossible to remove from the corpse.

A canteen
missed by the Russians offered hope and its contents burned his throat. Whatever it was, it tasted good, and gave him the impetus to move on.

The old man lay there, his corpse violated even in death. The German uniform had proven too much of a provocation and they had beaten the old body, urinated and defecated on it in their memory of the years that the Motherland was subjected to death and hardships by the hands of the German Invaders.

Whilst the thought was abhorrent to Hardegen, he understood that he had to have it to survive, so he eased the ripped and bloodied white fur coat off the stinking corpse, tidied it up as best he could, and then slipped it on, immediately feeling the benefits.

Hope rose in him and he searched around for a weapon. The Soviet PPSh had disappeared, as had any of the Soviet equipment. The Garand was proving very popular with the Soviet soldier
, and they had also been taken away.

The Mauser rifle lay where it had been dropped.

Before he picked it up, he checked that the metallic weight in the coat pocket was ammunition for the venerable rifle.

It was
, and so he felt properly armed again.

Hardegen moved quietly through the ruins, the
soft sounds of singing and soldiers relaxing penetrating the relative silence that night had brought to the battlefield.

He froze as two sentries walked slowly through the rubble towards him.

Thinking quickly, he hid in plain sight, lying down next to some more dead GI’s, the white coat concealing most of him in the reduced light, although the tiredness of the two soldiers played its part as well.

The sentries moved on.

Hardegen came to the place where his gunner had been wounded, but the body was gone.

For a moment, his hopes rose
, but his mind brought him back down to earth, throwing up images of the wounded DeMarco that suggested the man was long dead.

As he moved towards
‘Bismarck’ something in the sky above exploded, the flash being enough to betray the face of a sentry posted on the tank.

Whilst every essence of his being told him to move on, he decided to do what he could and prevent
‘Bismarck’ falling into enemy hands.

The first part was easy, the soft snores betraying the sentry
’s lack of alertness, and condemning him to death.

Normally, Hardegen did his killing at distance from within an impersonal metal box, but this day had brought forth new horrors for him to experience.

He looked at the man from cover.

Small.

Older, certainly a father, probably a grandfather.

‘
You or me, Tovarich.’

He had learned his lessons well and the sentry
’s throat was quickly opened to the elements, the hot blood steaming in the sub-zero night air. Hardegen held the man tight as the engineer struggled against the inevitability of his approaching death.

He moved quietly and slipped inside the tank, using his knife to saw through cables and prise gauges from their mounts.

Knowing he needed to put distance between himself and Müggenhausen, Hardegen decided to concoct a plausible scene.

The small body was easily moved, although not without blood spilling down his already soiled fur coat. The dead Russian was dropped inside the tank.

The blood was everywhere in any case, but the freshness of the recent kill betrayed itself, so Hardegen spent a few moments grinding it into the snow and making it look more like the product of the afternoon’s fighting.

In the rear box, he found the twine he sought and slipped it into his pocket.

Once in the turret, he used his torch to see what he was doing.

The vehicle had not been looted and contained a lot of what he would need to survive.

He would give up the Mauser when he had made it to a safer distance, but the Thompson was to be his preferred weapon and he placed it on the turret roof, along with the spare clips.

Chocolate bars and cigarettes were harvested from all sorts of nooks and crannies, even ration packs were found
, and soon he needed a bag in which to carry his ‘fortune’.

The grenades, there were two, were tied together and then wired to the floor of the turret. Four HE shells were added to the pile, as well as all the grease and oil containers he could find.

Tying the twine to end pin of the grenades, he took a last look at the ‘Bismarck’ before slipping out of the Sherman. He emptied a can of petrol into the compartment and then policed up his items and moved away.

The twine was only forty-three metres long
, but he found a good position and made ready.

Sensibly, he decided to check the route he intended to use and quickly satisfied himself that it was clear.

He pulled hard on the twine.

It separated in front of his gaze, a weak point giving way some few feet in front of him.

Slipping back out into the snow, he tied a knot and joined the two ends firmly.

He pulled again, once back in cover.

The sound of one explosion was clearly heard and was certainly enough to bring investigation.

An occasional tongue of yellow betrayed a fire within the tank, satisfying Hardegen that he had achieved the destruction of
‘Bismarck’.

He pushed the Mauser into the snow and pulled more over the top, hiding the weapon from casual inspection.

Picking up his bag, and the thompson, he turned to leave.

The bayonet doubled him over as it was rammed into his stomach.

Hardegen dropped to the knees, but was held upright by the wicked blade and rifle.

The Soviet Guardsman gently turned the rifle and with it
, the steel inside Hardegen, twisting the wound in such a way as to make the American scream in pain.

A second bayonet slammed into him, adjacent to the first, both infantrymen determined to make the Amerikanski suffer for the deaths of their comrades.

The long blades were pulled out simultaneously, permitting Hardegen to slump to the ground.

The first soldier prodded him in the shoulder, hard enough to draw blood
, but not sufficient to penetrate deeply.

The second man chose the thigh for his
next thrust, glancing off the femur, and bringing louder screams from the American.

The Soviet rifleman
laughed, for all of two seconds, until his comrade’s head exploded, destroyed by a point blank shot from Hardegen’s Colt.

The Mosin exploded in his hands, the finger automatically triggering off a round. Hardegen
’s femur did not survive the passage of the 7.62mm round.

Hardegen
’s next three shots blew out his spine, and the man was thrown across the space and into the snow.

The destruction of the Sherman had started a response
, and the additional sounds of screams and firing had ensured that the entire Soviet force stood to.

Through the extremes of pain, Hardegen heard running feet and prepared the pistol, although he couldn
’t seem to manage to hold it up now.

His eyes were growing misty.

A shape came into view, silhouetted against the growing fire in ‘Bismarck’, followed by another, then more.

The weight of the Colt was too much and it stubbornly refused to rise from the snow.

His vision cleared, albeit for just a moment, allowing him to watch his tank explode internally.

Hardegen smiled.

The Soviet officer brought up his PPD and emptied it into Hardegen at point-blank range.

Bailianov replaced the magazine and spat on the riddled corpse, directing his men to retrieve the bodies of their comrades.

The snow redoubled its efforts and fell thickly to ground, covering the bodies of two thousand men and women who had fallen in a single battle.

Tomorrow would be another day.

All skill is in vain when an angel pees in the touchhole of your musket.

German proverb.

Djorov had recovered his sense of humour, his November near-miss slowly becoming more distant in the memory.

The problems with the Yakolev-9 meant that he asked for
, and was given, permission to rejoin his command, whilst the engineers fixed the problems with the revolutionary plane.

The 2nd Guards Fighter Regiment was Djorov
’s pride and joy. Its pilots were veterans, all skilled in the arts and intricacies of flying combat aircraft and, most importantly, staying alive.

2nd Guards had been spared from the blood-letting over the Baltic, set aside as a reserve by Red
Air force Command, just in case of some allied lunge at the Motherland.

2nd Guards was also very different to other Soviet fighter units, in that it flew al
l conceivable types of aircraft, testing, in battle conditions, the limitations and capabilities of each.

Which brought Djorov and his men to the task in hand, conducting take-
offs and landings from reduced length runways.

Higher authority had decided that the results of using a full length runway, painted to
set out a shorter length, would be unreliable, as there would be less pressure on the pilot to get the landing right.