Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (3 page)
Read Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) Online
Authors: Colin Gee
2328 hrs, Thursday, 5th December 1945, the Kremlin, Moscow.
0055 hrs, Friday 6th December 1945, Soviet Temporary Detention Camp 130, Baranovichi, USSR.
0947 hrs, Friday 6th December 1945, Headquarters of SHAEF, Trianon Place Hotel, Versailles, France.
1000 hrs, Friday 6th December 1945, the Ardennes, Europe.
1209 hrs, Friday, 6th December 1945, Dahlem, Germany.
1238 hrs, Friday, 6th December 1945, Dahlem, Germany.
1315 hrs, Friday, 6th December 1945, Dahlem, Germany.
1334 hrs, Friday, 6th December 1945, Dahlem, Germany.
1346 hrs, Friday, 6th December 1945, Dahlem, Germany.
1503 hrs, Friday, 6th December 1945, US Army Forward medical post, Dahlem, Germany.
1230 hrs, Friday, 6th December 1945, Route 109, the Wurzenpass, Yugoslavia.
1230 hrs, Friday, 6th December 1945, Trieste, Italy.
0507 hrs, Saturday, 7th December 1945, La Petite Pierre, Alsace.
0836 hrs, Sunday 7th December 1945, Route 233, the Greisbach - Neuwiller road, Alsace.
0931 hrs, Saturday, 7th December 1945, in and around, La Petite Pierre, Alsace.
1226 hrs, Saturday, 7th December 1945, La Petite Pierre, Alsace.
1403 hrs, Saturday, 7th December 1945, La Petite Pierre, Alsace.
1758 hrs, Sunday, 8th December 1945, Headquarters of ‘Camerone’, Gougenheim, Alsace.
1823 hrs, Sunday, 8th December 1945, Headquarters of ‘Camerone’, Gougenheim, Alsace.
1851 hrs, Sunday, 8th December 1945, Headquarters of ‘Camerone’, Gougenheim, Alsace.
1854 hrs, Sunday, 8th December 1945, Headquarters of ‘Camerone’, Gougenheim, Alsace.
1237 hrs, Monday, 9th December 1945, US Seventeenth Corps Headquarters, Prum, Belgium.
0017 hrs, Tuesday, 10th December 1945, the Kattegat.
0401 hrs, Tuesday, 10th December 1945, Ten miles south-south-west of Trelleborg, Sweden.
0405 hrs, Tuesday, 10th December 1945, Thirteen miles south-south-west of Trelleborg, Sweden.
0600 hrs, Tuesday, 10th December 1945, Kluczewo Airfield, Poland.
0937 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, Karup, Denmark.
1005 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, the Kremlin, Moscow, USSR.
1131 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, Route 51, North of Eicherscheid, Germany.
1300 hrs, Wednesday 11th December 1945, Route 194, near Grossbüllesheim, Germany.
1344 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, Strassfeld, Germany.
1349 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, outside of Strassfeld, Germany.
1414 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, Route 182, west of Strassfeld, Germany.
1438 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, Route 61, east of Strassfeld, Germany.
1503 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, Strassfeld, Germany.
1550 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, Müggenhausen, Germany.
2120 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, Müggenhausen, Germany.
1239 hrs, Friday, 13th December 1945, approaching Baltiysk Airfield, USSR.
1304 hrs, Friday, 13th December 1945, approaching Baltiysk Airfield, USSR.
1304 hrs, Friday, 13th December 1945, approaching Østerkær Island, Sweden.
1237 hrs, Sunday, 15th December 1945, Route 487, North of Luxuzhen, China.
1240 hrs, Sunday, 15th December 1945, Route 487, North of Luxuzhen, China.
1301 hrs, Sunday, 15th December 1945, Three hundred metres south-east of Luxuzhen, China.
1311 hrs, Sunday, 15th December 1945, headquarters, CCA, 20th US Armored Division, Luxuzhen, China.
1350 hrs, Sunday, 15th December 1945, headquarters, CCA, 20th US Armored Division, Luxuzhen, China.
1006 hrs, Wednesday, 18th December 1945, the Dacha complex, Kuntsevo, USSR.
1731 hrs, Wednesday, 18th December 1945, NKVD guest dacha. Kuntsevo, USSR.
1900 hrs, Wednesday, 18th December 1945, Stalin’s Dacha, Kuntsevo, USSR.
2021 hrs, Wednesday, 18th December 1945, NKVD guest dacha. Kuntsevo, USSR.
2100 hrs, Wednesday, 18th December 1945, NKVD guest dacha. Kuntsevo, USSR.
2111 hrs, Wednesday, 18th December 1945, NKVD guest dacha. Kuntsevo, USSR.
0837 hrs, Thursday, 19th December 1945, NKVD guest dacha. Kuntsevo, USSR.
0801 hrs, Saturday, 21st December 1945, US 130th Station Hospital, Chiseldon, England.
1800 hrs, Sunday, 22nd December 1945, VNIIEF Facility, Workers Camp, Kremlyov, USSR.
December 1945, the European Front
1238 hrs, Monday, 23rd December 1945, Headquarters of Command Group Normandie, Pfalzburg, France.
0401 hrs, Tuesday, 24th December 1945, Maaldrift airfield, Holland.
1107 hrs, Tuesday, 24th December 1945, RAF St Angelo, Northern Ireland.
2239 hrs, Tuesday, 24th December 1945, Frontline position, 400 metres north of Hinteregg, Austria.
2342 hrs, Tuesday, 24th December 1945, the Wilders Estate, Rottelsheim, Alsace.
2343 hrs, Tuesday, 24th December 1945, One kilometre southeast of Zittersheim, Alsace.
The full text of the poem ‘Wait for me’ by Konstantin Simonov.
‘Counterplay’ - the story continues.
Chapter 126 - THE ANNIHILATION
1317 hrs, Wednesday, 25th December 1945, airborne above North-West Éire.
2002 hrs, Thursday, 26th December 1945, Camp 5A, near Cookstown, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.
Fig#72 - European locations of Impasse.
You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out, or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?
Robert Louis Stevenson
Eisenhower could feel for the man, they all could, but the mantle of failure had to be laid somewhere and, in this instance, it lay fully on the shoulders of Group Captain James Stagg.
His information, received from civilian and military sources across the spectrum of agencies, had been misinterpreted.
Gathered in the room were the heavyweights of the Allied Command Structure, initially brought together to discuss the changes in the Soviet hierarchy, but now all were overtaken by a new priority, equally afflicted by the meteorological prediction error.
“
Well, Jim, it’s done and no use crying over it now. It doesn’t happen again. We can’t afford to get caught like this a second time.”
Stagg took his leave, intent on reviewing the situation to discover where the errors were made.
Ike watched him go and then returned his focus to the group.
“
Right. We move on.”
He brought them back to the moment.
The men edged forward to examine the map but were distracted by the sound of laughter from outside the room.
Their eyes were drawn to the window and a group of
military policemen, playing hard as soldiers do, firing missiles at each other at breakneck speed, stopping only to scoop up more handfuls of the snow that covered the landscape for as far as the eye could see, and whose arrival had caught the Allied forces unprepared.
Patton moved briskly to the window but Eisenhower
stopped him with some quiet words..
“
Let ‘em be, George, let ‘em be.”
Reluctantly, the Commander of the US Third Army moved back, sparing a moment to scowl at the soldiers, oblivious to their seniors as they cavorted in fifteen inches of pure white snow.
“Now. Let’s sort this mess out.”
That work was in progress
when a simple message arrived.
The Italian Gover
nment had declared its neutrality.
To be fair to the Meteorological Department, they had forecast snow to fall as of the night of the 30th
. The issue was in its quantity and the dip in temperature that ensured it remained.
On the morning of the 30th October, the temperature stubbornly refused to break 0°, dropping to -9° as November arrived.
November 1st had seen better temperatures at the southern end of the line but, in the centre and the north, 0° became but a pleasant memory.
Stagg had presented them with a revised forecast that morning
; one that did not cheer them.