Stalemate (The Red Gambit Series) (55 page)

Artem’yev took over from the dead battalion commander, switching the 3rd’s advance, a tourist map now his most useful tool in organising the assault.

Leaving some men to cover Kloosterplein, he focussed one company on a rapid assault up the Gats, a road that reduced to a narrow lane, winding through the buildings before terminating in the Markt itself.

The other intact company moved past the church, intent on securing Limbrichterstraat, and entering the Markt beyond.

The telephone was answered by his commanding officer, and so Higgins wasted no time.

“Sir,
Higgins. We are in danger of being overrun here!”

Higgins waited with a patience of a saint,
whilst Maxwell Taylor delivered the standard rhetoric about standing fast, and the expectation that all his command would do likewise.

The opportunity to talk came eventually.

“I don’t think that’s possible, Sir”

“Joe, I need more time, and you are going to give me it
, goddamnit! Hold that town for two more hours. That’s all, just two goddamn hours, Joe!”

“Sir, I seriously doubt we can give you that. The commie bastards are on top of my HQ as we speak.”

As if to emphasise the point, a grenade detonated alongside the Hotel Limbourg, bringing screams from injured men.

“Joe, I will do what I can
, but you must hold. I’m sorry, but that’s it, General. I will put a burr up the ass of the engineers, but you gotta hold!”

Two Russians ran into the headquarters, trying to escape from the slaughter spreading slowly into the square, straight into a burst from a Thompson sub-machine gun.

Both men collapsed, side by side, reflecting each other, with arms and legs in a star pattern.

One was dead, his face and chest destroyed by .45 bullets.

The other lay silent, unmoving, save for his eyes that flicked in all directions, trying to comprehend why he could not move, unable to see that his spine had been severed by the heavy Thompson round.

“I will hold
, General.”

Joe Higgins waited whilst one of his Lieutenants put a bullet into the wounded Russian.

“Unless there’s anything else, Sir, I gotta go.”

“Good luck to you and your men, General.”

“I think we’ll need it, Sir. Goodbye.”

Handing the receiver back to the operator, Higgins pondered for a moment.

“Ok, listen in! Pack it up, and get ready to move. Get the latest reports in from the units, and get that updated”, he gestured at the situation map, “We will stand until ordered out, if anyone asks. I will be back in three minutes. You have three minutes.”

Higgins grabbed his carbine, its folded stock wet with blood from an unknown source, and moved to the main entrance to start his own assessment.

Only friendlies were in sight, but the Soviets were obviously still near.

The rush that had almost carried to the Markt had been thrown back by a surge of men from the reserve
, the bakers and postmen fighting with unexpected ferocity. The Chafee tank had long since lost its battle for survival.

Some of the
Soviets had got to the entrance of St Michaels. The grenades they threw inside wounded the already wounded, and added doctors and medics to the growing list of battle casualties.

Higgins saw that Crisp had
already organised a withdrawal of the wounded, and grunted his approval.

Turning around, the barricade obstructing the route coming from the Gats was silent, the men there hunched ready but, as yet, untested.

Beyond that, the Limbrichtstraat entrance on to the Markt was more animated, the defenders active in their defence but, as yet, no sign of what they were firing at.

The Markt itself had emptied of the living, its sole occupants a handful of dead, some laid out in organised rows by caring medics, others thrown into bloodied heaps by whatever high-explosive shell had ended their lives.

Crisp’s voice cut through the sounds of battle, detailing men to find usable transport from amongst the thirty or so vehicles in the Markt.

The Gats suddenly burst into life, followed almost immediately by a flurry in the Oude Markt behind him.

Almost in slow-motion viewing, he had a grandstand view of the Gats defenders rising up as an assault force of Guardsmen overran them, PPSh’s lashing out, opposed by Carbines and Garands, momentum alone carrying the assault force to the barricade.

One Russian left the melee and moved towards the 101st’s commander, screaming like a Viking
Berserker.

Higgins let fly from the hip, four bullets whistling past the unhinged
Soviet soldier.

The Carbine jammed.

Scrabbling for his pistol, Higgins was about to lose the most important race of his life, the advancing soldier slapping his new drum magazine to make sure it was properly home.

Unable to get his automatic out, Brigadier General Higgins faced death with stoicism, until the Guardsman’s throat bloss
omed like a huge scarlet rose, and he was thrown backwards, the impact of other bullets killing him three times over.

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

“No problem, Sir.”

Montgomery Hawkes
swiftly moved past the relieved General, ordered by Crisp to back up the defenders of the Gats.

Another group of paratrooper reinforcements followed
, and the situation was restored, the surviving Russians withdrawing to think again.

Artem’yev ordered them forward
once more, but this time, his platoons moved through the buildings, manufacturing holes in the brickwork with explosives, spades and bayonets.

As many of the houses had been damaged, and there were small ways through between the houses in any case, the new
Soviet attack made good progress.

The headquarters personnel, ready and waiting for their General to return, suddenly realised that the firing was in their own building, a small but determined group of Russians at first floor level, battling to take the stairwell.

Three of the officers moved to investigate, and found a solitary trooper using his BAR to good effect, holding back the enemy force.

Two fragmentation grenades added to the defence
, and drove the Soviet infantrymen further back.

Outside, Higgins was tossed against the wall of the hotel, a medium artillery shell exploding nearby, the blast picking him up like a piece of chaff.

Artem’yev was incensed; the order to cease fire on the Markt had been clear and unequivocal, the latest barrage endangering his own men.

Snatching up the radio, he discovered that his orders had actually been followed to the letter.

The artillery was American.

Winded
, and bleeding from a broken nose, Higgins had just reached the same conclusion.

One shell landed squarely in a 6x6 full of wounded, tossing the bodies and bits of bodies over a wide area.

Higgins strode purposefully back into the headquarters.

“Find out which fuck is firing at us
, and tell him I am going to pull his fucking ass up over his shoulders if he is lucky enough to survive this shit!”

The normally cool Higgins was clearly raging inside, the combined effects of seeing his men killed by friendly fire
, and his own injuries, taking their toll on his mental resilience.

Even as he stood silently
, listening to his officers searching for the guilty US artillery unit, the darkness that was spreading around his eyes, as the bruising made itself known, was shared by the darkness spreading in his mind.

‘Pull yourself together
, man!’

He shook his head, and with that
, his momentary melancholy departed.

“Anything from Corps?”

“No, Sir.”

‘Much more of this and there will be nothing left to save General,’
he wondered if he was rehearsing pleading to Maxwell-Taylor, or asking himself if he should make a more difficult decision.

The answer was not forthcoming, Von der Heydte’s return destroying any chance of resolution.

“Herr General, we must withdraw. My men cannot hold. Tanks and infantry have cut my force in two.”

He grabbed the map.

“Here, Herr General, here they are now.”

‘Sweet Jesus!’

A rough calculation put the mixed enemy force less than a kilometre from Einighausen.

‘If you don’t go soon
, you ain’t going at all, General.’

“How long can you hold, Herr Oberstleutnant?”

Von der Heydte considered his reply.

“If they come with all their might, then about as long as it takes to smoke a last cigarette, Herr General.”

“Do your best please, Herr Oberstleutnant. I will try and get you some more men, but it is imperative that we have a corridor of escape for when that order is given.”

This was clearly understood by the experienced
German officer, who saluted, and left without ceremony.

Before Von der Heydte had returned to his unit
, or the handful of reinforcements Higgins had found to give the German were on the move forwards, the Soviet forces came together at Einighausen, totally surrounding the Screaming Eagles.

The two senior officers pored over the map.

They had been in each in each other
’s company for ten minutes, and the last two of them had been spent checking that their decision would work.

The
German was the first to stand back.

“Ja, Herr General, it is the best way.”

Maxwell Taylor stole another look back at the basic and risky plan, and concurred.

“Then it’s a go,
Field Marshal Guderian. 0200hrs?”

“Ja.”

The order was given.

The 101st was to be rescued.

             
Not for the first time
that day
,
Artem’yev was beside himself with rage.

His guardsmen had achieved miracles, eventually displacing the tough American paratroopers from the north-west edge of the Markt, seizing all the buildings, including the enemy hospital set up in the
next-door church. Soviet and American medical personnel worked side by side, keeping alive ‘Boris’ or ‘Chuck’, without any discrimination.

Despite the sacrifices of his men, the attack had stopped dead, for no other reason than a lack of munitions.

He had no grenades. Literally. The whole surviving assault force of two hundred or so men did not have one grenade between them, and lightly wounded soldiers were presently scavenging the battlefield for anything of use.

Many of his men possessed only one magazine, or a partial one, still fixed to their weapon.

As the Colonel toured his positions, glad that the rain had gone once more, he found many of his men with American weapons, and laden with spare enemy ammunition.

His guardsmen had already acquired
respect for the Garand rifle. It was a prized possession, and one that was rarely traded or given up, once a soldier had ‘liberated’ one of his own.

The pride that Artem’yev felt in his men’s courage and skill was challenged by the anger that churned him up
, as the advantage of their efforts was gradually lost waiting on resupply.

The 179th’s supply train was not responding to calls
, and he promised its commander a hard time when they met.

The row of trucks was burning fiercely, occasionally illumin
ated more dramatically by a secondary explosion, a box of grenades here, a stock of mortar shells there.

The supply column was utterly destroyed, man, horse and vehicle smashed by the lightning surprise attack.

The Lieutenant Colonel commanding the 59th Guards Rifle Division’s supply column fought against the pain, his moans low, as his mind raced.

‘Where did they come from? Where are they going?’

Through glazed eyes, he saw a strange vehicle illuminated by the fires, its single large ‘eye’ sweeping the area.

‘What is that?’

The question died with him, as the Panzers rolled past towards their first objective.

“Yessir, we are ready.”

Finally, the engineers had prepared the main bridge at Berg.