Stalemate (The Red Gambit Series) (74 page)

1st Black Watch were exhausted, but still fighting, their casualties higher than other units, as the Soviet mortars proved more effective, causing many casualties with tree bursts.

The commander urgently called for assistance, knowing that his position was dire.

A Soviet mortar shell had landed alongside one of the old Vickers, tossing it forcefully into the air.

It dangled from the tree still, accompanied by the detritus of its gunner.

Two men had been wounded trying to knock it back down to earth before the attempt at recovery was abandoned.

The other machine-gun continued to wreak havoc with the advancing
Soviet infantry, although they had taken to crawling forward, their bellies deep in the mud and puddles, edging closer to the river line.

Captain Finlay lay in peaceful repose, his quiet form not betraying the horrors of the shrapnel wounds that had ripped his back to shreds and stilled his heart.

Kampfgruppe Friedrich’s 2nd Kompagnie answered the call for help, moving up without orders, integrating themselves with the Jocks and stiffening the line.

The first
German casualty was Dieckhoff, shot in the groin and ankle as he ran forward.

A number of
the Kommandos fell, but the position was soon restored.

Hauptmann Strecher moved gingerly around the frontline, encou
raging a soldier here and there. Despite the pain from a sprained ankle, he brought his brand of cheerfulness and encouragement to his men.

A renewed bout of firing marked the start of another
Soviet probe, lead by tanks, and Strecher moved quickly to the nearby anti-tank gun, another of the 61st’s six-pounders.

The crew were all experienced men, and the
evidence of that was the five T34’s already lying smashed from the first attacks.

Strecher was satisfied that the men knew their craft, and moved away.

Suddenly he was lifted, a silent force propelling him into a tree, chest first, knocking the wind from his lungs and stunning him.

Groggily
, he knelt on the soaked ground, shaking his head to clear his vision, drawing hard on the cold air.

His eyes started to focus on the six-pounder, lying on its side, one wheel pointing to
wards the gods.

An HE shell had landed next to the gun,
the blast tipping it over and ripping through the crew.

One man, probably the
gun layer, was trapped under the gun, the wheel pressing him into the ground.

The gun commander, who had been nearest to the explosion, lay on the ground adjacent to the new shell hole, no injury apparent
, but none the less dead.

Three
other crewmembers had died, coming apart under the force of the shell.

One man survived, unconscious, knocked out when the unpinned trail of the gun had struck him in the face as it flipped over.

The ex-Luftwaffe officer hesitated for a moment, his eyes alternating between the horrors around the gun to the gathering force of enemy tanks.

Calling to
no one in particular, but none the less calling for all he was worth, Stracher leapt forward, the pain of his ankle and broken ribs, lost in the adrenalin of battle.

Three men answered his call, and together they rolled the gun back onto its wheels, releasing the
gun layer, and dragging him clear.

He did not survive the move.

The rain stopped, going from downpour to nothing in a few seconds.

“Kameraden, how
is to fire this gun?”

CSM Green spoke up.

“No idea, Sir. Seen them a few times, but never fired one.”

“I can do it, Sir. Easy enough. My cousin is in the gunners
, so I’ve seen it done.”

Private Johnson grinned as he slipped into the gun layers seat.

“Sarnt-Major, grab that lever,” he indicated the breech handle, “That way to open it, a shell goes in,” Johnson leant back and adopted a serious tone, “Make sure it’s in now, ok?” Green considered a reply, but held his tongue. The private was looking through the gun sight, playing with the gun laying controls, almost pre-occupied in thought before he remembered he was only halfway through his brief.

“And then push the lever back round. Step out of
the fucking way tout-fucking-suite like, and tell me the shell is loaded, OK?”

“OK, I got you
.”

Turning back from his minor adjustments, Johnson adopted a serious tone.

“Keep out of the way of that breech, Sarnt-Major.”

“OK, I got it.”

“Achtung!”

Strecher yelled a warning,
as one of the T34’s pushed forward, furthest forward of a wedge of seven metal beetles, angling towards the bridge.

“Enemy tank to front
, Kameraden. Engage the one on the road!”

The other soldier, MacPherson,
another of the 1st Black Watch, slipped a shell out of its box and passed it across to Green, who in turn fed the breech, drawing the lever across and sealing it. Stepping back, he yelled at Johnson.

“Clear!”

The breech leapt back and the new crew were all surprised to see a spectacular direct hit, the front of the T34 disappearing in a blossom of red and orange.

The tank moved on through the fire.

Green was fit to burst.

“You fucking tosser! That’s explosive! Gimme armour piercing
, quick!”

Stretcher mouthed some unsavoury
German words, although unsure if he would have known himself.

“Clear!”

Johnson’s second shot struck the road underneath the advancing tank and carried on, rising as it went, just missing the rear plate of the tank, before it carved its way through the knot of infantry at the rear of the vehicle.

The carnage was awful, the solid shot smashing aside five men before continuing on its path.

“C’mon man! Hit the fucking thing!”

The breech closed once more.

“Clear!”

Again,
the six-pounder fired, and again the shell missed, this time by a clearer margin, as the vehicle had increased speed.

A smoke trail reached out from the
riverbank and struck the Soviet tank on the glacis plate.

The tank crew died, some instantly, the rest when they tried to
bail out of the stricken vehicle, as vengeful German and Scottish infantry cut them down within seconds.

An old
German Kommando soldier, once a member of the Volksturm, had swum across the Hunte to get a better shot, his Panzerfaust easily disposing of the tank.

He joined the number of floating bodies in the slow-moving river, a tossed grenade killing him as he struck out for the friendly west bank.

“Clear!”

This time Johnson scored a kill, a more difficult shot by far, but one that gave spectacular results.

Strecher, with the benefit of his binoculars, had directed the gun’s fire onto a T34, positioned more towards the rear, drawn as he was by the telltale flapping aerials.

The tank contained the company commander and radio, both now being incinerated as the vehicle brewed up dramatically.

A shell exploded, followed by another, and then many more, vengeful observers bringing down mortar fire on the anti-tank gun position.

Green yelped as piece of shrapnel buried itself in his left buttock, and then again as a larger piece of metal opened the back of his left hand.

The temporary crew sought cover as best they could, only Macpherson escaping injury, although his decision to hide within the ammo compound was debateable at best.

Seeing the gun silent, and mindful of the ammunition issues, the Senior Lieutenant in control of the mortars ordered the fire stopped.

Strecher, the tip of his nose altered by a stone thrown up from a blast, was first to sit up.

Spitting away the blood and earth, he
called to the rest of his crew.

“Kameraden,
back to the pak!”

Green, angry as hell, the pain motivating him, picked up the shell he had been about to load, cleaned the earth and leaves from its glistening casing with his hands, before sliding it home.

“Clear. More ammo, man!”

Macpherson was slowest to respond to the call, but quickly produced a pristine shell from the nearest box.

Again, the gun thundered its defiance, and again it hit home, this time catching one of the T34’s as it turned, penetrating the lower hull, removing the back idler and last road wheel, causing unknown but probably terminal damage to the engine.

The crew made a quick escape
, and were luckier than their comrades were, all five making it to cover without injury.

Stre
cher searched for more targets, conscious that the only live tanks he could see were backing up, moving away as their guns hammered out to cover the withdrawal.

The defensive fire of the Highlanders also started to slacken, the men tired of firing, refusing even the easy targets of retreating men’s backs
, as the Soviet infantry moved away from the field.

Soviet
mortars again opened up, this time dropping a mix of HE and smoke, trying to cover the withdrawal.

Green’s backside was hurting like hell, and he could not find a position that was comfortable.

Arching his back, he became aware of one of nature’s glories, the spectacular phenomenon curving across the autumn sky, its colours rich and vibrant, as the sun gave full vent to its powers.

As is the want of every observer of such things, many an eye followed the rainbow’s curves to establish where it came to ground.

Green and Strecher looked at the rainbow, and then looked at each other.

It terminated at the rail bridge, from whence came the sounds of extreme violence, punctuated by the flashes of guns and shells
, as the Soviet main assault charged forward.

“Next bridge up river’s under attack too.”

“You don’t shay.”

Hässler slithered in beside Rosenberg, and ignored the usual provocation.

“Well, we have problemsh of our own, Mas
hter-Shergeant.”

To their front, occasionally obscured by the
renewed downpour, but visible enough to see their intention, Soviet infantry were sneaking forward through the sparse wood.

Soviet
mortars had been falling for a few minutes now, to their rear, and to little effect, as far as Hässler was concerned.

US artillery was zeroed in on the area either side of the rail track, and 105mm shells were ripping gaps in the loose
Soviet formation.

From the direction of Rechtern came crashes, this time recognisable as tank and anti-tank guns, as more bad news visited itself upon the Allied defences.

A recent arrival to the field was a composite group of survivors from the 554th AAA Battalion, now boasting eight SP weapons, and just about enough men to make them function.

The two surviving radars were set up
, and immediately went to work mapping out the Soviet mortar positions.

The Red Army had learned the hard way, and now repositioned constantly, in order to avoid the Allies extremely effective counter-battery fire.

The Guards Mortar men of the 36th Rifle Corps had been in constant combat since 6th August, and they knew to relocate, doing so after a standard four shells were launched from their 82mm mortars.

Major Deniken waited
in cover with his soldiers, the tired units not yet committed.

His binoculars swept the immediate battlefield, but the spectacle of the
full-scale assault was ruined by the downpour.

To the right,
mortar men from his own regiment redeployed, moving uncomfortably close to the overgrown hill on which his force was concealed, just east of HülsmeyerStraβe, and a full kilometre from the rail bridge.

He watched as the mortars quickly set up and fired
four rounds, relocating again, and becoming lost in the rain as they moved forward into the outskirts of Gothel.

The rain was a huge problem for the tankers, not the least of whom was Arkady Yarishlov, his ability to
effectively command virtually lost in the deluge.

The ground to the west of Gothel was sodden, and had already claimed some unwary tankers.

The track known as Hunteholz was suitable, but single file only. Another similar track, Stichweg could be used, but clashed with those forces assaulting the middle bridge.

Yarishlov had made a decision to risk some of his tanks in
an attempt to gain good firing positions and the best cover for his infantry support, and so he had committed two companies of T34’s in column, straight up the railway line. This gained advantage from the harder going, and the height, but at the cost of risking their vulnerable sides to anti-tank weapons, and placing them in a position where they could be more easily seen.