Breakthrough (The Red Gambit Series) (55 page)

The artillery observation officer was next. One bullet was enough.

Two of the
supporting infantry were the l
ast to die, one instantly, one eventually
,
as he had both femurs smashed by the heavy calibre rounds.

The remaining three men went to ground and decided to stay there indefinitely.

Stelmakh ducked back down to grab
more
ammunition as the main gun barked once more, smashing into a Firefly distant on the bend but flying off acutely, the angle of
both
the armour and the vehicle
positioning
defeating the heavy shell.

A
nother
whoosh
,
and
a
metal clang told the crew that
one more
enemy shell had come close.

Quickly wrapping a cloth around his bleeding arm
,
he pulled the
ammunition
pannier up and rose up once more, only
to find the
DShK
gone, the only sign of its presence being a small sheered metal bracket where it had once stood.

‘Govno!’

“Mach
ine gun has gone,” he announced,
matter of factly
,
as he dropped back down again, a sudden trembling present in his hands.

The loader finished ramming home a shell.

“Comrade Commander, we are low on ammunition.”

The
IS-III
had been
born low on ammunition, being provided with twenty-eight rounds at best.

“How many, Viss?”

“
Eleven
, and only
three
armour-piercing.”

‘
Oh fucking hell!’
thought Stelmakh.

“That’s enoug
h to do the job,” said Stelmakh, portraying a confidence he did not wholly feel.

The gunner called a warning
,
and the big gun fired again.

Another
Sherman
burned.

“There are more tar
gets than I have ammunition for,
Comrade Starshy Leytenant,” said Yuri the gunner,
the edge in h is voice showing that he was also just in control of himself
.

“Maybe, but they don’t know that do they
, Yuri
?”

Stelmakh was coming of age.

“Pile on the pressure
,
Yuri. Save the armour piercing for the big gun tanks but I’m sure our HE will do the job on their
Shermans
.”

“What’s in the gun now?”

“AP.” The loader had the last AP round ready to load following the next shot.

“Give me HE from now on, Viss.”

The loader slid the component parts of an AP shell back into the rack. The 122mm was a powerful beast but had its drawbacks, split ammunition being but one of them.

“Firing!” came the warning and the IS-III dealt out death once more, although the shell missed it’s intended target it struck a bren gun carrier behind, wounding every man aboard.

More WP shells arrived bathing the area in a dense cloud of white smoke.

“Driver, relocate to previous position.”

The big tank was reversing within two seconds, the skills of Stepanov now apparent as he moved the vehicle backwards using solely his memory
,
before stopping and driving forward into the prime position again.

“Nice work, Ovy!”

The IS-III crew were doing extremely well, products of the training programme that Stelmakh had conducted.

But, despite intensive training, costly mistakes can still be made and such a mistake nearly cost the loader his life.

“Firing!” was the warning from the gunner
,
as he sent another shell on its way.

The breech crashed back but this time found something soft in
its
path. Flesh and bone stood no chance against steel propelled by explosive force.

Mercifully
,
the impact had also smashed Vissarion Gushko’s head against the wall of the turret, knocking him out at the same time as his shoulder and upper left arm were shattered by the
unforgiving
breech.

Stelmakh could only pull the injured man out of the way and stand in his stead, loading the two parts of the HE shell as quickly as he could.

The gunner had missed his previous shot and was determined to make up for his error.

He took the track off a Sherman and was pleased to spot
the crew abandon immediately, fearful of sitting in an immobilised tank in front of the IS-III’s awesome gun.

The tank next to it suddenly blossomed into flame as a shell penetrated it and set it alight, roasting the crew alive.

One of the surviving T34’s had made it up to support, even though the crew were still a little shocked from their near-death experiences.

Their first two shots had missed, and Stelmakh and crew weren’t even aware that they had help on hand until the T34’s third shell struck home so spectacularly.

Another HE shell was rammed home and the last light tank in view came apart with the explosive force of the huge shell.

The fight went out of the P
oles and they started to melt away, still laying smoke to cover their withdrawal.

Soviet
artillery had started up a few minutes beforehand, called in by Onipchenko from
his positions in
Jork.

‘Polotsk’ had survived the encounter intact, albeit scarred by hits and near misses. Six enemy tanks lay in front of their position, testament to their
solid
defence.

An engineer Corporal scaled the tank glacis plate to offer shares in his personal vodka stash, so impressed was he with the tanker’s performance.

Three men from the Maxim crew had become casualties
, one of which was fatal.

In Westerladekop, Stelmakh, Stepanov and Ferensky had pulled their beast back into cover and carefully extricated their wounded comrade, laying him on the engine deck until an ambulance came to take casualties away.

Stelmakh found himself still unable to make radio contact with anyone, so contented himself
by
ta
l
king with the infantry officer, gleaning as much information as he could about the wider battle.

Perversely, the Red Army had undoubtedly won the ground exchange, stopping each Polish advance in turn, causing more casualties than they sustained at each point.

None the less, the advantage gained had been lost by the badly timed arrival of the Royal Naval air squadrons, and the success of their attack.

It would have been no comfort to the soldiers on the ground to know that the RN aircraft had suffered 30% casualties in their attacks, falling foul of Soviet anti-aircraft guns in numbers.

Fig #45
- Nottensdorf - relevant locations

A - Rumyantsev’s last position.

B- ‘Krasny Suka’ blunts Pomorski’s attack.

C- Czernin’s tank hits the mine.

D- ‘Polotsk’ has engine failure?

E- ‘Polotsk’s’ defensive positions.

F- ‘Krasny Suka’s’ defensive positions.

G- Royal Naval air attack on 3rd/66th Engineer and 517th Tanks

H- Polish artillery observer group’s last position.

The loss of the engineers and tanks
had
stopped the intended northern route attack, firm Polish resistance halted the southern force’s progress, and further air attacks and artillery exchanges meant both sides settled down in their start positions, no ground lost or won, save the
previously
unoccupied Jork now in
Soviet
hands.

Losses in senior personnel had been bad for the Poles, but much worse for the
Soviet
s. 47th Mechanised Brigade was now under the command of Acting Lieutenant Colonel Pugach, 66th Engineers under
Captain
Onipchenko and the remaining five IS-III’s of 6th Guards Breakthrough Tank’s were led
by Acting
Senior Lieutenant Stelmakh.

Both sides had their ‘in
vestigations’ into the debacle.

The
Soviet
one resulted in blame being fixed on the dead, partially because the naval air attack had been u
npreventable.

On the Allied side, the buck stopped at the door of Lieutenant Colonel Micha Krol, who was relieved of his command and sent to less onerous duties.

Nearly two thousand men had become casualties during a battle that had made no difference whatsoever to the overall military position, save to remove a number of significant formations from the Order of Battle on both sides.

He who has lost honour can lose nothing more.

Publius Syrus.

The trains had thundered eastwards and brought the whole of ‘Camerone’ to Rastatt, where men and machines debussed for the short journey to their holding area in and around Muggensturm and
Waldprechtsweier
,
Germany
.

The journey through
France
had been uneventful, the strangely clad legionnaires hardly raising an eyebrow amongst the few
civilians
that examined the troops passing through their area. An occasional old soldier made the connection but, in line with the view taken by de Gaulle, his people generally cared only that units of the French Army were on the move and paid no attention to the detail.

When ‘Camerone’ debussed at Rastatt, things were very different. Whilst no SS insignia were in sight, the very nature of the men who quietly and efficiently disembarked
,
forming
into their combat units
with practised ease,
was obvious to anyone who had been in
Germany
in the last decade.

Despite the seriousness of the situation facing their Fatherland, some of the population were less than enchanted to see the Schutzstaffel marching once more, albeit under the flag of the legendary Legion Etrangere, and more than one passing German gave voice to their fears.

Not all were so disposed, and word quickly spread amongst the townsfolk, with many braving the early Wednesday morning to witness the sight.

Ernst-August Knocke and his staff saw every unit off their transport and on the road to their temporary base. Camerone’s commander was everywhere, chivvying up a unit that took too long to disembark here, praising efficiency in assembly there,
and often
using names of even private soldiers, a gift of memory that was granted few commanders.

As quickly as the units formed for the march they moved off, anxious to be safely quartered in the woods east of Muggensturm before any
Soviet
aircraft found them.