Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series) (51 page)

The jeep at the point disappeared around the tight left hand bend ahead, reporting the road clear but sounds of heavy fighting coming from the Château above.

Increased firing and the low crump of exploding mortar shells from the 2e Compagnie area informed Lavalle that Lieutenant Mardin had got his attack underway.

A brief radio message from the point vehicle confirmed no problems ahead and the command track pressed on in response, following the hairpin bend all the way round as the road rose unerringly towards the Château.

Haefeli listened to a situation report from the now totally calm Mardin, content that the younger man was rising to the challenge.

Ahead of his halftrack, other vehicles of the company were fanning out into a small clearing as directed by the hand signals of the NCO in the point jeep. Lavalle spotted a dismounted Sous-Lieutenant signalling at a tree beside the road and his eyes followed the man’s frantic gestures.

In the early dawn light he didn’t quite believe what he saw, even when a yellowflare rose from the Château and illustrated the gruesome tableau.

He shouted an order to the driver to push forward, keen to get a closer look.

Haefeli, checking off Mardin’s report against a map looked up, startled by the urgency in the Colonel’s voice.

He followed Lavalle’s gaze and was himself similarly incredulous at the sight that was looming large as the command track gained on the point jeep and its shattering discovery.

The radio again barked into life, Mardin’s operator calling in information.

“Achille-Zero-One, Isabella-Three-One calling. Enemy identified.”

Haefeli looked at the two bodies, battered and broken, hanging from the tree to the left of the road.

Exchanging looks with Lavalle, he heard Mardin’s voice deliver confirmation to the evidence of his own eyes.

“Achille-Zero-One, Isabella-Three-One calling. Enemy are Russian paratroopers, confirm Russian paratroopers, over.”

The uniform was unfamiliar to both officers, although the two entwined parachutes which had been the cause of the young men’s deaths, were obvious even to the uninitiated. None the less, each man possessed a PPSH sub-machine gun, a weapon synonymous with the Red Army.

Haefeli’s operator automatically acknowledged the information and the radio fell silent.

Despite the years of experience, both officers were stunned, minds processing the ramifications of the message and the proof dangling before their eyes.

“Albi, send it in clear and keep sending it. Get the warning out. Russian paratroopers attacking Haut-Kœnigsbourg area. Unknown strength.”

The operator heard and was sending the grim news before Lavalle’s next set of orders formed on his lips.

“Well whatever they are doing here is obviously important to them. Albi, get your men moving fast. Advance to contact with a priority to get to the Château as quickly as possible. We will need Mardin too, once he has sorted his own problems out.”

Haefeli passed orders to the second operator, who sent them on to 2e Compagnie’s newest commander as 3e Compagnie picked up the pace and closed on their new enemy.

0555 hrs Monday, 6th August 1945, Château du Haut-K
œ
nigsbourg, French Alsace.

In the Château, Makarenko was having problems with his attack. The thrust up the stairs into the lower courtyard was decimating his troops without great result, the defenders holding firm at the final threshold.

His own plan to push up through the north route to the Great Bastion had met with early success until the lead section had been flayed in the choke point between the wall and the square projection of the living quarters.

Those eight men, plus another six, lay dead and dying in that small area, but his troopers had forced the path, killing the handful of French commandos who had barred the way.

The new point section was decimated as they neared the doorway in the bottom of the round tower, north section of the Greater Bastion.

His leading men had taken cover in returns in both the Upper Garden wall and the North outer wall, pinned down by accurate rifle and light machine gun fire.

He risked a glance around the corner of the stonework.

The increasing light of dawn would make the job all the harder on his men and he was also aware that time was not on his side, the sound of firing from outside the Château all too obvious.

The group concealed behind the Northern wall return were looking around them, seeking alternatives and options.

Makarenko watched as an old Sergeant gestured to two of his men, both of whom carried grapnels.

On his orders they launched themselves from cover at speed, hoping to gain the wall on the other side of the killing zone before the defenders could bring them down, aided by covering fire from the NCO’s PPSH.

Both men made it in safety and offered the suggestion made by their now dead Sergeant, shot down as he drew the enemy fire from his two young lads.

The defenders of the Greater Bastion had stopped the enemy attack by the North wall, inflicting great loss for no casualties of their own.

Having dropped the enemy sub-machine gunner, the Bren gun crew relaxed and reloaded their weapon, their position at the top of the tower guaranteeing them early warning of any further Soviet efforts.

A single rifle shot rang out and the view was temporarily obscured by the body of a commando plucked from the roof. The falling man screamed briefly on the way down until he struck the rock at the base of the tower, the flare pistol springing from his grip as he bounced.

Rispan was in agony, a grenade fragment having carried away part of his left testicle in the last but one attempt to force the lower courtyard approach.

Makarenko found him below the Lion Gate, trousers down, a medic plugging the wound and trying to construct a bandage that would do the job of staunching the flow of blood.

“Ilya, can you continue?”

“The bastards just continued the Rabbi’s work Comrade General. I can still fight but I
won’t be running anywhere for a while. I’ve sent men back to look for the flamethrowers.”

Makarenko nodded as the wounded Major grimaced with pain, the bandage tightening around the wound.

“There are no more panzerfaust’s and we are out of grenades. I have men stripping the dead for more. I will not waste more of my men attacking until I have the tools I need Comrade General.”

With the Soviet Paratrooper General such talk was safe enough, especially as Makarenko knew his man well. None the less, the job had to be done.

“I will lead your men Ilya. We have no time to wait and we risk being trapped here if the enemy gets organised. Outside someone is already raising hell with our pickets.”

His hand shot out to silence Rispan’s protest.

“You said yourself, you cannot run Comrade Mayor.”

Men trickled up the stairs, distributing recovered grenades to eager hands, their own hands often contaminated with the blood and detritus of the former owners.

A familiar figure toiled up the stairs, weighed down with a flamethrower pack.

“Comrade General, this is the only one we have. We found another but it is unusable.”

“It will have to do then Starshy Serzhant. You too are wounded Nakhimov?”

Egon Nakhimov held up his hand, displaying the gap where his little finger had once projected.

“Have no fear, I salute with my right-hand Comrade General.”

Such was the comradeship of the 100th Guards that the response elicited a laugh and a fatherly pat from Makarenko.

“Get them ready Ilya.”

At the barricade in the lower courtyard, the confidence of the defenders was high. Each assault had been bloodily repulsed at little cost, the narrowness of the approach restricting the options for their enemy as well as negating their superiority in numbers.

Amon Treschow, late of the Luftwaffe, was apparently enjoying his first proper taste of ground action, despite its intensity. By his side, the sizeable figure of Rettlinger did not relish the return to close-quarter fighting, as he possessed intimate knowledge of its primitive nature.

Wolfgang Schmidt sat against the door frame of the converted cellar, a female French agent binding his wounded left forearm.

A commando Corporal tapped out his cigarettes and shared them with German and Frenchman alike. Bruno flicked his Calibri lighter and lit the young NCO’s Gauloise.

A grenade arrived from the stairwell, bouncing back off the barricade and exploding.

Another caught the door frame, rolled along the threshold like a deadly ball, hit the other side of the woodwork and dropped back down the stairs, where the sound of the explosion mingled with cries of pain.

Grenades continued to arrive at regular intervals, only one lodging against the barricade. Fragments of red-hot metal penetrated gaps in the structure and dropped the Corporal to the floor, the Gauloise still clamped between lifeless lips.

Two more followed but with no result and then there was the briefest of pauses.

Three grenades bounced against the wall and two of them settled perfectly against their barricade. Men scattered in expectation, none noticing their benign state, pins in place.

As planned, the assault party swiftly charged forward, flamethrower to the fore.

Amon Treschow had reacted quickest but travelled the least distance, and so was closest to the barricade. On hearing the approaching enemy he stood, ready to cut down the attackers one more time.

The flamethrower stream took him in the upper chest, dropping him to the stone floor, his head and shoulders a mass of flames.

As he drew breath to scream, flames and hot gases seared and destroyed his throat and lungs, reducing his audible agony to little more than a high-pitched squeal.

Others were now screaming as fire sought them out, the barricade ablaze, both Treschow and the dead caporal being consumed by flames.

Rettlinger had thrown himself into the base of the Hexagonal staircase and found it perfect cover. He fired one shot that dropped the flamethrower operator to his knees.

The second shot he used on his friend, sending the mad Luftwaffe Hauptmann to a pain free afterlife.

Schmidt and the female agent were both wreathed in fire, and were similarly mercifully dispatched by a commando’s Thompson.

In all, half a dozen lay in flames around the lower courtyard. More Soviet grenades arrived and broke any hope of resistance there.

Prentiss, struggling to drag a wounded French officer to the staircase, was propelled through the air by two simultaneous explosions, striking his head on the roof supports of the stone cistern next to the kitchens. His insensible form lay draped over the cistern headfirst, his thighs and buttocks bloody from minor shrapnel wounds.

Soviet paratroopers rushed forward and into the converted cellar. The leaders were shot down quickly but the rest swept into close quarter fighting with the handful of defenders.