Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series) (55 page)

Unable to see properly, he dropped back and swung blindly, the tip of the sword flicking the German’s shirt as he leapt back.

Shaking his head to clear his vision, blood flowed freely from his nose, splashing in all directions, decorating the living and the dead lying everywhere within the Armoury.

Rettlinger made a mistake, catching his foot on a corpse and losing balance. He fell against the wall and the paratrooper saw his opportunity.

The ancient blade swung in an arc and bit into flesh and bone.

Slicing the muscle of Rettlinger’s upper arm, the metal smashed into the bone, shattering the humerus at its mid-point. In olden days, such an attack would have severed the limb and gone further to claim the life of the victim but the blade’s travel was suddenly arrested by the stonewall.

The ringing contact jarred the sword from the paratroopers grasp and it fell to the ground. The Russian’s left hand was broken and useless, his right now senseless and bereft of feeling, the heavy impact having robbed him of control.

His German adversary slumped to the ground, bleeding profusely from his wound and out of the fight.

The Russian moved purposefully to the doorway and picked up a PPS dropped by his section Corporal, disentangling the sling from the dead man’s bread bag with difficulty, his numb hand unable to properly function. The paratrooper halted and flexed his hand, bringing life back to numbed flesh. He slipped the weapon’s strap over his head, less trouble now his tingling hand was regaining its functions.

The man cocked an ear to the sounds of fighting nearby, rightly sensing that his comrades were withdrawing and that he should follow them too.

However, the paratrooper had a debt to collect for his dead comrades.

Here.

Now.

Shaking his right hand to summon back more control, he turned to finish the German off. Rettlinger was conscious and pushing himself away with his feet, as his right hand worked to squeeze his terrible arm wound and restrict the blood loss.

The hate in the Russian’s eyes was very real, and DerBo expected to die. What he did not expect was to witness the paratrooper’s death.

Both men sensed a presence, heard some sounds and feared the worst, as malevolence incarnate burst into the room.

As the paratrooper turned, the heavy weight smashed into his chest, propelling him backwards and onto Rettlinger’s legs. The Russian’s scream was silenced as soon as it began, throat ripped open from chin to chest.

Marengo.

Rettlinger had the most horrible experience of watching a man die three feet in front of his eyes, ripped apart in stages by the huge Alsatian. Lifeless eyes bounced in the savaged head as the beast worked on, opening cavities and stripping flesh from bone.

The attack had mainly failed, at further great loss to the brave paratroopers, and Makarenko withdrew his forces, urging them to set fires as he herded his weary and battered men towards the lower courtyard.

He paused quickly in the Upper Courtyard, exchanging quiet words with the medical orderly Serzhant who was responsible for the score of broken and crippled men that were to be left behind there. Embracing and kissing the man, a soldier from the very first days, an emotional Makarenko slipped away down the ramp towards the Basse Cour.

Despite the growing sounds of combat ahead of him, he was genuinely horrified at the sights he passed, his young troopers mixed with enemy dead, bodies riven and torn for seemingly no purpose.

In the Lower Courtyard a repetition of the previous scene, with numerous wounded laid out as best they could be, tended by three orderlies and the only woman member of the Battalion.

Senior Lieutenant Doctor Stefka Kolybareva was hobbling between her charges, her own heavily bandaged thigh restricting her mobility, her bandaged left hand restricting her capability to care.

“Comrade General, I have told Mayor Rispan that I am staying. He refuses permission. You must grant me permission Sir.”

Behind the determined woma, an orderly pulled a blanket over the face of a Corporal whose suffering had ended.

“I cannot agree to that Stefka.”

His decision given, Makarenko made to move on but a firm hand stopped him.

“Forgive me Comrade General, but you must.”

Momentarily angry at being manhandled, Makarenko relaxed despite the increasing intensity of fire coming from the main entrance behind him.

“I cannot walk and cannot hold a weapon. All I can use is my medical brain and that is best used here Comrade. I am an officer of the Red Army. If I were not a woman, you would see this clearly. You must let me stay Sir,” her eyes strayed to the distraught man on the wall above, “And my Rispan must accept it.”

Makarenko looked at the woman, her eyes moistening. She was a tough soldier who had killed her fair share of green toads; not a woman given to tears, or so he thought.

Instinctively he looked up at the battlements. Rispan stood there, his strained face betraying him, his obvious emotion on the verge of overflowing.

‘
So the rumours were true, you two are an item
.’ His thoughts only. He did not give them voice.

‘
There is no time for this,
’ his inner general shouted.

“On the Svir you told me that difficult decisions are the privilege of rank did you not Comrade General?”

“Indeed I did Stefka. You may remain. Look after my boys, and look after yourself. I will see you when this stupidity has ended.”

He hugged the Doctor, his peripheral vision seeing his Battalion commander sag in realisation at what had just come to pass.

“Goodbye Stefka.”

Makarenko called men to him and sent messengers to the main gate with orders to start disengaging. Two wounded paratroopers erected a white sheet with a large red cross in the centre, coloured by the most valuable commodity his soldiers had to give.

The surviving paratroopers started to exit the Château, retracing the grapnel route used during the two-platoon assault earlier. A French half-track had moved up and its .50cal downed a number of men as they moved across the road to safety in the woods.

Aleksey Nikitin, unscathed whilst most of those around him had fallen, brought his Mosin sniper rifle to bear, dropping the gunner into the half-track and forcing the vehicle to drop back.

Makarenko scaled the round tower and met Rispan.

The man’s pain was wholly apparent, both in physical and mental terms, but there was nothing of value to be said.

“Bring the rest of the boys out this way, Ilya. I will make sure we are set up to cover your withdrawal from the wood line. But we must hurry. I have pulled the main gate troops back now.”

The Major nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Makarenko placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and made eye contact, sharing his friend’s pain and anguish as best he could.

The moment disappeared in an instance as running paratroopers appeared from the main gate, pursued by burst of fire.

The General moved to the wall and grabbed a rope, quickly hoisting himself through the shutter and slipping down to road level.

Organising the men he found there, Makarenko pushed out a screen to keep the legionnaires at bay for as long as possible. His men were finding that the white kepis made excellent targets, the French troops being so equipped as a result of their ceremonial duties. As head shot casualties mounted, Mardin ordered his men to remove them, an order reluctantly but swiftly followed.

The young officer had learned valuable lessons since he had command forced upon him on the road from St Hippolyte, and he had grown in stature and confidence as the battle raged.

Dragging the dying machine-gunner into the back of his half-track, he ordered the vehicle to make a further withdrawal and swiftly raised his head to judge the distance.

Nikitin’s bullet entered the base of his skull and Laurent Mardin was dead before it exited through the front of his neck.

Nakhimov moved between vantage points, taking in the growing pressure on the northern road and then the obvious advances of the enemy force pushing back his comrades in the lower courtyard.

“Comrade Mayor!”

Rispan jerked his head up and immediately looked to where the Starshy-Serzhant pointed. A few of his men were moving back from the North lists, most supporting a comrade unable to move by himself, funnelling past the now steadily burning forge.

The Major had a DP team set up in the Mill Tower window, covering down into the yard. The weapon started its chatter, indicating that the enemy were pressing hard, moving up from the main gate area.

Rispan, now equipped with an SVT, moved to the walkway above the casualty area and shouted down to a handful of paratroopers gathered around the fountain, pulling an enemy machine-gun into position in an attempt to use its firepower.

“Get ready Comrades. We are leaving!”

A bloodied Corporal waved in acknowledgement and hammered on the back of the man nearest him. As the soldier turned, he was thrown backwards, the impact of rifle bullets driving him against the wall three metres behind. The Corporal moved quickly and the heavy hammer of the .50cal rang around the courtyard, a stream of bullets reaching out into the Goumiers pressing up past the Alsatian House, dropping five bloodily to the stone path.

A movement in the doorway of the house caught Rispan’s eye and he put six bullets into something that bled and disappeared.

Fitting the last magazine into the weapon, he looked around for other alternatives. It seemed that the dead commandos and paratroopers spread along the walkway had already been visited by others in search of ammunition and weapons.

Another look at the doorway. Nothing.

He rummaged in a Commando’s pouch and found nothing of value.

An enemy soldier suddenly appeared on the walkway and Rispan shot him down, sending the man over the balustrade, the strangely clad body sliding gently down the angled roof.

In the recess of a shutter, he caught the welcome sight of a pistol and a grenade, which he immediately stowed about his person.

Checking the situation below him, he saw the .50cal standing silent. The Corporal was hugging a shoulder wound as he harangued two other paratroopers, encouraging the reloading process and reporting the progress of the enemy soldiers.

His grenade was out and in the air before Rispan could shout.

“Move back now Comrades! Now!”

The Corporal needed no second order and pushed his men towards the Mill Tower.

The grenade exploded amongst a group of Goumiers, halting the rush in an instant. Two more faces appeared at the Alsatian house door and Rispan switched his attention to them, sending one flying out of sight in a spout of blood and gore.

A burst of fire from the upper window of the house made him drop into cover but the burst was not meant for him. The last surviving member of the Corporal’s section disappeared into the Mill Tower, his two comrades lying desperately wounded behind him.

The SVT brought a body tumbling out of the window to fall onto the stone below.

“Stefka!”

His fiancée had rushed to the dying Corporal and was doing what she could for the man.

“Stefka!”