Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series) (82 page)

The IS-II’s started forward again, first company deploying into formation ready to cross the bridge, the second company moving to the left to provide support if needed, with the third taking the right-hand position with the same brief.

Each of the companies had lost two tanks for various reasons en route to Malkendorf and so a total of fifteen 122mm guns prepared to destroy anything that opposed them.

Behind the lead company came the 2-I-C’s T34, the rest of the regiments support troops remaining out of harm’s way.

Fairbairn-Banks wiped the blood from the lenses of his binoculars and tried not to look at the padre, whom the finger of his god had selected as the sole casualty of a short shell from the HAC’s guns. The pious man had been kneeling in prayer in the churchyard when a defective charge propelled a High Explosive round from a 25-pdr barrel less distance than intended, dropping it neatly in front of the padre just as the Lieutenant Colonel was moving position.

‘Barney’ could not help the wry thought.

‘
Perhaps it was a miracle that there was enough of the man left to carry in a blanket
.’

None the less, he had been a likeable man and a popular replacement for old Father O’Reilly whose heart had given out in Normandy.

No time for further reflection, Fairbairn-Banks turned over the battle to the young Major commanding the twelve concealed Achilles tank destroyers, suitably arranged to cover their intended killing grounds around the bridges.

Some of the IS-II’s were firing big HE rounds at his infantry and obviously causing casualties. A panzerfaust leapt from underneath the Horsdorf Bridge, detonating against the turret side of the least cautious member of third company.

Apart from a scorch mark on the turret, the vehicle seemed none the worse but took no further part in the battle, the crew placed beyond the skills of the surgeons already snowed under with wounded carried back to their aid station.

First company took the bridge steadily as infantry cleared the tenacious defenders from its environs, rushing over the wooden structure in support of the tanks. Many fell, victims of grazing fire from the no longer subdued machine-guns.

Those who made it across the bridge fell headlong into a position manned with Germans dressed in all manner of attire, wielding weapons from bayonets to medieval broadswords taken from the nearby Schloss. The slaughter was atrocious, hands clutching at throats, fingers gouging out eyes, the blood, faeces, urine and bile of the dead mixing with the vomit of the living as a hundred men became feral beasts in the name of self-preservation.

The fighting was so intense that no-one paid any attention to the heavy crack of big guns and the resultant clangs as missiles burrowed into metal and converted expensive killing machines into just so much scrap metal.

The young Major had timed his shoot well, waiting until most of First Company was across the bridge and the second company had turned side on to follow them. As a bonus, third company had their field of fire reduced by their living and dead comrades.

Only one IS-II of First Company was still in full running order. A PIAT shell struck the leviathan but it shrugged the hit off, slaying the British AT gunners as they desperately reloaded. Exerting more than enough pressure on an anti-tank mine, the right track flopped uselessly away and the crippled beast slewed to the right, exposing its left side to a second round of shots. Five were targeted upon the IS-II and the nearby British infantry had a first-class view of a real tank brew-up, so much so that the heat forced them to relocate, at the cost of several wounded from vengeful Soviet infantry.

Second company had lost four tanks, although one of those could still fire.

The 17-pdr’s of the Achilles were a weapon to be feared and more shells rode the battlefield in search of victims.

The 27th was an experienced formation but even these men could not stand such losses and the survivors turned to run, creating what smoke they could and carving a bloody trail through the infantry that had naturally migrated to them for safety.

Having had the satisfaction of watching the lone Soviet spotter crash in flames after the attentions of a De Havilland Mosquito hunting party, the relocated HAC gunners set up their artillery as quickly as they could and reported in their readiness to join the fray again.

As the two battalions were butchered and more of the retreating IS-II’s fell victim to whatever monster guns the British were using, he became aware of his second in command approaching grim faced.

Not taking his face away from the continuing slaughter in front of him, he merely requested the officer’s report.

“Comrade General Gusev orders you to his headquarters immediately Comrade Colonel.”

Shvpaghin turned to his subordinate, with whom he had served since the early days.

“And what else Alexander?”

“I am to place you under arrest and relieve you of your weapon.”

“I see.” He turned back to face his destroyed division, now strangely calm, assessing perhaps 60%, or even 70% casualties in men and all but two IS-II’s immolated.

“So, what will you do Comrade”, his eyes glued to the binoculars he was now using to cover his tears. Tears not for himself but for the men he had led for so long.

“I will come back in a little while my friend.”

Shvpaghin nodded gently and turned to shake the hand of the man who was his friend.

No words came. No words were necessary.

The Colonel turned back for one last look at his command and saw Major Banov, bloodied and dirty, staggering back up the road.

‘Another of the old team’ thought Shvpaghin and he saluted the apparition smartly, which salute was returned as best as the severely wounded Major could accomplish.

Taking his treasured Walther P38 pistol from his holster, he looked skywards to a hot sun obscured by the products of his ruined heavy tank regiment, aiming his final words at a god he hated beyond measure and put a bullet in his brain.

“B’lyad.”

The casualty figures were disproportionate.

In all the combat that morning the 27th Guards Tank Regiment ceased to exist, solely one running heavy tank to its name, supported by twelve shattered and traumatised survivors. All but two of the other tank crew remained permanently on the field.

285th Rifle Division was removed from the Soviet order of battle, its artillery, mortars, and support services absorbed into the Army reserves, the three rifle regiments formed into one shocked battalion and sent rearward for security duties.

Each of the three regiments had sported over two thousand men before the commencement on the 6th. A few had fallen along the way but Malkendorf had been a slaughter akin to the early days of 1941. German civilians pressed into action to help clear the field four days later insisted that over three and a half thousand bodies were recovered and interred in five mass graves west of Horsdorf.

A day later, Colonel Leonid Borissovich Shvpaghin was buried by his friend Alexander Bissanov, adjacent to the bridge north of Horsdorf, and alongside his long time comrade Major Alexei Vassilevich Banov, occupying the southern bank directly opposite the burial place of their German adversaries.

The Malkendorf Kommando, as they called themselves, suffered twenty-three dead and an equal number wounded. They had been buried next to the bridge they had defended so valiantly.

The Horsdorf group suffered grievous losses, mainly in the hand to hand fighting at the north end of the bridge. Seven men were left standing, none unwounded. The Rifle Brigade helped them bury these brave men on the evening of the battle, similarly adjacent to their last post.

One Achilles had suffered a hit. Lightly armoured, a 122mm shell was always going to be the winner and the five crewmembers were buried in a hasty ceremony in the convenient hole created by the short drop in the churchyard.

Along with them went the padre, eleven members of the Northumberland Fusiliers, one unlucky tanker from the 3rd RTR who broke his neck falling off his tank and twenty-seven riflemen from the 8th Battalion.

The last body laid reverently in the grave was that of Lieutenant Colonel Fairbairn-Banks, his life extinguished by a mortar shell, heart stilled by the smallest piece of hot metal slicing through his aorta.

Contrary to his gleeful statements in life, the grave was long enough.

1028 hrs Thursday 9th August 1945, Headquarters of the French First Army, Baden-Baden.

Eisenhower’s urgent phone call overrode the instruction not to be disturbed, as issued by the Commander of the First French Army to his Aide.

The Colonel begged forgiveness and informed his commander of the urgency of the situation.

Général d'Armée Jean de Lattre de Tassigny accepted the man’s nervous interruption and dismissed him, then apologised to his guests as he picked up the simple bakelite phone and had his world turned upside down by the American General.

The men watched him closely; the woman poured a second glass of Perrier and flexed her wounded muscles, left

shoulder, and arm bandaged as a result of fragments from a grenade. Nothing serious but very painful.

The phone call was already coming to an end, with everyone by now aware that something had gone badly wrong.

De Lattre replaced the receiver carefully, his own shrapnel wounds stiffening his right arm, and addressed the group, favouring the most senior man.

Outlining the details of the 14th Infantry disaster and the moves made by Eisenhower, he begged the group’s indulgence and picked up the phone once more, instructing the 2nd Armoured Division forward as requested.

That done he sat back in his chair, ready to hear the rest of what De Walle had to say and, more to the point, what De Gaulle’s reaction was going to be to it.

Even with them in the room and the extremely pretty agent Valois to examine at length, exceptionally attractive despite not wearing any make-up whatsoever, her charms not obstructed by the bandages and scratches on her face, De Lattre spent more time looking at the fourth person opposite him.

Such was the presence of Ernst-August Knocke.

1215 hrs Thursday 9th August 1945, Headquarters of the French First Army, Baden-Baden.

The meeting concluded shortly after midday, and De Lattre had secured the full support of De Gaulle for the proposal brought to him by De Walle and Knocke. In the way that adversity sometimes assists in the plans of men, Eisenhower’s information about the 14th Division’s collapse solved one major hurdle of the plan, and De Lattre would address that when the time was right.

De Gaulle left the Baden-Baden headquarters openly and with his normal flourishes.

The other three took their leave of De Lattre and left less theatrically, departing through the kitchens.

Anne-Marie Valois’ natural beauty drew admiring glances from the kitchen staff, as well as from the Major making his coffee just the way he liked it, fresh ground beans in a glass mug with boiling water added to brew in the cup. It was the Polish way and he had taught himself to do it with enthusiasm he did not feel. Information was his business and kitchen staff the world over know all the gossip and do not mind who they share it with, so drinking the disgusting brew was a small price to pay.

Sipping the coffee and admiring from head to toe the sensual lips, thrusting bosom, perfect hips and shapely legs of the pretty woman striding past, he noticed polished military boots and immaculate gaiters on the figure wrapped in an old raincoat behind her. His senses lit off all at once. ‘
She is supposed to draw attention,
’ said one side of his brain as the other side shouted ‘
Look at the man
’!