by Colin Gee
The heavy machine-gun rattled as Yarishlov put up his own message of defiance, his teeth gritted, but failing to prevent an animal-like sound of concentration and fear escaping.
For the crew of the T-54, everything suddenly went brown, as large quantities of earth arrived and covered the vehicle.
The rockets kept arriving, and more earth rained down.
Yarishlov dropped inside the turret, his face bleeding where something sharp had accompanied the earth.
The rockets missed.
Every one of them.
The large explosion that rocked the tank was not a rocket, but the Typhoon. Yarishlov had put five bullets into the most vulnerable piece of the flying machine; its pilot.
The remaining Typhoons flung themselves upon the Guards’ tanks, and T-54s died, blown apart by the tank-busters, eager to avenge their comrade.
Yarishlov pushed up at cupola, clearing away the debris and received the fright of his life.
“Gunner, target tank, maximum elevation, 2° right. Twenty yards!”
He had no help in estimating the angle or elevation, just the imperative of the looming shape of an IS-II coming over the edge of the shell hole.
“SET!”
“F...”
The gunner fired on the intake of breath, not waiting for the spoken word.
The 100mm shell entered the floor armour of the IS-II, passing through the driver and smashing into the breech of the main gun, adding pieces of it to the whirling metal that harvested the crew.
The IS-II hung on the edge, seemingly undecided about what to do next. The engine stalled and the tank settled back, electing to stay above ground level.
Yarishlov, his heart almost bursting out of his chest, propelled himself out of the turret and checked the way ahead.
Dropping back in, he gave the order to advance, and the T-54 pulled itself out of the shell hole, passing the now smoking leviathan that had nearly surprised them.
The Poles seemed to be withdrawing or, at the least, had stopped advancing.
Yarishlov’s tanks were virtually on top of the enemy, making air attack risky. The British aircraft wisely held off, hoping for a target of opportunity amongst the T-54’s.
On two occasions they found such an opportunity, and each attack brought about success for them.
Yarishlov shouted into his radio, encouraging the unit commanders to keep their men in close.
Smoke shells started to burst on the field, accurately laid by Spanish mortar crews, obscuring the Polish and Spanish vehicles as they turned controlled withdrawal into urgent retreat.
Whilst the extra smoke helped obscure them from the circling vultures, so was generally welcomed by the Soviet tank crews, the presence of smoke brought other perils.
A rocket trailed smoke past the command tank’s turret side, close enough for Yarishlov to feel the heat of its passing.
Snatching at the DSHK, he chewed up the ground around the bazooka team, forcing them back into cover.
“Gunner, target stone wall, right 6°, fifty, fire when set. Ready on the co-ax for infantry.”
The 100m shell sent stone and body parts flying, negating the use for the SGMT co-axial machine gun.
“Drakon-tri to Drakon-lider. Drakon-tri to Drakon-lider, over.”
The third battalion commander sounded very excited.
“Drakon-Lider receiving, over.”
“Enemy tanks, at least forty, approaching from Damerow, range 2000, type unknown, over.”
“Drakon-Lider, received, standby.”
Yarishlov conjured up a mental picture of the landscape, whilst a small part worked out if he had fallen for some trap.
Again, he selected First Battalion.
“Drakon-Odin from Drakon-Lider, over.”
“Drakon-Odin-Two receiving, over.”
Yarishlov grimaced, understanding that a reply from the First Battalion’s 2IC could only mean that the veteran Major was out of the fight.
“Drakon-Odin-Two, move your formation to the west and engage the enemy force coming from Damerow. Identify and report soonest. Do not let them turn our flank, over.”
The orders were clear and quickly acknowledged.
“SET!”
The gun rocked back and sent another Polish crew to their fiery deaths.
Yarishlov hadn’t noticed the IS-II, so engrossed was he in the possibility that he was about to become the prey.
“Infantry left!”
He snatched at the machine-gun handles, too late to stop the world going yellow and red.
Kriks, as he always did, kept half an eye on his commander, and so had a grandstand view of the effects of a bazooka round successfully penetrating the lower hull armour of a T-54 battle tank.
He screamed as he pulled the machine-gun round, screamed as he cut the enemy anti-tank team in half, and screamed as he watched a heat haze grow above the cupola.
No-one had emerged.
“Driver, right, to the Polkovnik’s tank, quickly!”
Kriks was up and out of the turret swiftly. In a moment of madness, he took his life in his hands jumping across from his to Yarishlov’s tank.
The sounds he heard were of men in extremis.
The heat pushed his face away from the open cupola, but he returned to look inside.
Yarishlov was pulling at the loader, the wounded man squealing with pain as his right leg completed its detachment process, ripping the last vestiges of muscle and sinew as his Colonel got a good hold and pulled upwards.
Whilst the sight itself was appalling, what appalled Kriks the most was that both men were gently burning, their uniforms turning orange and red, their hair melting, their flesh blistering and splitting.
He leant in and grasped the loader’s collar, biting deep into his lip as the burning sensation threatened his consciousness.
The loader came out, lighter because he had no legs to speak of.
Kriks’ own gunner and loader had joined him and took the stricken man from the Praporschik’s painful grasp.
A dull moan focussed Kriks back on the tank, and he looked inside, only to be pushed out of the way by a very badly burned gunner.
A waft of flame followed the wounded man, as the internal fire grabbed a firm hold.
“Arkady! Give me your hand! Arkady! Arkady!”
Yarishlov looked up through blistered eyelids, the pain clearly overtaking him.
His hand felt for that of his NCO’s and he was dragged upwards by the force of a man lent extraordinary strength by extraordinary circumstances.
Using his hands to subdue the flames, Kriks shouted at his own crew.
“Get the tank out of here now!”
His driver needed no second invitation and the T-54 pulled off to one side.
Kriks laid the smoking officer on the fender and dropped to the ground, hardly noticing that he de-gloved most of his right hand as he steadied his descent, the cooked skin pulling off with relative ease.
He pulled the unconscious Yarishlov to him and laid him over a shoulder, pausing only to beat out a re-ignition in what was left of the Colonel’s uniform.
Urgency gave him more strength, and he ran with his burden, reaching his own tank and the helping hands that took Yarishlov from him and lifted him onto the rear deck.
The legless loader had already died, and the gunner had passed out, his blisters and burns expressing life-giving fluid like a leaking tap.
Yarishlov was badly burned, and Kriks, indeed all of them, had seen such burns before.
They understood that there was no way back from such injuries.
The liquid welled in Kriks’ eyes.
He punched the side of the tank, causing his burns to reannounce themselves in horrible fashion.
He screamed, partially in extreme pain, and partially because of a lack of hope.
And then providence took a hand.
An enemy half-track emerged from the smoke, clearly confused, advancing when it should have been retreating.
“Get us over to that enemy vehicle now!”
His gunner repeated the order into the open turret, and the T-54 moved alongside the Spanish ambulance half-track.
The enemy officer, his hands still raised, feared the worst as he was dragged forcibly from his vehicle, his orderlies also ordered out at pistol point.
However, he understood better when he was pushed up onto the tank and confronted with men carrying injuries of the severest nature.
The Doctor shouted at his orderlies, reassuring Kriks with sign language, as stretchers, fluids and other paraphernalia appeared, as if by magic.
Overhead, the Typhoons noted the two vehicles sat side by side, electing patience over the possibility of killing friendly troops.
The Soviet tanks embroiled themselves in the business of killing the British Shermans that had appeared, something which they did extremely easily, and with little loss by way of return.
Occasionally, the Typhoons would drop down and attack, but the smoking battlefield favoured the Russian armour now, obscuring more and more as vehicles died and contributed the products of their fiery demise; there were no more RAF successes and the Typhoons were limited to impotent inactivity until fuel considerations forced them to depart.
The fighting continued, long after it was obvious that the Allied plan, meant to push 1st Guards away from the main road, had failed, and that Naugard and its environs would remain Russian, for another day at least.
Whilst the battle raged, another battle, one to save two badly burned men was fought, and both won and lost.
When the battle petered out and the night staked its claim to the field, the new phenomenon of ‘night scavenging’ took place, an activity that had started through necessity, units here and there finding what they could, until now, when the activity was officially sanctioned and encouraged by higher command.
Outside Naugard, as with a hundred other locations in Europe, special Soviet groups silently stole into the silent arena seeking anything and everything that could be carried, dragged or hauled back to their own lines.
Vehicles gave up fuel, siphoned from intact tanks, or ammunition, taken from undamaged containers.
The dead bodies of both sides surrendered their unused bullets and grenades, abandoned positions often yielding a fine harvest of heavier weapons and compatible ammunition.
As the practice grew, many an Allied soldier found himself shot at by weapons made in his own land, held in the hand of someone who wasn’t.
1636 hrs, Wednesday, 3rd April 1946, Treptow Palace, PLAG Headquarters, Treptow an der Rega, Pomerania.
“So, are we agreed, gentlemen?”
Again, Lieutenant General Bortnowski sought their agreement, some might say complicity, in the message he had prepared for the consumption of McCreery and Eisenhower.
“We can still attack but...” Major General Boruta-Speichowicz, commanding officer of Polish IX Corps, conceded, “As you say, we must retain the ability to respond in force to any unexpected Russian activity.”
Bortnowski’s eyes fell upon Barker, the commander of British XXXIII Corps. Whilst of equal rank to the Pole, he was not in command, and it did not sit well with him.
“I don’t agree and, furthermore, I believe we should continue the pressure. However, you are in command, General.”
Next was the Spanish officer, Muñoz-Grandes, released from his liaison duties with SHAEF to command the Spanish I Corps.
“Sir, Twenty-First Army Group is still advancing, so perhaps it is prudent to harbour resources to assist in our relief,” Bortnowski nodded in acceptance of the support, too soon, as Grandes had not yet finished, “But it could be equally prudent continue attacking towards our British saviours, Sir.”
Barker looked at Grandes.
‘Drag up a fence and sit down why don’t you.’
Last was Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgeway, former commander of the slaughtered 82nd US Airborne Division, and subsequently given the top job with the 1st Allied Airborne Corps.
“General, Sir, I think we should keep up and at ‘em. Their losses’ve been far greater than ours. Our air’s solid, our supply’s solid, morale’s great. Twenty-First’s pushing hard and we can help ‘em. I say we hold to the east and get everything going west a-sap.”
The same proposition that ‘Old Iron Tits’ had tried to persuade Bortnowski to follow previously.
“Thank you, gentlemen. You may return to your units.”
Bortnowski saluted them and waited for his commanders to file out.
He was alone for only a moment, as his CoS entered as agreed.
Passing the unaltered message to the poker-faced officer, Bortnowski felt a moment of relief.
“Send that to 21st and SHAEF immediately.”
Much like the Anzio landing before it, the landing in Poland was about to metamorphose from wildcat to stranded whale.
The train, clearly marked with huge red crosses, was ready to make its way back across occupied Europe, carrying a forlorn human cargo of bodies damaged by war.
Kriks, his right arm bandaged to prevent infection seeking out his burns, watched as the stretcher was carefully loaded on board, the dedicated team of three following on with everything that would keep Yarishlov alive until he got to the hospital on Gorodomlya Island, where the task of putting the badly burned man would be taken up by a specialist burns team.
Deniken stood stiffly and shouted an order.
“Soldaty! Fall into ranks!”
Men and women in different uniforms, and of different ranks, all responded immediately, falling into ranks as directed.
“Soldaty! Atten-tion!”
The entire platform was lined with soldiers at the attention as the train sounded its whistle and gently started forward.
“ Soldaty! Sal-ute!”
One hundred and thirty seven right hands, one heavily wrapped and painful, responded to the order, offering a salute of respect to a man long past caring about such matters, but for whom the gesture was sincerely meant.
Deniken dismissed the impromptu parade and, with Kriks in tow, disappeared to examine a schnapps bottle.
“Why didn’t you go, Praporschik. You should have gone with him, really you should?”
Kriks debated his reply for the briefest of moments but he was comfortable with the able infantryman, rank differences aside, and trusted the judgement of Yarishlov, his commander and friend.
“I didn’t go because he asked me not to, Comrade.”
Deniken looked at Kriks, his lips forming a question that the NCO pre-empted.
“No... not since his injuries, but before then... before this battle, Comrade.”
“Before this battle?”
“Yes... you see, Comrade Polkovnik... Arkady knew he was on borrowed time... we all are really... so many close calls... miraculous escapes... you know...”
Deniken nodded, staying silent to encourage Kriks to speak further.
“He suspected his time was approaching and made me swear to stay with you, come what may, Comrade Polkovnik.”
Deniken poured two more measures, wishing to loosen any further resolve before he pushed Kriks harder.
“To Arkady.”
Kriks nodded and voiced the same toast.
“To Arkady!”
Fiery liquid burned throats, but not enough to stop the conversation.
“Why did he ask that of you?”
“Because... don’t be embarrassed, Comrade Polkovnik... but because he said you were the future of our country... you and men like you... that when all this fucking mess was over, you would be needed to build Mother Russia up again.”
The words arrived and were absorbed immediately, although the processing of their meaning took a little longer.
Deniken, genuinely conf
used by what his mind suggested, could only voice its findings.
“You mean that he thought...”
“Yes, Comrade Polkovnik... Arkady Arkadyevich Yarishlov, Polkovnik of Tanks, Hero of the Soviet Union, understood before this last battle. The evidence is clear for any fool to see, he told me. The war’s lost... if not today, next month or even next year... the war is lost... and men like you will be needed to repair the damage caused when it’s all over.”
“And him? Why not him?”
Kriks refilled their glasses.
“He told me that he has a bill to pay, and that he comes from another time. It is Deniken’s time now, he said.”
Kriks lifted his glass and stood unsteadily.
“Comrade Polkovnik. I give you a toast. To the end of the war and to the start of the peace.”
They drank together until the bottle was gone.
There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry.
George Armstrong Custer.
Chapter 146 - THE TWELTH
1400 hrs, Tuesday, 26th March 1946, US Third Army Headquarters, Hamm, Luxembourg.
Patton listened as the officer finished his briefing on the day’s events, and excellent listening the Brigadier General had made too.
The Allied plan to hit the Russians pretty much everywhere seemed to be paying off, with notable successes already in the bag.
Whilst it rankled that he and his Third Army were not totally committed to the opening phase of US Twelfth Army Group’s assault, the part set aside for him and his men would bring him opportunity and glory in equal measure.
But first, the way had to be opened by other units of US Twelfth Army Group, attacking specifically from a hinged base, to sweep Soviet forces apart and open a gap through which Patton could charge, preferably with Rhine crossings secure.
An airborne force, a reinforced Regimental Combat Team from the 17th US Airborne Division, was set aside to make a swift drop to secure such a crossing if necessary.
The French 1st Army’s Legion Corps kept its left flank securely placed against the German Republican Army, whilst, in the south, the right flank and join with US 6th Army Group was maintained by US XXXVII Corps of US 15th Army.
