by Colin Gee
As they dropped back, Barkmann, his mind now less hazy, acted swiftly and decisively.
“Follow me!”
He led the survivors of his squad across the top of the wall, staking their safety in speed of movement against the disorientation of the retreating defenders.
Below the wall, the covering BAR team understood instinctively and put down fire on the fallen tree trunk, stopping only when their commander descended the wall, dropped onto the large trunk, and started to sweep the enemy beyond with bursts of fire.
The squad followed suit, and they caught the enemy below by surprise.
Carrera jumped down first and was immediately thrown back up as a grenade exploded between his feet.
He hung from the fallen trunk like a shattered scarecrow and screamed his last few moments out before blood loss overtook him.
The grenade thrower turned to run but was put down by Carrera’s vengeful men.
The Rangers jumped down and ran on, past dead and dying enemy, pausing only occasionally to put a bullet in a writhing body, or bayonet something that looked suspicious.
The BAR team moved up behind them, and occasionally added a bullet of their own to the mess of humanity.
They were joined by a full squad from Charlie Company, and soon Barkmann’s attack had some real momentum.
The positions in front of the main statues of the fountain were more prepared for the Ranger’s arrival, and more of Barkmann’s men were hit, forcing the Americans to ground.
Behind them, the Charlie squad pressed forward, through and then beyond the Baker Company survivors, rushing into the barrels of the defenders.
“Fall back, for fuck’s sake! Fall back!”
Half a dozen men were already down and the momentum was totally lost.
In a handful of seconds, the newly arrived squad had lost half its strength, and another man was killed as the survivors fell back.
“Stupid… fucking stupid!”
Barkmann raged at himself, but all could hear is words clearly.
The surviving defenders had repositioned another 12.7mm machine-gun and its heavy bullets were chewing away at the sandbags and tree trunks in which Barkmann and his men had taken refuge.
“Smoke grenades!”
He watched as those who had them brandished them.
“In their positions… I want them in their positions. We move right… fast and low, then hook back in the front. Ready!”
He yelled the order and the little missiles flew through the air, most landing close to the defensive line. Three landed the other side of it and gave the defenders next to them heart attacks before they realised what they were.
The Soviet officer in charge of the position yelled at his men and they fired everything they had down the line towards the American soldiers.
He even added a few of his last grenades for good measure, and imagined the enemy assault force being slaughtered in the storm of metal.
That same force smashed into the corner of his positions, on the edge of the smoke cloud, and started dealing out death and destruction in all directions.
Despite the close range, the Garands proved extremely effective, as the Rangers were far enough away to be able to pick off their enemy with roughly aimed shots, two per target, which normally resulted in a display of blood and pain, before moving on to find another victim.
The dispersing smoke did nothing to save the defenders, and more than one man received a double dose of lead from two or three Rangers at a time.
An SKS took some revenge, dropping two men before its owner’s stomach came apart under the simultaneous impact of four .30-06 and a triplet set of Thompson bullets.
Barkmann pulled the trigger on an empty magazine and dived to his left as a bloodied figure let fly with an automatic weapon, one bullet neatly removing the helmet strap and stinging his ear.
One of the Rangers loomed over the man and sent two shots flying through his head.
The Russians, undernourished and tired, broke and ran, the retreating gaggle disappearing into the growing gloom and smoke.
Barkmann set his surviving men to watch their side of the wall and organised the survivors of Charlie’s squad, plus the BAR team, with a view to seeing what was happening on the other side of the fountain.
He stopped in his tracks and picked up the weapon that had nearly claimed his life.
It had all the looks of the German assault rifle, but it wasn’t, and Barkmann knew its appearance was important.
He stowed it away under a tree trunk and resumed his intended plan.
On the other side of the fountain, Ford and his men had been stopped dead between the centre of the pond and the wall where he and Barkmann had split up.
Neither side seemed to have any grenades left, which was a mercy and a problem, depending which way they looked at it.
The ground in between the two factions was less than five metres across, but it was covered with the detritus of war, and the remains of those who had been unlucky this day.
Ford wondered if the area had been a designated latrine, the smell of urine and faeces was so overpowering.
The two sides gathered themselves, but considered the occasional unaimed shot as enough effort for the moment.
The stalemate would be expensive to break for whichever side decided to try.
Ford considered the alternatives and found none suitable.
He needed more men, more grenades, more time…
A crack behind him made him whirl round, but the bullet went high over his head and claimed the life of one of the more inquisitive Russians.
Irlam, from his new perch on the wall, close to where Barkmann had first lain, was high enough to start picking off the defenders.
He drew fire, but in doing so, the defenders exposed enough of themselves for Ford’s men to have a shot, and soon the defenders found that anything but hugging the ground was likely to prove fatal.
A BAR started up and caused havoc amongst the defence, as Barkmann and his men, perched amongst the statues, fired down into the defenceless men.
Hands started to go up, accompanied by the sound of weapons being discarded, and the demoralised soldiers rose to their feet.
Ford seized the moment and ordered his men to surge forward.
On the wall above, Lukas Barkmann gave the order and the guns fell silent. Other defenders, seeing the raised hands, started to surrender, and more of the new weapons were dropped to the floor.
Flares erupted into the night once more, and the shadows of Ranger and Red Army soldiers alike danced across the frozen mush of the pond.
Suddenly more machine-gun fire erupted, this time from Soviet positions closer to the Palace, and a storm of bullets ripped into bodies indiscriminately. Rangers and Russians were bowled over as the defenders of the palace were ordered to fire upon their surrendering comrades.
The casualties amongst the fountain’s defenders were awful, and the majority of those struck died under two or more impacts.
Ford and four of his men went down bloodily, a single 12.7mm bullet ploughing its way through the NCO’s shoulders from side to side.
Another bullet knocked Charlie’s BAR gunner out of his hiding place, leaving his lower jaw clinging to the dorsal fin of the exquisitely craved but battle damaged horse-cum-mermaid behind which he had taken cover.
Barkmann’s group tumbled off the statues, some backwards to drop the other side, near the BAR group, who were presently unengaged.
The Ranger officer and three others went forward, dropping quickly into the pond area and ducked behind anything that would stop a bullet.
He found Ford, struggling for breath, with each attempt bringing more bubbly blood to his lips.
“Shit, Walter. Rest easy now. Medic! Medic!”
There wasn’t one, but it made Barkmann feel better yelling it, and probably Ford for hearing it.
One of the men put a dressing on Ford’s right upper arm, where the exit wound was spilling blood in dangerous spurts.
Barkmann looked at the options and cursed the fact that his radio was now on the other side of the wall.
“What the fuck!”
Something landed so close that the shock sent his helmet flying away and tossed one of his men skywards.
‘Mortars… for fuck’s sake… mortars…’
A moment of panic seized him, a cold and warm wave of fuzziness spread through his brain as his stomach turned to iced water.
‘No… no… not now… not ever…’
He fought the nerves and indecision and won, albeit by the narrowest of margins.
‘Gotta move.’
“Move back!”
He gestured towards the corner of the wall, in the direction of the rest of his company.
Ensuring that two men gathered up Ford, and that the other two badly wounded were looked after, Barkmann decided to stand and watch their backs.
The man alongside him grinned with madness in his eyes.
“Just you and me and Betty then, Captain.”
Heliopolous patted the Winchester M-12 shotgun with undisguised love, the carbine on his back rejected for the pump-action’s hitting power.
More mortar shells arrived, off target and nowhere near Barkmann or his retreating Rangers.
A rifle cracked, bringing a yelp of pain from closer to Barkmann than he cared.
Irlam had also stayed put and picked off an advancing Soviet soldier, part of a group pushed forward by officers eager to retake the fountain.
The sniper’s rifle spoke again, ending the life of the leader of the counter-attack.
None the less, his men pushed forward as the mortar barrage walked southwards.
Irlam picked off another two before they identified where he was hiding and a DP started to pepper his position.
He dropped off the wall and jogged round to the statues to see if he could work from there.
Meanwhile, the Russians took advantage of the respite and surged.
A running man flew over some sandbags and Barkmann, by instinct alone, fired from the prone position, catching the man in mid-air and throwing him backwards, life extinct.
Screaming in her fear and anger, a woman NCO followed, her SKS sporting a bayonet aimed for the officer’s belly.
A twelve gauge destroyed her chest and she followed her comrade backwards.
Two more soldiers charged forward and each time the sound of a shotgun being pumped was followed by a spread of shot that took a life.
More Russians, wiser this time, came at the position from more than one direction.
The Greek Ranger missed with his shot and could only jerk the butt into the face of his nearest enemy.
Heliopolous’ blow collapsed an eye socket and the screaming man clawed at him in desperation.
A head butt added to the man’s injury and he recoiled away, giving Heliopolous time to put his final shot into the soldier’s face.
He discarded ‘Betty’ as he had no time to reload.
To his right, Barkmann wounded a bearded NCO before his Thompson jammed.
Two soldiers rushed him unseen and Heliopolous’ warning saved him from injury as he rolled to one side, the rifle shots and bayonet thrusts missing him completely.
With his M1911 in his hand, he dropped both men before they could work the stiff bolts of their Mosins.
Heliopolous brought up his carbine only for it to be knocked from his hands by the impact of a bullet.
His hand was numb from the impact and the Ranger simply couldn’t get it to work enough to free his pistol before his enemy was on top of him.
The Russian soldier pulled the trigger but nothing happened.
Screaming a curse, he plunged the weapon forward and the bayonet took Heliopolous in the upper thigh, protruding through the flesh at the back.
Screaming in pain, he lashed out at the man who instinctively ducked his head.
The feeling returned to Heliopolous’ hand as he smashed a number of bones on the man’s helmet.
The bayonet slid out and the merciless soldier slammed it hard and low into the Greek’s body, where its progress was halted by the Ranger’s belt buckle.
None the less, the impact was enough to double Heliopolous over, and the swinging butt knocked him to the ground unconscious.
Delaying the coup-de-grace, the soldier decided to cock his weapon again, which gave Barkmann enough time and opportunity to put bullets through his back and head, the latter of which blew the soldier’s face across the pond.
The pistol had been emptied and the Ranger sensed he had no time to reload and dove towards the first weapon he could see.
With no time to make an error, he remembered what he had seen previously and pulled back on the charging handle and brought the large weapon up to horizontal.
He staggered as the recoil took him off-balance, unprepared as he was for what the weapon would offer.
He put four men and women down in short order, three of which moaned and writhed as blood seeped from numerous wounds.
Something fell against his leg and he saw a grenade waiting to spread its shrapnel in all directions.
He dived over a tree trunk, but the blast caught his legs and rolled him over.
A few pieces of metal and some bits from the pond floor struck his legs and ankles, but none sufficiently to stop him from scurrying away, should a second grenade follow.
The strange weapon had dropped from his hands and he moved to pick it up.
A scream made him realise he had lost the race, and he rolled away as another female soldier pulled the trigger on her SKS rifle.
She was out of ammunition.
In fact, many of the defenders were out of ammunition, as high expenditures and Allied air and artillery strikes took great toll on stocks.
Barkmann, winded by the evasion and fall, moved only slowly and the woman saw her moment and rushed forward, bayonet ready.
Her scream of triumph turned to one of sheer agony as her shoulder disappeared in the passage of a bullet from Irlam’s Springfield.
The kinetic energy knocked her backwards and on to a tree trunk, the short but perfectly placed branch punched through her spine and exited her stomach, bringing untold agonies.
There were very few engaged in the awful fighting in and around the fountain that didn’t hear her piteous cries.
Irlam made the decision not to end her grief, reasoning that it would affect her comrades more than his.
Barkmann had no such rational thoughts, as his mind started to come apart, the screams and squeals the final straw in his mental breakdown.
He came apart mentally, his own screams joining with, but not overriding those of the dying woman.
Irlam, his first thought that his leader was wounded, moved out from behind the statue of the half-naked female adjacent to Neptune himself.
A single bullet struck him in the throat and sent him backwards into the pile of dead Russian bodies below.
Within a minute, Irlam had bled to death.
In the Roman Ruin, Corporal Baschuk, once of the NKVD, but now of the 5th Guards Airborne Division’s Sniper company, worked the precise action of his Kar98k and looked for more targets.
He smoothed his hand down the superbly efficient German rifle, muttering his normal congratulations to her.
‘Ahh Elvira… zolotse Elvira.’
Named for his mother, long since dead of hunger during the siege of Leningrad, he worshipped the weapon, as once had another.
Although then Elvira went by another name.
‘Irma.’
0703 hrs, Sunday, 16th March 1947, emergency casualty-clearing station, 76 Maxingstrasse, Vienna, Austria.
Lieutenant Colonel Williams, the 2nd Rangers commander, had finished reporting the failure of his battalion’s attack and was now visiting the overflowing aid post.
Many of his men lay there, alongside the occasional doughboy from the 355th, or even a wounded
Russian.
He found Ford recovering from emergency surgery, still unconscious but expected to survive.
Many more of his men were being made comfortable for their journey to whatever lay ahead after life was extinct.
Despite the doctor’s warnings, he was still unprepared for the sight of Lukas Barkmann sat on a bed, crying silent tears through eyes that looked at something half a world away, rocking slowly in a spreading wet patch of his own making.
“Lukas… Lukas…”
There was no reaction.
“Lukas?”
He put his hand gently on Barkmann’s shoulder and jumped as the reaction was swift and pronounced.
The scream penetrated his ears to the point of causing pain, and the young officer dived under the bed where he curled up in a ball and sobbed like a child.
“Oh fuck… Lukas… I… err… shit…”
Williams had no idea what to do so decided to say no more.
He turned on his heel and sought out the doctor to speak about his captain, before he resumed his journey around the beds of bloodied men.
The 2nd Rangers assault on the Schönbrunn Palace had failed to cover even half of the distance to its objective.
Casualties had been extreme, and only one of the reserve companies was considered anywhere near effective.
Able had taken heavy casualties trying to take the Tiergarten, and initially failed, partially due to a new weapon that gave the Soviet soldiers greater firepower.
Only the fact that the enemy seemed to grow low on ammunition allowed them to make a final push and secure the whole zoo area, although they could not push the resilient enemy out of either the old or new Palm Houses.
Baker was the most heavily engaged and damaged of the Rangers’ companies, with only thirty-seven men left unaffected, physically or mentally.
Not one Baker Company man had crossed the Rustenallee.
Charlie Company had fared only slightly better, and did, in the end, restore the American position in the Neptune Fountain.
Captain Fairlawn, Charlie’s commander, mostly lay alongside the sleeping Heliopolous; mostly because his legs still lay on the battlefield where they had been separated from his body by a burst of DShK fire.
