Endgame (The Red Gambit Series Book 7)

by Colin Gee

  The Tiger’s engine revved, a pre-arranged sign it was preparing to move and anyone around should beware.

  Knocke struggled out of the way as Lohengrin slipped backwards, coughing as the acrid exhaust fumes affected his breathing and sight.

  The turret traversed and a shell flattened a building from which a DP had just started firing.

  Testing his right leg, Knocke grimaced as pain shot up and down the limb.

  Running his hands up and down, he found more stickiness around the calf and pulled out a wood splinter that he hadn’t even felt.

  When he’d fallen, his leg had crashed into a baulk of timber, and there were two more such pieces embedded in his flesh.

  “Let me help you, Oberführer.”

  Grabbing the extended hand, Knocke pulled himself upright and put weight on the damaged leg.

  “That aches a bit, I’ll bet, Oberführer. Let’s get you bandaged up.”

  The two hobbled over to a small public bench that had become the focus of medical activity.

  There was no time for either of them, as the two medical orderlies did all they could to save men who were dying.

  “I lost my weapon… not sure where.”

  “I’ll find you a replacement as soon as we’re fixed up, Oberführer.”

  Knocke recognised a man whose head was swathed in bandages.

  “Felix! Good to see you. How are you?”

  “I’ll live, Oberführer, I may have problems wearing glasses, mind you. Bastards had my nose off.”

  In truth it was his own driver who had braked hard, causing Jorgensen to lurch forward and smash his face into the cupola just as he was getting out. His nose had been virtually ripped off by the impact. The driver was amongst the hideously wounded men around him, and would not survive to see the following dawn.

  “Cigarette?”

  “Danke, Oberführer.”

  Three more hands appeared from out of the group of battered men, and rich smoke enveloped the smokers, bringing its own kind of calm and relaxation, despite the sounds of renewed fighting close at hand.

  “Well, kameraden… I think Moscow may be beyond us for a day or two.”

  The laughs were punctuated with sounds of pain and coughing, as men’s wounds protested at the movement caused by their amusement.

  “Apologies, kameraden. Just thought you should know the situation.”

  Deniken knew they had failed.

  They had been denied victory, not by the damned SS, but by the enemy’s air force.

  Admittedly, his forces had been split by the bold thrust towards Sulisɫawice, and he had lost heavily in the same village itself, but the main damage had been done on the road to Łoniów, and throughout the second echelon of the attack, where the fighter-bombers had ranged across the land, having gained air dominance, firing their damned rockets and dropping their damned bombs without check.

  ‘And the firebombs… always the firebombs!’

  His senior commanders were all dead or wounded; the same went for Artem’yev’s regiments.

  There was no information available on the 1st Guards Engineers, or on 6th Guards Tanks Corps, but for sure they would have suffered.

  He had established contact with the commander of the 91st Tank Battalion, but the man was no wiser than he on such matters.

  Contact with Rybalko had been lost nearly an hour previously, and much had happened in that time.

  He decided that he would reform his line either side of the Floriańska and then move up towards Sulisɫawice, maintaining a broad front, although the military power to project himself up the planned route had long been spent in the valley of the Koprzywianka River.

  “Comrade Lisov… we’ll move up behind the second battalion. Get everything ready.”

  “But Comrade Mayor General, there’s still a question of…”

  “I need to move up now. I need to see what’s happening. Now. Get us ready to move.”

  Lisov’s objection died in his throat and he turned to get the small staff organised and back on the road.

  Six minutes later, the command group was on the Floriańska, heading towards Sulisɫawice.

  “Attack in line, watch your spacing. Dive, dive, dive.”

  The four Thunderbolts of the French 13e Escadron, once the RAF’s 345 Squadron, dived upon the rich pickings on the valley floor beneath them.

  Around the supply point established at Krysin, the Soviet AA gunners were wide-awake and put up a furious barrage.

  The lead aircraft staggered under the impact of cannon shells and turned away to port, streaming smoke and sparks.

  His wingman followed him, acting on the shouted instructions of his section leader.

  The two flew northwards at an increasingly slower speed as the Capitaine nursed his ruined aircraft back to friendly air space.

  Behind them the two remaining Thunderbolts put their RP-3 rockets into the soft-skinned vehicles in and around the small junction, creating chaos and destruction with the 1st GMRD’s logistical column.

  “Don’t take your rockets home, Canard-trois.”

  “I’m staying with you, leader.”

  “I’m getting rid now. Find a target. I’ll fly straight and level, don’t mess about and just do it, Pierre.”

  “Roger, leader.”

  Canard-trois lost height slowly and Pierre Haufranche sought a suitable target.

  A burst of AA fire attracted his attention, and he focussed his mind on the target ahead.

  Blobs of glowing metal rushed past his cockpit as the desperate gunners tried to stave off his attack.

  The blobs shifted slightly and started chewing into the metal fuselage, and two hit the boss of the propeller, causing the whole assembly to shake and rattle, and begin tearing itself apart.

  Further shells opened up the wing tanks and bathed the whole aircraft in fire.

  Haufranche opened the canopy and propelled himself out into space as the Thunderbolt started to disintegrate in mid-air.

  His commander watched in fury as the glowing shape detached from the burning aircraft and deployed a parachute that was quickly engulfed in flames.

  Mercifully, the journey to the earth was short and Haufranche’s pain was terminated on impact.

  Screaming at no one in particular, the French section leader elected to put his aircraft into a dive and put all his focus into the display in front of him, ignoring the flak that streamed up at him once more.

  The engine ran super-hot but he still powered into his dive, intent on extracting revenge for his cousin.

  The flak struck his aircraft again, but he was not to be turned, and the RP-3s leapt from their rails.

  His aircraft was hit again.

  Canard leader turned but found a lack of response.

  Pulling back on the stick, the Thunderbolt tried to overcome the damage caused by the hits and the airflow through the numerous holes, and only just failed.

  The wingtip clipped a lorry and Canard leader flipped over and cartwheeled end over end across the Floriańska highway.

  “That’s fine shooting, Lisov. I’ll decorate the gunner and commander of those guns.”

  “The other one’s coming in, Comrade Mayor General. Heading for the AA guns themselves it looks like.”

  Deniken grunted.

  “Move!”

  The BTR moved forward at increased speed, intent on pulling ahead of the SPAAs and their personal fight with the diving plane.

  “He’s fired… not at us!”

  Lisov’s words were superfluous as it was obvious that the rockets were aimed at the guns.

  “They got him!”

  “Bastard!”

  The rockets struck amongst the SPAA vehicles, sending two into fireballs.

  The enemy aircraft was low and turning, too low and too slow…

  “Watch out!”

  Deniken shouted uselessly at the supply lorry as the Thunderbolt streaked in and the wing hit the cab.

  Deniken and Lisov could only watch
as the spiral of metal and flames ate up the ground between them, inexorably spinning itself into a whirlwind of death.

  What was left of the Thunderbolt collided with a BTR-152 of the 1st Guards Mechanised Rifle Division’s headquarters, containing both the divisional commander and his 2IC.

  There were no survivors.

  0915 hrs, Tuesday, 1st April 1947, Sulisɫawice, Poland.

  The Soviet forces had pulled back to the edge of the village, licking their wounds and trying to get organised, and the tired legionnaires and tirailleurs found time to catch their breath, if only for a moment.

  A shot had come from no one knew where, but its effect had been catastrophic, and the old Legion NCO had flown backwards, dead before he hit the wall behind.

  His MG-42 team decided on self-preservation and ducked down behind the brickwork.

  “Sniper!”

  Around the small square, men headed for cover and prayed that they were not in the sights of the deadly rifleman.

  Others on the edges had crashed through ruined doors and windows and escaped the line of fire.

  They started to work through the ruins in search of the deadly rifleman.

  Another shot brought more suffering as a tirailleur officer fell without a sound as the back of his head flew off, spraying his men with the contents of his skull.

  One younger soldier screamed and rose up to run, but was immediately knocked back by another bullet.

  He whimpered his way through the last painful seconds of his life.

  The sniper, there were actually three of them, settled into a new firing position, one that offered a better angle on the small square.

  Left behind to both worry the defenders and provide advance warning of any aggressive moves, the tired enemy legionnaires initially proved easy meat.

  The Mosin rifle kicked into his shoulder for a third time and he was rewarded with a spray of red as his target fell from sight.

  To Orsov’s left, another shot rang out, then two more in quick order, clearly from Palininski, whose weapon of choice was a prime SVT-40 automatic rifle with a ten round magazine, a surprising choice as it was far heavier than the Mosin, and Yelena Palininski was such a slight girl.

  A figure moved and he fired instinctively.

  ‘Missed!’

  He risked another shot at the disappearing soldier and, although the man made cover, Orsov knew he had hit him.

  ‘Time to move.’

  He tensed, knowing his life was forfeit, and that the barely detectable sound was a footfall close behind him.

  “If I was one of those SS bastards, you’d be well fucked, Comrade Orsov.”

  Orlov let out a huge breath of relief.

  “I’m moving so don’t get in my way, Comrade Serzhant.”

  The other man had been transiting the derelict shop and hadn’t known Orlov was there until he fired.

  “No problem. I’m off to the old church, Leonid. Better to see what the fuckers are up to.”

  A bullet pinged off the brickwork near David Uranovski, the sergeant commanding the sniper team attached to 167th Guards Rifle Regiment.

  The two men hugged the floorboards and wormed their way towards the rear of the building.

  A solid sound announced the arrival of a grenade, which skittered along the floor and dropped next to Uranovski.

  He pulled it into his arms and under his chest… and tensed.

  The HG337r as it was known in the Wehrmacht, was a Soviet RGD-33 grenade from stocks likely captured in 1942-43, and this one bore a fragmentation jacket, which increased its deadly radius and killing power.

  Uranovski’s arms, chest, and head disintegrated in the blast, and the remnants of his body were thrown back across the floor.

  Pieces of the grenade, eleven in all, struck Orlov and robbed him of his sight and ability to move.

  He screamed in pain, until he screamed no more, a burst from a tirailleur’s ST-45 terminating his suffering.

  Relieved to have erased the snipers for only a few men lost, the legionnaires missed something vital, possibly in their tiredness, possibly in their haste to be away from the awfulness of the damage to both enemy soldiers.

  Neither man used an SVT-40.

  “Snipers are down, Oberführer. Two of them. The tirailleurs sorted the bastards out.”

  “Excellent work. That mustn’t happen again. We mu…”

  The bullet arrived before the sound and hit Jorgensen in the back of neck before exiting his upper chest and finding more soft flesh beyond.

  A second bullet struck Hässelbach, even as he was reacting to the spray of blood from the Blindé’s commander.

  A third bullet passed through the air between him and the falling Knocke, finding nothing but the road beyond.

  Two more bullets were fired.

  Another burst through Hässelbach’s arm as he bent over to stop Knocke from landing hard.

  The final shot from Yelena Palininski’s weapon went far over the group, but still took a life, striking down a legionnaire beyond.

  Shouts rang out all around the square and men again scuttled for cover.

  Five shots in just over three seconds, and she had seen three hits, possibly a fourth.

  The weapon had jammed and she dropped into cover to free it.

  In the square, all was chaos.

  Jorgensen was clearly dead, his glazed eyes carrying indignation, surprise, and pain in equal measure.

  Hässelbach’s strength seeped from him as his wounds leaked blood, but he pushed himself across the ground to his commander’s side.

  Knocke was sat on the ground, his face grey and ashen, with his hands on his stomach, almost on the verge of unconsciousness.

  The sound of his pain invaded every ear, as the old soldier squealed in agony.

  “Sani! Sani!”

  He pressed Knocke’s hands to the stomach wound.

  The screaming stopped as Knocke started to lose consciousness.

  “Press here, Oberführer… wake up, man… stay awake, for fuck’s sake!”

  Fiedler dropped to his knees next to his stricken leader and ripped away at a shirt he had grabbed from somewhere on his path.

  The pain returned and Knocke started to scream hideously, the high-pitched sound causing ears to crackle, so loud and piercing was it.

  Fiedler fashioned a bandage and added his voice to that of Hässelbach.

  “Sani! Sani!”

  Bending Knocke slightly to one side, Fiedler pushed the bandage around his back and into Hässelbach’s waiting hand.

  It emerged soaked in blood.

  He ran his hand round to the small of Knocke’s back and discovered a huge exit wound.

  “Oh fuck! Sani!”

  Knocke fell silent again.

  Fiedler made a pack of more of the shirt and pushed it hard against the large wound.

  Knocke moaned at the pressure and coughed up a little blood.

  “Oberführer… lie still now… we’ll soon have you back on your feet… but just lie still for now, eh?”

  Knocke laughed and coughed some more, bringing another surge of blood from his lips.

  “You always were a bad liar, Otto.”

  Hässelbach could not bring himself to say more.

  The sani arrived and started working, although he was low on anything that a medical orderly could normally be expected to carry.

  “He needs a doctor, Obersturmführer… this is bad… very very bad…”

  There was no doctor and hadn’t been since the Soviet artillery killed both men some hours beforehand.

  Hässelbach looked away from the desperate medic, and saw that a crowd had gathered round the desperately wounded Knocke.

  Through a gap, he saw Köster in his turret, aware that something important was happening and keen to get a look at whatever it was.

  The sight triggered a memory deep in Hässelbach’s mind.

  “Linus! Köster! Get your gunner Linus here now! All of you… find medical supplies… in v
ehicles… on enemy soldiers… anything you can…move!”

  Despite the occasion sound of battle or the explosion of a shell, his voice carried loud enough for all to hear, and carried with it urgency and authority and was acted on immediately.

  Linus Wildenauer arrived in company with Köster.

  “You were a vet… close enough to a doctor… do something, Wildenauer.”

  The young man’s mouth was wide open and he stood frozen.

  “Do something!”

  Knocke’s coughing and moans of pain broke Wildenauer out of his trance and he dropped to the ground, searching his mind for information.

  A hand grabbed Hässelbach’s tunic in a vice-like grip and pulled him down closer to the wounded man’s level.

  “Otto… Otto…”

  “Yes, Oberführer?”

  “You know what to tell my wife… Greta and Magda… quick and painless. Tell my girls… tell them I love them… and Anne-Marie… just tell her I love her and our new child so very muc…”

  A clot of blood shot from Knocke’s mouth.

  Men started to arrive holding out pieces of medical kit, from scissors to one ampoule of pain-relieving morphine.

  It was immediately administered and Knocke passed into merciful darkness.

  Palininski got off two more shots, both at close range, as she tried to stop the hunters overwhelming her.

  She failed and went down under a flurry of kicks and punches.

  The clothes were ripped from her and the legionnaires took their pleasures, more by way of revenge than for personal satisfaction.

  After being abused in every way devised by man, the battered but still conscious naked girl was hung by her neck from a protruding floor joist.

  She kicked for some time before the noose and the prodding bayonets claimed her life.

  The Soviet cordon was broken in two places.

  Firstly by the arrival of forces dispatched by Lavalle, the 1er BAS soldiers, dismounted from their amphibians, supported by the rest of the 7e RTA, slammed into the positions of the Guards motorcycle troops and the remnants of the 6th GIBTR.

  Shortly afterwards, Haefali’s advance units broke into the rear of the dead Zilinski’s force and started taking prisoners, Soviet morale seemingly broken by the bitter fighting.