Impasse (The Red Gambit Series)

by Gee, Colin

  Reduced to five men, the others had exited on the other side of the building, Artem’yev waited for the grenades to explode and then led a charge along the outside of the old stable block, turning through a damaged doorway into where he assessed the enemy grenadiers had secreted themselves.

  He was spot on, and his rush found four backs turned towards him.

  He shot one man between the shoulder blades, one of his men almost cutting the others in half with his PPSh.

  Firing in the adjacent room caused the group to drop to the floor, using the bodies, both dead and alive, as cover.

  The unmistakable sound of a PPSh announced the presence of the rest of his assault squad, and he warned his men not to be too hasty should figures appear in the entrance.

  He was right, and two more of his men arrived. Eight, including himself, now mustered in what had obviously once been a tack room.

  Posting two men, he permitted a moment to have a drink from canteens, but there was no time to smoke or eat.

  Artem’yev could sense that the Americans were breaking.

  The next position that he and his men swept into was empty, or at least occupied by men who had long since ceased to care.

  US soldiers were seen scurrying between piles of rubble across the street, and a couple of Artem’yev’s men contributed a few bullets to help them on their way.

  Moving outside, the small assault group ran headlong into a body of armored infantrymen intent on ‘repositioning’ to the rear.

  The lead Guardsman brought up his PPSh but was beaten to the draw by his counterpart, whose grease gun wrecked the man, and splattered the hideously wounded soldier’s comrades with blood and gore.

  The falling body brought Artem’yev down, and the soldier behind him followed, falling on top of his commander, winding the both of them.

  The only man in the Soviet group possessing a bolt-action rifle took cool aim, and dropped the enemy soldier with a single shot, his screams loud, but brief.

  Two soldiers were rolling around on the floor, each trying to gouge the eyes out of the other.

  The small courtyard was suddenly too densely packed to provide room for anything of submachine gun size or above, so the two groups resorted to knives, pistol and hands to overcome their enemy.

  Artem’yev, struggling to his feet, received a punch on his broken arm. The pain was extreme, and he bellowed as he crouched to protect it from more harm.

  Struggling for breath he moved back, narrowly avoiding a kick aimed at sending his head into orbit.

  The US soldier was off-balance, and he fell against two more soldiers struggling for supremacy. A knife quickly flashed and another GI was out of the fight, victim of one of his own and the mists of close combat.

  Artem’yev struggled to wipe the tears from his eyes with his one good hand, all the time retaining a grip on the pistol in it.

  His rifleman had an American soldier on the floor, his full weight pressing down on the Mosin that was placed across the man’s throat.

  The American was turning purple and the defending hands were weakening in their effort to push the weapon away.

  An small American NCO raised his knife, intent on plunging the blade into the Guardsman’s back, his face suddenly betraying shock as his strength left him in an instant, one of Artem’yev’s bullets ripping through the man’s chest.

  He fell to the floor, dead before he had covered half the distance.

  At the courtyard doorway, out of which the US troopers had charged, Artem’yev saw an enemy.

  The young GI stood holding a .30cal by the triggers and barrel, pointing it into the courtyard, undecided, or just too plain scared to make a decision.

  The area was rapidly emptying of American resistance, and soon the decision to fire would be more easily made.

  Artem’yev put a bullet through the boy’s stomach, dropping him to the ground in agony.

  The last two GI’s were overwhelmed and killed quickly, one earning numerous kicks for slashing the throat of the rifle soldier.

  A grenade bounced off one wall and exploded.

  One of Artem’yev’s men squealed in pain as three fragments took him in the chest and stomach; another silently absorbed the agony of hot fragments in his thigh and arm.

  Artem’yev fell against the wall and slid down it, leaving a red trail as he went.

  One fragment went straight through him at the joint of neck and body, the bleeding instant and profuse.

  Another slashed open his broken arm, just below the elbow.

  With his injuries, the assault group lost its impetus, and the few survivors did what they could for their comrades, but advanced no more.

  Elsewhere, the remainder of his Guardsmen drove back the surviving armored infantry, forcing the surviving US tanks to fall back and, by ten minutes to four, Strassfeld was wholly in the hands of the Red Army.

  The snow fell thickly, covering many of the horrors.

  1550 hrs, Wednesday, 11th December 1945, Müggenhausen, Germany.

  Whilst the battle had raged in Strassfeld, Hardegen had pushed his men and tanks hard against Müggenhausen.

  The promised Soviet artillery support had arrived, and was hurting the Task Force badly.

  Sometime during the attack, he was unsure as to when the defining moment had occurred, Hardegen realized that his force was being beaten, and that to preserve what was left he needed to get in closer and cling to the enemy infantry for all he was worth.

  As he rushed his troops forward, orders to the mortars called for the rapidest of rapid fire, and US bombs starting doing grisly work amongst the enemy infantry.

  Only ‘Bismarck’ and one other Easy-Eight had made it to the edge of the village, the ISU152’s proving to be awesome adversaries.

  The attrition in vehicles had been extreme, and the arrival of six T34’s from the 12th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment* had threatened to turn the tide.

  The newly arrived Jackson had earned its keep, dispatching four of the tanks in as many minutes, proving the worth of its 90mm gun.

  Fig#109 - TF Hardegen's second assault on Müggenhausen, 11th December 1945.

  One of the ISU’s put a heavy shell on target, and the M36 tank-destroyer was transformed into pieces of flying scrap within a micro-second.

  Hardegen’s tank killed it with its second attempt, bringing his total kills in the brief combat to five.

  The mixed infantry group had charged recklessly into Müggenhausen, and immediately encountered the same problems as the nightmare endured by the armored infantry in Strassberg.

  The clerks and cooks tried, and no-one could have asked more of them, but they were not proper combat soldiers, and the casualties they took reflected their weaknesses, as well as the strengths of the guardsmen who fought with them.

  The German unit had been there before, many of the men were veterans of the Russian front.

  If it was at all possible, the close combat between the Kommando and Guards infantry was even more bestial than that elsewhere across the frontage of CCA’s defeat.

  The sight of hated uniforms spurred Artem’yev’s men to superhuman effort; the vision of the old enemy drove the Kommandoes to incredible effort. The two combined left little room for decency and humanity, both of which took a back seat to the imperatives of survival and revenge.

  Soviet artillery continued to sweep the field, and Hardegen had decided to press forward and stay in support of his infantry, rather than leave them without armor and face annihilation.

  The two Shermans stood as a redoubt, and provided a rallying point for the US soldiers in Müggenhausen, standing proud around the junction of Rheinbacher and Rochus Strasses.

  The 191st Artillery was keeping Hardegen’s force alive, the excellence of their craft combined with the skill of the observer, Lieutenant Higgins.

  An enemy rush manifested itself, and both Shermans opened up, lacing the snow and rubble with tracers, each of which was accompanied by three equally damaging but invisible frie
nds.

  The rush died in an instant, almost as if the men had immediately been recalled.

  Hardegen narrowed his eyes, expecting some sort of trick.

  His ears warned him first, their unspoken warning reinforced by red smoke rising from the enemy positions.

  His eyes searched the snowy sky and found his nemesis immediately.

  Two enemy aircraft were already lined up for an attack.

  Rising up out of the turret hatch, he sensed rather than felt the zip of bullets around him, as the Soviet infantry force saw his intent and tried to put him down.

  He fired the .50cal, knowing he was out of range, but using the device to warn those around him.

  The two Shturmoviks, IL-2’s of some age, recently recommissioned to try and make up the shortfall in Soviet striking power, drove in side by side and opened fire, each of them field modified to take improvised mounts for RS132 rockets.

  They carried sixteen each, putting thirty-two in the air, targeted on an area some three hundred by four hundred yards.

  Hardegen gritted his teeth and kept the .50cal going, walking his tracer stream into the left-hand aircraft without noticeable effect.

  The rockets started to arrive amongst the American force.

  Higgins’ halftrack took a direct hit, killing the valiant artillery officer instantly.

  One rocket seemed intent on coming down the barrel of his machine-gun, and Hardegen felt panic rise.

  He controlled it and watched as the thing flew past and exploded behind his tank.

  Swiveling the gun, he saw his bullets strike home behind the cockpit of the foremost Shturmovik.

  Other rockets exploded, obscuring his view of the enemy aircraft, but he knew he had wounded it badly.

  Something flew across his line of vision, this time from right to left, his imagination suggesting that more enemy aircraft had arrived, until the sight of a mangled body skidding across the snow told him otherwise.

  The rockets had knocked the stuffing out of the defenders, and caused many casualties in the tight packed ruins and gardens.

  The two Illyushins turned lazily and commenced a bomb run.

  Each carried four hundred kilos of bombs, the leader four one hundred kilo general-purpose weapons; the second aircraft bore eight, each fifty kilos fragmentation bombs.

  It was immediately obvious that the leading aircraft was using ‘Bismarck’ as an aiming point.

  “Toss red smoke,” Hardegen shouted to anyone in range; some even heard him and complied.

  Blue smoke rose from the Soviet positions, showing that the man in charge there knew his job.

  Another pannier of ammo had been passed up and Hardegen slapped the top of the .50cal down hard, having slipped the new belt home.

  “Get out now! Quickly, boys! Move!”

  His crew needed no second invitation and quickly evacuated the tank, seeking safety as far away as possible.

  The Browning machine-gun started flinging lead into the air but, whether it was the increasing volume of snow in the air, nerves on the part of Hardegen, or good flying by the enemy pilot, no hits were apparent.

  Two bombs dropped from the mounts, followed by two more a second later.

  A bullet clipped his right arm, the enemy infantry bringing him under fire. They were champing at the bit to get at the Americans, once the aircraft had done their work.

  The first bomb struck the road and deflected into the ruined artillery halftrack.

  The second bomb hit dead centre of ‘Bismarck’s’ glacis plate.

  Neither exploded.

  Neither did the third or the fourth, although the final bomb did kill three GI’s as it wiped through their snowy redoubt like it wasn’t there.

  The inexperienced ground crew had failed to remove the safeties from the weapons, and the pilot, the Regimental Commander, a Colonel with a fearsome reputation, promised retribution for the risks he had faced; all for no reward. That he should have checked too did not occur to him.

  He banked away hard, avoiding the tracers rising from the American position, the snow obscuring critical data for the briefest of moments, but sufficiently long enough for his misjudgement, brought on by his anger, to condemn him.

  A wing tip clipped the treetops on the hill and the Illyushin wobbled, dropping lower still.

  The next tree top proved more of an obstacle and the impact knocked the aircraft into a nose dive, the Shturmovik instantly burying itself in the snow.

  There would be no retribution for the ground staff back at his base. Neither would there be any aircraft for them to work on this day, as four Mustangs arrived and smashed the surviving Soviet aircraft from the sky, but only after he had added his own bomb load to the mess below.

  The fragmentation bombs wreaked havoc amongst the armored infantry, but completely missed the ad hoc infantry force to the west.

  The Soviet infantry charged forward.

  “Urrah! Urrah!”

  They were met with stiff fire, but it was much reduced, and the casualties they took did not deflect them from their purpose.

  Close quarter fighting ensued and crept ever closer to ‘Bismarck’.

  Hardegen did what he could with the MG, but the ammunition was soon gone.

  Pausing only to slap his tank’s side as a farewell, he strode towards the position to his front.

  DeMarco lay in the ruined entranceway, shivering in the cold, part of his stomach deposited on the ground beside him, the thin sheet a medic had thrown over the desperately wounded man already moved aside by the growing breeze.

  Morphine coursed through his veins, more than was necessary for pain relief, the medic deciding that he could but ease the gunner’s suffering on his journey into the next life.

  Shouting drew Hardegen’s gaze from the dying man, and he tried to focus his eyes on the men running at him.

  ‘Jesus!’

  He brought up the Colt 1911A and put the leading Soviet engineer down hard. The second man had a flamethrower.

  Hardegen’s second and third shots spun him round as he fired, and two of his comrades took the full force of the flames.

  The screams were awful as three of the Soviet engineers were consumed by fire.

  A burst of submachine gun fire, originating from the Soviet side, dropped all three to the snow and ended their suffering.

  Hardegen saw friendlies off to his right and moved towards them, firing off another two rounds at indistinct movement near the burning corpses.

  He dropped into a position and lay on the icy floorboards, gasping for breath,

  The men around him, all armored infantrymen, except for an old German in a Pickelhaube, poured fire in all directions, as the isolated post fell under determined attack.

  Whilst the old German cut a comical figure in a white fur coat and with the stereotypical pointed German helmet atop his head, he clearly had seen action before, and kept his rifle firing steadily.

  At least one other flamethrower was closing in, the hiss as its flame melted snow bringing fear to those who could hear its malevolent approach.

  The position’s commander slapped a Sergeant’s shoulder, directing the man’s attention to the threat.

  The shot was clearly successful and the Captain moved away.

  In a calculated fashion, the Sergeant took two more shots, the last of which sent a fireball through the attacking enemy engineers as it exploded the dead man’s flame thrower tanks.

  Hardegen was noticed and the Captain moved quickly over to his side.

  “You ok, Major?”

  His minor wounds had transformed his tanker’s uniform into a mass of red spots, misleading the Captain into thinking that Hardegen was badly wounded.

  “Fine, Captain. Are we secure here?”

  “No Sir. They're all over us like a nasty fucking rash. I have a man checking out a route so as we can bug out. ‘Til then, we gotta hold, Major.”

  “Ok. I could use another weapon. Whatcha got for me?”

  “P
lenty, Sir. They’re lying around everywhere here. Help yourself. I recommend their wooden submachine gun with the round mag. Fucking lethal thing.”

  “OK, Captain. My tank’s still running if we can get back to it. I can drive and we can ride rather than walk.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Major. But the commies may have their own ideas.”

  The officer rolled away and then scrabbled to his feet, moving off towards the farthest part of his defence.

  Hardegen returned the nod from the Sergeant as he went in search of weapons.

  He found them in the adjacent space; US weapons stacked on one side, Soviet weapons the other.

  He took the Garand instead of the recommended PPSh, and selected ammo for both the familiar rifle and his Colt.

  Against his wishes, he forced himself to pick up a bayonet and clipped it to the Garand.

  Returning to the first room, he found the sergeant lying flat on his back in a pool of blood and the position now occupied solely by the comical German.

  The Sergeant had no face, and the bloody mess on display grinned with bared teeth exposed where the soft tissue had been stripped away by the impact of something very solid.

  The bubbles of blood showed that the horribly wounded man still lived.

  Shouting something in German, the old man gestured at Hardegen, bringing him into the adjacent firing position.

  Grinning as he selected a target amongst the attacking Soviet soldiers, Hardegen spoke in the old man’s language.

  “Ja, ich kann es ertrangen, alten Manne!”

  The old soldier laughed.

  He had ribbed the American officer in German, asking him if he could bear it as he brought him up into a firing position.

  “Yes, I can bear it, old man,” had been Hardegen’s response.

  The two stood side by side and shot down enemy after enemy, despite a close bullet dislodging the ridiculous Pickelhaube from the veteran’s head.

  The German language conversation continued, almost isolating the two from the events around them.

  “Where’d you learn your soldiering then, Grandad?”

  “Tannenberg, boy. My first battle. Now those Russians could fight. Then the British. Hard men, they were too. This lot are easy.”