Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series)

by Gee, Colin

  The assault force had set up a casualty area in the Inner Courtyard and he journeyed through it, mentally adding the numbers of groaning comrades there to those already gathered in the lower courtyard.

  The temporary barricade continued to burn, its chairs, tables and barrels feeding gentle flames. Other more horrible items around it continued to smoulder, adding a rich and sickly sweet smoke to the surreal montage in the courtyard.

  Climbing the Hexagonal stairs, he met a group forming in the Marshall’s chambers, preparing for an attack. Reversing his course, he moved through bedrooms and found his progress blocked once more, as more paratroopers were readying themselves for the assault. As he went in search of Makarenko, it seemed that every stairway, room and hall contained dead comrades.

  Ascending a stone spiral staircase to the second floor, he found the upper level littered with bodies, although he noted with satisfaction that the majority were not his own men.

  He entered a room filled with feminine touches and collided with Makarenko, moving quickly in the opposite direction.

  “Comrade General, if the mission is fulfilled we must now withdraw. The enemy has reinforced and our escape route is in jeopardy.”

  Hardly missing a step, Makarenko shepherded the Major back down the route he had just painfully toiled.

  “I can see much from up here Ilya. They look organised and efficient. How long can we hold them?”

  Such things were a matter of guesswork, and both men knew it, but his General had asked so Rispan ventured his reply.

  “Twenty minutes absolute maximum Comrade.”

  The two pressed on, the silence indicating only thought.

  Makarenko broke it.

  “I must launch this last attack, for we have not done all we set out to do here. How do you plan for us to leave Ilya?”

  Rispan’s own moment of truth was now upon him, and he delivered his verdict as evenly as he could.

  “With our casualties, through the main gate. If we are bottled up, then over the north wall where our forces made their assault but without our casualties, Comrade General.”

  The two officers were now moving through the first floor bedrooms Rispan had previously traversed, full of the dead and wounded of the paratroop battalion. As they passed by, each wounded man’s face turned to them silently seeking information, each set of dead eyes seemingly staring at them in accusation for what was to come.

  Makarenko stopped so abruptly that Rispan cannoned into him.

  “Those of our comrades who cannot move with us must remain here, Comrade Major. Formed as a rearguard for those who are capable. There is no choice.” The icy formality of his words masking the emotion of an officer who loved his men and understood the consequences of the decision he was making.

  “One last attack and we will leave. Get it organised and start protecting that route out Ilya.”

  He slapped his Major on the shoulder and turned away, immediately immersing himself in readying his men for the final assault.

  Enemy troops were bottled up in the Armoury on the first floor. The last two attempts to crush them had been thrown back with heavy casualties. The General had observed from his vantage point on the second floor how the assaults on the Bastion had withered.

  His hasty plan sent more men to aid those attacks. Men were assigned to cross the small drawbridge leading from the apartments into the garden area, but only once the defenders of the Armoury were engaged by other troops.

  On the second floor, the enemy held a similar area, being pressed into the Kaiser’s Hall and the two adjoining rooms.

  Nodding to the wounded Kapitan who would lead the Bastion assault party, the General closed his eyes and availed himself of a word with some higher authority, seeking hope amidst the hopelessness of death.

  A whistle pulled him from his reverie and launched the final attack.

  0608 hrs Monday, 6th August 1945, Approach roads to the Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg, French Alsace.

  Lavalle and Haefeli had executed their hasty attack to perfection, gaining good firing positions from where their halftrack-mounted heavy machine guns started to cause casualties amongst the defenders and, more importantly, were able to provide good cover in which to manoeuvre.

  Mardin’s assault had overcome the resistance in front of him, his report citing the defenders as mainly previously wounded men who had been organised into a roadblock. His company had indeed wiped out the men who had been injured in the drop.

  2e Compagnie was now pressing hard up the main road approach, driving the thin screen of enemy paratroops before it.

  One platoon of Haefeli’s men had overrun an enemy mortar unit before they had responded to the threat, the troops either dying or being driven off by the Legion’s love of the bayonet.

  Lavalle had remained with the command halftrack, in contact with other units moving swiftly towards the fighting, coordinating the counter-attack. Haefeli had joined the vehicle belonging to his 2IC, bringing his company efficiently online to squeeze the Château from the south, leaving Mardin to do the same from the north road.

  Four 6x6 ‘deuce and a half’ trucks arrived, swiftly disgorging their troops, reinforcements courtesy of Lavalle’s hasty planning. Normally comfortable transport for sixteen or so combat troops, each of these American-built GMC trucks brought over thirty men to the battle, each clad in the traditional brown and grey jellaba.

  The Capitaine commanding the Tabor of Goumiers sought out Haefeli and took rapid orders, leading his men swiftly off towards the battle.

  The Goumiers were Moroccan irregular troops, their courage and ferocity much respected by their allies, as well as their former German and Italian enemies. Their new Soviet adversaries would soon appreciate their courage and recoil at their ferocity.

  A platoon of legionnaires were having a hard time at the main entrance, suffering casualties as they tried to overcome the same problems that had cost the Soviet paratroopers so dearly. Their advantage lay in the fact that the Russians were less organised for defence and were now low on ammunition. None the less, over a dozen men lay dead and wounded on the ramp leading to the main gate, including the platoon commander.

  A second platoon mustered on the main road below the entrance, preparing to force the route by rapid storm. Suddenly, slipping quietly through them, came the Goumiers. Moving relentlessly forward, the sloped ascent mastered by their ancient North African tribal skills.

  Again, the Goumier commander paused, consulting with the Legion officer before moving on after his men. Even though a Frenchman by birth, his own climbing skills were no less impressive than those of his men and he was also soon swallowed up by the trees and bushes.

  The legion platoon found the angled pathway and ascended at the double towards the next road level, already falling behind the nimble tribesmen.

  From the west end of the plateau came the sounds of combat, proof that Mardin’s legionnaires had engaged the enemy as they pressed hard to seal up the Château.

  For the final time, the Capitaine in charge of the Goumiers halted to exchange information with a fellow frenchman. The Legionnaire Sergent-Chef, a sunburnt African veteran of advancing years, was newly installed as commander of his platoon, courtesy of the Russian rifle bullet that had slain his officer. As senior, the Capitaine took the lead and quickly explained the brief.

  With no hesitation, the Goumier officer stood and called to his men in their tribal tongue.

  The Sergent-Chef had spent many years amongst the Berber peoples and understood the shouted exhortation perfectly.

  “Come brothers, these new enemies have not yet learned to fear us. Let us enlighten them!”

  Bullets reached out and took lives amongst the heavily clad tribesmen, but less than before, despite the advantage of the increasing sunlight. Leaving half a dozen of their number on the stone, the Goumiers swept forward and into the South Ward, using both main and side entrances to good effect.

  As the Sergent-Chef prepared to send
his own men forward he hesitated, the sound of a whistle and increased firing within the Château giving him a moment’s pause.

  0609 hrs Monday, 6th August 1945, Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg, French Alsace.

  Two grenades bounced off the door and headed in different directions within the Armoury. One dropped at the threshold, causing the attacking paratroopers to dive for cover once more, losing the advantage they had hoped to gain by following up swiftly. The second rolled erratically into the room, causing the defenders to seek cover as quickly as they could.

  Both exploded simultaneously.

  Perversely, the one by the door killed one of the defenders, a large piece of metal claiming the life of the Savoy orderly, punching into his heart as his slower reactions spelt his end.

  The closest grenade took Von Hardegen out of the fight, the blast throwing him against the rounded arch support, knocking him senseless.

  Rettlinger cut down the first Russians into the room, his newly liberated PPSH doing deadly work in the narrow doorway. A paratrooper positioned at the base of the door and obscured by bodies, poured fire into the defenders, claiming three lives.

  Rettlinger and Dubois were the only men left standing, and the comatose Von Hardegen the only other living man in the room. Both men dropped Russians as a surge brought the enemy close. Dubois ran out of ammo and was clubbed to the ground before he could react, a rifle butt smashing into his forehead and skinning the skull to the bone, the bloody flap of skin pushed up on his head like a flat cap.

  Rettlinger shot the man down, and two more besides until his gun fell silent. A single paratrooper stood before him, panting, drawing air noisily in the way of a condemned man at the gallows.

  Realising fate had spared him, he threw his own empty PPS at the huge German and lunged for the discarded rifle, butt sticky with Dubois’ blood.

  The PPSH remained silent, similarly empty and useless. DerBo threw it at the Russian, a man not much smaller than himself. It struck the hand scrabbling for the rifle, noisily breaking fingers and bringing a howl from the crippled man.

  However, the paratrooper veteran of the Eastern Front quickly recovered and sought another weapon. By his other hand lay a weapon from a different time, one of the classic swords from medieval times that decorated the Armoury.

  Sweeping it up, he ran at Rettlinger, roaring as much with the pain of his shattered fingers as with the intent to intimidate. Weaponless, the ex-SS Gebirgsjager officer could only roll out of the way.

  The paratrooper breathed hard and gathered himself for another attack with the heavy blade. Again he missed, the metal clanging off the stonewall as he lunged past Rettlinger’s twisting body. A rock hard fist smashed into the Russians face, breaking his nose and misting his eyes.

  Unable to see properly, he dropped back and swung blindly, the tip of the sword flicking the German’s shirt as he leapt back.

  Shaking his head to clear his vision, blood flowed freely from his nose, splashing in all directions, decorating the living and the dead lying everywhere within the Armoury.

  Rettlinger made a mistake, catching his foot on a corpse and losing balance. He fell against the wall and the paratrooper saw his opportunity.

  The ancient blade swung in an arc and bit into flesh and bone.

  Slicing the muscle of Rettlinger’s upper arm, the metal smashed into the bone, shattering the humerus at its mid-point. In olden days, such an attack would have severed the limb and gone further to claim the life of the victim but the blade’s travel was suddenly arrested by the stonewall.

  The ringing contact jarred the sword from the paratroopers grasp and it fell to the ground. The Russian’s left hand was broken and useless, his right now senseless and bereft of feeling, the heavy impact having robbed him of control.

  His German adversary slumped to the ground, bleeding profusely from his wound and out of the fight.

  The Russian moved purposefully to the doorway and picked up a PPS dropped by his section Corporal, disentangling the sling from the dead man’s bread bag with difficulty, his numb hand unable to properly function. The paratrooper halted and flexed his hand, bringing life back to numbed flesh. He slipped the weapon’s strap over his head, less trouble now his tingling hand was regaining its functions.

  The man cocked an ear to the sounds of fighting nearby, rightly sensing that his comrades were withdrawing and that he should follow them too.

  However, the paratrooper had a debt to collect for his dead comrades.

  Here.

  Now.

  Shaking his right hand to summon back more control, he turned to finish the German off. Rettlinger was conscious and pushing himself away with his feet, as his right hand worked to squeeze his terrible arm wound and restrict the blood loss.

  The hate in the Russian’s eyes was very real, and DerBo expected to die. What he did not expect was to witness the paratrooper’s death.

  Both men sensed a presence, heard some sounds and feared the worst, as malevolence incarnate burst into the room.

  As the paratrooper turned, the heavy weight smashed into his chest, propelling him backwards and onto Rettlinger’s legs. The Russian’s scream was silenced as soon as it began, throat ripped open from chin to chest.

  Marengo.

  Rettlinger had the most horrible experience of watching a man die three feet in front of his eyes, ripped apart in stages by the huge Alsatian. Lifeless eyes bounced in the savaged head as the beast worked on, opening cavities and stripping flesh from bone.

  DerBo lost consciousness, his last vision being that of Marengo assessing him with merciless eyes.

  The attack had mainly failed, at further great loss to the brave paratroopers, and Makarenko withdrew his forces, urging them to set fires as he herded his weary and battered men towards the lower courtyard.

  He paused quickly in the Upper Courtyard, exchanging quiet words with the medical orderly Serzhant who was responsible for the score of broken and crippled men that were to be left behind there. Embracing and kissing the man, a soldier from the very first days, an emotional Makarenko slipped away down the ramp towards the Basse Cour.

  Despite the growing sounds of combat ahead of him, he was genuinely horrified at the sights he passed, his young troopers mixed with enemy dead, bodies riven and torn for seemingly no purpose.

  In the Lower Courtyard a repetition of the previous scene, with numerous wounded laid out as best they could be, tended by three orderlies and the only woman member of the Battalion.

  Senior Lieutenant Doctor Stefka Kolybareva was hobbling between her charges, her own heavily bandaged thigh restricting her mobility, her bandaged left hand restricting her capability to care.

  “Comrade General, I have told Mayor Rispan that I am staying. He refuses permission. You must grant me permission Sir.”

  Behind the determined woma, an orderly pulled a blanket over the face of a Corporal whose suffering had ended.

  “I cannot agree to that Stefka.”

  His decision given, Makarenko made to move on but a firm hand stopped him.

  “Forgive me Comrade General, but you must.”

  Momentarily angry at being manhandled, Makarenko relaxed despite the increasing intensity of fire coming from the main entrance behind him.

  “I cannot walk and cannot hold a weapon. All I can use is my medical brain and that is best used here Comrade. I am an officer of the Red Army. If I were not a woman, you would see this clearly. You must let me stay Sir,” her eyes strayed to the distraught man on the wall above, “And my Rispan must accept it.”

  Makarenko looked at the woman, her eyes moistening. She was a tough soldier who had killed her fair share of green toads; not a woman given to tears, or so he thought.

  Instinctively he looked up at the battlements. Rispan stood there, his strained face betraying him, his obvious emotion on the verge of overflowing.

  ‘So the rumours were true, you two are an item.’ His thoughts only. He did not give them voice.

&nbs
p; ‘There is no time for this,’ his inner general shouted.

  “On the Svir you told me that difficult decisions are the privilege of rank did you not Comrade General?”

  “Indeed I did Stefka. You may remain. Look after my boys, and look after yourself. I will see you when this stupidity has ended.”

  He hugged the Doctor, his peripheral vision seeing his Battalion commander sag in realisation at what had just come to pass.

  “Goodbye Stefka.”

  Makarenko called men to him and sent messengers to the main gate with orders to start disengaging. Two wounded paratroopers erected a white sheet with a large red cross in the centre, coloured by the most valuable commodity his soldiers had to give.

  The surviving paratroopers started to exit the Château, retracing the grapnel route used during the two-platoon assault earlier. A French half-track had moved up and its .50cal downed a number of men as they moved across the road to safety in the woods.

  Aleksey Nikitin, unscathed whilst most of those around him had fallen, brought his Mosin sniper rifle to bear, dropping the gunner into the half-track and forcing the vehicle to drop back.

  Makarenko scaled the round tower and met Rispan.

  The man’s pain was wholly apparent, both in physical and mental terms, but there was nothing of value to be said.

  “Bring the rest of the boys out this way, Ilya. I will make sure we are set up to cover your withdrawal from the wood line. But we must hurry. I have pulled the main gate troops back now.”

  The Major nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  Makarenko placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and made eye contact, sharing his friend’s pain and anguish as best he could.

  The moment disappeared in an instance as running paratroopers appeared from the main gate, pursued by burst of fire.

  The General moved to the wall and grabbed a rope, quickly hoisting himself through the shutter and slipping down to road level.

  Organising the men he found there, Makarenko pushed out a screen to keep the legionnaires at bay for as long as possible. His men were finding that the white kepis made excellent targets, the French troops being so equipped as a result of their ceremonial duties. As head shot casualties mounted, Mardin ordered his men to remove them, an order reluctantly but swiftly followed.