Seeing the explosion, a group of previously unnoticed engineers rose up and charged.
The Garand contributed one bullet before the charger leapt out, the metallic sound spelling doom for Hardegen.
He had no time to reload.
Ducking down, he avoided a burst of SMG fire by rolling to his left, over the dead body of the old man.
The first engineer lost his footing as he launched himself over the wall and dropped heavily onto the brickwork.
Hardegen lunged and the bayonet slipped into the soft flesh easily, but refused to slide out.
The bayoneted soldier provided a barrier to those following, at least long enough for the Colt to come to hand.
The next two faces that appeared got a round each, dead centre.
Another grenade was dropped over the wall, rolling alongside the corpse of the old German.
The explosion defiled his corpse but did not harm the tank officer.
A movement up high betrayed an attacker, and the Colt pumped out bullets as a shape flew through the air.
The soldier had climbed up onto the porch and thrown herself down on the American below.
Her dead weight struck him and knocked him to the floor.
The Colt was empty and there was no time for a new magazine. The old man’s Mauser rifle was too far away so Hardegen grabbed what he could and defended himself.
A rifle butt slammed into his upper right chest and knocked the wind from him momentarily, but not enough to stop him flailing with the sharpened spade he had taken from the dead woman.
It cleaved the man’s face to the bone and stuck in his neck for the briefest of moments.
Hardegen was becoming frenzied.
The spade came away and he lashed out at the engineer, whose weapon strap had become entangled in the ruins, depriving him of its use.
The soldier ducked and moved left, receiving a slash across the shoulder blade.
He went down as two bullets hammered into him.
The Captain had arrived with a hard-faced corporal and they shot down the remaining attackers.
Hardegen dropped to his knees, gasping, his exhaled breath almost like a cloud of steam.
The Captain unravelled the PPSh’s strap from a protruding metal stanchion and handed it to Hardegen.
“Try that for size, Major.”
Unable to talk, he accepted it with a nod.
The spare ammo pouch came next, after the Captain had finished off the wounded engineer.
“Bad news, Major. We’re fucking surrounded. We ain’t inclined to surrender either. We’ve seen what these bastards do to prisoners.”
He moved his head, checking the enemy positions to his front and saw nothing of note.
“Less’n you got any objections, we’re planning to keep this place for a’whiles longer, then bug out after dark. We’ve got a route planned ready for the time we can slip away.”
“Fine by me, Captain.”
That the night would bring opportunities for escape was not wasted on the Soviet force, and they quickly determined not to permit the opportunity, redoubling their efforts.
A concerted assault overran the ad hoc group of bakers and clerks, the men surrendering once the horrors of close combat started to reveal themselves.
Two brave men stalked the surviving Sherman and destroyed it with satchel charges, its destruction signaling the start of the final attack.
True to the Captain’s word, the armored infantry held fast, and the whole gutter fight of blade and blood was repeated, the last few survivors of the Soviet attack either cut down or bludgeoned to the floor as day gave way to night.
Elsewhere, the news was disastrous, as the US Third Army was battered to a total halt by the Red Army’s exhausted formations, and the superhuman efforts of its Air Force.
That both Soviet ground and air units paid heavily for their efforts was of no consolation to George Patton, and he was stunned to find that his normal ‘get up and go at ’em’ attitude failed to win the day.
At first he railed, then ranted, then tried to threaten those he visited or radioed.
Only as the day developed did Patton realize that he had lost a very major portion of his command, that his men were exhausted by their efforts, and that, in a very real sense, he had experienced a defeat.
The call he made to Bradley was the most difficult call he ever had to make, his personal feelings rising again as he spoke to his former inferior and admitted that the attack had run out of steam.
“Well, you made some ground, George. Can you hold it?”
Patton considered the reasonable question, although it felt like a slap in the face.
“Yes, Brad, we can hold, especially if the weather’s gonna be as we’ve been told. Gonna need reinforcements though. I’ve lost a lot of my best boys in these hours.”
Bradley gave a respectful pause, not yet appreciating how many Allied soldiers had fallen in Spectrum Blue.
“Hold what you’ve taken then, George. We will get you some extra men and supplies as soon as possible.”
Bradley couldn’t believe his ears.
“Get me them straight away and I’ll push forward again before the worst of the weather sets in.
“NO! It’s over, George.”
“It sure as shit ain’t over, Brad. I’ve lost a lot of boys out there and I’m gonna have some goddamned payback!”
“It’s too late now, George. The weather will be on us and that will be that. Just concentrate on holding for now. That’s an order.”
Words guaranteed to put Patton’s hackles up.
The silence was deafening.
“You know, George. Guderian lost a lot of his boys too. This one just didn’t go our way, ok?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good night, George.”
“Good night… Sir.”
CCA, 4th US Armored Division had been virtually destroyed, along with major lumps of the rest of the division… and the 17th Corps… and the Third Army.
Greenwood and his command group were, in the main, dead. The few survivors already walking through the night snow towards an uncertain fate.
Elsewhere, US 3rd Corps attack had run into trouble, as units tasked with stopping the Legion units to the south, turned north and vented their anger upon the flank of the 14th US Armored Division.
Whilst the 14th had rallied and fought off elements of both the 6th Guards Cavalry Corps and 25th Tank Corps, the opportunity to advance did not exist, and the unit slipped into defence.
To the north of Cologne, the advance of Guderian’s forces had been painfully slow and costly beyond measure, the recently formed Panzer-Grenadier Division Deutschland virtually destroyed as it threw itself on the Soviet defences.
Other German Republican forces had suffered badly, and the German attack had also come to a halt in front of Burscheid and Leverkusen.
The weather played its part, snow reducing visibility and proving a leveler, reducing the effectiveness of the Allied formations.
In the air, the situation was less clear, with both sides having successes and failures, although the claims of the Allied pilots would indicate a three to one ratio of kills on the day.
His mind started to clear, first recognizing the coldness of the air that entered his lungs.
His body came alive slowly, the aches and pains of wounds and bruises making themselves known as his mind sorted through the signals one by one.
He groaned, an immense headache coming out on top of his internal cataloging of his problems.
He raised his hand to his head, or rather tried, instead finding that he couldn’t because he was under something heavy.
His eyes opened reluctantly, but he found things were fine, the soft light of a burning building ample to see by but not enough to make the headache worse.
The weight was a body.