Extricating an arm, he tried rolling the corpse down his body, but found it impossible.
Using both arms, he got a purchase and eased the cadaver enough to be able to bring his body into play.
His arms protested, as did his back, and his legs, but he extricated himself and fell against the damaged wall, panting with the exertion of it all.
The light of the fire illuminated the face of the armored infantry Captain, frozen in horror and incredulity, as a burst from a submachine gun had ripped him from crotch to neck.
There were more bodies, all of them in olive drab, and bearing the insignia of the 4th US Armored on their upper sleeves.
Hardegen looked around and found his Colt with ease, spending much more time looking for the spare clip.
There were no Soviet bodies, the victors having taken them away for proper respects to be paid.
The tank officer tried to remember what had happened, but only flashes of memory suggested themselves to him, not enough to recall how the full details of those last few minutes, but enough to suggest to him that his lack of memory was an advantage.
Now, out from under the protection of the body, the cold started to affect him and he sought extra layers as the temperature dropped dramatically.
He scrabbled on all fours, moving into other areas, finding little of value, every US body having been stripped down to the shirts and trousers, every item of winter gear removed by the victors.
He found a helmet comforter and sliced it open, slipping it over his head and around his throat, to act as a scarf.
One of the armored infantrymen was quite large and his trousers offered a warming second layer for his legs but, stiff with frozen blood and urine, they proved impossible to remove from the corpse.
A canteen missed by the Russians offered hope and its contents burned his throat. Whatever it was, it tasted good, and gave him the impetus to move on.
The old man lay there, his corpse violated even in death. The German uniform had proven too much of a provocation and they had beaten the old body, urinated and defecated on it in their memory of the years that the Motherland was subjected to death and hardships by the hands of the German Invaders.
Whilst the thought was abhorrent to Hardegen, he understood that he had to have it to survive, so he eased the ripped and bloodied white fur coat off the stinking corpse, tidied it up as best he could, and then slipped it on, immediately feeling the benefits.
Hope rose in him and he searched around for a weapon. The Soviet PPSh had disappeared, as had any of the Soviet equipment. The Garand was proving very popular with the Soviet soldier, and they had also been taken away.
The Mauser rifle lay where it had been dropped.
Before he picked it up, he checked that the metallic weight in the coat pocket was ammunition for the venerable rifle.
It was, and so he felt properly armed again.
Hardegen moved quietly through the ruins, the soft sounds of singing and soldiers relaxing penetrating the relative silence that night had brought to the battlefield.
He froze as two sentries walked slowly through the rubble towards him.
Thinking quickly, he hid in plain sight, lying down next to some more dead GI’s, the white coat concealing most of him in the reduced light, although the tiredness of the two soldiers played its part as well.
The sentries moved on.
Hardegen came to the place where his gunner had been wounded, but the body was gone.
For a moment, his hopes rose, but his mind brought him back down to earth, throwing up images of the wounded DeMarco that suggested the man was long dead.
As he moved towards ‘Bismarck’ something in the sky above exploded, the flash being enough to betray the face of a sentry posted on the tank.
Whilst every essence of his being told him to move on, he decided to do what he could and prevent ‘Bismarck’ falling into enemy hands.
The first part was easy, the soft snores betraying the sentry’s lack of alertness, and condemning him to death.
Normally, Hardegen did his killing at distance from within an impersonal metal box, but this day had brought forth new horrors for him to experience.
He looked at the man from cover.
Small.
Older, certainly a father, probably a grandfather.
‘You or me, Tovarich.’
He had learned his lessons well and the sentry’s throat was quickly opened to the elements, the hot blood steaming in the sub-zero night air. Hardegen held the man tight as the engineer struggled against the inevitability of his approaching death.
He moved quietly and slipped inside the tank, using his knife to saw through cables and prise gauges from their mounts.
Knowing he needed to put distance between himself and Müggenhausen, Hardegen decided to concoct a plausible scene.
The small body was easily moved, although not without blood spilling down his already soiled fur coat. The dead Russian was dropped inside the tank.
The blood was everywhere in any case, but the freshness of the recent kill betrayed itself, so Hardegen spent a few moments grinding it into the snow and making it look more like the product of the afternoon’s fighting.
In the rear box, he found the twine he sought and slipped it into his pocket.
Once in the turret, he used his torch to see what he was doing.
The vehicle had not been looted and contained a lot of what he would need to survive.
He would give up the Mauser when he had made it to a safer distance, but the Thompson was to be his preferred weapon and he placed it on the turret roof, along with the spare clips.
Chocolate bars and cigarettes were harvested from all sorts of nooks and crannies, even ration packs were found, and soon he needed a bag in which to carry his ‘fortune’.
The grenades, there were two, were tied together and then wired to the floor of the turret. Four HE shells were added to the pile, as well as all the grease and oil containers he could find.
Tying the twine to end pin of the grenades, he took a last look at the ‘Bismarck’ before slipping out of the Sherman. He emptied a can of petrol into the compartment and then policed up his items and moved away.
The twine was only forty-three metres long, but he found a good position and made ready.
Sensibly, he decided to check the route he intended to use and quickly satisfied himself that it was clear.
He pulled hard on the twine.
It separated in front of his gaze, a weak point giving way some few feet in front of him.
Slipping back out into the snow, he tied a knot and joined the two ends firmly.
He pulled again, once back in cover.
The sound of one explosion was clearly heard and was certainly enough to bring investigation.
An occasional tongue of yellow betrayed a fire within the tank, satisfying Hardegen that he had achieved the destruction of ‘Bismarck’.
He pushed the Mauser into the snow and pulled more over the top, hiding the weapon from casual inspection.
Picking up his bag, and the thompson, he turned to leave.
The bayonet doubled him over as it was rammed into his stomach.
Hardegen dropped to the knees, but was held upright by the wicked blade and rifle.
The Soviet Guardsman gently turned the rifle and with it, the steel inside Hardegen, twisting the wound in such a way as to make the American scream in pain.
A second bayonet slammed into him, adjacent to the first, both infantrymen determined to make the Amerikanski suffer for the deaths of their comrades.
The long blades were pulled out simultaneously, permitting Hardegen to slump to the ground.
The first soldier prodded him in the shoulder, hard enough to draw blood, but not sufficient to penetrate deeply.