An enemy soldier, wearing a Red Cross armband, had moved towards him and one of the Russians guards had ‘tapped’ him with his rifle butt.
The medical orderly held his hands out, palms up, placating the guard, slowly moving in Emilian’s direction.
Young had spotted the Romanian officer’s predicament and had moved only to offer his medical help.
Suddenly, both Emilian and the guard understood the orderly’s purpose and both relaxed.
After a swift examination, Young’s hand gestures overcame the language barrier and Emilian steeled himself for the pain.
It came and went quickly, not as much as he expected but more than he would have wished for.
He smiled and thanked the Englishman, but realised that his words were wasted.
Instead, he reached into his pocket and produced his recently acquired cigarette case, found when his unit stumbled across a hastily evacuated Allied headquarters position. Holding out the shiny object, Emilian indicated that it was a gift, one that Young accepted immediately, even though he was a non-smoker.
The guard chivvied his group back into some sort of order and Emilian was left to resume his critical assessment of the track repair work.
The cigarette case was plain and simple, all except for the prominent four-leaf clover that was mounted on its face.
As the group of prisoners made its way to the rear, the Romanian unit’s Hetzer reached the field and promptly gave up the ghost.
Its commander, exasperated and in the foulest of moods, dismounted, and commenced a violent kicking attack on it until he realised that the inert object was not even offended by the assault, whereas his foot was now aching badly.
Belligerently, he stood his ground as the prisoners descended upon him, forcing the group to split and walk around him.
Hands on hips, he inspected each in turn until he caught sight of the cigarette case, its unique clover imprinting itself on his memory, suggesting that his Commander had perished and the body had been looted by the man holding it.
“Futui gura!”
The Soviet guard started to shout but the Steyr M1912 pistol was out in an instant.
Young’s smile disappeared along with the top of his head as the enraged Romanian tank officer exacted revenge for Emilian’s death.
Slipping the case into his pocket, Lieutenant Ionescu went in search of higher authority.
He was stunned to find Emilian sat with his crew, all tucking into bread and cheese, their track mended but lacking the fuel with which to move off the field.
“But I thought…”
“You thought what, Tudor?”
The Lieutenant was confused.
“I thought you were dead, Sir.”
Emilian’s eyes sparkled.
“Well, I admit my finger hurts," he waggled the damaged appendage with care, "But I think I’ll manage to survive ‘til the morning.”
The crew appreciated the humour, but not enough to stop eating, so the rumble of amusement had no real form.
Ionescu fumbled in his pocket, produced the cigarette case and proffered it to a now puzzled Emilian.
“And where in the name of Saint Andrei did you find that?”
“An enemy soldier had it. I thought he’d killed you and looted it from you.”
Emilian was no fool but he had to ask.
“So you took it back, eh? So, where’s the man now, Tudor?”
“Dead. I shot him, Sir.”
Accepting the cigarette case, he gestured that Ionescu should join them and the whole group fell into silence again.
As he chewed on the heavy bread, the Catholic in Emilian turned to God, the persistent dull ache in his finger sharpening his memory of prayers long gone by.
‘Oh Saints of our God, come to his aid. Come to meet him, angels of the Lord. Receive his soul and present him to God, the Most High. Amen.’
And with that, Young became but a memory.
Walshe had managed to escape.
About a third of the Inniskillings managed to disengage themselves and fell back from Töplitsch to positions in Weiβenbach, over one and a half kilometres further down the Drau River line.
Whilst Walshe and the others were integrated into the positions of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers, those who had been slow to rise or wounded were herded up and marched away to begin a new life as prisoners of war. Eight-one men started the journey, sixty finished it, as wounds, the cold, and poor treatment took their toll.
Across the river, the London Irish had been displaced with heavy casualties and were staging a fighting withdrawal down Route 38.
At Spittal an der Drau, the prisoners of both battalions were loaded into small trucks, along with local Austrians of military age, despite the fact that no Kommando had been present.
Kearney the ‘corpse’, still dazed and with the mother of all headaches, was helped aboard and the doors locked into place by guards eager to find some relaxation indoors and away from the freezing temperatures.
As the 16th November gave way to the 17th, the small train bore over six hundred souls to a fate unknown.
Hunger had driven him to it; sheer desperation had forced decisions upon him, decisions that he would have baulked at in different times.
Hunger also played another part, in as much as the Soviet paratrooper was still out searching for food in daylight, so weakened was he by a lack of everything the body needs, save fresh water; something in abundance in the snow-covered Alsace.
Hunger produced a telling influence, drawing the man towards the soft sounds of contented chickens, temptingly originating in a small outhouse to the rear of the buildings on the junction of Rue de Juifs and the Rue Principale.
Hunger played its final card by making the man careless, its debilitating effects blocking the inner voices of the combat soldier, voices that shouted caution and were ignored.
The building was owned by a French family, presently encumbered with the billeting of a group of US war correspondents, all guarded by a small detail of military police.
One of the MPs, a Sergeant, was now covering the would-be thief with an M1 carbine.
The two men locked eyes and the Soviet paratrooper acknowledged the warning with a resigned look and fell exhausted against the building, knowing he had neither the wit nor strength to fly.
“Hey Boys!… Hey!… Boys!… Boys!… I’ve got me a chicken rustler!”
Three more MP’s, in various stages of undress, turned out of the building, laughing at the pathetic unshaven man and his rags, closely followed by members of the Press Corps, some of whom carried cameras that immediately started to record the pitiful scene.
As was the agreement, no pictures were sent back for use until an intelligence officer had viewed and passed them as revealing nothing of use to the enemy.
It was fortunate for the Allies that the man with the photo duty that day was keen, efficient, and above all, very good at his job.
Something sparked a memory and he reached up to a shelf groaning under a ton of paperwork.
He searched a special folder for a comparison photograph, satisfied himself that he was right, and immediately rang his boss.
A phone rang on the desk of Georges De Walle, now permanently attached to French First Army.
He recognised the voice immediately, his counterpart in Dever’s Army Group headquarters.
The man was all business, and his calls either fishing for or supplying information were always brief.
De Walle listened.
“Mon Dieu! Yes…thank you… yes, we are very interested… yes… I will… as soon as possible and with written orders signed by me… Yes, today. Thank you, Colonel.”