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The tank officer was impressed, having had lesser expectations of the exhausted Irishmen.

Haines ceased fire as the rampant Fusiliers mopped up the Soviet incursion.

He half considered intervening as flashes from exploding shells illuminated bayonets working on helpless wounded Russians.

A whoosh focussed his mind on other matters as an enemy solid shot missed the Sherman by a matter of feet.

Dropping back into the turret, Haines got reacquainted with his own vehicle’s situation.

“ON!”

The breech recoiled and the gun spat another HVAP shell across the snow.

“Bugger it!”

The shell had missed by a country mile.

“Up!”

“ON!”

Again, the gun boomed.

“Hit!”

Haines looked and saw the aftermath of the strike.

“It’s not dead, Nellie. I’m back now, ok?”

Clair put another one up the spout.

“Up!”

“ON!”

“FIRE!”

A miss.

“For fuck’s sake, Nellie!”

Haines snatched a look at his gunner and noticed the yellow fluid seeping from Oliphant’s left ear.

“Up!”

“ON!”

“FIRE!”

Almost at the same instant that the 76mm was fired, an 85mm shell arrived and thumped into the hull machine gun position.

Over in the positions now occupied by the Royal Inniskilling Fusilier’s first platoon, the desperate plight of the Sherman was spotted, and two men ran to the stricken tank to help.

Patrick Walshe was first up on the rear deck of the smoking Sherman, where he was confronted with the head of an obviously unconscious man emerging from the hatch.

The loader’s hatch opened and a blackened tanker slipped out and started to pull up on the insensible body as another pushed from below.

Walshe weighed in and the two men easily extracted the badly wounded Oliphant, so much so that Haines, the man beneath, overbalanced and fell onto the turret floor.

Shaking his head to clear his vision, the Lancer Captain took in the interior of the Sherman, the only illumination coming from something indescribable that was burning slowly in the machine gunner’s position.

Stumpy Clair was still in the driver’s seat, struggling to push himself out, his broken right leg and arm hindering his efforts.

Haines took one look at Sparkle and gagged, the burning corpse destroyed by the impact of the Soviet tank shell.

That it had not exploded had granted the rest of the crew another life.

“No time for ceremony, Stumpy. Here we go.”

He grabbed the injured driver, ignoring the curses and screaming, repeating the exercise of holding the man up to the hatch.

Again, strong hands took hold of the tanker and he was pulled up and out of the turret.

Pausing only to grab the Thompson submachine gun from its position, Haines exited the Sherman and helped bring Stumpy down to ground behind the smoking M4.

The other Fusilier and Oliphant were stretched out side by side.

“They’ve both copped it, boss.”

Killer’s words cut him like a knife.

Nellie’s ears were leaking blood as well as synovial fluid. His already fractured skull had taken another pounding when the tank was hit; fatally so.

Pulling himself together quickly, Haines watched as Walshe splinted Stumpy’s leg, inflicting pain as he moved swiftly.

“How you doing, short stuff?”

Clair gritted his teeth as the young Irishman pulled tight on the bandaging.

“Ballet lessons are off, Boss.”

That drew a weary smile.

“Well, I think walking’s off for a while, Stumps.”

Leaving Walshe to look after his driver, Haines raised himself up to get a look at the battlefield.

There was next to no firing now; what there was seemed most likely to be an Italian, Irish, or British soldier firing a final shot after some retreating Russian suddenly highlighted by an explosion or a muzzle burst.

“Bloody hell! We’ve only sodding held ’em again!”

Jubilation was quickly displaced by duty and Haines swung himself up onto the tank, leaning into the turret to make an assessment.

“Killer, grab an extinguisher and put this fire out. It’s going nowhere.”

There were things left unsaid in that order.

Fiddling with the radio, Haines got through to the headquarters first try.

“Firenze Dieci from Cassino Six, enemy attack halted. They have withdrawn. Your orders, over.”

Pappalardo did not hestitate.

“Move now, Cassino Six, move now. I will alert yje artillery,” he accompanied the words with a finger pointed straight at the Artillery Liaison officer, already briefed as to the task for his guns, “Get your command over the bridge and reform your line, over.”

The Sexton artillery crews, almost out on their feet, redoubled their efforts and put down an accurate and constant barrage, turning the No Man’s land in front of ‘Edward’ into an area in which life could not thrive.

Haines completed sending his orders to the force clinging to ‘Edward’, and then paid attention to his own survival.

It was Stumpy who pointed out that the tank had only stalled and was probably mechanically sound.

The possibility could not be ignored, although either Haines or Killer would have to point the Sherman.

Biffo slid into the driver’s seat, patently ignoring the awfulness to his right, still smoking, although no longer lazily burning.

The ‘Bus’ started first time and he slid the reverse gear in, slowly dropping the tank back into a depression.

He then exchanged places with Killer, leaving the loader to do the best with the controls whilst he and Walshe manned the turret.

Stumpy was tied in place on the engine grilles and anaesthetised with copious amounts of Korn.

Haines quickly showed the Irish infantryman how to poke a shell into the gun, all the time hoping it would not be necessary. In any case, one of their last remaining HVAP shells lay sealed in the breech.

‘Biffo’s Bus’ was the last Allied vehicle to quit the ‘Edward’ defensive line.

1833 hrs, Thursday, 28th November 1945, Route 83, west of Arnoldstein, Austria.

The withdrawal of Haines’ defence force had been completed swiftly and without drama, save some spectacular strike by the Sextons, the huge fireball illuminating the white countryside for kilometres in all directions.

For the former defenders of Nötsch, things were different.

Again, Massala and his surviving men had quit their positions, reversing away, leaving behind the 2nd Battalion of Folgore and the remnants of ‘Robin’ to stem the flow from the west.

By the time that Lastanza had got his unit back to the bridge, the tanks of ‘Robin’ had been destroyed or overrun, the Archer SP’s had been destroyed, and all he had to his name were a few mortar men and a comparative handful of his battalion.

Pappalardo had directed that Lastanza should wheel his force back westwards and block the approach from Nötsch. Even had the savaged battalion been able to get there, they would have been swept aside by advancing Soviet units as Kozlov pushed his main force along the southern side of the river, in an attempt to catch the rear of the Allied position.

He succeeded.

Pappalardo, his headquarters now relocated to the junction of Pessendellach and Oberthörl, found his command group in the way of the Soviet advance.

The remnants of Lastanza’s and Haines’ forces pushed as hard as they could, anxious to make the Italian border.

The radio crackled, informing the survivors of Ambrose Force of the assault on the headquarters.

One company of Folgore’s 3rd Battalion thrashed its vehicles to get there in time.

The surviving Challenger, damaged, yet still defiant, decided to follow on too.