Durand decided to send his infantry forward on foot, and Braun could not oppose the idea.
Looking for another target, Braun noted the legionnaires dismounting and charging the river.
Tracers leapt out of the failing light and men dropped into the snow, adding scarlet to the white blanket.
The Churchill rattled by, heading to a point where a small track terminated on the opposite bank.
The two AVRE’s followed suit, the three tanks creating a spear point, an armoured triangle, inexorably advancing to conquer the Zorn.
The bridge layer halted on the riverbank and quickly set its bridge in place.
Then it was hit.
The whole front of the Churchill disappeared in a deadly whiteness as a huge HE shell struck the vertical glacis, its 152mm armour plate sufficient to resist penetration, but not to deny the concussive effect of such a large explosion.
The driver and hull gunner were reduced to jelly, bones shattered by the huge blow. Both died within seconds.
In the turret, the loader was blown against the turret wall, fracturing his skull and smashing his right shoulder.
Godfrey was temporarily blinded as his sights shattered, the shock wave also dashing his head on unyielding metal, which nearly knocked him out.
Johnson broke his left wrist, and nearly trepanned himself on the inside of the cupola, peeling part of his forehead back as the metal edge did its work.
Braun slammed his fist against the wall of the Panther’s turret.
The Churchill had to move or the bridge was useless to them.
Another shell struck the wounded beast, but it was of a smaller calibre, and did not damage the tank.
The two AVRE’s pushed in on the right of the bridge and, one after the other, efficiently put their fascines into the water.
“Dora Zero One to Dora. Use the bundles to the right of the bridge. Move up now and straight over… fan out once across. One-five, watch to the north-east. Over.”
One-five, Stepanski’s tank, let two others roll over the fascines before he decided to cross.
Inside the bridge layer, Johnson struggled to decipher the messages from his brain.
He could smell explosives, fire, blood, faeces, urine, vomit and fuel, all of which told him that he needed to be elsewhere immediately.
He squealed as his broken wrist announced itself, denying him the leverage to push up through the hatch at the first attempt.
Again he tried, this time successfully, and he welcomed the fresh cold air that greeted him.
Braun spotted the movement and tried to contact the British tank, but the radio had lost the uneven struggle against the large calibre HE round, something he had suspected the moment the shell hit the Churchill.
He willed the young officer to do something.
‘Move the tank, Englander… move the fucking tank!’
There was no point in shouting, it was too far, and the noise of battle was growing as the Panthers on the other side of the bridge started to work the battlefield.
On the Churchill’s roof, Johnson cleared his head and peered back inside at is crew.
Godfrey was coming round, and the loader was also showing signs of life.
“Corporal Godfrey! Godfrey! Shape up, man! Get yourself sorted. Get ready to evacuate on my order.”
Not waiting for a reply, Johnson rolled off the turret, unaware of the unwanted attention he was now getting. The twang of bullets striking the tank’s armoured plates did not penetrate into his consciousness, so focussed was he on the task he had set himself.
Through the open hatch, he could see that his driver was beyond help. He grabbed at the corpse with his one good arm and, thankful that the man had been nigh on a starved dwarf, Johnson exerted his strength and managed to get the body partially out of the seat, and slid the body in the general direction of the hull gunner.
A bullet nicked his calf, the sting making him work harder.
Sliding down through the narrow opening, Johnson worked to push the driver out of the way.
Another huge shell landed near to the tank, rocking the Churchill, causing Johnson to bang his head. A steady stream of blood emerged from the small but deep wound caused by the prominent corner of an electrical junction box above the driver’s position.
Having made enough room for himself, he restarted the tank, praying that the engine would catch.
It did, but the plume of black smoke informed the defenders that the Churchill was once again a target.
Dropping the tank into reverse gear, Johnson grabbed the tiller bar with his good arm and started to move the vehicle away from the bridge.
‘Well done, Englander!’
“Dora Zero One to Dora. Bridge is clear, I say again, bridge is clear.”
Speaking on the intercom, he gave the order to push forward, all the time watching the Churchill.
To its right, a Panther followed closely on the heels of one of the AVRE’s, both British tanks now across the water.
Braun smiled, but his eyes took in something on the periphery.
He snatched up the radio and tried to get through, even though he knew it was useless.
“Nein, nein, get out, Johnson, the bank’s giving way, get out now!”
The last heavy shell had affected the integrity of the river bank, and it seemed that only Braun could see it as plain as day.
No one would ever know if Johnson had felt it start to go, or even if he heard Braun’s cry over the radio.
The bank slowly gave way and forty plus tons of Churchill slithered, left side first, into the water.
A man started to emerge from the turret hatch.
Something acted as a stop; possibly a submerged rock. Momentum and gravity took over and the heavy tank rolled over, coming to rest upside down in the freezing River Zorn.
The water flooded into the tank.
Godfrey, half in, half out of the turret, was mashed and virtually cut in half as the vehicle rolled into the water. He was dead before he had a chance to drown.
The loader died without regaining consciousness.
The interior light by the driver’s position stayed illuminated, even when both it and Johnson were immersed by the inrushing waters.
Abject terror seized the young tank officer, but his screams were silenced by the water that flooded into his mouth.
As the water closed over him, the light stayed bright in the icy waters, illuminating his desperate efforts to hold his breath, and then to drink the river dry.
The bulb flickered and died.
Braun’s Panther moved carefully over the engineer bridge, which was now attracting a lot of attention from Soviet artillery and mortars.
The unfortunate men strapped to the Legion vehicles had worked, up to a point, until someone in the Soviet command made a difficult decision. The change was marked by the unexpectedly spectacular end of one of Braun’s Panthers.
A large calibre shell hit the Panther on the hull glacis, transforming three of the POW’s into jam in the blink of an eye. It was followed by two more hits, this time from something smaller, but just as deadly.
The tank, its crew, the surviving prisoners, and the Legion grenadiers riding on the back, all disappeared in a huge orange and red rose, obvious pieces of all four parts of the whole travelling large distances in the explosion.
Only the running gear remained to identify where the German tank had once stood.
On paper, the brand new 412th Mechanised Brigade was a reasonable formation, certainly hampered logistically by being equipped with numerous tank types, but helped by the veteran tankers and infantry that made up over 70% of its personnel.