He started to limp, but still maintained the pace.
A movement to his front made him shoulder his Garand and fire off three quick rounds. He ran over the spot, but there was nothing.
A grunt nearby drew his attention, and he turned as one of his Rangers slowly dropped to the ground. Another movement to the man’s left drew the remaining five rounds in his rifle. A spray of red indicated that at least one bullet had struck home.
Two Rangers leapt into the position, and a burst of Thompson finished off the wounded Russians.
Smoke burned his throat and lungs; the very earth seemed to be alight around him.
Nearby, a Soviet tank, he didn’t recognise the type, burned steadily, the acrid rubber smoke the source of his own discomfort.
Barkmann paused to recharge his Garand, noticing how so much of the snow had been melted away, either in the blasts, or by the subsequent fires.
Ford leapfrogged his position, dropped into a shell hole, and found himself in a horror show.
Not one body was intact.
Even the old hard-bitten NCO exceeded his tolerance, spilling the contents of his stomach at the sight.
He had jumped into a charnel house of pieces, entrails and gore spread evenly across the sides of the hole, with pieces of body here and there, some even recognisable for what they might once have been.
An arm.
A leg.
A… head?
A… something.
‘Oh, you poor bastards!’
Recovering as best he could, Ford picked himself up, both physically and mentally, crawling out of the hole, presenting his Rangers with a bloody sight straight from the darkest of nightmares.
Barkmann dropped beside him.
“Fucking hell, Sarge. You ok?”
Reasonably, the Ranger officer thought his NCO had been wounded.
“Lotta dead bodies in there, Lootenant. Just messy… so fucking messy.”
Barkmann risked a look over the edge of the hole and immediately wished he hadn’t.
“Oh my.”
A bullet zipped his way, throwing up a little earth as it hit the edge of the hole.
It served to focus both men and take their thoughts away from the horrors in front of them.
“There’s one at the base of the tree there. See him?”
Barkmann pointed, but it was unnecessary, as Ford’s rifle spat a single bullet that sped across the no man’s land and shattered a skull.
All around the two men, other Rangers were pushing forward as resistance slackened even further.
A group of three Soviet soldiers sat cross-legged on the bottom of their position, eyes staring at something a thousand miles away, no more aware of their surroundings and predicament than the dead they shared their emplacement with.
None of the three men had dropped their weapons; they remained clutched tight to their chests, as a scared child holds his favourite teddy bear for protection from evil.
A Corporal practised his Russian on the group, but to no avail.
More Rangers screamed and shouted at the Soviet soldiers, who continued to look at something beyond comprehension.
A Ranger BAR gunner shot them at close range.
On the flanks of the attack, the Rangers and tankers pushed in hard, clearing the few occupied positions with grenades or HE shells.
Some Soviet soldiers surrendered, those that were still capable of thinking rationally anyway.
Others, like the group of three, sat shocked and stunned and, like the three, some died because they could neither hear nor understand their executioners.
Very few of the defenders were capable of fighting, but those that were did so to the best of their ability.
A few more Rangers were wounded or killed before the positions were taken, and the firing stopped.
Two of the Russian tanks contained dead men, although the vehicles were operational.
“Concussion and blast, Lootenant.”
The mess hanging from one of the turrets was awful.
“That’s his lungs, Lootenant.”
The blast had driven the Soviet tank officer’s lungs out of his body, to hang from his mouth like pink and red petals.
For men, such as Barkmann and Ford, who thought they had seen everything that combat had to offer, the fight for the Griesbach-Neuwiller road took them to extremes they never wanted to visit again.
Gesualdo limped up, his right thigh gripped tight by a fresh bandage.
“OK, Al?”
“Friendly fire, can you believe it? Goddamned friendly fire!”
Barkmann could not help but grin at his friend.
“Later then… over one of your shit cigarettes. Now, we gotta get moving.
“I hear that. My boys are in good shape. Want me to take the lead?”
“‘Kay. Tie in with Ewing for some close support. I shall pull the 633rd TD boys up now. Let’s go.”
They shook hands.
“Al.”
“Lukas.”
Gesualdo limped off again.
“Sergeant Ford, get the doggies up and moving. We’ve a war to win.”
As the American force prepared to move off again, welcome assistance made itself available, in the form of A-26B’s from the 416th Bombardment Group.
Much of the USAAF unit had been stateside when hostilities had commenced again and, for various reasons, had not come back together until mid-November.
Their A26 Invaders carried a world of hurt, both internally and externally.
Sixteen .50cal machine guns and a 6000lbs load of ordnance.
Twelve aircraft were airborne and, as yet, had not been engaged, so they were able to focus all their power on the Red Army units sat between the Rangers and the position at Neuwiller.
Avoiding the road, two groups of three aircraft swept north-west, screaming over the top of the Rangers, commencing their attack from the red smoke that marked the limits of the Ranger advance.
Each dropped half of their load of bombs, ravaging a large area either side of Route 233.
The next two groups of three repeated the procedure, dropping their ordnance further on.
Both groups then swept back over the area, sweeping the ravaged ground with .50cal rounds.
For the Rangers, it was seriously impressive and professional work, and Barkmann was determined to make the most of the opportunity.
He pushed his men harder, upping the pace of the advance, spreading groups out to the edge of the swept area, in case any defenders rallied on the flanks of the beaten zone.
Careful to protect his men from his own Air Force, he ordered more red smoke put down as they advanced.
Six aircraft swept overhead, the 416th circling with impunity, no ground fire of note to concern them, and definitely no enemy aircraft to challenge their mastery of the airspace over the battlefield. They repeated the attacks, moving the bomb line forward by seven hundred yards
This time the secondary explosions were obvious.
Reports from the Squadron Commander indicated major damage to a Soviet tank unit that had been concealed, but not well enough to avoid the attentions of the Invaders.
Barkmann knew that Ewing would be listening, but he also remembered that assumption was the mother of all fuck-ups, so he confirmed that the tanker had heard the report.
“Roger that. We’re on it, Boxer Six.”
Ewing was a career soldier, and understood that the Ranger officer was a competent man who was just playing it by the numbers.
Amidst the burning Russian tanks to his front, one still exhibited life, its turret turning from side to side.
Inside, a soviet tank commander, fresh to the battlefield, condemned his men with his exhibition. Urine and faeces dripped down his legs, creating a smell they could recognise, but it was his inability to make a decision that brought their premature end.
Ewing had no such problems but, in truth, he hadn’t just been bracketed by 500lbs bombs.