Nazarbayev grabbed the man’s straps and dragged the heavy body as best he could.
A Sergeant joined him, and together they moved the wounded man quicker and ate up the distance to the bridge, and its illusion of safety.
A sound burned through the numerous cracks of tank cannon, bursts of machine gun fire, or the screams of wounded men, a sound known to each and every Soviet soldier… a sound that carried nothing good for them.
The first aircraft screamed down upon the battlefield, its new noisemakers bringing fear to the hearts of even the most steadfast of enemy. In truth, often to those the aircraft were supporting too.
The Beaufighter Mark VI gracefully drove itself straight into the ground, killing two nearby Coldstream Guardsmen, and never having fired its guns or loosed off a single rocket.
The next three aircraft put their ordnance right on the target markers, RP-3 rockets and cannon shells ploughed up the target and transformed the flat ground into a moonscape of whirling earth and stones..
Second Section were already underneath the bridge, encumbered with three wounded, but none the less, still full of fight.
Nazarbayev reported to the captain in charge before returning to his men.
They were old comrades, and there was no ceremony.
“Comrade Kapitan, Third platoon withdrawn, four casualties.”
“Keep your head down, Yuri. Wait ’til I blow it, and then give the Capitalists shit.”
Guards Captain Nauvintsev took a moment to watch the veteran hobble off, a turned ankle preventing Nazarbayev from striding around the battlefield in the manner for which he was renowned.
“Comrade Starshy Leytenant, test the circuit.”
The engineer officer nodded to the designated man, and the circuit was duly checked.
A nod sufficed as a report that all was well.
“Comrade Kapitan Nauvintsev, the circuit is…”
The first of the Coldstreams’ mortar rounds dropped fair and square into the centre of the pit in which they were concealed.
Nauvintsev was catapulted into the sky as just over two pounds of high explosive killed every other man in the pit.
The veteran Captain dropped from the sky.
His scream carried across the battlefield as his battered body fell on hard ground, breaking more of his bones.
Another 2” mortar round sought him out, picked him up, and threw him at the small bridge, where he was transfixed by the guardrail. The modest diameter timber poked out from his chest and held him upright on his knees, his broken legs at awkward angles to his front and side.
Nauvintsev could make no noise, not move an arm or leg. All he could do was kneel exposed on the battlefield as his lifeblood ebbed away from numerous wounds, none more hideous than the penetrative wound, where the solid timber had pushed bone and lung out of the ragged exit would.
But he stayed conscious, his mouth working, trying to form a word, a scream… a something.
The agony subsided, as if some unseen doctor had filled him with pain relieving chemicals, and the dying officer found himself becoming aware of the battlefield.
Behind him, not that he could turn and professionally examine the work of the enemy, the British tanks and infantry were closing down on the bridge as the surviving three Beaufighters circled over friendly territory, ready to return to avenge their leader.
In front of him, his own guardsmen fired steadfastly, despite the growing casualties caused by the nasty little British mortars and direct fire from the assault force.
A stray bullet clipped his left elbow, its passage a matter of indifference to him.
He felt no pain whatsoever.
Almost clinically, he watched his men die one by one, a rifle bullet here, a tank shell there.
His mouth worked but no sound came out.
‘The bridge, Yuri… blow the fucking bridge.’
On cue, the Praporshchik rose up and was immediately felled.
Incapable of even a gasp, Nauvintsev willed his man to rise again.
Nazarbayev staggered to his feet and started to move towards the shattered pit.
Nauvintsev watched fascinated, as his predicament enabled him to observe a battle in a way he had never been able to before.
Relieved of his own duties by his wounds, the Captain could see how his men fought and died, the bravery of some, the cowardice of others, his whole military career set out in one microcosm of combat in an unimportant corner of Germany.
‘Blow the fucking bridge, man!’
Something whacked into Nazarbayev’s shoulder and spun him around, and probably saved his life, as tracer bullets split the air he had been running through a fraction of a second later.
Again, the NCO rose, albeit slower and with more care, his right shoulder bloody and rent.
He covered the remaining short distance in a half roll, half crouching effort that kept him safe from further harm.
That he dropped into the messy remains of the Engineer officer was unfortunate, but he had no time to rid himself of the unfortunate man’s organs and entrails.
The detonator was intact, but one of the wires was clearly broken.
“Job tvoju mat!”
Setting the detonator straight, Nazarbayev looked for the other end of the wire.
A bursting shell threw a load of earth and stone over him, and caused him to shrink onto the bottom of the hole.
Up again, he risked a look over the parapet and saw that the British were closer than he had anticipated, and…
“Mudaks!”
His officer… his veteran commander…
“Mudaks!”
The virtual corpse’s eyes burned into his, issuing orders without words so that, even at distance, the iron will of Guards Captain Nauvintsev made itself known.
Nazarbayev managed a nod and, had he not returned to the task of finding the broken wire, he would have seen the nearest thing possible to a smile form on the broken face of his leader.
He followed the intact wire up to the edge of the pit, and over it, attracting a burst of fire from the nearest Centurion.
He ducked down, gripped the detonator in his good hand, counted to three, and propelled himself up and over the edge, dropping into a piece of dead ground on the side away from the enemy.
Working his way round, the shoulder wound increasingly inhibiting him, Nazarbayev found what he was looking for, but the broken wire end lay in plain sight, in an area exposed to enemy fire.
Without a thought, the NCO threw himself forward and grabbed at the end with his wounded arm, the pain of the impact with the earth almost enough to push him into unconsciousness.
He landed badly and smashed his face into the detonator, and opened up his top lip virtually to his nostril.
He scrambled for the wire end and stuck it between his teeth, biting down hard as he pulled on it, instantly stripping the insulation off a two-inch section.
Nazarbayev repeated the exercise with the other end, joined the two together in rough fashion, and readied the detonator.
The smile that he saw on Nauvintsev’s face was one of pride and of sorrow, an expression that he acknowledged with a nod, before he twisted the detonator and sent a small current down the repaired line.
The demolition charge ignited, destroying the bridge, killing or wounding the three Coldstream Guardsmen closest to the bridge, and terminating Nauvintsev’s existence.
On the British radio net, all hell broke loose, with Scipio-six, the 2nd Grenadier’s commander, hunting down information like a hungry hound.
Blenheim-six, A Squadron’s commander, was on the airwaves, desperate to get the fuel with which he could move forward and bolster the assault.
Maj Godfrey Eben Pike DSO MBE, OC B Squadron, confirmed the loss of the bridge, called for more support, bridging engineers, more infantry, more everything.