Despite the best efforts of the German troops, some quantities of the product remained, and were recovered by the Red Army.
In the chaos that was the Soviet logistical system, some special rocket rounds were accidentally delivered to the front, where Lieutenant General Gluzdovskiy, the commander of the Sixth Army decided to use the tools at his disposal, and ordered the 98th Guards Mortar Regiment to deploy in support of the ragged 117th Rifle Corps.
The surviving Katyushas of the 98th put their special shells on target.
Starshy Leytenant Tobulov didn’t bother to call in the results, as he knew the Katyusha unit would be rapidly relocating.
In any case, the gas mask and cape made conversation difficult.
The explosions were… well… different.
Micco risked a look up from his prone position and observed the ground behind him, seeing a hazy, almost light brown coloured smoke screen forming all across the rear.
It was no smoke screen, and obscured nothing, just changed the view enough to be noticeable.
Already on the leading slope, Micco and his men were not engulfed in the same way as the rest of Love Company’s soldiers were.
He and his men did not smell the light fruity smell.
Which meant that First Sergeant William O. Micco and his men survived the first use of Tabun nerve agent on the modern battlefield.
“Stop! Stop right there!”
Dressman’s voice rose above all other sounds.
In any case, the tableau that greeted them did not encourage forward movement.
Towers was rooted to the spot as the most gruesome play was acted out before his eyes.
Men rose up screaming, others dropped to the ground gasping for air.
Hundreds of soldiers became incapacitated in a moment, as the nerve agent found bare flesh or was inhaled.
Death came quicker to those that drew the deadly agent into their lungs.
Some died within seconds, whereas others gasped for air as they evacuated their bladders and bowels.
“Chewing gum?”
“What’s that you say Harry?”
“Chewing gum… smells like chewing gum.”
“Oh my god! Major! Get back!”
Dressman had been there before, and pieced together the explosions, hazy vision, and unusual smell.
“Gas! The bastards have fired poison gas!”
There was not a single gas mask in the attacking force, in Third Battalion, or even in the 90th Division.
For the soldiers of Love Company, it was already too late.
Otherwise healthy soldiers found themselves unable to draw breath, or lapsing into a sleep from which there was no return.
Towers was startled by the figure that leapt past him.
“Stop Harry! Grab him someone!”
It was too late, and the acting commander of Love Company escaped the grabbing hands and charged forward to help his men.
As Remington ran, his lungs worked overtime, drawing the deadly Tabun into them.
His vision started to fail him and his lungs failed to work as hard as he ordered.
His limb control failed and he tumbled head first into the ground, where his body started to convulse.
Around him, others were in a similarly awful death dance, arms and legs jumping and waggling uncontrolled, as the agent interfered with their nervous systems.
Remington vomited and, face down, inhaled the contents of his stomach, bringing a reasonably swift end to his suffering.
Towers, open-mouthed with shock, watched from a distance. Suddenly shaking himself from his inactivity, he made the only decision he could, assisted by Dressman’s hands pulling at his straps.
“Move back… quickly!”
The command group needed no second telling, and displaced back to the command post, where Towers immediately grabbed the telephone.
Out on the killing ground he had left behind, the gentle breeze encouraged the Tabun to spread south and southwestwards.
Shocked beyond measure, he tried to compose himself, and failed.
“Colonel Bell, Sir… Colonel… my boys’re all gone… all gone…”
Dressman shouted as he pissed on his comforter.
“Piss on it… anything… get it on your fucking faces… quickly!”
“Who is that shouting? What the hell do you mean, Towers? Talk sense, soldier!”
“Colonel, the commies fired something at us… don’t know what it was… poison gas or summat… but all my boys are dead… not shot, not by shrapnel, not blown up… but they’re all fucking dying or FUCKING DEAD!”
Bell felt the full force of Towers’ anger down the phone.
Clearly the man was unhinged, and Bell needed to act quickly.
“Towers, put your next senior man on the phone right now. That’s an order.”
Retaining enough understanding of the situation, Towers, his muscles twitching, handed the phone across to the only other officer left, a veteran Lieutenant who had recently rejoined the 90th.
The officer opened enough gap from his urine soaked handkerchief to be coherent.
“Yes Sir, Colonel, Sir.”
The man’s voice was strangely high-pitched, but Bell missed it.
“Who are you, soldier?”
“First Lieutenant O’Halloran, Sir.”
“What the hell is happening with Towers? He said everyone’s dead. What’s he on about?”
“Sir, Major Towers is correct. Third Battalion’s been wiped out… they’re all dead or dying… all of them.”
“All of them? Are you goddamned mad, O’Halloran?”
The Lieutenant’s nose streamed, and he started to shake with rage… or shock… or…
Towers, sweating profusely, took the phone from O’Halloran as he folded to the ground, alongside the radio operator, who struggled to draw on the cigarette he had just lit, resigned to his end and preferring to go out with lungs full of smoke than nostrils full of his own waste.
O’Halloran wet himself as he coughed and spluttered.
Towers held the man’s webbing to try and pull his face out of the dirt.
“Colonel Bell… we’re about… to die…,” he felt a wave of instability wash over him, and grabbed the hand holding the telephone in an attempt to hold it steady.
O’Halloran, unsupported, simply collapsed to the floor.
Towers’ attempt to rally was unsuccessful and the receiver fell from his grasp.
His vision indistinct, Towers made a barely controlled descent into a sitting position, as his limbs gave up being properly controlled.
The man with the scythe strode the valley floor, and none of the attackers, save Micco and his group, were spared.
Dressman, knowing his end was approaching, spent his last few conscious moments waving his fist at the sky, and screaming at whichever decider of men’s fate it was that had spared him the horrors of the Great War, albeit shot and gassed, only to bring him to die so horribly in a German field in 1946.
The battalion commander had rushed out of the bunker at some time during the destruction of the US force, and found enough of the Tabun to ensure his lingering but inevitable death.
Amongst the defending Soviet riflemen, seventeen had certainly either succumbed or had a fatal exposure.
There had even been fatalities amongst the guardsmen of the 98th Guards Mortar Regiment, where mishandling and poor sealing of rockets had brought about the deaths of eleven personnel, including the artillery colonel who had delivered the shells and protective gear.
On the slopes of Height 403, First Sergeant Micco and his men remained in situ, unable to go forward, and sure as hell not going anywhere backwards.
The enormity of what had happened behind them shocked them so totally that, when Soviet troops surrounded them, they simply surrendered, and were meekly taken into captivity.