‘Blyad! They know we’re here!’
A green flare exploded overhead, drawing nearly every eye.
Less than a second later, all hell broke loose.
Major Monmouth-Kerr was the first to die, literally coming apart as a burst from a DP28 took him from the small of the back to the top of his head, spreading his blood, guts, and brains over the unfortunate Gethin Jones.
Two of the bullets also hit the Lieutenant, and he dropped to the street, his shoulder and neck penetrated by the DP rounds.
Bullets slammed into the rubble around the Welshmen, claiming victims with ricochets as much as direct hits.
Sergeant Jones sustained such a wound in the rump of his ass; painful, nothing more.
Jones six-six took a direct hit in the mouth that detached his complete lower jaw, but, despite the horrendous gaping wound, still managed to make his animal-like screams louder than the growing firefight around him.
Most of the wounds were upper body and head, and the Royal Welch suffered badly in the opening exchanges.
Jones nine-five, the senior man for yards in any direction, quickly decided to get the hell off the street.
He shouted in all directions, gaining the attention of the men around him.
“Grenades… grenades!”
He waved a Mills bomb in all directions to emphasise his point.
Those who could see, grabbed for their own little bomblet and readied themselves for the orders.
Sergeant Jones grimaced as the nearby Fusilier Simpson took a ricochet in the side of the head.
Davies 14 was on hand, and quickly started work on the nasty wound.
Jones nine-five pulled the pin, holding the Mills in plain sight. His actions were mirrored along the line.
He ducked as a round clipped his helmet, cursing inwardly at his own stupidity for raising his head out of cover.
Using his other hand, he held up three fingers.
Allowing the lever to spring clear, he dipped the grenade arm in a clear fashion, counting out the three seconds, before raising himself up and sending the deadly charge into the rubble, aiming at the flashes of weapons to his front.
His grenade arrived with a number of others.
The sharp cracks of the detonations were all Sergeant Jones nine-five needed.
“Charge! Up and at the baaarrrssstttaaarrrdddsss!”
He was moving immediately, in fact two grenades went off as he rose, and he plunged forward into the ruins ahead of him, followed by a tidal wave of fusiliers, yelling anything that came to mind, and firing as they charged.
A number of the Soviet defenders had been killed or wounded by the grenades, and most had ducked instinctively.
Some were out of ammunition already, others had some left to use.
A few fusiliers fell on the run-in, but most slammed into Taraseva’s defensive line.
Corporal May stumbled as he tried to leap the barricade.
The bayonet took him in the throat, missing everything vital but transfixing him to a door that lay on the floor.
He scrabbled at the blade, slicing the flesh of his fingers.
The female mortar corporal, screaming in her fear, pulled the trigger as she remembered she had once been instructed, almost blowing May’s head off his shoulders.
She, in turn, took a rifle butt in the side of the head, as Corporal Robinson came up on her blind side.
The young girl was dead before she toppled over the barricade and onto May’s corpse.
The Royal Welch outnumbered the defenders, and were in a lot better physical condition, but some of the Soviet troops had earned their spurs on the streets of Kharkov against Hitler’s SS, and were not easily shrugged aside.
Jones five-nine and Steven eight-five found themselves suddenly isolated and opposed by a group of dreadfully thin soldiers, who fought with the desperation of experienced men.
An entrenching tool just failed to remove Steven’s head, clipping the ear, cutting in to the hairline, and sending gobbets of blood in all directions.
A knife ploughed a furrow in Jones nine-five’s thigh, but the perpetrator received short shrift, the butt of the Enfield rifle hammering into the man’s throat, wrecking everything vital in an instant, and dropping the veteran soldier to the ground.
A glancing blow knocked Steven eight-five’s rifle from his hand, shattering the thumb and two fingers on his right hand.
Incensed, as Steven was a boxing champ within his battalion, he clubbed his adversary with a fist on the top of the head, sending the man to the floor.
He dropped onto the insensible man’s chest knees first, breaking a number of bones, and punched him four times in the face for good measure.
The dying man spouted frothy blood with each breath, and Steven eight-five transferred his attention elsewhere.
Ignoring the excruciating pain from his right hand, he dragged a soldier off Jones five-nine, the Russian having pinned the younger Jones brother to the rubble where he tried to throttle the life out of him.
Grabbing up a British pudding bowl helmet, Steven slammed the edge into the back of the man’s head, breaking bone and driving the rim into the skull cavity.
The two Welshmen were suddenly reinforced, and soon the small knot of enemy resistance was overcome, mainly with fatal consequences for the Soviet soldiers.
The fighting stopped as quickly as it had started, and the Soviet positions were in fusilier hands.
Part of the buildings was burning, illuminating a modest space, within which a handful of men gathered.
Lieutenant Gethin Jones had been brought forward, purely for his own safety, and Davies one-four used the light to check his handiwork.
Mike Robinson carefully laid the body of Fusilier Simpson on the old table, the killing wound apparent on his forehead.
Sergeant Jones nine-five organised the survivors of first platoon into some sort of order, and then took time out to see to Gethin Jones, and to inform him of what had come to pass since the officer had been taken out of the equation.
All of this was observed by Captain Malvina Ivana Taraseva, as best she could, given her predicament.
She had been one of the first casualties of the engagement, taking solid hits from the Bren gun of Fusilier Cornish.
Her left breast, left shoulder, and left arm were all wrecked by the passage of the heavy .303 bullets.
She then received shrapnel hits from the deadly Mills bombs, a number of pieces of hot metal taking her low in her groin and legs.
Her ginger hair was much redder on her left side, where blood continued to squirt and pulse.
Covered with gore and with limbs set at unusual angles, the British had clearly assumed she was dead and had ignored her.
Her one good limb was her right arm, and in it she held one of the F1 grenades that Mogris had sent her.
Moving carefully, so as not to attract attention, she used her teeth to pull the pin and gently, pressing the grenade to her surviving breast, allowed the lever to detach without the normal noise that marked its separation.
She then threw the grenade into the fire-illuminated area.
Jones five-nine extended his flask to his brother, its contents decidedly non-regulation.
“Not bad work for an old bastard, Sergeant, even if I do say as part of the family like.”
Jones nine-five moved to take the offered drink and then shouted, pushing his brother out of the way.
The men around the small area tensed and sought threat in the area round them, only Sergeant Jones having seen the real threat arrive in their midst.
“GRENADE!”
He threw himself forward, his body landing to cover the deadly object, to absorb its blast and deadly metal, the man’s instinct being to look after his boys, come what may.
His brother, Jones five-nine screamed.