The signaller flailed with his legs, trying to find some leverage to push his assailant off.
He screamed in pure agony as another enemy stamped hard on his left leg, the snap as the bone parted louder than any gunshot to the ears of those battling in the gun position.
His opponent gained the upper hand and Schneider started to pass out as the hands restricted his throat more and more.
Keller took a heavy blow to the forehead, as his enemy head-butted him, although fortunately not with enough accuracy.
His eyes watered with the stinging pain, and Keller realised that his arm wound was leaking blood once more and had started to surrender its strength.
His right hand was on the Russian’s jaw, so he grabbed a moment’s opportunity and twisted on the heavy bone.
Whatever he did, it visited excruciating pain on the enemy soldier, and the man fell back, clutching his face in his hands, only to be replaced by the latest arrival in the gun pit.
Keller could only scream and protect himself with outstretched arms as the guardsman lunged with his bayonet.
Von Scharf ran as fast as he could, understanding that even a second’s delay could lose them the position, and therefore, the height.
It had been the absence of communication from Seventh Company, combined with the sounds of a battle growing more frantic by the second that had drawn him.
Grabbing every spare man he could find, von Scharf arrived just as the Soviets were on the verge of success.
His men moved left and right, hammering into the groups of enemy who had invested the summit, whilst others dropped into position and opened up a heavy fire on the guardsmen still toiling up the slope.
The intervention tipped the balance in favour of the defenders, and most of the enemy started the process of falling back, leaving half their number behind, in one way or another.
However, von Scharf only had eyes for the cameo in front of him.
Keller’s scream was superseded by that of the enemy rifleman, as a burst of sub-machine gunfire stitched across his shoulders.
He continued to squeal with pain as he dropped face first onto Keller with his lifeblood draining away and his useless nerveless arms unable to do anything to stop the bleeding.
Next to Keller’s confused form, the metal butt plate of a Mauser smashed into the side of a guardsman’s skull, and a rough kick directed the dead body away from falling on top of Schneider.
The position was suddenly only occupied by the men of 3rd Battalion, save for the dead of both sides.
Von Scharf beckoned to three men.
“You two man this weapon… you, get at least four cases of ammunition here immediately. Move!”
Other hands grabbed Keller and Schneider and pulled them out of the gun pit and, with surprisingly more care and reverence, recovered the bodies of the two-gun crew.
Less reverently, two Soviet bodies were pushed into place to temporarily strengthen the position; the other enemy corpses were sent rolling down the hill.
Only the occasional shot interrupted the conversation back at Keller’s forward position.
“You look like shit, Stabsfeldwebel.”
Aching in places he didn’t know he had, Keller intended no humour.
“I feel like shit, Herr Hauptmann.”
A sanits arrived and went to work, the grey-faced Schneider getting first use of his medical bag.
A simple dose of morphine put the signaller out for the count, allowing the orderly to straighten and splint the ruined leg.
Keller and von Scharf shared a tug on the former’s water bottle.
“Cigarette.”
Keller had lost his manners, but it didn’t matter, and his commander pushed a lit one between his lips.
“Want to give me a verbal report for now, Hermann?”
It was meant as a light-hearted comment, but fell on stony ground.
‘The bastards attacked… we shot the bastards… strangled the bastards… the bastards fucked off.’
Keller rejected the idea immediately and went for the simpler option.
“Not quite now, if that’s alright, Herr Hauptmann.”
Neither man said any more, and they withdrew into the satisfaction of a cigarette and the unadulterated pleasure that a survivor draws from post-battle silence.
The Soviets had tried again, but got nowhere near their previous high-water mark.
The attack had simply petered out.
It actually hadn’t existed in front of Eighth Company’s positions at all, and von Scharf had decided to risk reconstituting his reserve force by pulling men from the Eighth to form it.
His main problem now was ammunition and water, one he was addressing by stockpiling weapons and ammunition from the dead of both sides, as well as scavenging for anything drinkable or edible amongst the corpses.
Von Scharf also risked a small party to take all the empty water bottles they could find and head back to the river in the valley behind them.
He consumed a pack of dry biscuits, washed down with some acidic red wine, and surveyed the battalion situation map, seeking out any weaknesses that he might have previously missed.
Reports from his companies showed differing fortunes for the Soviet advance.
Heights 397 and 420 were quiet. According to Keller’s 2IC, the Soviet attack formations had withdrawn back to the Saale, and in some cases, to their starting positions.
The only aircraft seen in the skies overhead were now Allied, although they had shared the space with a number of Soviet aircraft for a short and violent period of time.
Honours were even as both sides lost three aircraft each, but the sky belonged to the Allied air forces.
To the south, messages from the recovered Aschmann told of heavy fighting in Weenzen and southern outskirts of Marienhagen itself, although there appeared to be nothing more troublesome than enemy stragglers for Ninth Company to concern itself with.
The presence of friendly aircraft had even put a stop to the enemy mortar and artillery work so, for the first time since they had taken the height, the men of Third Battalion were not under fire from anyone.
Most casualties had been evacuated, save for walking wounded like Aschmann, or the seriously bloody-minded ‘I’m not going anywheres’ such as Keller.
The former was recovered from his momentary psychiatric lapse and, with his senior NCO, was examining an object of interest in the enemy positions.
“Gas cylinders? Some sort of field kitchen?”
Aschmann snorted.
“No chance… really… no chance. On their side… on such a low frame work… only one man… don’t see that at all, Oberfeldwebel.”
The two dropped back into silence, observing the curiosity that had appeared a few minutes earlier, slipped into a position almost unobserved, served by three men, two of which had melted into cover to the rear of the ‘thing’
“Tell you something, Herr Oberleutnant… whatever it is, that man is in an ambush position. Look at where his ‘cylinders’ are pointing… where he’s covering.”
Aschmann concentrated hard.
“You’ve a good point there, Oberfeldwebel. If I was going to position an anti-tank gun, I’d find no really better position, Behrens. He’s covering the approaches to Marienhagen, plus the cross route there, Route 462 and Route 240.”
He forced his eyes onto the binoculars.
“But it’s not an anti-tank gun, is it, Behrens… is it?”
“No, Herr Oberleutnant.”
Aschmann coughed and spat a gobbet of something unwelcome over the edge of his position.
“So what in the name of God and all his sainted triangles is the shitty thing eh?”
“Perhaps we should ask the old sweats, Sir?”