This shot took his target perfectly in the chest, slamming him to the ground instantly. That the next target in his sights was a woman gave him an unusual moment of pause, but he pulled the trigger and she went to her maker just the same, the impact throwing her against the tank she was circling as she exhorted the others to greater efforts.
The woman’s dying screams reached his ears, high-pitched and penetrating.
Holding his breath for another shot McEwan relaxed, as again the paratroopers counter-attacked and drove the enemy back, one German pausing to sink his bayonet into the woman and end her suffering.
Below him on the ground floor of the Rathaus, and in the Markt to his front, things were not going quite so well for the defenders.
Major Llewellyn, singed and black, had rallied his fusiliers finally, clinging onto the last few rooms on the north side of the ground floor of the Rathaus. So much of the buildings upper floors was a sea of orange flame that he had considered abandoning the position entirely, but dismissed it immediately as his men fought on in the positions either side.
Precious few of the 555th’s engineers had survived and Richardson was nowhere to be seen. D Company was down to about a quarter effectives and few of them were unscathed.
In the Markt, the Black Watch had finally stopped the Soviet advance, holding a line of shell holes, sandbags, and ruined vehicles roughly halfway across the open area.
The Scots reserve platoon, led personally by Ramsey, had mounted a bayonet charge, which saved the Fallschirmjager from being outflanked as Soviet infantry surged into the Markt end of Plan and Hermannstraße. Joined by the paratroopers from the headquarters platoon, the former protagonists fought side by side, virtually wiping out the enemy force that had reached towards Reesendamm.
Those now isolated at the end of Plan stood their ground and fought back, dropping Scot and German alike with accurate fire.
The Fallschirmjager rose up as one and drove forward, taking casualties but gaining ground.
Ramsey could see Perlmann leading his men forward, taking hasty aim with the Walther P38 pistol in one hand and throwing grenades with the other, his supply seemingly inexhaustible, as he produced English Mills bombs from a heavy bag around his neck.
Ramsey shouted his men to their feet and plunged forward, noting the big German go down as an enemy grenade exploded in front of him.
Angling his run towards the paratrooper, he saw the wounded man struggle to his feet and wave his troopers on to greater efforts, again moving forward himself, albeit with the favoured gait of a wounded man.
Having fallen a few feet behind his first line of men, Ramsey witnessed a scene more fitting of the First World War, as defending Russian infantry rose to meet the charge of the Black Watch and Fallschirmjager.
The two forces, approaching from different axis started to blend into one as they merged on the enemy position.
An SVT automatic rifle put down a Scottish rifleman and a German paratrooper running side by side.
Two Russians were swept away in a short-range burst from Perlmann’s senior NCO, the Stabsfeldwebel’s ST44 almost decapitating both men as they rose to their feet.
One eager young trooper jumped into a group of Russians and drove the bayonet of his FG42 through the neck of a Soviet officer trying to rally his troops. Discarding the empty weapon immediately, he threw himself on to another enemy, rolling across the ground. Coming to a halt on top of the screaming man, he ripped off his own helmet and smashed it repeatedly into the face of his foe.
All around him men were dying, Scots, Germans and Russians, in every way possible. The young paratrooper bellowed in pain as a Russian bayonet sliced into the middle of his back and emerged bloodily from his belly. His pain ended in an instant as the Soviet Yefreytor blew the blade free and, chambering another round, moved on to bloody his blade further.
Ramsey, his Webley pistol now empty, snatched up a Kar98 rifle and worked the bolt, firing and missing, succeeding only in attracting the attention of a light machine-gun crew setting up to one side of the main position. The two-man DP team considered him a threat and they reoriented the gun, its tripod skittering across the rubble to point his way. Chambering another round, he took careful aim and shot the gunner in the left eye, throwing him backwards.
His rifle empty, he could do no more than charge forward, as the loader ripped her eyes from the fallen gunner and overcame her shock, grabbing at the weapon.
Ramsey won the race and the young woman squealed as he dived and landed on top of her, winding the pair of them, the DP thrown to one side, the Kar caught in a cobblestone and bent.
The commando knife slid from its scabbard and two rapid and deep strikes took the woman’s life silently and swiftly.
The hand to hand combat in and around the end of Plan was no more than a huge confused rolling mass of soldiers and Ramsey momentarily halted to make an assessment. His eyes were drawn to a group of about forty Russian soldiers emerging half way down the street, intent on reinforcing their comrades.
He half rolled to the DP and looked at the unfamiliar weapon, assessing his chances.
Knowing that the previous owners had just set it up, it seemed reasonable to expect a full magazine. He had no choice as the enemy force had already covered half the distance to the melee and no other options existed.
Flipping the weapon onto its front bipod, he determined to take the leading section first and to fire short bursts to reduce the chance of jamming. Something was wrong and the weapon just did not feel right. Ramsey spotted that the bipod was broken and couldn’t support the weapon so he lodged it across the chest of the dead woman and started firing.
The DP was a primitive looking weapon, with a large round magazine mounted on the top. However, it was extremely effective and reliable and, more importantly at this moment, easy and forgiving in its use.
The first burst flayed the leading enemy group as they ran at full tilt, dropping all but one. Similar success followed as first two and then four enemies were shot down. The Russians responded and Ramsey was immediately put off his aim, missing the next group completely.
Two bullets struck the woman’s corpse and splattered him with her blood, one more rammed into the ammunition pannier, jamming the weapon and hammering it back into his right shoulder. The Nordenham wound made itself known and Ramsey felt a wave of nausea wash over him.
The Russians, apparently thinking they had killed the British officer, accelerated forward into the fray, with just three men detaching themselves in Ramsey’s direction.
A Fallschirmjager Oberfeldwebel dropped all three with a single burst of his MP40 without realising he had saved Ramsey.
The Black Watch commander fell back towards his struggling men, seeking out a weapon so he could rejoin the fight. For want of anything else, he pulled the stick from his belt.
The noise of battle at the Rathaus grabbed his attention for a moment and he dropped into cover to observe as a wave of Russians fell back from the burning building, encouraged by the bayonets and bullets of the Welch counter-attack. It seemed that Llewellyn had summoned every single spare man to retake the focal point of the Russian assault.
Content that his rear was secure, Ramsey turned to his own predicament once more.
They were losing.
The Fallschirmjager and Black Watch were back on the edge of the defensive position with nowhere left to fall back to other than back into the Markt from whence they had come. The influx of men that Ramsey had tried to stop with the DP had made the difference after all.