Bezarin felt certain that the enemy must know his location by now, and he pounded at the rim of his turret hatch when another clot of vehicles at a valley crossroads brought his tanks to a halt. Threats and warning shots failed to undo the great knot of vehicles, and Bezarin finally directed his driver to batter the civilian vehicles out of their path. The destruction seemed vicious and senseless and unavoidable to Bezarin. As if in punishment, one of Lasky’s infantry fighting vehicles threw a track as it attempted to work its way up out of a field and across a lateral road. There was no time to repair the vehicle, simple though the operation would have been, and Bezarin ordered that it be further disabled. Then the crew mounted up with their more fortunate comrades. Bezarin felt as though fate were chipping away at him, defying him to reach the river. Yet there was good fortune, too. His tanks were obviously moving faster than the enemy could react, and none of the bridges over the tertiary streams had been blown. The passage of local water gaps, which might have held up the column, merely involved clearing off the refugee traffic. And as Bezarin’s vehicles raced past still more British support sites, it was apparent that none of them had been forewarned. The British were in a process of dissolution without even knowing it.
Twilight began to wander down out of the side valley and treelines. The darkening shapes of low mountains rose, threatening to bar the way to the river like black fortress walls. As his column worked its way along the valley bottoms Bezarin recognized the possibility of an ambush from which there would be no way out. But the anticipated enemy fires failed to materialize, and each minute brought the Soviet tanks closer to the river.
Dagliev finally reported in. The advance element, intended to provide security and reconnaissance for the main column, had long since branched off on another route to the northwest, weaving into the mountains. That at least partially explained to Bezarin why the British had so consistently been unprepared for his arrival. Dagliev swore he had been trying to call in for hours but had been unable to raise Bezarin on the net, probably because the intervening mountains had blocked him from radio line of sight. Bezarin lost his temper. He could not understand how Dagliev could have diverged so widely from the anticipated route. Dagliev made a series of excuses, but the most telling point was that, despite his error, the company commander was within a half-hour’s march of the Bad Oeynhausen bridgehead. He had found an open road into the Weser hills. Accepting the situation, despite the residue of his anger, Bezarin ordered Dagliev to push on for the bridgehead without delay and link up with the air-assault forces.
Bezarin could not sort out his feelings with any clarity. Part of him tensed with jealousy that Dagliev had pushed so far ahead of the main body. By sticking to the most obvious route, Bezarin had lost time in the exodus of refugees. Dagliev had almost reached the objective, while he was struggling up the valleys, skirting to the north around the pink glow over the ridges that marked Hameln, and accomplishing little more than frightening a few British mess sergeants. Additionally, Bezarin felt newly vulnerable now that he knew for certain he had no security force in front of his column, and his mind filled with the varieties of possible dangers. Still, he decided that it would not do to stop and push forward another reconnaissance and security element. His force had shrunken to too small a size to permit any further detachments, and he was not even sure he had an officer left that he could trust to find his way efficiently in the dark. Bezarin decided to alter his course to reach the river valley as directly as possible. He calculated that he could strike the river at Rinteln, then work up the river valley. He reasoned that the refugee flow would have little reason to move northwest along the route he anticipated taking. In any case, he wanted to get clear of the mountain valleys.
The twilight deepened into a pale darkness, with night descending over the landscape like layers of silk. He would keep his force together and move as fast as he could. They were so close now. All the consequences could be sorted out later. The repercussions from the massacre along the highway were likely to be so severe that Bezarin reasoned he could do little to worsen the situation. It was time to take risks. Even if they were to court-martial him and have him shot, Bezarin had made up his mind on one thing. They would not do it before he reached the river.
Bezarin’s force seized the Weser River bridge at Rinteln almost by accident. It had not been part of the plan. The objective remained the crossing site at Bad Oeynhausen. But just as the remains of Bezarin’s unit straggled down out of the hills toward the river road junction at Rinteln, Dagliev radioed in with news both good and bad. He had managed to link up with the air-assault forces on the near bank at Bad Oeynhausen. But hard fighting continued at the crossing site, and he could not get his armored vehicles across the bridge because it lay in a direct line of fire from enemy positions on high ground just to the south. The enemy had not managed to blow the bridge before the air-assault forces seized bridgeheads on both banks, but now they were shelling it with everything they had, trying to drop it into the water or at least prevent anyone from crossing it. Still, the artillery could be managed. It was the direct fire threat that had brought any further progress to a halt. The twin Soviet bridgeheads could not move to support each other, and Dagliev suspected that the enemy would attempt to counterattack, reasoning that it would be foolish to waste any more time. The tension in Dagliev’s voice reassured Bezarin’s battered ego, and he felt a fresh surge of energy. There were problems to be solved, and he was the man to solve them.
The map showed a bridge at Rinteln. If it had not been blown, its seizure would allow Bezarin to move up behind the enemy on the west bank of the river. If the bridge was blown, or if he failed, he risked losing precious time in a fight in the town, perhaps even losing his force. But he could not see how his vehicles would make much difference if they simply marched up to the same near-bank bridgehead that Dagliev had reached. Bezarin took one last hard look at the map, inspecting the road net on the west bank of the river. There appeared to be a direct road along the Weser that would bring him out in the enemy’s rear. If he could get across at Rinteln. Bezarin took his decision.
He led his shrunken column directly for the bridge. He hoped to achieve surprise, to seize the crossing before the enemy could prepare or implement the destruction of the bridge. Immediately, everything seemed to go wrong.
On the outskirts of Rinteln, Bezarin’s tanks hit another traffic jam. More refugee traffic had been held up in an effort to evacuate a British column of artillery to the west bank of the Weser. Bezarin ordered his tankmen to open fire on the guns, and to sweep the support vehicles with machine-gun fire. But his objective was not the destruction of enemy forces. They were distinctly secondary to the prize of the bridge and the importance of reaching the bridgehead at Bad Oeynhausen. But nothing could be done about the situation. To reach the bridge, they would have to fight through the British column; yet, as they destroyed the British vehicles, the hulks blocked further progress.
The firefight threw brilliant lines of color across the night, while the explosions of on-board magazines and soft-skinned support vehicles soon decorated the edge of the town with a garden of fire.
“Lasky,” Bezarin called into his microphone, “get those little bastards of yours out of their vehicles and go for the bridge. Just follow the main road. I’ll try to work the tanks around. But get to the damned bridge before they blow it.”
Lasky acknowledged the order. His voice sounded excited, but not as shaken as it had come across back on the highway, amid the shot-down refugees. Bezarin hoped Lasky would be able to do his job this time.