…and First Sergeant Hawkes was scrabbling for more Garand rounds, as Soviet assault troops spilled from the leading crew wagon…
…and Major Field was whooping with joy as his RCLs ripped the leading AA carriage into pieces and caused the front T-34 wagon to come apart as it’s ammunition exploded…
…and Captain Pollo tumbled away from the demolition charge he had just set on the rails…
…and nine sixteen-inch shells flung by HMS Nelson arrived, followed by eight fifteen-inch monsters, contributed by HMS Warspite.
0211.
Those who saw their arrival would never be able to adequately describe what they witnessed.
The 32nd NKVD Regiment disappeared in the briefest of moments, the exploding shells providing sufficient illumination for observers to see men, whole and partial, thrown hundreds of feet , propelled at high speed into the air or sideways, reaping more death as bodies smashed into bodies.
The T-34s were wiped out, although only one took a direct strike, the blast waves sufficient to turn over all but one of the vehicles, killing or incapacitating their crews.
The rear AA carriage received the full blast of one of Warspite’s shells.
Later, the crew were found in soft repose, but very dead, much the same as those who manned the rearmost tank wagon, whose KV-1 turret remained silent for the rest of the battle.
Warspite was capable of putting out two rounds a minute; Nelson, two every three minutes.
Warspite’s secpnd salvo ploughed the same turf as before, killing many of the dazed survivors, but mainly visiting more horrendous injuries upon the fallen.
Nelson’s next salvo was misdirected, but landed to the advantage of the airborne troopers, dropping in the woods behind the smashed leading battalions, and finding the remnants of the 273rd NKVD Regiment, the entire 9th [Independent] Flamethrower Battalion and the rest of the T-34 company waiting to move up.
Backpack flamethrower tanks rose like flaming torches, further illuminating the stripped trees, sometimes just the fuel tank, but often complete with its unfortunate operator.
Bathwick was already on the radio, halting further fire from offshore, the task successfully completed in two awful minutes.
Whilst the battle was technically won, there was fighting left a’plenty, as the armoured train continued to lash out at the paratroopers, despite the fact that Nelson and Warspite had wrecked the track behind them, and Captain Pollo had done the same to the train’s front.
More than a few troopers were caught out as they watched the naval display with incredulity, only to expose themselves to bullets from the ‘Alexsandr Shelepin’.
Pollo and three of his men tumbled in beside Hawkes, their unexpected arrival nearly costing them their well-being.
The engineer officer checked his men, cursing that two had been felled on the run in, both of them the ones carrying the explosives with which he intended to attack the crew coach, whose metal-shuttered windows spouted bullets in all directions.
Underneath the wagon, survivors from some of the Soviet assault groups had gathered, glad of the top protection.
Pollo ordered covering fire, intending to try and retrieve one of the explosive bags.
He rose and immediately fell back coughing, a pair of SMG rounds smashing through his right lung in an instant.
Hawkes directed one of the engineers to tend the wounded officer, and prepared the rest to cover him whilst he tried the same mission.
The largest of the engineers, an older man who should probably have been at home in front of his fire, shuffled the flamethrower off his back and laid a hand on Hawkes.
“My job, Sarge. No one’s a-waiting for me back home, not since both ma boys went to God at Ie Shima.”
The older man, showing remarkable agility, was up and out and had dropped beside the first engineer’s corpse before any serious fire came his way.
“What’s he getting?”
Hawkes popped up and placed two bullets in a crawling NKVD rail soldier, intent on getting closer.
“HE blocks. We still got some of the stuff we lifted from the Commies. Enough to fuck that piece of shit twice over.”
The engineer rose and put some of his own bullets on target, knocking two men over as they scrabbled around under the rail cars.
Hawkes recharged his Garand and tried a difficult shot, watching the bullet ping off the metal side next to a shutter.
The shutter opened carefully and Hawkes, exhaled.
The Garand cracked
‘Ouch! Whatever that hit’ll have a goddamned headache and a half.’
He hadn’t needed the modest spray of blood to tell him that his bullet had found a mark.
An AT bullet chewed through the armour, as the last PTRD was brought into action.
Hawkes turned to the old engineer and shouted.
Rising up, the man was halfway through his second step when the world turned white.
Those in the shell hole, protected from the blast, were only stunned.
Other paratroopers nearby were killed and wounded as the canvas bag was hit by bullets and the Soviet explosives surrendered to the laws of nature.
The older man simply disappeared.
Trying to clear his head, Hawkes suddenly found himself experiencing a phenomenon of the battlefield.
The Germans have a word for it; blutrausch, and it has a number of similar interpretations.
A rush of blood.
A lust for blood.
A trance-like state where the one who experiences it goes berserk, embarking, without fear or reason, on a journey of violence and murder until it passes.
Hawkes was that man.
He grabbed the flamethrower pack in his left hand and charged out of the hole.
Bullets split the air all around him, but the Soviets, particularly those under the wagons, were as disoriented and shaken up as Hawkes and his engineer buddies.
Firing the Garand one-handed, the 101st NCO put down three men hard. The charger pinged from the empty rifle, but Hawkes continued onwards.
A panicky NKVD trooper rose up, his hand trembling so much that he couldn’t fit the new magazine into his PPSh.
Hawkes rammed the Garand barrel into the petrified man’s face, sending him reeling away and squealing at the extreme pain of his wound.
Using a strength lent to him by the ‘Blutrausch’, Hawkes swung the cylinder in his left hand, staving in the head of an NKVD NCO who was calling on his men to target the devil in their midst.
The webbing caught up in the insensible man’s arms as he collapsed.
Hawkes let it go and swapped the Garand around, holding the barrel end, and swinging the rifle like a club.
Another victim fell, head smashed through to the cortex, as the heavy butt cracked the woman’s skull like papier-mâché.
Not a sound escaped Hawkes’ lips; neither scream, nor grunt, nor yell.
The group under the wagon melted away, turning to run back down the track, leaving two shocked soldiers to hold up their hands in surrender.
As their comrades were cut down by other paratroopers, the two fell victim to Hawkes’ lack of reason and temporary suspension of reality.
Both died under the whirling rifle butt, during which frenzied attacks the wood was splintered and damaged beyond recognition, the last two blows inflicting hideous open wounds, as the sharp splintered edges wrought destruction on the man’s face.
With no enemy to hand, Hawkes went in search of more. Elsewhere, the train was being knocked apart, as RCLs and bazookas did steady work.
The crew coach, around which Hawkes had done his awful work, still resisted, and the airborne NCO immediately set about dealing with it.
Having prepared his equipment, he scaled the side, clinging on to the metal rungs that normally permitted entry to the main door.