“Good job, Sergeant, good job. Now I need a radio.”
He bolted back to his position and moved the artillery strike zone back into the woods, just to help the retreating Russians along.
He returned to observe his handiwork.
An extremely agitated Gesualdo arrived shortly afterwards.
“What the hell do you think you were fucking doing, you mad bastard?”
“What?”
Ford turned, unaware of his Captain’s stupid heroics.
“We saw it all! Charging like a mad dog, five onto one. Are you some sort of fucking idiot?”
Barkmann was taken aback by the ferocity of his friend’s words and said the first thing that came into his mind.
“I didn’t have time to reload.”
Gesualdo’s mouth dropped open.
“You’d no fucking ammo in your rifle?”
“I’d fired it all when they went for Ford’s MG.”
“I saw. You put six of them down… and then you charged them… five of them… with no fucking ammo in your gun!”
“No choice, so leave it be, Al.”
“You’re a fucking idi…”
“Leave it be, Al.”
Gesualdo wanted to say more, but another arriving Soviet shell marked the end of the exchange.
“Right, now we’re gonna bug out. Wounded all out, Al?”
“We’ve got more now, but the others are all tucked up behind the 16th’s boys about a thousand yards back.”
“OK. Let’s pull in everybody to Drulingen and then send ’em straight up the road. F Company and our Spanish allies will be rear-guard. I’ll stay with them and bring ’em out.”
Both men left their thoughts unspoken, although the vision of the torn corpse of the F Company commander came to both in an instant.
“As soon as possible, I’ll drop ‘B’ back through ’em and Ford can take ’em out. The rest of the details of evac, I’ll leave to you, ok?”
“That’s a roger, Lukas.”
“Let’s do it.”
The evacuation had gone smoothly at first, with B Company already on their way to safety, followed by the engineers and the Spanish mortar unit.
At 0601 things changed.
“Jesus! That’s big shit!”
Second Lieutenant Wallace Mallender, F Company’s only surviving officer, spat the dust from his mouth, as a huge explosion brought down part of the ceiling and blew plaster from the walls.
Barkmann could only agree.
“Sure as shit isn’t seventy-six mil!”
More huge shells followed, targeted on the village and its approaches, each explosion releasing more dust and plaster, as well as shaking the nerves of every man present.
Through the detritus of the explosions, the Ranger Captain saw danger approaching.
“Here they come! We can’t pull back now or we’ll be cut to pieces. We gotta hold!”
Defensive fire was already lashing out at the approaching tanks and infantry, and Barkmann could see men dying before his eyes.
“Wally, get on the horn and get our arty back online. Tell ’em we can’t withdraw now, so we’re gonna hold.”
Not waiting for a reply, Barkmann sprinted as fast as he could, and headed for the buildings that held the Spanish contingent.
He arrived at the back door just as men started to emerge.
“Captain, are we glad to see you. The whole fucking Russian Army’s coming down the road. We gotta get outta here.”
The young Spanish-speaking Ranger was clearly petrified.
“No we can’t, Carrera. We’ll be overrun on the move. We have to hold ’em here. Get these boys back to their posts right now. Tell ’em what you need to tell ’em, but get ’em back on the line.”
To Carreras’s surprise, the Spanish infantrymen moved quickly back into the position and readied themselves.
Barkmann moved on to the next building, throwing himself into the snow on three occasions, as 203mm shells came near enough to worry about.
The rattle of small arms betrayed the closeness of the enemy formation, the distinctive PPSh sounds seeming almost on top of him now.
And then they were there, surrounding a position occupied by a group of Spaniards, throwing grenades in and firing bursts through windows and doors.
Barkmann almost laughed as a Soviet grenade entered one window and immediately was thrown out of the adjacent one, bursting amongst the attackers and sending men flying.
Other Soviet grenades were not ejected, and the screams of the injured and dying Spanish reached his ears.
The Garand started its deadly work, taking out a small party forming for an assault at the rear door.
”Move over, boss!”
Two Rangers flopped down beside him and a BAR was got to work, its heavy bullets smashing into the men grouped on the near face of the building.
“Good work boys. Keep it up.”
Discharging the last two bullets in his clip, he reloaded the Garand and moved off to the left, satisfied that the Spanish would hold.
As he was halfway across the road, a wall disintegrated as a T-34 smashed through it at speed.
The hull machine-gun lashed out and he felt the numbing impact of a bullet, then another, as the gunner found his range.
The Garand went flying from his grasp, as the second piece of metal clipped his left wrist and jarred the weapon free.
With a superhuman effort he launched himself over a shallow wall and narrowly missed the two men sheltering there.
“Keep yer head down, Cap’n.”
He turned and his eyes opened in fear as he saw the exhaust end of an M9A1 bazooka, just inches from his face.
Rolling away, he missed the moment of firing.
The back flash rolled over him and he felt and smelt his hair singe.
The roar of an explosion betrayed the accuracy of the shot, but the team did not celebrate. Successful bazooka teams left celebration to later times, when they were safe. The smoke trail of a shell was a betrayal of their position, and teams always relocated if they wanted to survive.
“Move it, Sir, quick as you can!”
The three men ran through the garden and into an open doorway.
The gunner dropped to his knee and the loader slotted home another rocket.
“Good work, boys. Is the bastard dead?”
“Reckon so, Captain. But there’s more coming.”
Flexing his left hand, Barkmann decided that no real damage had been done, although the blood continued to drip from the entry and exit holes.
“Keep at it boys. We’re going to have to stay put so knock the bastards out. Good luck.”
Pausing to pull out his Colt automatic, the Ranger Captain moved off to the front of the house, barrelling straight into a Soviet officer running the other way.
They bounced off each other and both men went down. Behind the Russian, more men followed on at speed.
Lashing out with the Colt, Barkmann struck the enemy officer in the right ear, bringing an immediate flow of blood and taking him out of the fight.
Bringing the pistol round, he fired into the face of the nearest Russian, missing with the first two rounds but putting the third through the bridge of the man’s nose.
He dropped to the floorboards like a rag doll, bringing down the man behind him.
Two shots put down the third in line, the screams instantaneous as the soldier’s right shoulder was virtually dismantled by the progress of two .45 slugs.
The next man threw himself to one side as the Colt spat again, each bullet missing its target until the gun stayed open on an empty magazine.
“Shit!”
Beyond the first threshold, more Soviets arrived at the front door.
“Head down!”
The bazooka shell tore through the air and struck the front door frame adjacent to an enquiring head.
Whilst designed for killing tanks, the HEAT rocket of a bazooka was also quite adept at killing soft targets. The combination of explosive force combined with hi-speed wood and brick pieces devastated the gathering assault force.