“Think he wants ’em to go again, Sergeant.”
“I think he might at that, Dirk.”
The officer’s pistol flashed and the man he had been addressing collapsed to the floor.
“Shit, he’s got a bug up his ass for sure. Maybe I should let him kill them off for us, eh?”
Ford shook his head.
“I think not. Can’t risk him getting them all fired up.”
Irlam, not inconvenienced by the pencil sticking out of his neck, clicked the sight twice and settled his breathing.
“Cowards! You’re all fucking cowards! Now, get ready to advance or I’ll shoot the fucking lot of you!”
Lieutenant Colonel Stromov was known as a martinet, but shooting his own men was new ground.
A second soldier crumpled as he put a heavy bullet into him.
“Cowards! We’re nearly through! You ran away and we were nearly through!”
He waved the heavy Nagant revolver around, singling out men, who automatically shied away.
“Prepare to attack, you bastard cowards! You’re all women… fucking cowardly women!”
“You fucking attack, you prick.”
The Colonel swivelled to the source of the voice, facing a bloodied young Sergeant.
“What did you say to me?”
“I said, you fucking attack, you useless prick. We pushed twice whilst you sat in your fucking hole and drank fucking tea, so don’t call us fucking cowards, you prick!”
No matter what words the young NCO used, Stromov could only see the SVT-40 the boy was pointing directly at his chest.
“Turn your rifle aside, Serzhant, or I’ll shoot you down like the cowardly dog you are.”
“You’ve killed enough today, you fucking asshole.”
“You will turn your weapon and you will prepare to attack, Serzhant.”
“No… no, I will not.”
Lieutenant Colonel Stromov’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Serzhant Igorov’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Lieutenant Colonel Stromov’s blood splattered Igorov, as a .30-06 bullet made its inexorable way through his brain from ear to ear.
The lifeless body flopped into the snow, the officer’s eyes wide open in surprise at both his untimely death and the defiance of his men.
The soldiers withdrew into the woods, some pausing only to spit upon the cooling corpse of their regimental commander.
“Nice shot. Damn nice shot.”
“Thanks, Sarge.”
Ford checked that his eyes hadn’t deceived him and let out a low whistle.
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Hurts like hell, Sarge.”
Ford inspected the protruding pencil, screwing his face up at the unusual injury.
“Don’t know where the fuck that is in relation to your artery, Dirk, but I sure as shit ain’t pulling it out.”
Irlam looked over the NCO’s shoulder, his eyes suddenly full of concentration.
“Shh.”
Ford brought up his Thompson, ready to fire, as his ears caught a nearby slithering sound.
A soft voice caught his attention.
“Rangers?”
Ford relaxed, recognising the source of the challenge.
“Here, Captain. In the trench.”
“Coming in.”
Unceremoniously arriving on top of Ford, Barkmann rolled into the trench.
“Jeez, First Sergeant, I thought I’d lost you.”
Barkmann slapped the sniper on the shoulder and then screwed his face up.
“Ouch. You been fighting the Apache or something, Corporal?”
“It’s a pencil, Captain.”
The Ranger officer took a closer look.
“Oh lordy, so it is.”
Ford’s look was enough to bring him back to business.
“Anyway, we’re bugging out, so let’s get moving, boys.”
By agreement between General Pierce and Général de Division Leroy-Bessette, commander of Group Lorraine, the border between the two commands was adjusted to Metting, where the left flank of Tannenberg butted up to the right flank of Pierce’s 16th Armored.
In the two hours or so since the Rangers had retreated from Drulingen, the Red Army had renewed its assaults elsewhere, and been stopped dead a mile north-east of Weyer, as well as on the outskirts of Gungwiller.
The arrival of Allied air forces had been instrumental in ravaging the attacking Soviet units before the waiting soldiers of the 16th US Armored and 2nd US Infantry smashed the advancing tanks and infantry in thirty minutes of intense bloody action.
The original plan had been adapted, having, as often was the case, not survived first contact, and now it fell to Command Group Lorraine to make the first big strides in regaining the lost ground.
With a firm base at Hangviller, elements of Lorraine’s Tannenberg and Sevastopol units would sweep the field, with the immediate goal of restoring la Petite Pierre and Petersbach to Allied control. Subsequently, 2nd US Infantry would recover Tieffenbach, Diemeringen, and Lorentzen.
The lead elements of Tannenberg were already rolling through Schoenbourg and Eschbourg when the first reports arrived, suggesting that a large force of tanks and infantry was approaching Hangviller, seemingly intent on turning Tannenberg’s flank.
The prehistoric growling of the Maybach engines was interrupted.
“On.”
“Wait.”
Silence… broken only by the low-key whirr of the electric traverse as the gunner kept track of his target.
“Wait.”
Silence… the low sound of orders on the radio net, as the force commander held his men in check.
Across the defensive line, professional soldiers, tried on the harshest fields of man’s endeavour, settled behind their machine-guns, in their tanks, and around their Paks.
They waited, trusting the judgement of their officer.
It was called fire discipline.
The tank’s gunner could easily have fired and dispatched his target, but the unit commander hadn’t yet given the order, so the gun remained silent, locked on to its prey until the moment came.
“Wait.”
To their front, a line of Soviet tanks and lend-lease universal carriers advanced inexorably towards Hangviller, the tanks firing as they came, more for self-encouragement than for any expectation of hitting a target.
“Wait,” Köster repeated, also more for his own benefit than that of Caporal Jarome, the gunner.
“Wait,” hull machine gunner Private Wintzinger heard as he chewed his lip in anticipation.
The order to fire combined with the roar of the 88mm, as an armour-piercing shell went down range.
“Hit.”
A hit was not necessarily a kill, so Köster waited for a moment before making a decision.
“Hit it again.”
‘Lohengrin’ was a tank that worked like a well-oiled machine, and its crew served it like they were simple extensions of the whole.
Jarome put another shell into the target, and they were rewarded with a spectacular explosion that dispatched pieces of tank in all directions, the turret dramatically bouncing off one of the universal carriers as it cartwheeled across the ground.
“Target, right five.”
“On.”
The 88mm spoke again, sending more death towards the attacking force.
Schultz, the loader, sweated as he hoisted the heavy shells into the breech, one after the other, rhythmically working, adjusting his position occasionally as he took shells from different stowage points.