The situation was spiralling out of control, as the enemy attack moved forward, slowly but surely pressing down upon ‘Lohengrin’ and the two surviving Panzer IV’s.
Even as he watched, both remaining tanks started to back up, keeping their front to the enemy, firing as they went.
“That settles that then! Come on, Klaus”
Köster, conscious of the advancing enemy infantry, slipped the sling of his MP-40 over his neck and dragged the inert form of his driver towards the rear of the Tiger.
Risking exposing his head, he clambered on the track and shouted at the still-open hatch.
“Hans! Max!”
A solid shot sped past the turret, missing the Tiger by the smallest of margins.
Jarome’s face appeared.
“What?”
“The IV’s are pulling back. Klaus is out cold. Time to go. Get them out, Hans!”
There was nothing else to say.
Grabbing for Meier’s armpits, Köster found himself with company, as two legionnaires flopped down behind ‘Lohengrin’.
One, a French officer, spoke rapidly.
“Sergent, you’ve been ordered back. Abandon the tank immediately. Any more wounded?”
“Just him, Sir.”
“Quick about it then.”
Between the two of them, the French Lieutenant and Köster got Meier on the back of the young legionnaire and the man took off with an impressive turn of speed.
A clang of metal announced another direct strike on ‘Lohengrin’, and the roar of pain that came from within indicated more hardship for the crew.
Wintzinger arrived, clutching his side, where a patch of red was growing rapidly.
He waved away the enquiring hands as the Frenchmen and Köster sought to explore the fresh wound.
A scrabbling on the deck above them distracted them as Schultz dropped over the side, nearly landing on Wintzinger, his hands raw and blistered from the effect of some previously unsuspected fire.
The Tiger rocked as Jarome fired off a final round, before exiting the rear hatch and joining them.
“Shit, I need to wreck her some more!”
“She’s burning anyway, Oberscharfuhrer,” Schultz’s simple statement accounting for the burns on his hands.
The French Lieutenant waved his own hand theatrically.
“Non! Leave her. We will be back later.”
It was no time to argue, but none of them could imagine being back any time soon.
“Maintenant, allez mon braves!”
The group took off at the run, or at least the best they could do with their disadvantages.
“Head for the right of that farm building! Ouff!”
A bullet thumped into the Frenchman’s thigh, sending his leg flying out in front of him, causing a stumble and fall.
Jarome leant down and hauled hard on the officer’s belt, barely missing a stride, as the two made a decent attempt at a three-legged race world record, chivvied along by more small arms fire from the advancing Soviet infantry.
The front runners threw themselves over a snow heap and down besides the small derelict barn that had been their first target, only to find it occupied by a determined group of legionnaires, armed to the teeth and looking extremely confident.
Köster rose up to assist his gunner, just in time to watch as a 203mm shell landed adjacent to ‘Lohengrin’.
Fifty-six tons of tank rose diagonally into the air, turning slightly as it went, before landing upside down nearly twenty metres away from its starting point.
It was a painful moment for the ex-SS tank commander, as much as the loss of a good comrade in battle.
As Jarome and the Frenchman dropped into cover, Köster wrenched his eyes away from the sight of his Tiger with its trackless wheels facing the sky.
The sound that assailed his ears was like an express train without brakes, the ‘whatever it was’ moving at supersonic speed through the cold winter air.
“What the fuck is that?”
Whatever it was, it was clearly the signal the infantry had been waiting for, and they pushed up to the edge of the snow and started pouring fire at the advancing enemy.
Above the tearing fire of an MG42, the Tiger crew could hear more express trains, more huge explosions, and memories started to work.
Köster looked at his rescuers more closely.
“You’re not Tannenberg, are you?”
The Lieutenant, grimacing as Jarome tied his leg up tight, converted his pained expression into a knowing smile.
“Non, Sergent. We are special group from Alma.”
Suddenly it all became clear as the memory synchronised with the evidence of his ears.
“Those are Pak44s,” he said to no-one in particular, “128mm anti-tank guns,” he said to the Frenchman specifically.
“Oui.”
The Lieutenant dipped into his pocket and produced Gitanes for himself and the tankers whilst, on the battlefield behind them, the three 128mm PAKs destroyed the survivors of a Soviet tank battalion, helped by the arrival of Escuadrón 205 of the Mexican Air Force, recently kitted out with A-36A Apache ground attack aircraft, configured as dive-bombers.
The Apache, basically a modified Mustang, had been withdrawn in 1944, but the needs of the present war meant that many older types were being pressed into service once more.
The Mexicans enjoyed their second offensive operation of the day, their five-hundred pound bombs proving the final straw, as the assault withered and failed in the storm that they and the Legion created.
Whilst hundreds of Soviet soldiers had been killed and wounded, the SS Legionnaires had also suffered, as first Tannenberg and then Alma resisted the advance.
The latter’s special unit lost sixty men, and one of the valuable Pak44s.
1st Kompagnie, 5th Legion Régiment de Chars Spéciale, 2nd Legion Division ‘Tannenberg’ simply ceased to exist.
The limited Soviet operation was, ultimately, a total failure and, by the late evening of Wednesday 22nd, the Allied line had been restored, all the way back to La Petite Pierre.
When it was all over, no land had been won, no land had been lost, but the fighting had cost nearly four thousand lives.
Major Jocelyn Presley had always known that this one was special. Regardless of the medals a man wore, there was no guarantee that the mind could cope with the damaged body. In fact, coping with severe injury as well as her charge had done, took a special type of courage, and a special type of man.
She was still sad though, for all of John Ramsey’s incredible approach to his injuries, and his capacity to endure pain and hardship, the motivation was not to enjoy his life to the full, but to find a way of being useful to his country again.
On the bed were Ramsey’s case and other belongings, ready to be taken away by the driver who was coming to get him.
Ramsey himself was moving round the small ward, shaking hands and patting shoulders, taking his leave of men in a similar position to himself, men who had shared the ups and downs of rehabilitation and recuperation on an amputee ward.
Jocelyn Presley watched as her newly promoted Black Watch Lieutenant Colonel took his leave of Manuel Peralta, the young Argentinian Lieutenant, transformed by a Soviet artillery shell from a young and vital boy of twenty into a triple amputee before he even saw an enemy soldier. Ramsey rotated on one foot, not quite as balanced as normal, but well enough that only she noticed, and they shared an insider’s look.
Behind her, the rhythmic sound of approaching feet indicated a man of military bearing and she turned to see Ramsey’s driver giving her charge the once-over.