As Yolkov and his men moved up to 3rd Battalion, the sister unit displaced the Germans from the leading edge of the ridge.
3rd Grenadiere Kompagnie pulled back across the watercourse, dropping into hastily prepared positions on the north side, reliant on the small water obstacle to slow any charge.
Too many grenadieres did not fall back as ordered, incapable because of severe wounds, or uncaring because their lives had been terminated with extreme violence.
2nd Battalion’s Siberians surged forward, but the watercourse did its job and, in conjunction with streams of 7.62mm bullets, the attack ran out of steam, the survivors falling back to the positions the grenadiers had recently evacuated.
They had hardly reached the positions before they were joined by a deadly hail of 8cm mortars shells, the swift barrage called in by the Acting/Oberleutnant, who was proving more than capable as a battle leader.
Back at the MuhlenStraβe Bridge, the 3rd Battalion’s soldiers had pushed the grenadiers back over the watercourse, the ferocity of their attack causing panic in the German ranks.
In this area, there were no hasty positions to drop back on, and the danger to the whole position was clear, until the Vickers machine-guns of the 2nd Platoon 1MG discouraged the Siberians from pressing too hard, dropping enough to the earth to force the pursuers back into cover. Quickly recovering, 2nd Kompagnie formed a tentative line.
The situation was perilous, as much of the ammunition had been left behind. The senior NCO commanding the Kompagnie, Hauptfeldwebel Schränkel, radioed for ammunition and reinforcements, all the time praying to his god.
His efforts to contact the machine-gun platoon failed purely on language grounds, and the Hauptfeldwebel could only hope that the Britishers would stick like glue when the time came.
Yolkov determined otherwise, meeting up with the deafened mortar officer, and directing a strike upon the enemy beyond the MuhlenStraβe Bridge.
The machine-gun platoon was not the direct target, but the Katyusha was a notoriously inaccurate weapon, fit for area strikes, not precision hits.
Seventeen rockets landed in an area of fifty metres by sixty metres.
2nd Platoon of the 1st Independent Machine Gun Battalion ceased to exist.
Many of the other rockets found themselves hitting water, either exploding on contact with the surface or disappearing beneath the lake, permanently consigned to the Brahmsee.
The remainder spent themselves in and around the positions of 2nd Kompagnie, rending the ground and the soft bodies of men equally.
Seeing the strike throw body parts in the air, Yolkov leapt up and screamed for his men to follow him, rushing the bridge.
The Vickers were all silent, a fact Hauptfeldwebel Schränkel noted through his extreme pain, two hot fragments of rocket casing lodged in his stomach.
Nonetheless, he served the gun.
Its gunner was dead, victim of the Katyusha strike, but the MG42 was intact, as was the white-faced loader.
The machine-gun started its work, lashing the bridge with small, controlled bursts. Men dropped, smashed to the ground by the impacts.
The body armour of the SMG troopers saved many a life, although exposed limbs received savage treatment at the hands of the MG42’s intense fire.
Gritting his teeth as the recoil jarred his shoulder, agitating the shrapnel in his belly, the Hauptfeldwebel shouted at his number two.
“Ammunition, you idiot! Another belt!”
As he fired the last of his belt, the Soviets went to ground.
The young grenadiere showed the empty ammunition box by way of response.
“Go and get some, Hannermann! Raus!”
Bullets zipped around the position, one clipping the ammo box and sending it flying from the loader’s hands.
Petrified, the young grenadiere hugged the earth, crying, urinating, defecating, and calling for his mother.
Schränkel looked at the boy with a mixture of pity and disgust. He hawked and spat fresh blood, before setting himself to locate more ammunition.
At the bridge, Yolkov had turned, his men rooted to the spot. Walking back and forth, screaming at the hiding soldiers, he threatened execution and reward in equal measure, but nothing he could do brought any response from those lying in the dubious cover of the side of the watercourse.
Furious, Yolkov gestured at the German positions, encouraged by the slackening fire, and the obvious damage wrought by the Katyusha strike.
One or two men started to rise, and the movement became infectious.
Satisfied, Yolkov turned back to face the enemy and ran, his armour clanking, as the metal panels clashed in time with his urgent movements.
Less than a hundred metres away, an MG42 hungrily received a new belt of cartridges and was brought to bear.
With a sound like tearing cloth, it spat out its bullets, and many found gaps in the metal protection, ripping Yolkov to shreds, and sending his bloodied corpse tumbling back amongst those who had started to follow.
A DP gunner, calmer than the rest, had set himself up beside a tree stump and returned fire accurately.
Five bullets struck the NCO.
Two took Schränkel in the shoulder, another added to the misery of damage inflicted upon his stomach, the final two striking symmetrically above and below his left elbow.
His screams pierced the mists enveloping the loader, the subsequent sight of his Hauptfeldwebel smashed and bleeding, proving more of a curiosity rather than tipping him over the edge.
Shuffling low to the wounded NCO’s side, he started to pull at the bloodied tunic top.
Schränkel slapped his ministrations away with his good hand.
“There, Hannermann, there! Give them every bullet, boy. Keep the schwein away from our position!”
Like an automaton, the young grenadiere swept up the MG42, hefting its bulk in his right hand and feeding the belt with his left.
Russian soldiers fell regularly until he fired his last round. Somehow it kept firing, despite the risk of bullets jamming in the expanding red hot barrel. With no time for a barrel change, he dropped the weapon to the ground.
Hannermann pulled out his Walther and fired single shots, being occasionally rewarded with the obvious signs of a hit, and once, a red mist from a shattered head.
Again, a weapon was emptied and discarded, thrown with venom at the rapidly approaching avenging infantry.
The MP18 that Schränkel had been carrying lay where he had placed it, and the young grenadiere snatched it up, cocking it in one easy motion.
Stuffing the spare magazine in his belt, Hannermann quickly cast his eye around the battlefield.
A few of his comrades were returning fire, but 2nd Kompagnie was in danger of being overrun.
Incredibly, Hannermann attacked, screaming in a voice stimulated by his temporary lunacy.
The lead two Russians dropped, victims of fire from elsewhere in 2nd Kompagnie’s positions.
Behind him, the JagdPanzer took a direct hit, found out by an 85mm on the south bank.
Framed perfectly by the sudden explosion, Hannermann looked almost demonic, stained by the blood of his wounded gunner, wide-eyed with a combination of terror and battle madness.
Through the mists of his pain, Schränkel watched the young man attack, one man against forty.
The forty retreated, the one pursued, putting a bullet in a running back here and there.
Those who watched on were incredulous, never to forget the sight.
Scrabbling back into the temporary bosom of the waters, a number of stouter Soviet hearts turned to resist.
T-34’s started to move up, encouraged by the fiery death of the tank killer opposite, giving heart to the Siberian infantrymen.
A Mosin rifle bullet punched into the grenadiere’s groin, taking his breath away and dropping him onto the ground. Two more bullets found him there, both legs made useless by the hits.