Opening Moves

“Are you well enough Mayor?”

“I had worse in Vienna,” Rispan countered, with an absence of humour.

Makarenko nodded, recalling the sight of Rispan’s unusually nasty wood splinter wound, sustained when he slid down a damaged banister in drunken celebration of the Viennese victory. Whilst the grenade fragment had knocked a few of his teeth out, the senior man thought it probably looked more nasty than it was.

“Press hard, don’t stop Ilya.”

Slapping the man’s shoulder, Makarenko moved off, gathering men to him as he moved towards the damaged gateway that led to the lists and the route to the Greater Bastion.

Rispan returned to the stairs and ordered his men forward.

At the Lion Gate, the explosion that had terminated Dubois’ briefing had wrought great harm on the defenders. Capitaine de Corvette Fournier lay surrounded by dead and dying commandos, a tossed satchel charge having exploded on the steps in the area to the west of the gateway.

His ears spilled blood from ruptured eardrums, and more of the precious fluid seeped from the deep wound in his side.

Of more immediate concern was his left leg, attached only to the rest of him by a few strands of flesh and sinew, virtually severed below the knee.

Some freak of explosive force had caused the heavy door to jam shut into its frame, masking both the shattered defenders and the bloodied attackers, providing some temporary respite from the butchery.

Rispan ordered another satchel charge placed to open the door, risking the wooden bridge. A young Lieutenant was detailed to find a suitable item to replace it, should the blast destroy the wooden structure, and he returned before the charge had been prepared, smugly manoeuvring a solid table with the help of two of his men.

The charge was carried forward and laid at the base of the door, the frightened paratrooper Lance-Corporal pausing only to arm it before scurrying back to safety.

Every man in the Well room was killed, save the wounded Fournier, the blast tossing men aside like chaff in the wind.

Clutching his M1911 pistol, the French officer sensed more than saw the shape in the door and fired two shots, killing the Lance-Corporal and sending him flying back into the men behind him.

Two more paratroopers threw themselves forward, diving through the doorway into the cover of the stairs, only to discover that their executioner was lying amongst the bodies there, not at the top of the stairs as they had supposed.

Out of ammunition, Fournier dropped the pistol, wiped the blood from his eyes and snatched up a Sten gun that appeared in focus.

No man came into view, only a small round object, bouncing around before settling against the body of one of the French commandos.

Its explosion decorated the inside of the chamber with more vivid colour and human detritus but, again, Fournier was not further harmed.

He dragged himself painfully up the steps a small distance and set his battered body into the window recess, taking advantage of the extra cover provided by a stone trough.

He took two spare magazines from the pouches of an unrecognisable comrade and set himself for the next assault.

The Sten rattled, messily downing the first man through the door. The second man hung back and risked a look around the shattered doorframe, and was rewarded by a burst which blew the front of his temple off, sending him screaming into the shallow void behind him.

Rispan shouted at his men but none chose to hear his orders. The attack was stalling badly.

Putting a new magazine on his PPS submachine gun, he braced himself for the run, mentally reciting some words of his faith, signalling his men to follow.

He rose and started up the stone stairs but was overtaken by the young Leytenant who had obtained the sturdy table.

The two officers crossed the void, its occupant now permanently silent.

Fournier killed the younger man with a burst of fire, stopping the charging officer and dropping him to the floor on the spot.

The last three bullets in his magazine struck Rispan, two destroying his water bottle and the third passing through the flesh on the side of his stomach.

The Jewish Major’s PPS ended the battle at the Lion Gate.

0535 hrs Monday, 6th August 1945, Temporary Military Laager, Selestat, French Alsace.

In Selestat, what had started as curiosity had swiftly turned into genuine alarm and finally progressed into decisive action.

In and around the small Alsatian town were two companies of the 2e [Deuxieme] Regiment, Légion Étrangère Infanterie, on their way south to reunite with the 1e [Premiere] French Division after ceremonial duties in Strasbourg.

Also, not by coincidence but by design, Colonel Christophe Lavalle was there, having arranged to meet with some old comrades as they passed by.