Opening Moves

“Tell them also to be aware of friendly tanks from 11th Guards coming up on the east bank. No accidents.”

The Kapitan saluted and moved to the radio operator. The messages were relayed in good time and Serov received a report that all units were moving as he stood desperately probing the smoke with his binoculars.

‘Where is Chekov?’

Major Brennan and the survivors of A Company had collectively held their breath as enemy infantry and armour moved past them on all sides.

The huge SP guns, although they come closest of all, failed to realise they had driven through the hiding place of a large number of desperate men.

Forty-eight desperate men to be precise.

Holding a quick meeting with Brown, Finch, and Collins, the matter was laid out in easily understood terms.

There would be no surrender.

Equally, it was pointless to stay and fight for a position already behind enemy lines.

It was swiftly decided that safety lay the other side of the Diemel River.

Mortar Platoon had the means after all and three usable dinghies were ready to be dragged from under their camouflage.

The half-tracks would be left in place after being wrecked, an escape on foot being most likely to succeed.

A heated exchange on the perimeter behind them interrupted their conversation.

Collins stepped off smartly to sort it out whilst the officers continued.

Brown was finger tracing his suggested route to the river when he became aware of the look on his Major’s face. Following the direction of Brennan’s gaze he saw Caesar, or rather Caesar looking like he had never looked before.

For once, the man seemed lost for words.

There was no time for sensitivity and so Brennan prompted the man.

“Go on Caesar?”

They sensed that Collins was composing himself, which made the three officers very wary indeed.

“Two boys from 3rd Platoon just blundered past and we pulled them in quick. Seems they have a story to tell Major.”

This time no one interrupted the man.

“The bastards killed the boys who surrendered, torched them up in a building with a flamethrower, every last man of them. Over forty from 1st and 3rd so these two say.”

Brennan and Finch had no words.

“Mother of God, that has to be a mistake Collins!”

The tough non-com shook his head.

“No mistake Lieutenant. These two are steady doughs, good soldiers who bugged out and didn’t surrender. They know what they saw.”

Brennan took an audible deep breath.

“OK, this changes nothing but we sure as shit ain’t gonna surrender no matter what.”

He got no argument on that score.

“Let’s go with what we have, pick up what we can equipment wise as we travel and use this damn rain to our advantage while we can.”

A chorus of ‘yes sir’s’ marked an end to the group and they split up to get their troops moving.

At Trendelburg Bridge, the end was in sight.

The west bank had held, but only just. This time the attack was broken up with small arms and phosphorous grenades, and the smell of roasted flesh was all-pervading as Chekov scurried amongst his men, checking their wounds and encouraging them to one final effort.

^{Fig#24 – Trendelburg – The Fall}

Even though this last attack had been pressed home hard, it seemed to falter more quickly than the others and Chekov used that as a sign to his exhausted men that relief was close at hand.

He surveyed the scene in front of his positions, risking attracting fire in order to assess the situation.

Despite the downpour, two bodies were burning fiercely, probably Americans, both victims of the same phosphorous grenade. They were lying in an X shape, one on the other.

As he ripped his gaze away from the awful sight, a grenade on one exploded and caused further indignity to the dead men.

There seemed no sign of any of the covering infantry force in the buildings, and in fact no sign of any life whatsoever in Trendelburg itself.

Detailing a reliable old engineer to keep watch, he sat down and stared across at the east bank.

Unfortunately for his beloved engineers, there was no sign of life there either.

Involved in his own battle for survival, he had only managed occasional glimpses of what had happened to the east, but it had been horrible enough as it was.

A group of A Sqdn 125th Cavalry had struck hard into his men.

He remembered a quick vision of the American light tanks being stalked by the Kaporal who had swum the river.

When he looked around again one of the tanks was burning fiercely but of the Kaporal there was no sign.

“I must find out about him,” he vocalised the thought in his weariness, knowing full well the man was dead.

The other M5 Stuart had got through to the bank, its track marks not yet fully washed away by the rain.

Driving up and down, it had either run over the sheltering engineers, forced them into the river or up and over the edge of their safe haven.

Its silent hulk was partially in the water adjacent to the bridge, where a Siberian rifleman with a liberated panzerfaust had stopped it, but not before it had wrought havoc on his engineers.