Opening Moves

Holding his breath for another shot McEwan relaxed, as again the paratroopers counter-attacked and drove the enemy back, one German pausing to sink his bayonet into the woman and end her suffering.

Below him on the ground floor of the Rathaus, and in the Markt to his front, things were not going quite so well for the defenders.

Major Llewellyn, singed and black, had rallied his fusiliers finally, clinging onto the last few rooms on the north side of the ground floor of the Rathaus. So much of the buildings upper floors was a sea of orange flame that he had considered abandoning the position entirely, but dismissed it immediately as his men fought on in the positions either side.

Precious few of the 555th’s engineers had survived and Richardson was nowhere to be seen. D Company was down to about a quarter effectives and few of them were unscathed.

In the Markt, the Black Watch had finally stopped the Soviet advance, holding a line of shell holes, sandbags, and ruined vehicles roughly halfway across the open area.

The Scots reserve platoon, led personally by Ramsey, had mounted a bayonet charge, which saved the Fallschirmjager from being outflanked as Soviet infantry surged into the Markt end of Plan and Hermannstraße. Joined by the paratroopers from the headquarters platoon, the former protagonists fought side by side, virtually wiping out the enemy force that had reached towards Reesendamm.

Those now isolated at the end of Plan stood their ground and fought back, dropping Scot and German alike with accurate fire.

The Fallschirmjager rose up as one and drove forward, taking casualties but gaining ground.

Ramsey could see Perlmann leading his men forward, taking hasty aim with the Walther P38 pistol in one hand and throwing grenades with the other, his supply seemingly inexhaustible, as he produced English Mills bombs from a heavy bag around his neck.

Ramsey shouted his men to their feet and plunged forward, noting the big German go down as an enemy grenade exploded in front of him.

Angling his run towards the paratrooper, he saw the wounded man struggle to his feet and wave his troopers on to greater efforts, again moving forward himself, albeit with the favoured gait of a wounded man.

Having fallen a few feet behind his first line of men, Ramsey witnessed a scene more fitting of the First World War, as defending Russian infantry rose to meet the charge of the Black Watch and Fallschirmjager.

The two forces, approaching from different axis started to blend into one as they merged on the enemy position.

An SVT automatic rifle put down a Scottish rifleman and a German paratrooper running side by side.

Two Russians were swept away in a short-range burst from Perlmann’s senior NCO, the Stabsfeldwebel’s ST44 almost decapitating both men as they rose to their feet.

One eager young trooper jumped into a group of Russians and drove the bayonet of his FG42 through the neck of a Soviet officer trying to rally his troops. Discarding the empty weapon immediately, he threw himself on to another enemy, rolling across the ground. Coming to a halt on top of the screaming man, he ripped off his own helmet and smashed it repeatedly into the face of his foe.

All around him men were dying, Scots, Germans and Russians, in every way possible. The young paratrooper bellowed in pain as a Russian bayonet sliced into the middle of his back and emerged bloodily from his belly. His pain ended in an instant as the Soviet Yefreytor blew the blade free and, chambering another round, moved on to bloody his blade further.

Ramsey, his Webley pistol now empty, snatched up a Kar98 rifle and worked the bolt, firing and missing, succeeding only in attracting the attention of a light machine-gun crew setting up to one side of the main position. The two-man DP team considered him a threat and they reoriented the gun, its tripod skittering across the rubble to point his way. Chambering another round, he took careful aim and shot the gunner in the left eye, throwing him backwards.

His rifle empty, he could do no more than charge forward, as the loader ripped her eyes from the fallen gunner and overcame her shock, grabbing at the weapon.

Ramsey won the race and the young woman squealed as he dived and landed on top of her, winding the pair of them, the DP thrown to one side, the Kar caught in a cobblestone and bent.

The commando knife slid from its scabbard and two rapid and deep strikes took the woman’s life silently and swiftly.

The hand to hand combat in and around the end of Plan was no more than a huge confused rolling mass of soldiers and Ramsey momentarily halted to make an assessment. His eyes were drawn to a group of about forty Russian soldiers emerging half way down the street, intent on reinforcing their comrades.

He half rolled to the DP and looked at the unfamiliar weapon, assessing his chances.