Red Army

The map showed a bridge at Rinteln. If it had not been blown, its seizure would allow Bezarin to move up behind the enemy on the west bank of the river. If the bridge was blown, or if he failed, he risked losing precious time in a fight in the town, perhaps even losing his force. But he could not see how his vehicles would make much difference if they simply marched up to the same near-bank bridgehead that Dagliev had reached. Bezarin took one last hard look at the map, inspecting the road net on the west bank of the river. There appeared to be a direct road along the Weser that would bring him out in the enemy's rear. If he could get across at Rinteln. Bezarin took his decision.

He led his shrunken column directly for the bridge. He hoped to achieve surprise, to seize the crossing before the enemy could prepare or implement the destruction of the bridge. Immediately, everything seemed to go wrong.

On the outskirts of Rinteln, Bezarin's tanks hit another traffic jam.

More refugee traffic had been held up in an effort to evacuate a British column of artillery to the west bank of the Weser. Bezarin ordered his tankmen to open fire on the guns, and to sweep the support vehicles with machine-gun fire. But his objective was not the destruction of enemy forces. They were distinctly secondary to the prize of the bridge and the importance of reaching the bridgehead at Bad Oeynhausen. But nothing could be done about the situation. To reach the bridge, they would have to fight through the British column; yet, as they destroyed the British vehicles, the hulks blocked further progress.

The firefight threw brilliant lines of color across the night, while the explosions of on-board magazines and soft-skinned support vehicles soon decorated the edge of the town with a garden of fire.

"Lasky," Bezarin called into his microphone, "get those little bastards of yours out of their vehicles and go for the bridge. Just follow the main road. I'll try to work the tanks around. But get to the damned bridge before they blow it."

269

Ralph Peters

Lasky acknowledged the order. His voice sounded excited, but not as shaken as it had come across back on the highway, amid the shot-down refugees. Bezarin hoped Lasky would be able to do his job this time.

Bezarin led the tanks in a detour around the back of the town, looking for another way in. He feared getting bogged down in street fighting, where a few soldiers with antitank weapons could put an end to his mission on the spot. But he saw no alternative to running for the bridge.

The firelight had nearly blinded him, and he ordered his driver to turn on the running lights, aware that he was setting himself up as a perfect target. But he found a side street that opened into the fields. He led his tanks into the town.

They moved through a residential section, chewing curbs into dust and grinding down fences and hedges. From a distance of several hundred meters, Bezarin could feel the secondary explosions from the stricken British column. He ordered his self-propelled battery to assume hasty positions on the edge of town. There was no point in simply dragging them into town behind the tanks.

The streets wound in arcs and twists. Bezarin had a sense of simply wandering about in circles as he struggled to find a main artery that would put him on a course for the bridge. At each small intersection, he rose in his turret, scanning the alternatives, waiting for a light antitank weapon to seek him out.

In his urgency to reach the bridge, Bezarin turned his tank into a street that soon began to narrow dangerously. The buildings converged so tightly that he feared his tank might get caught in a vise between them.

The bent fender of his vehicle scraped noisily against concrete. When Bezarin looked behind him, he saw the looming black shapes of his remaining tanks tucked in so closely on his tail that it would take an hour to back them up and turn them around.

"Can you make it?" Bezarin asked his driver.

"I don't know, Comrade Commander."

So. The decision was his alone.

"Go," Bezarin said. "Let's try it."

The tank's exhaust coughed, like a giant clearing his throat. The tank's metal screamed along the walls in the narrow alley.

In a moment, they were through. Released, the tank shot ahead.

"Stop," Bezarin shouted. "Halt. Back up. " He had caught a glimpse of something as they rolled across an intersection.

He guided his driver backward just as the next tank in line came up in their rear. The vehicles almost collided. But off to the left, down another, 270

RED ARMY

blessedly wider alley, Bezarin could see the dark span of an intact bridge rising against the sky.

Bezarin helped his driver turn the vehicle in the cramped space, sweating, shifting his eyes back to the bridge again and again. He expected it to erupt in flames at any moment.

"Lasky," Bezarin called, "can you hear me? Where are you?"