Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (33 page)

Braun, leading the tank’s point unit, had seen no reason to believe that all the enemy had gone and, until Speer got his act organised, Corps standing orders were that Panthers were far too precious to be risked up front in town fighting, unless an extraordinary situation existed.

The barrel of Braun
’s Panther moved gently from side to side, the gunner following each surge of infantry, moving from cover to cover.

There was no firing, no resistance.

Nothing.

The 1st
’s legionnaires started to move more quickly, and a feeling of relaxation spread throughout the assault force.

After briefing his crew,
Braun emerged from the Panther’s turret, dropping to the ground at the front of the tank. He quickly moved off to the left to consult with the 2nd Company commander, Capitaine Durand.

After
his excellent conduct in the assault on the ‘Leningrad’ position, during the relief of Stuttgart, Durand had been fully accepted by the ex-Waffen-SS soldiers, and he had done nothing but reinforce their high opinion of him since.

He greeted Braun with a smile and the offer of a cigarette.

“Danke, Capitaine. I take it we are clear? Your men seem to think so.”

He gestured up the road at
what had been a relaxed scene.

It
was now anything but.

A group of men had gathered outside a large building
, and they were clearly extremely agitated.

The radio crackled into life and Durand took a report in total silence, the words spoken by the office
r up the road burning into the hearts of everyone present in an instant.

“
I’m coming up. Out.”

In a controlled fashion, Durand placed the handset
down on the low brick wall.

He braced himself against the brickwork, screwing his eyes tight in an effort to compose himself.

Durand turned to Braun, his voice failing to disguise both the horror and the anger that had started to burn his insides.

“
You don’t have to come, Major...” somehow, the RSM rank did not seem appropriate in the circumstances. He placed a hand on the tanker’s shoulder.

“Johannes, don’t come.”

“
But I must.”

Signalling for his tank to move up the road behind them, Braun and Durand took the short walk to the
place where an old comrade and friend had met his end.

Most of the men who were stood around the awful apparition had seen service on the Eastern Front
, and should have been used to the excesses that often marked that awful campaign.

Despite that, more than one was in tears
, and more than one had spilled the contents of his stomach.

All had approached and exceeded the normal extremes of anger.

The small body had experienced the very highest levels of pain and suffering; that was wholly obvious to the eye. The pieces that had been removed lay around the site of what could only be described as a place of sadistic torture.

Cyrille Jaoa da Silva Vernais, Legion RSM, veteran of countless battles
, and credited by Knocke with much of the responsibility for the successful integration of Legionnaires and ex-SS, was very messily dead.

Even the inexperienced eye could detect that he had died in the extremes of pain, his face still holding
an expression of a man fighting back his surrender to the awfulness that had been visited upon him.

His tunic had been ripped open and his chest and stomach skin had been cut off, as had his fingers.

His ears and his nose had also been taken and they were pinned or nailed to the wood around his head, as in some macabre joke.

Braun, his eyes full of tears, coul
d detect that nails had been driven through legs and arms, pinning Vernais to the wooden door of the Mairie, which, in themselves, must have caused the most excruciating pain.

The senior NCO
’s trousers had been removed and his manhood had suffered a few thrusts from a knife or bayonet but was, perhaps surprisingly, still attached.

Beneath his feet, a small fire still smouldered. It had probably not amounted to much at its peak, but had been more than sufficient to roast
the Legionnaire past the ankles.

A piece of paper was sticking from Vernais
’ mouth but the onlookers had not removed it. One of the German legionnaires sought silent permission from Durand and removed it with reverence.

“It’s in German... well... sort of.”

He looked at it, and then passed it on to the next man.

The note finally reached Durand, who shared
the text with Braun.

‘
Your friend die crying like a baby. So will die all you SS bastards!’

Braun looked back at the corpse of the man he considered a good friend
, and wished that the old NCO had stayed behind in camp. Vernais had returned from Sassy only a week beforehand, bringing new men with him. He had sought out a return to Camerone, and to the 1st RDM, and they had welcomed him with open arms.

Clearly, he had somehow got detached when the withdrawal had happened.

The rest was evident.

Durand took a deep breath and spoke softly, and with genuine affection.

“My Legionnaires... now... let’s get our old comrade down eh?”

One of Vernais
’ old soldiers from Syria produced a groundsheet and everyone worked silently and with the great estrespect, slowly removing their old comrade from the door, moving the tortured body to the sheet and wrapping it, hiding the horrors from further examination.

Canteens containing non-regulation liquid
s appeared and the men consumed freely, both drinking the health of the dead Vernais and seeking to find the solace that only alcohol can offer.

Durand and Braun moved quickly amongst the men,
restrainin their consumption, reminding them of the fights to come and the need to remain alert.

Braun retained his focus and spoke the men.

“Kameraden, there’ll be time for us to mourn, but it is not now.”

The angry rumblings were not directed at Braun, but the men needed something
to focus on and, for the moment, he was it.

“
We must go on and do our jobs... and you know that he wouldn’t have it any other way, eh?”

That drew more than a few positive responses.

“So... let’s honour him by being the best that we can be and, I promise you, when we can, we’ll all come together and drink to his memory!”

He pointed up the road, Route 30, which led to Brumath.

“Now... let’s remember we’re legionnaires and honour his memory by doing what legionnaires do.”

Braun’s voice increased in volume and his anger bubbled over.

“The enemy... the shitty bastards that did this,” he pointed at the wrapped form, “They’re that fucking way,” his finger moved back to the road, stabbing violently in the direction of the front line, “And you and I have a urgent fucking appointment with the swine!”

Durand had sent a written message, one that he spent some time writing. Such things should not be spoken of over the airwaves.

The note made its way into the hands of Ernst-August Knocke, and then further up the chain of command to Lavalle.

The knowledge of what had been discovered in Mittelschaeffolsheim spread through Camerone at lightning speed, seeping out into Alma and the 16th Armored. It was not long before most of the Legion Corps D’Assault was aware that they had lost one of their best in extraordinarily awful circumstances.

Fig#92 - Legion Forces committed to Brumath, 4th December 1945.

The story, by the nature of matters spread by word of mouth, grew and grew, until those at the end of the chain were utterly shocked at the loss of a full platoon beheaded and the beloved Vernais emasculated and ripped apart.

Truth or not, motivated professional soldiers suddenly had another reason to close with the enemy, and less of a reason to conduct themselves within the rules of war.

Soviet resistance on Routes 30 and 226 had been overcome, the legionnaires of the 1st RDM sweeping all before them.

Olwsheim had proven a tough
little nut, but thirty minutes of close-quarter fighting had reaped a good crop of prisoners, and driven the remaining enemy out in full retreat, giving the Legion control of both Route 60 and Route 226.

The advances continued, two
of the three columns coming back together at the junction of Routes 30 and 60

Until they came to Brumath, where the attack floundered in a hail of machine-gun bullets and anti-tank shells
.

Braun
’s Panther had taken five hits, and he had quickly reversed under the cover of smoke grenades. Hastily deployed mortars from the RDM added their own smoke to cover the withdrawal.

“We can wait for Alma to come into position, probably for hours yet
... and certainly in the dark, or we can attack again... now.”

Durand listened to his Battalion commander think aloud, the harassed man’s eyes straying between the commanders present.

“If we’re going to go again today, we’ve to go soon. The light.”

Braun need say no more than that.

The low cloud that was keeping the air forces at home brought with it the strangest of lights, an almost perpetual dusk that would undoubtedly accelerate the end of daylight, such as it was.

“Durand?”

Commandant Emmercy sought an opinion from a fellow Frenchman.

Fig#93 -
Brumath, 4th December 1945.

“I'm not the one to ask, Commandant. My men can do it, of course, but not without tanks in close support... that’s a question for Braun to answer.”

Despite the fact that he was the only non-officer in the orders group, Braun now had everyone waiting on his words.

“We'll go, but it won’t be without cost. The enemy seems more oriented to the south edge of Brumath... probably to protect the ‘47’ and keep their supply route open.”

He pointed at
, and then drew an imaginary line, east from Stephansfeld.

“
If we move to the right here... and then drive at speed straight north, we should be able overcome them before they reorient. ”

Emmercy looked round his leadership, noting their grasp of
the plan.

“
The Neumatt and Schlonen are not obstacles to my tanks. In any case, this small farmer's bridge is still standing, as are most of concern to us... and our English panzer-pionieres can put one of their wonders over the Zorn... here.”

He fing
ered a point on the small river.

The recently arrived British tank officer recorded the location in his notebook. The 2nd Lieutenant was part of a small group from the 79th Armoured Division, whose units had been spread throughout Germany at the beginning of the new war.

At first, the British 'funnies', a troop of the 42nd Assault Regiment RE that had been doing demonstrations for French general officers, had been the subject of much derision, but those German soldiers who had experienced their capabilities in Normandy soon silenced the doubters.

Braun had decided that the Churchill bridge layer would earn its corn by spanning the Zorn River.

“Hauptmann Durand’s men can accompany us in their halftracks... but we’d need a distraction attack down the same axis we’ve just tried.”

That made sense to all.

Emmercy pondered the suggestion.

“Yes, ok. I’ll get some artillery down on the south-western edge... here and here. You take 1st Company,” he nodded at Durand, “And drive hard to here. They’ll turn for sure ,and then I’ll push the rest of the force hard up the road and Brumath will be ours.”

Fig#94
- The Battle of Brumath, Legion assault, 4th December 1945.

There was no time to lose
, so the command group synchronised watches and sped off to their respective units to get ready.

“
What the fuck?”

Braun looked
, but did not believe his eyes.

Ag
ain he spoke, this time directing his words at his men.

“
What the fuck?”

His crew didn
’t answer.

In truth, t
hey hadn’t been inclined to resist when the idea had been put to them by ex-Hauptscharfuhrer Stepanski and, now that the reality of it was now in front of them, the events of Mittelschaeffolsheim had priority over the observing niceties of war.

1st Company boasted
a strength of eight Panthers and three Panzer IVs, and each had its own pitiful cargo of Russian prisoners, all from the group taken when Olwusheim had been overrun.

Most had been butchered at the time of surrender, but a few, very few out of the two hundred or so that had raised their hands, had been taken alive.

Between four and six Russians were ‘sitting’ on each tank, mostly bound in place; those that weren’t were kept in position by the threatening muzzles of weapons held by the grenadiers positioned on the rear of the tank.

Braun
’s gunner finally spoke, the issue now resolved in his mind.

“
Human shield, Johan. Old Stepanski’s idea. Make the bastards think twice about firing at us, eh?”

The Senior NCO's
mind processed the sight, but the vision of Vernais appeared, stronger than the appalling images before his eyes.

“
Fuck ‘em.”

He waved his hand above his head,
the circular motion bringing his tank commanders to him.

The quick briefing commenced without giving the POW
’s a second thought.

Durand
’s company arrived, halftracks racing into position, ready to support Braun’s tanks.

The plight of the Soviet prisoners drew every eye
, but not one word was spoken in protest.

The men of the 1st RDM cared
little for the swine who had tortured their talisman.

Most of the halftracks now sported a large
white ‘V’ on each side, which stood for Vernais or Vengeance, depending on which legionnaire was asked.

Behind Braun
’s back, the sound of falling artillery signalled the commencement of Emmercy’s distraction, giving only ten minutes for the preparations to be completed.

The Churchill
bridge layer arrived, accompanied by two Churchill AVRE’s carrying fascines, the 2nd Lieutenant’s own little touch to the attack.

His joy at being able to add to the plans of the veteran soldiers he was supporting evaporated in a
microsecond. He had seen the Legion tanks.

“
What the deuce?”

The Churchill halted and the young officer dismounted, deciphering the numbers on the Panthers as he worked out which tank belonged to Braun.

He spotted the NCO scaling the rear of his tank, avoiding the reluctant passengers at the front of the tank.

“
I say, Sergeant Major. We can’t do this, we simply can’t.”

Braun looked at the British tanker and back at the Russians.

“It’s done, Now, we attack, and you... you put your bridge in the right place. Let’s move it, Herr... err... Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Johnson wanted to say more, understanding that he had the rank
, but didn’t say another word, understanding that he possessed no authority in the eyes of these men.

He re-entered his tank, mind in turmoil, his sensibilities and morals under assault before a shot had been fired.

“Sir?”

Johnson looked
at his gunner, his face white.

“
You ok, Sir?”

The laugh that came from Johnson
’s mouth was bordering on hysterical.

“
No, Godfrey, I’m bloody well not, ok. See what they’ve done? Bloody Nazis.”

Corporal Godfrey and the rest of the crew had noted the
prisoner’s plight whilst Johnson was out of the tank.

“
Who could do such a thing, Godfrey? It’s awful and, what’s more, it’s against the Convention.”

“
Never mind, Sir.”

Johnson looked at his gunner
as if he was a beast from another world, which in many respects he was, for Godfrey had seen combat enough for two men.

“
Never mind? Never mind? What sort of bloody swine would do that?”

He pointed through the wall of the turret at the rough position of the German tanks.

Godfrey looked at him.

“
We did it on the Scheldt at Westkapelle."

Johnson was horrified.

"What?"

"I said that we did it on the Scheldt
... Sir. The bastards had killed Windy Miller... and done in Don Humphries too, all in the space of two hours. Surrendering as a fucking distraction, whilst one of their mates snuck round with a ‘faust and popped his tank in the jacksy.”

The young officer had
could not speak, his mouth hung open as his concept of the British fighting an honourable war was stripped away with a few words.

“We had no problem with it... and it stopped the bastards from firing for sure, all except one, who musta been a fanatic. He hit our Winnie but didn’t penetrate.”

The chuckle that came next wasn
’t forced in any way.

“
Made a right bloody mess of his chums though.”

“But... but... it’s just not on... it’s...”

“What? Not fucking cricket? Not according to the rules of war eh? ... or the fucking convention eh?”

Johnson recoiled again, as the sneer of contempt from Godfrey undermined yet another of his prized understandings of the way war was conducted.
The assault on his sensibilities and understanding of the niceties of the rank structure was only just beginning.

“Lieutenant, 
for crying out loud, pull yourself together! You ain’t playing rugger or cricket at fucking Eton now. Them over the other side... they ain’t cads or boundahs... they’re bastards... bastards who’ll kill you without a moment’s thought or hesitation. This is war, and you can’t fight war with rules. There’s no fucking umpires to call no ball, no referee to whistle up for a foul, offside, or forward pass. Kill... or be fucking killed... that’s what it’s about, and if all those red bastards die in saving one of our boys, I’ll not shed fucking tears for ‘em.”

The radio crackled with the order to advance
, breaking the tension, and, despite the lack of orders from a shocked Johnson, the Churchill pushed forward, flanked by the AVRE’s.

Fig#95 - Soviet Forces committed to Brumath, 4th December 1945.