He reached across for his cigarettes and drew in the pungent smoke, coughing lightly as his body overcame the nocturnal surprise.
“Goddamn it!”
Chapter 60 – THE SNIPERS
When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue.
Calmly, carefully, and quietly, as is the way of the sniper, the two soldiers crept into the chosen firing position.
Opposite it was the building that had caused all the problems to the battalion assault that earlier that morning.
Soviet dead lay strewn over the open ground in between. The rubble and craters that surrounded and filled the destroyed German town of Tostedt, all heavy with those freshly killed that day.
Allied soldiers from the 1st Canadian Infantry Division’s Carleton & York Regiment, stubborn soldiers in defence, filled the positions opposite, from where they had poured deadly fire into the attacking forces, beating them off with heavy casualties.
And then the rain had come, a downpour that masked the sniper teams now moving into their chosen positions, as well as washing away the puddles of bodily fluids freshly formed from the products of the day’s butchery.
Adjusting her sights to suit a range of four hundred metres, she risked a swift look through the hole in the side of the American truck, the position from where she intended to wreak her own sort of havoc.
Mortars shells, a mix of HE and smoke, were dropping on the Canadian positions, a small token from the commanding officer to help the sniper teams deploy.
Along with Yefreytor Lena Yurieva Panfilova’s team, 360th Rifle Division had been allocated five other special sniper groups, all of which were taking their positions, each with their own allocated fire sector to work once the new attack commenced.
Each team consisted of two snipers and two spotters, all of whom could change roles in an instant, as all were deadly marksmen and women in their own right.
Panfilova’s number two today was Yarit, a wizened old Siberian Eskimo, whose eyes seemed hardly to open no matter what the circumstances, but whose aim was as deadly as anyone in the unit.
Using whispers and sign language, Yarit sorted out the targets.
The other two in Panfilova’s team, Olga Maleeva and Sergey Erinov, had dropped off into a group of fallen trees on the other side of the road and were invisible to the team leader, despite the fact that she knew they were both there.
The specialist sniper sections of 11th Guards Army had little time to do their work before the next battalions were thrown forward. Priorities were the machine gunners, the deadly Vickers and Bren gunners, who were the main culprits responsible for the human detritus filling the space between the snipers and the Canadian infantry positions. The others, the highly effective Canadian artillery of 3rd Field Regiment, were beyond the reach of the sniper teams, but not the ground attack bomber regiment specially tasked with their destruction.
The seconds ticked away, each spotter concentrating on their watch, each sniper keeping their weapon on target, waiting, quietly, as the second hands brought closer the agreed moment of firing and the inevitable death of young Canadians that would accompany the volley.
Panfilova controlled her breathing, relaxed into her rifle, steadied by the crate against which she leant.
Starshy Serzhant Babr Yarit quietly counted away the last seconds.
The Mosin-Nagant rifle kicked, and Lena was rewarded by a red mist that appeared where once her target had crouched behind his Vickers machine-gun.
Switching to the second target, she was greeted with the surprised face of a young soldier, clearly inexperienced, head extended above cover whilst his older comrades had already disappeared from view.
The bullet took him just under the nose and carried through the eighteen year old’s brain before exiting at the base of his skull, expending its remaining energy burrowing into the wall beyond.
The other teams similarly brought down their targets, leaving the Canadian positions temporarily exposed.
Overhead, the return of the air force bomber regiment encouraged the ground troops, although the older soldiers noted many less aircraft than had flown to the attack some minutes beforehand.
A collective shout, the famous ‘Urrah’, went up from the lead assault battalion, and the Soviet infantry again rushed forward, this time accompanied by three SU-76 self-propelled guns, sent forward for close support.
Defending Canadian troops commenced firing but the rate of fire was low. Brave men tried to man Vickers and Bren guns, but were mainly struck down as the sniper sections continued their work.
The self-propelled guns also wrought destruction, accurately blotting out nests of resistance.
A movement at an unoccupied window drew Panfilova’s attention. She fired a shot at a vague shape and the shape fell forward into view. Rechambering her rifle, she noted with satisfaction the obvious rank markings of her latest success. This bullet had killed the Artillery Observation officer for the Canadian batteries supporting this sector, removing the effectiveness of their support, support that had already been eroded by a swift and savage working-over by the Shturmoviks.
The Soviet infantry were already beyond the line of bodies that marked their furthest progress in the last attack, and few men had been struck down by comparison.
A handful of mortar shells burst amongst the attacking wave, enough to kill and maim a handful of men, but insufficient to halt the momentum of the charge.
With the absence of the Artillery Officer, slain by a sniper’s bullet, and the OP team, destroyed by an SU-76 shell, the Canadian infantry Captain had called upon anything he could get to listen on his own radio before yet another HE shell had ended his life.
A second wave of infantry threw themselves forward as two Mosquito Mk VI’s arrived, responding to direction from an RAF controller who had heard the desperate plea for help. One was already smoking, courtesy of a brush with Soviet interceptors.
The concentration of advancing Russian infantry drew their attention, and they attacked immediately. Each aircraft mounted four 20mm Hispano cannon in the nose, and these spewed shells into the second wave, ravaging the ranks and destroying men by the score.
Spotting two of the Soviet assault guns, the leader turned and bore down again, this time thumbing off his main strike weapons. All eight 60lb rockets leapt from their racks and bore down upon the Soviet armour.
He did not see his salvo obliterate both SU’s as his aircraft was knocked out of the sky by a ZSU-37 covering the attack. It’s 37mm automatic weapon severed the tail plane, and the Mosquito drove straight into the ground, killing its crew and more hapless Soviet infantry.
Panfilova grinned at her spotter, both for the destruction of the enemy aircraft and the obvious success of the Soviet attack.
Her good-humour turned to concern as she noticed Yarit was wide-eyed, looking down and up, alternating between the two views swiftly, a look of horror spreading over his face.
The remaining SU76 was moving as fast as it could, desperate to avoid the attentions of the surviving Mosquito.
It was heading straight at their place of concealment, its madly rotating tracks sending mud spraying in all directions as the driver hammered his vehicle.
The Mosquito flipped into a shallow dive and eight rockets sped away, smoky trails indicating the likely landing point.
Panfilova and Yarit tried to run but explosive force moves quicker than a human can react.
The first rocket entered the rear compartment of the SU, instantly sending it in all directions as nothing more than scrap metal, its crew evaporated.