Scouts at the head of the unit gave warning and the guardsmen deployed instinctively, moving into cover along the edge of the north-south road that cut through the woods.
Despite the hell it had endured in Rottenburg, the179th was still a crack unit and it showed, its calm veterans speedily dropping out of sight, ready to fire if called upon or to remain silent and, if necessary, let the threat pass.
Artem’yev was not at the front of the column, so the decisions were left to an experienced Captain commanding the the advance guard.
Rushing to the southernmost end of his line, the Captain assessed the enemy force.
‘Ten, no, twelve vehicles.’
He slapped one of his anti-tank gunners on the shoulder. The man looked at his commander, following the simple hand signals and whispered instructions.
“Komarov, lead vehicle, stop him there.”
The hands indicated where the officer wished the ambush to be sprung. A nod acknowledged the order and confirmed understanding. The man slipped to one side with his number two, readying the panzershreck he had proudly carried with him since liberating it at Freistadt in May that year.
A simple nod to the other panzershreck pair was all that was needed. They knew enough to hold until the first vehicle was dead before selecting another down the line. There was no time to move northwards so someone at the end of the line would have to close the door.
A veteran Starshy Serzhant was already setting in place an act to do just that.
Pritchard was everything Hässler thought he was, but of all his faults, his incompetence was the major player that afternoon.
No screening vehicle was moving ahead of the column and no distances ordered between vehicles. In fact, the whole group was moving in as unmilitary a fashion as it was possible to imagine. The sole exception was the manned .50cals on the half-tracks.
Fox Company never had a chance.
A flash caught the lead gunner’s eye, and his screamed warning coincided with the detonation of a warhead on the thin strip of metal to the right of the driver’s vision slit.
The driver, the Corporal in the front passenger seat and the gunner, were instantly transformed into unrecognisable meat, the remainder of the crew suffering injuries ranging from flash burns to blast effects. Only one other fatality occurred in the leading half-track, the youngest man in the company horribly slain by a lump of ragged bone from the unfortunate driver. As he coughed his life out through the gaping wound in his neck, the remainder of the crew gathered their senses and tried to debus.
Not a man touched the ground alive, as submachine guns and DPs flayed them one by one.
As the lead vehicle was being professionally exterminated, the ambushing line erupted, the halftracks being destroyed by grenades, anti-tank rifles and the other panzerschreck.
At the rear of the column, the Starshy Serzhant’s group had managed to get three out of six grenades into the body of the rearmost vehicle.
It, and its crew, burned fiercely.
Rifles played their part, neatly picking off the machine gunners as they tried to beat off the attack. Over half the gunners never fired a shot; the rest quickly followed their comrades into blackness without being effective.
An experienced Pfc got his BAR working and laid low two guardsmen who were closing up with teller mines. Neither was killed outright, but neither would see the following morning.
The Pfc heard the thump beside him but never felt the grenade fragments that ripped the life from him.
In the third track, the sole casualty so far was the gunner, shot through the neck and hanging from the MG ring, dripping rivers of blood down the olive green flank of the halftrack.
Pritchard knew he was going to die and his bladder and bowels evacuated as his young soldiers looked to him for leadership.
A grenade dropped into the back of the vehicle and the American soldiers were divided into two groups by the fickle nature of high explosive. One group died, the other didn’t.
Those who had remained in the vehicle lived, although all were wounded. The Russian who threw the grenade had used a German stick grenade, and was what saved them. The Steilhandgranate was dependent on blast for its effectiveness although the mechanism and casing caused some shrapnel wounds in this instance.
Those who bailed out died in the act of escaping the burst, all except Pritchard, who had shown amazing agility.
His wounds were extreme, a burst of PPSH smashing across his legs as he dived over the side, almost severing both his legs at his ruined knees. A single bullet neatly amputated his left thumb and another struck his jaw, breaking the strong bone and lodging in the bottom of his left eye. The officer hit the ground hard and bounced onto his back, adding a broken left wrist to the litany of injuries.
His bestial screams surmounted all the sounds of battle.
In Track 2, a young sergeant got the back door open and evacuated the three survivors, using his physical strength and harsh words in equal measure.
Sparing a quick and unsympathetic look at his commander, he organised his shocked men into action.
The comparative safety of the woods seemed closer where he was, as the undergrowth had advanced more than elsewhere, and he could fall back into the trees to the east.
“OK boys, pull your smokes and put them down”
Each man he touched and pointed, indicating where he wished the smoke to go.
“On three, ok? One, two, three!”
Four grenades sailed as directed.
Three plumes of grey smoke slowly erupted, the fourth bringing forth whitish-yellow smoke and high-pitched screams.
The man had thrown a phosphorous grenade instead of smoke. It had hit the road and bounced, and was at face level when it went off. The hideously injured and still burning Komarov added his animal cries to those of Pritchard.
Here and there, hands started to rise as shocked and stunned GI’s gave up the unequal fight, all except the survivors of Track 2, who made their burst for freedom. They all fell short of the tree line. albeit by only a few feet, riddled with bullets.
Individual Russians started shooting at the surrendering soldiers, and the fighting picked up in intensity again.
One enterprising DP gunner dropped flat on the road at the rear of the column, and pumped bullet after bullet into the exposed soldiers.
Soon, only the mournful cries of the hideously wounded rent the air, and unsympathetic guardsmen moved amongst them dispatching each with a bullet or the thrust of a bayonet.
It was only Pritchard’s higher piercing screams that kept the killer’s at bay, so awful were they.
Colonel Artem’yev arrived, panting after sprinting forward to command his men.
Gesturing to one of his young soldiers, he sent mercy to the wounded American.
Two bayonet thrusts and the screams ceased, although Pritchard remained conscious for some time after, he felt no pain and slipped quietly away to answer to a higher authority for his incompetence.
That left only Komarov’s cries filling the senses.
Three medical orderlies were trying to do what they could to a man with no face, and whose chest and arms had been burnt down to the bone.
A barked order and simple gesture moved them away from their charge.
Two shots rang out and one more kill was made. The screaming stopped.
The executioner lowered his head, in reverent salute to the comrade he had just granted the mercy of death.
Artem’yev calmly re-holstered his pistol and moved off to leave Komarov’s comrades to do what they could to honour their friend’s remains.
Every American lay dead upon the road or in the vehicles, either slain in combat or dispatched when wounded or surrendered, testament to the brutal efficiency of his warrior’s.
The pride he felt at his men’s conduct and skill in the ambush did not remove the awful image of Komarov, and the tough Colonel unashamedly spilt his lunch upon the ground, retching until nothing came but air.