“Get away!” he shouted at the medics, “Go and tend to our own men, you bastards!”
The two Soviet medics rose and moved off to where their own casualties were being collected, well looked after by the newly arrived battalion medical section.
Skotolsky, his eyes now wild, turned to the young Captain, Pryskov of Armoured Engineers, who had dismounted from his tank to share a cigarette with his crews.
“Kill them. Kill them all.”
The engineer officer swallowed hard, exchanging eye contact with his men.
“They are prisoners, Comrade Mayor. No threat now.”
Skotolsky dragged his eyes away from the Frenchmen and spoke in a hiss.
“Kill them now, or I will kill you, Comrade Kapitan.”
The tank’s gunner slipped his hand towards his own holster, unnoticed by the mad Major.
“No, I cannot do that. In conscience, I cannot do that, Comrade Mayor.”
The Tokarev barked twice and Captain Pryskov was dead before his body bounced off the side of his tank.
The gunner struggled with his weapon and also received two bullets, dropping him to the ground, screaming in agony.
“Conscience? Your conscience counts for nothing, you scum!”
Another shot silenced the scream of pain at his feet.
The Tokarev moved to threaten the next in line.
“Kill them, now soldier; now!”
The hull gunner fumbled with his holster and turned towards the nervous Frenchmen.
“Not with that, you fucking idiot! With that!”
The hull gunner climbed the front of the tank and slid inside to where Skotolsky pointed, attracting more attention from the nervous prisoners.
Those guarding them understood and increased the distance between themselves and those about to die.
No gout of flame satisfied the Major’s lust for blood and death.
He shouted in through the open drivers hatch.
“Kill them, you bastard, or you are dead meat. Kill them!”
The petrified gunner had no more petroleum jelly and tried to explain to the mad man, drawing nothing more than point-blank bullets and instant death.
Skotolsky dropped off the front of the OT-34, turning to the other tank nearby, waving at the Sergeant in charge.
“Starshy Serzhant, kill them now, or you will get the same. Move!”
The sound of running feet made the man turn, and the Medical Officer from the battalion aid section arrived, with two men in tow.
“What in the name of the Rodina are you doing, Comrade?”
Looking at the Captain with crazy eyes, Skotolsky raised his weapon and fired.
A PPS ripped the relative silence, smashing the lunatic officer against the tank. The bloody form dropped onto the roadway.
Helping the wounded Doctor to his feet, the two orderlies with him applied pressure to his radial artery and hurried him away to the aid station.
The young Corporal driver replaced his half-empty magazine and moved to the tank.
Skotolsky was dying, his body rent by over a dozen bullets, his life blood spilling onto the concrete beneath him.
He looked up at the familiar face and smiled.
The familiar face sneered and spat at the dying man, casually aiming his sub-machine gun.
Then, they both died together.
Acting on their last orders, and in the absence of contrary ones, the 76th’s Katyushas fired another full volley into the French defences.
Skotolsky, the mad man, hadn’t stopped them.
Pryskov, the novice, hadn’t stopped them.
Semenchenko, the new commander and devoid of proper knowledge, hadn’t stopped them.
Five of the valuable OT-34’s were lost in that strike, along with many of their crews.
The survivors of the 11th’s 3rd Battalion, gathered in the town but not hidden in cover, suffered badly. After the battle, the battalion was broken up and used to fill gaps in the 11th’s other units.
The medical aid station had ceased to exist.
Two of the American engineers managed to cling to life for a few hours before slipping away, the efforts of the surviving Soviet doctors in vain.
Three French prisoners survived the strike, and two of them lived out the day.
A desperately wounded Corporal of the Regiment du Tchad, who would eventually succumb to infection in the second week of September, and a dazed Lieutenant Alain Mercier, whose broken arms seemed a small price to pay to survive such carnage.
Chapter 67 – THE POLES
Choices are the hinges of destiny.
“Well, you sure are a sight for sore eyes, Walt.”
The welcome was genuine, the handshake firm.
“Glad to be back, Sir.”
Major General Walter Bedell-Smith had served as Chief of Staff to Eisenhower during the German War, returning to the States immediately after the end of hostilities.
“Are you well, Walt?”
“Very stiff but my brain still works, Sir”
“There is work for your brain here and then some, Walt.”
Eisenhower looked at his watch and did a quick calculation.
“Get yourself settled in. Have some chow and prepare yourself, Walt. Theatre briefing is at 1000 here. See you then.”
A further handshake was exchanged and Smith was escorted away to a suitable room, where he could shake off the rigours of his awful journey from the States.
Smith had been onboard a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, which had departed Newark AAF, New Jersey, on the morning of 8th August, for the short hop to RCAF Greenwood on Nova Scotia. Having dropped off an RCAF Wing-Commander and his staff, involved with the Tiger Force ‘Very Long Range Bomber’ project, the C-54 was scheduled to deliver its remaining passengers to RAF Northolt, UK.
From there, they would go their separate ways, or at least that had been the plan, which failed the moment the crippled C-54 belly-landed in the Gulf of Maine, thirty miles from anywhere dry.
The survivors, eleven in total, were picked up the following day by a Catalina of the hastily reconstituted 5 Squadron RCAF.
After a period on hospital, Smith again made the transatlantic attempt, his aircraft having to make an emergency landing at RAF Belfast as a fuel leak robbed the C-54 of its legs.
He found a ride to Paris in a C-47, and spent the time chatting with one of his co-passengers, a USMC Lieutenant Colonel, who was extremely knowledgeable about the European situation.
Both men travelled together, all the way to the Trianon Palace Hotel, where they went their separate ways.
Naked, and steadily dripping water and soap bubbles onto the expensive wool carpet, his still-damp fingers tainted the thin paper, as he examined the written message that the hollow-handled knife had surrendered up. The breakfast tray had been brought to his room by a new man he only knew by sight, the precise staccato sequence of knocks causing him to rush from the bath in the full knowledge that it was not just food that was being delivered today.
Any reply he made would be collected with the dirty crockery, exactly fifty minutes after the tray had been delivered.
The message was comparatively long, directing a course of action that would undoubtedly place him in extreme danger.
He swore in the way he had taught himself to do.
“Skurwielu!”
‘Govno!’
The briefing kicked off with the horrendous developments in the area of French First Army, where the remnants of the 14th Infantry had simply disappeared, and the powerful 2nd French Armoured had been all but annihilated, opening up a huge gap.