‘I fucking hate mines.’
He examined the ground ahead and reasoned that the path the enemy had run down was either clear or had no anti-personnel mines.
By studying the ground, Czernin could see that the muddy footprints clearly ran between two piles of stones, piles that were supposed to look natural but seemed decidedly contrived to his experienced eye.
He also understood that he would not order the next leapfrog move and expose his corporal to the risk.
Czernin quickly pegged two white squares out in the mud, roughly five yards apart, as markers that signified a safe point to cross the ridge.
Back in the tank, he reconnected his microphone and spoke rapidly to the next tank behind.
“Bially-Huzar-Dwa-Pięć, Biały-Huzar-Dwa-Dwa! Move up to my position only. Suspected minefield ahead. Understood, over?”
His corporal acknowledged and Czernin switched to the regimental net to broadcast his warning, rapidly reading the coordinates defining his assessment of the affected area.
His commanding officer replied with a promise and an order.
‘Fuck.’
“Right, Dawid, move right.”
The driver edged the vehicle past the destroyed bush to where Czernin reasoned the safe route through the mines started.
“Move between the markers I pegged out… when we go over the ridge, go quickly, but stop once we’re below the sky line. I need to see the ground before the engineers arrive to sort out the mines. Stay alert, boys. Driver, advance.”
The powerful engine carried the tank over the ridgeline and down again in the blink of an eye, and Dawid Scorupco swiftly applied the brakes, although the mud proved unequal to the task of stopping the Chaffee, and it slid inexorably down the rest of the slope.
The crack of an anti-personnel mine confirmed Czernin’s suspicions… and fears…
…and then he saw something that had previously been hidden to him.
“Fuck it… gunner, gun vehicle, right four… high-ex… fire when on.”
The turret whirred and the shout came back quickly.
“On… firing!”
The breech flew back and Jan Milosz rammed another shell home.
Czernin examined the enemy vehicle as best he could through the smoke and flame that marked its death.
Whatever it was, it was dead.
The six-wheeled scout car appeared to mount something nasty and threatening, a multi-barrelled weapon that had started to swing the moment Czernin had spotted it.
The BTR-152 had been caught out of position during the artillery attack and had no chance to relocate.
Its quad KPVT mount had not fired a shot before the HE shell had snuffed out the lives of all aboard and set the wreck on fire.
Exposing the barest minimum above his cupola, Czernin swept the area on all sides, seeking anything that could interfere with the efforts of the coming engineers.
There were no enemy positions that he could see or even suspect in sight, so he sent a confirmation message to his CO and elected to move forward on foot once more.
Careful to see what he might drop on, Czernin gingerly climbed down the side of the tank, checking the ground he would step on and further field for tripwires.
The single AP mine had detonated as the tracks slid over it, causing no damage.
He could feel the nerves build but determined that he had to press on.
The binoculars moved across the ground, seeking evidence of the presence of the deadly charges and, occasionally, he saw the prongs of an anti-personnel mine, but nothing else.
Down the route he intended to drive, there was nothing of note… no clue as to the presence of death hiding in the mud.
An explosion from the left drew his attention and he hunched low against the Chaffee automatically.
Another explosion followed in quick succession and he quickly realised that the weird sound that had been bothering his ears was a flail tank about its business, the mine-destroying tank’s chains rotating and beating a path through the minefield.
More mines were set off and a mine explosion detached one of the chains, sending it flying towards a group of engineers, who wisely scattered in all directions.
Behind the flail tank, the tanks of 1st Regiment were ready to push up, once the light tank troop gave the all clear.
On the extreme left of the advance, one of the troop’s Chaffees fireballed, struck by some sort of infantry anti-tank weapon.
The supporting infantry quickly deployed and put in an assault on the ridgeline position from where the smoke trail had emanated. One of the soldiers hit the ground hard, put down by an SKS rifle, before his vengeful comrades overran and seized the position without consideration for the taking of prisoners.
There was more firing now as the northern side came under pressure, its exposed flank under fire from anti-tank guns hidden amongst the roots and fallen trunks of the once proud forest.
A Chaffee pulled in behind his own and the commander brought the .50cal round, ready to pour fire into anything ahead.
Czernin waved to his fellow NCO, climbed back on board against regulations, scaling the side of the vehicle for speed, and ordered his tank forward slowly.
More than one of the crew took a look at the sandbags that lined the floor of their vehicle, also imagining the extra sheet of steel that their vehicle had stand-off-welded to the underside of their vehicle, testament to Czernin’s utter hatred of the mine.
Still they were not reassured, but they drove on anyway.
The occasional AP mine detonated, but it quickly became clear that there was nothing that would stop the light tank from crossing to the other side of the dip.
As his tank started to gain the far slope, Czernin ordered another halt and again debussed, stopping only to place two more zone markers out before he scuttled to the top of the rise and looked for what lay ahead.
His eyes were greeted with a charnel house of blood and bodies, the detritus of scores of men ground up by the Polish artillery bombardment.
Czernin couldn’t imagine what had possessed the Soviets to move up, back or sideways under such an intense bombardment, but clearly something had flushed them out into the open and they had paid a heavy price.
Occasionally, something moved amongst the carnage, but such movement was rare, the vast majority of the butcher’s work having been fatal by nature.
Looking behind him, he pumped his fist and the other Chaffee surged forward, following on through the safe corridor with no problems.
At just over eighteen tons, the Chaffee was outweighed by most AFVs on the modern battlefield, but its weight proved sufficient to cause further indignities to the dead and dying Russians that filled the dip.
Czernin winced more than once as a piteous scream was swiftly silenced by an unforgiving track.
Off to the right, the defenders that had bolted previously decided to move further back and broke cover, the old wooden pen having hidden them totally from sight.
The lead Chaffee’s turret rotated leisurely and mowed them down, leaving one silent and two screaming for mothers they had little chance of seeing again.
Czernin returned to his tank and ordered a forward move, only to discover that the tank was ‘playing up’ and that Driver Scorupco needed to nurse the machine’s steering.
The shouting in Czernin’s ear almost deafened him, as the lead tank called for reinforcements.
Behind him, the vehicles waiting accelerated forward and swept past Czernin’s lame duck, responding to the call to get forward and join in the shooting party.
The Soviet commander had panicked and ordered his anti-tank guns back to their second position for fear of them being overrun.
Whilst he was correct in that view, his timing ensured that the guns were being hitched up and unable to fire at the precise moment the lead Chaffee came over the brow of the hill.